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Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE
Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE
Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE
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Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE

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In this now-classic work, E. P. Sanders argued against prevailing views regarding the Judaism of the Second Temple period, for example, that the Pharisees dominated Jewish Palestine or that the Mishnah offers a description of general practice. In contrast, Sanders carefully shows that what was important was the “common Judaism” of the people with their observances of regular practices and the beliefs that informed them. Sanders discusses early rabbinic legal material not as rules, but as debates within the context of real life. He sets Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in relation to the Judaism of ordinary priests and people. Here then is a remarkably comprehensive presentation of Judaism as a functioning religion: the temple and its routine and festivals; questions of purity, sacrifices, tithes, and taxes; common theology and hopes for the future; and descriptions of the various parties and groups culminating in an examination of the question “who ran what?” Sanders offers a detailed, clear, and well-argued account of all aspects of Jewish religion of the time.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 1, 2016
ISBN9781506408170
Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the book I turn to, to better understand the details of Jewish religious life in the time of Jesus. Extremely detailed and helpful.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the great books on Jewish religion and life around the time of Jesus. Sanders begins his preface by saying "This is the book I always wanted to write, or close to it," and the result is a work full of his heart's passion. Looking at both the common religion of the day and at certain groups (the Essenes, etc.) Sander's is one of the key names in this field. The great Jacob Neusner has commented that reconstructions of 1st Century Judaism often rely too heavily on later Rabbinic sources, and that critique can perhaps be made of Sander's work. And yet, given the appropriate caution, Sanders' picture of the first century is informative and revealing. This is simply a mandatory text.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE - 66 CE (2016, 922 pages), E. P. Sanders dares to challenge prevailing views on Second Temple Period Judaism, and readers to get familiar with the ins and outs of the religion during this specific era. Jewish readers may be surprised how the Mishnah which is of a later origin has a large part of theory in it, while the period until the destruction of the Second Temple showed a living faith amidst the Roman rulers and local kings like Herod.Christian readers will benefit from the detailed description of the temple, the Jewish festivals, and practices like fasting, tithing, prayer, sacrifices, and purification. The religious habitat of Jesus Christ and His apostles is reconstructed from the many available sources. A series of chapters is devoted to the common Judaism. What did the ordinary Jew believe? How was it practiced in private life and community with fellow believers? Was it widespread, common, so to say? The next part of the book is on the various groups and parties in this era: Aristocrats, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and other pietists. Sanders is blessed with the gift to write accessible. The 7+ hours I spent reading in the book's first half is inviting me to continue, however, I need to read other review copies as well. Judaism will stay in my Kindle app to unearth the second half as well.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an excellent sourcebook for first century Judaism (ie the time of Jesus.) Sanders punches through the mythology of the times, and gives us hard data about the culture and people.

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Judaism - E.P. Sanders

‘Machiavelli’

List of Illustrations

Plates pages 119–26

I. Remains of the Synagogue at Gamla.

II. An immersion pool at Gamla.

III. Steps leading into an immersion pool at Qumran, divided into sections, probably to separate impure people on the way down from pure people on the way up.

IV. Young Jewish females, showing hair coverings and notched gammas on the lower right side of the mantles. (E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period XI: Symbolism in the Dura Europos Synagogue, New York: Pantheon Books, Bollingen Foundation 1964; Plate VI.)

V. Young Jewish males, showing notched decoration on mantle, which covers a tunic with stripes over the shoulder. (Goodenough, Plate IX.)

VI. An ordinary frigidarium (cold bath) in a bath area at one of the palaces at Jericho.

VII. An immersion pool at a palace at Jericho, which serves as the frigidarium in a Hellenistic/Roman bath area.

Plans

Normal Greek Temple Plan p. 95 (J. J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work, Oxford: Oxbow Books 1977, p. 191).

Stoa of Attalos at Athens (c. 150 bce) p. 100 (Coulton, p. 191).

Jerusalem in Second-Temple Times p. 119 (Yigael Yadin (ed.), Jerusalem Revealed. Archaeology in the Holy City1968–1974, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society 1975, p. 10).

The Pre-Herodian Temple p. 120 (Th. A. Busink, Der Tempel von Jerusalem von Salomo bis Herodes, vol II, Von Ezechiel bis Middot, Leiden: Brill 1980, p. 832).

The Temple Mount, 70 ce (elevation viewed from the south-west) p. 121 (Reconstruction by Leen Ritmeyer).

The Inner Courts and the Sanctuary (elevation viewed fromthe south-east) p. 123 (Busink, p. 1095).

