During the Destruction of Jerusalem (70 AD) and the creation of Roman Palestine; the Romans did all they could to wipe out the Society of Judah , even destroying the genealogies which the people held as sacred, esp. since the return from Persia under Cyrus (Kurash) the Great. Did God harden the hearts of the Romans to prove a point that no one else could ever claim decent from David (making the man the Greeks call Jesus the final heir to that throne), or had God just abandoned his people due to their stiffnecked nature and constant return to idol worship ?
Rabbinical Judaism is born during this period (70 AD-110 AD) in response to the destruction of the Temple. The Discovery of the "Cave of Letters" by Yigael Yadin is questionable in the archeological community (as stated by brilliant archeologist Hanan Eshel during the film). The importance of the Simon bar Kokhba uprising is more myth than fact and the cave, in the long run, might be nothing more than a gathering of person properties of displaced Jews.
One more note: It is highly unlikely that Roman Pagan religious items were found in the Temple during the Herodian period. In the Bible (OT) we read that often times during the mostly wicked times of the Hebrew Kings after Solomon the Jews began to worship neighboring pagan gods and that items from the temple were removed and used in the "groves" and the "high places", but during times of reformation those items were returned, the temple began to be renovated and the "groves" destroyed. During the Roman occupation from about 63 BC to 6 AD (and onto 70 AD to a strict Roman occupation) the Sanhedrin bureaucracy did not allow pagan influences within the Temple. The problem with Biblical Sociology and Archaeology is the problem with all society theory: Realism vs Idealism.