event · E0486

Outbreak of the Great Revolt פרוץ המרד הגדול

The war with Rome began at the altar. In the summer of 66 CE, amid the outrages of the procurator Florus, Elazar ben Chananyah — captain of the Temple — persuaded the officiating kohanim to accept no offering from a foreigner, cutting off the twice-daily sacrifice for the emperor. Josephus, who fought in the war he chronicles, calls this "the true beginning of the war with the Romans." By autumn the legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, had marched on Jerusalem and been routed at Beit Choron, and the country passed into rebel hands — four years before the churban.

I. Who

Hebrew: פרוץ המרד הגדול
Also known as: Cessation of the Emperor's Sacrifice, Year One of the Revolt
Era: second-temple

II. When

Traditional: 3826 AM
Civil (computed): 3826 AM · 66 CE
Academic: 66 CE — from the Temple's rejection of the emperor's sacrifice in the summer to the rout of Cestius Gallus in the autumn
Date range: 66 CE
Precision: exact

III. Where

Places: Jerusalem

IV. What

Events: The Great Revolt

V. How do we know

Claim	Evidence	Confidence	Sources
Elazar ben Chananyah, the segan of the Temple, persuaded the officiating kohanim to accept no gift or sacrifice from a foreigner — thereby ending the sacrifice offered on the emperor's behalf. "This was the true beginning of our war with the Romans, for they rejected the sacrifice of Caesar." Josephus is a participant historian writing under Flavian patronage — a commander in this very war before his surrender — and the principal source for its outbreak; his outline is corroborated by Roman historians, his speeches and numbers are his own.	external	★★★★☆	Josephus, The War of the Jews 2.409–421
The provocations of the procurator Gessius Florus lit the fire; when Cestius Gallus, legate of Syria, marched the Twelfth Legion on Jerusalem in the autumn of 66 and then withdrew, his army was cut to pieces in the descent of Beit Choron and lost its aquila — after which Yehudah organized for full war, Josephus himself receiving the Galilee command. Tacitus compresses the same sequence: "duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis usque ad Gessium Florum" — the Jews' patience lasted until Gessius Florus.	external	★★★★☆	Josephus, The War of the Jews 2.277–558 Tacitus, Histories 5.10
Rabbinic memory tells the outbreak through Kamtza and Bar Kamtza: the humiliated guest who informed to the emperor, the blemished calf sent as a test offering, and the refusal to sacrifice it — "on account of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza Jerusalem was destroyed." The Bavli's story and Josephus's report converge on the same hinge: a rejected imperial offering at the mizbe'ach. Aggadic narrative recorded generations later; invaluable for the tradition's self-understanding of why the war came, not a chronicle of its politics.	rabbinic	★★★★☆	Gittin 55b–56a (Kamtza and Bar Kamtza; the blemished offering)