Josephus ( Antiquities XI, 231-247 ) makes mention of a visit to Jerusalem by Alexander. He supposedly made a sacrifice at the temple of Solomon, told the peasants to carry on their business, and left.  The event is echoed in the Talmud. Alexander became a Jewish name from then on, probably in gratitude that he didn't crush their petty little state like a bug. The Jews commemorated the date ( 25th of Tevet ) as a minor holiday.

There is one book of the Bible that discusses Alexander the Great, the Book of Daniel.  Now, I'm sure a bunch of you are thinking, that book was written before Alexander lived, and you're right.  But how else can you explain the prophecy in Daniel 8 that a King of Greece will defete the Medes and the Persians, defeating four kingdoms in total (Alexander also defeated the Indians and the Egyptians) and usher in a time of great prosperity, but nevertheless die (and not in battle) at the height of his power?

The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.  And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.  Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.  And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. Daniel 8:21-25

The Book of Maccabees in the Apocyrpha begins with a discussion of Alexander.  I accept this as an important historical document, but, unlike the Book of Daniel and other books in the Bible proper, it is not out Christian belief that the Apocryphal books are the inerrant Word of God (except, as I understand it, to Catholics, but you'd have to ask them about their views).  Maccabees does not discuss any resistance to the Greeks until after the death of Alexander, but there's nothing in the Greek histories that indicates any significant resistance to Alexander in Palestine.

BTW, I'm growing more and more amused by the number of posts in the Biblical Errancy forum that have nothing to do with Biblical Errancy.  If you guys need a dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com is pretty good.

It's funny how rarely athiests are interested in discussing prophecy.  If you're right about the way the world works, you'd think that prophecy would be your first line of defense:  Show me a single prophesy that has not happened and is incapable of ever happening, and I (and any other honest Christian) would immediately reject the Bible.  That would be an appropriate topic for a Bible Errancy discussion.  So I admire the fact that you're willing to discuss the subject.  Nevertheless, I don't see how you can find the Alexander prophecy vague at all.

Philip II of Macedon, Alexander's father, defeated neither the Persians nor the Medes, and he was assassinated (and therefore very much broken with hand), so the prophecy cannot apply to him.  Other Greeks did defeat the Persians on occasion, but the Medes were in present-day Iran, and Alexander is the only Greek ruler ever to have conquered them.  So we have now narrowed down the prophecy to a single person out of the billions who have ever lived.  Moreover, there is nothing in the prophecy that is untrue if applied to Alexander.  He did bring peace and prosperity to many lands.  He did die in the full measure of his power, but not in battle.  He did defeat four, and only four, dominant civilizations.  Here's a contemporary sculpture of Alexander: www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/253.html. I'll leave it to you to decide whether he had a fierce countenance; I certainly think so.

Daniel's prophecy is so specific that, if I didn't know better, I would have said it had been written after Alexander lived and inserted into the Book of Daniel surreptitiously. If you still think the Alexander prophecy is vague, it just shows the extraordinary leaps of illogic that athiests are willing to make to avoid having the fact of fulfilled prophecy challenge your narrow world view.  Tell me, do you also deny that the Temple of Herod was destroyed as Jesus prophesied in Luke 21?

And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.  Luke 21:5-6

Please, please say that you find that prophecy vague, too.  That would pretty much put the capstone on my argument that athiests are in denial.

I didn't write the rules for this forum, and a lot of people in here apparently haven't read them.   I just think it's a little presumptuous for someone who doesn't know what the Bible says on a subject to post an inquiry in a Bible Errancy forum.  It's a valid question to ask, but you guys ought at least see what the Bible says on a particular subject before you adjudge it before the world to be inaccurate.

OK, I've got the reins in my hands. 

He Hellenized most of the known world, built the library at Alexandria that was a beacon of knowledge for a millenium, and stopped internecine conflict.  That is wonderful and peaceful.

