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b"Out of the Maccabean revolt, three rulers rise successively, Judah\\nMaccabee, Jonathan, and then Simon. Simon and two of his his sons were\\nmurdered, and only John Hyrcanus was left to rule. Various other rulers\\nrise and fall, but Salome Alexandra is the only woman in antiquity to\\nrule Judea and be praised for it.
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\\nDuring this time, Israel was consolidating power and various cities\\nwere breaking from Seleucid empire. John Hyrcanus rules as high priest\\nand ethnarch, annexing Samaria and the remnants of Edom (now the\\nIdumeans), forcing the people to become Jewish and be circumcised. The\\nleading families of the Idumeans would become important, including the\\nfamily of Herod.
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\\nDuring the later times leading up to Roman rule, the Jewish rulers\\nstart calling themselves kings, and their courts populated by\\nHellenized Jews. Several factions emerge, including the Pharisees and\\nEssenes who react against these rulers. The Pharisees have a number of\\nbeliefs, such as belief in the resurrection and in oral tradition, that\\nmark them as very different from the beliefs of the ruling class, which\\nwould include the Sadducees.
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\\nThe Pharisees also had leaders who were not priests, but rather what\\nwould become the modern-day rabbi. The tension between the Pharisees\\nand the Sadducees reached a head when the Pharisees demanded that the\\nking choose between being a king or being high priest. The king sided\\nwith the Sadducees, which led to a civil war and suppression of the\\nPharisees.

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The closing theme is Gerard Satamian's Chansons Sans Paroles Op. 2 Pastorale, from the album Dry Fig Trees. www.magnatune.com
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