You'll see what I mean.
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1. What do you do when the government burns your church down? Did I say church? Let's make it more serious. What do you do when the Romans burn your temple down?
We take our church buildings a little less seriously than ancient Jews understood the temple. For example, there was only supposed to be one temple for Yahweh in all the world, only one place in the world where they offered him sacrifices. (There were a couple of instances when people built a temple elsewhere, but it was a big no-no according to the Pentateuch.)
The temple was God's address on earth. It was the focal place for keeping good relationships with God. By offering daily sacrifices, sacrifices for both personal and collective sin, sacrifices for special occasions, Israel maintained God's favor and made sure its sins were covered.
More than anything else, the temple also was the focal point of Israel's identity as a people. The Torah would eventually take this place, but to some extent that was a coping strategy after the temple was gone. We sometimes think that rabbinic Judaism was always the primary flavor of Judaism. Yes, it was around in an early form at the time of the New Testament. But even moreso at that time, they were the people of the temple.
When two peoples went to war in the ancient world, their gods went to war too. In fact, the Romans sometimes bargained with the deity of a city when they surrounded it, getting ready to plunder and destroy. "We'll build a very nice temple for you in Rome," they sometimes offered, hoping to get the city's deity on their side. Quite possibly, they did this before they destroyed the Jerusalem temple in AD70.
2. The temple the Romans destroyed in AD70 was not the first temple in Jerusalem. It was the second temple, rebuilt in the year 516BC. The Babylonians had destroyed that first temple, and the elite of the city had been taken captive back to Babylon, where they lived in exile for almost fifty years.
Then, what goes around comes around. The Babylonians were smashed by the next kid on the block, the Persians. The Persians let anyone who wanted to (and could) to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild. There were people there of course throughout that period -- the poor people, the unimportant who had the luxury of being of no interest to the Babylonians.
But they had no temple, no solid identity, no certain future. The future of Israel was reborn when the Persians -- in fulfillment of prophecy -- allowed the Jews in Babylon to return and rebuild in 538BC.
That identity would not be solid without another temple, and God urged the Jews to rebuild one with the prophets Haggai and Zechariah as cheerleaders. They had hoped for a restored Davidic king too, but the powers that be weren't going to let that happen. Even at the time of Jesus, many were still waiting for a "Messiah," an anointed one to "restore the kingdom to Israel" in the fullest of senses (cf. Acts 1:6).
So, in 516BC, the temple was rebuilt. By the way, this was the rebuilding that all the Old Testament Scriptures prophesied about. There is not a single Scripture about a rebuilt temple in the end times -- at least not if read in context. All those prophecies were already fulfilled 2500 years ago.
And, indeed, we will learn from Hebrews (and Revelation) that God's glory can never return to any earthly temple. If someone ever rebuilds a temple in Jerusalem, it will be a false temple.
3. The Jews had been at war with Rome since AD66. I personally imagine that some Christians joined the fight. There are always religious people who mix their patriotism with their religion. Simon "the Zealot" comes to mind -- especially since the Zealots did not become a distinct revolutionary group until the time of the Jewish War.
All along, the earliest Christians had struggled to separate their expectations for Israel to be restored politically as a nation with Jesus' heavenly kingdom. No doubt some spent all their time looking for signs -- is he coming back to pound the Romans now? Is that a sign? Wait, did you see that?
Mark 13:30 no doubt played into that expectation. "See, he'll come back within a generation. Here are 70 reasons why the Lord is coming back in AD70." "Don't be a Gnostic. Jesus' kingdom is an earthly kingdom, not just a heavenly one." I'm blurring some history to give you the feel.
So I am quite convinced that some early believers joined the fight. "This is the moment," they probably said. "God is going to use this war to liberate Israel." And though the Sadducees usually collaborated with the Romans, in the end even they were forced to take sides against them too.
4. The majority of Christians probably fled. I can see them getting pressure to join the fight. "You cowards. You don't have faith that God will win. You don't really believe in Israel. You're being un-Jewish!"
But, of course, Mark 13:14 says to flee to the mountains when you begin to see these signs. Most of the early Christians from Jerusalem are said to have fled to Pella before the Romans finally surrounded the city. In restrospect, they were the ones who understood God's plan more perfectly. They were also living out the approach that Jesus takes in the Gospels.
A year later, the Romans would parade elite Jews around Rome in triumph (see 2 Cor. 2:14), those who survived the destruction of the city. At the end of the celebratory parade, they were put to death. To this day, you can see the Arch of Titus in Rome with its depictions of the Roman victory over the Jews, constructed about ten years later.
5. This was devastating to the Jews. It was as if Yahweh had been defeated in battle by Jupiter. How could Yahweh let this happen?
The go-to answer was always the sin of Israel. "If Israel had only been faithful to the covenant, God would not have let this happen," many no doubt said. The Gospels recall a more specific answer by Christian Jews. Israel had rejected its Messiah, Jesus. They had killed the King's Son (cf. Matt. 21:37-41; 22:7). Some early Christians understood the destruction to be in consequence of this rejection (Matt. 27:215).
(Of course these interpretations were in hindsight and made by Christian Jews. Those later "Christians" throughout history who have used such comments as a justification for persecuting Jews have no basis in Scripture. It is incompetent interpretation -- and of the Devil -- to use verses like these as an excuse to persecute Jews, as many later Christians and pseudo-Christians have.)
We shouldn't underestimate the impact this event had on Christians as well, since Christianity and Judaism were not yet distinct religions at this time. It is far more accurate to call the earliest Christians "Christian Jews" than to call them "Jewish Christians." Indeed, Gentile converts to Christ saw themselves as converting to a form of Judaism.
We can see clearly today that Judaism and Christian faith can thrive even without a temple. But this is the benefit of hindsight. Paul offers sacrifices in the temple in Acts 21:26. Let that sink in -- after Jesus, he offers an animal sacrifice. Although it is clear to us -- not least because of the book of Hebrews -- it must have been unclear to many early believers that the temple was no longer necessary. They probably assumed it would be rebuilt for decades -- in fact until the bar Kokhba revolt was squashed in AD135.
We should assume that the destruction of the temple provoked a faith crisis not unlike the Holocaust. And for some Gentiles who had only recently converted to Christian Judaism, it likely prompted a SERIOUS faith crisis as well. For them, whose faith was not rooted deeply in their childhood identity, it may have been an even shakier situation for their faith.
"Is the God of Israel really the true God? How could he let his temple be destroyed? How can we even get our sins forgiven now?"
Some might have thought, "Let's stop meeting. What's the point? Our church has burned down. We cant meet God any more." And by "church," of course, I mean the temple.
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