Alexander defeated them, and destroyed their governments, but he didn't really destroy the four nations, he conquered them.  India is still around, for example.  I think he might have destroyed the Medes, though.

Can't be, Jesus hadn't been born yet, and I'm not aware of Jesus being called the Prince of Princes.  The Persian Empire tended to keep local kings in place when they conquered another people, and the Emporer of Persia was known among other titles as the Prince of Princes (which is pretty much what Emporer means). 

Tiberius didn't conquer Palestine for Rome, Pompey did.  But you're right, neither was Greek, so Daniel 8 can't refer to either.

I'm more impressed by the four nations than you are, but I'll grant you it lacks specificity.  If Daniel had said a Grecian king will defeat four nations, and nothing more, I'd dismiss the prophecy as pretty thin gruel, because one Greek king conquering another happened all the time, so it's not really going out on a limb to say that some Greek king would someday conquer four kingdoms.  Your logical error is in saying that the combination of (a) a true and very unlikely prediction and (b) a prediction that could be true under some interpretations but is open to many interpretations, none of which is extremely unlikely, is somehow less impressive than (a) alone.  (b) takes nothing away from (a), provided we cannot say with any certainty that (b) is false.

Let me illustrate:  If, in 1600, I had predicted that a nation founded in America would fight two wars in Mesopotamia, winning and yet not achieving peace, and a new leader would arise as a result, I'd say that was pretty impressive prophecy, because it predicted something very unlikely and very specific, the American difficulties in Iraq in the last 20 years.  As for the new leader arising, that isn't so specific--it could refer to President Obama, or any of about 20 Iraqis, or Prime Minister Brown in England, or God only knows whom else.  The fact that part of my prophecy (the new leader) was ambiguous certainly doesn't make my prophecy more impressive.  It does not, however, render my prophecy as a whole less impressive, either--it would still be damned impressive.  The prophecy would obviously have been fulfilled, even though I can't point to a specific new leader who arose as THE new leader.

Daniel's prophecy about Alexander is like this--Greece conquering the Medes and the Persians was as unlikely to his audience as an American nation fighting wars in Iraq would have been in 1600.  The parts that are amazingly detailed are wholly unlikely.  The parts that are not so detailed are plausible, but not as interesting, because they can't be unambiguously identified to a single event.  That doesn't make my prophecy, or Daniel's, any less impressive, though.  Of course, if the ambiguous part were wrong, then the entire prophecy would be rubbish, so it's still worth examining, but that's not the case with the dream in Daniel 8.

It's OK, you can use His full name, Jesus.  He won't bite.

No.  The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is the retaining wall for the Temple mount, but the Temple itself was completely removed.  There's a mosque there now, but that's temporary.

It was worth a shot.

Touche.  If God can try to fool you, I suppose it's only fair for you to post whatever you like in the Biblical Errancy section of RRS.  I'll stop complaining that posts are off topic.

He imposed peace among all of the warring petty kingdoms and city-states in his empire in part by Hellenizing them.

You seriously are asking people to believe that a Greek king could destroy the Medean and Persian empires without conquering them?  You might want to reflect on that for a while.

Jesus was called the King of kings in Revelation 17:14.  I should have mentioned that in connection with prince of princes, but, to be honest, I forgot about it.  Jesus said in John 18:36, My kingdom is not of this world, so it appears that he's really King of kings in the world to come.  Of course, this does not mean that He had no temporal authority, for, in Matthew 28:18, Jesus said All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Four civil wars.  All run by a Grecian king.

You really don't have much objectivity when it comes to these things.  How about this prophecy of Jesus:  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.  Matthew 24:34  Jesus's words are still with us after 2,000 years.  Can I score that one in the confirmed column?

Wow, you're really putting the blinders on, there.  There are multiple Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources that discuss the Temple of Herod as it existed in Jersusalem on the Temple Mount during the lifetime of Jesus, and it's destruction by the Romans.  But thank you for proving, finally, my point, that you athiests are absolutely blind to crystal clear prophecy.