The Herodian Temple Area p. 125 (Busink, p. 1179).

The Inner Courts and the Sanctuary p. 126 (Busink, p. 1064).

The Inner Courts and the Sanctuary according to Mishnah Middot p. 127 (Busink, p. 1545).

Preface

This is the book I always wanted to write, or at least close to it. It deals with Judaism as a functioning religion in the early Roman period (usually called for convenience ‘the first century’). Though there are substantial chapters on theology and the famous parties (Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes), the accent is on the common people and their observances. These two emphases, I think, strike the right balance in a work on the history of a religion.

In 1966 I decided to study what I then thought of as ‘practical piety’. I was fascinated by E. R. Goodenough’s depiction of Judaism: rabbinic Judaism was a small island in a sea of another form of Judaism, which shared the general characteristics of Hellenistic mysticism. I thought that a study of pious practices, such as prayer, purifications and offerings to the temple, might help clarify the relationship between Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism. This is not the place to recount why I changed projects and wrote Paul and Palestinian Judaism instead of ‘Diaspora and Palestinian Religious Practice’. I mention this only to explain that I have finally returned to a topic that I wanted to study 25 years ago, though then I would have pursued it somewhat differently. I have by no means lost confidence in the common-denominator theology that I described in P&PJ; on the contrary, I am more convinced than ever that a broad agreement on basic theological points characterized Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period. Now I wish to place theology into its proper historical context, religious practice.

The first draft of this book was short; I had aimed at writing an introduction to Jewish religious practice in no more than 200 pages. I soon realized, however, that my views on several crucial issues were so different from those that prevail that the reader would not know how to evaluate them if I did not discuss the sources in detail. I then determined to apply the same principle to the entire book, except for the introductory chapters on the history of the period. I have studied afresh almost every point covered in the present work, seldom relying on received scholarly opinion, and I have attempted to let the reader see how I have understood the primary sources. The consequence is that ancient sources are quoted and discussed much more fully than is usually the case in books covering such a substantial period. One of my major aims has been to analyse divergent evidence, rather than simply citing various passages in the notes, with no indication of where the problems are.

I also decided to discuss competing interpretations of a few topics. The book kept growing. I published some of the most detailed and controversial studies separately; they are chapters II-IV of Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (1990; the topics are ‘oral law’; Pharisaic purity laws; food and purity practices in the Diaspora; gifts to the temple from Diaspora Jews). Chapters II and III of that work take up two of the views of Jacob Neusner that are most relevant to the understanding of Pharisaism.

In the present book, I describe the views of other scholars and enter into debate with them only occasionally. There are many points at which more discussion of secondary literature, especially recent research, would be beneficial. Providing this benefit, however, would have doubled or tripled the size of the book and delayed it for years. With apologies to my colleagues, I have decided to publish the work as it stands. I hope some day to be able to study numerous of the sub-topics in even greater detail and add some that I have left out.

The most substantial discussions of secondary literature come in chapters 10 (priests outside the temple; scribes, teachers and magistrates), 18 (the history and influence of the Pharisees) and 21 (‘Who ran what?’). In these cases, I have had to argue at length against the prevailing views, which are enshrined in volume II of Schürer’s History of the Jewish People (now revised and updated by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar and others) and in Jeremias’ Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus. On these interrelated topics, the enormous weight of 150 or 200 years of academic opinion has so suppressed the most natural interpretation of some of the evidence that I have tried to show in detail what is wrong with the prevailing view.

The present work, however, is not primarily polemical. To a very large degree, it is simply different from other works in the field. It deals with numerous aspects of religious practice that other introductions to first-century Judaism do not treat, and (to repeat) it discusses the primary evidence in much greater detail.

I have benefitted from the support of several sponsors, students, friends, colleagues and assistants. Actual composition began in the summer of 1985, when I was teaching a graduate seminar at McMaster University in conjunction with my long-time colleague, Albert Baumgarten, from whom I have learned a great deal. I am grateful to McMaster University for support during that and subsequent summers. Most of the work was written while I was at Oxford, where I was stimulated by conversations with Geza Vermes, Martin Goodman, Robin Lane Fox, Fergus Millar, Angus Bowie, John Matthews, Samuel Barnish and others. The stimulation was for the most part general rather than specific. In terms of human contact, Oxford was and remains easily the best place in the world to study this sort of topic, and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work there during the period 1984–1990. The Queen’s College, where I was Fellow, provided a most agreeable setting, and I am grateful to the Provost and Fellows for numerous benefits, especially conversation in an atmosphere at once relaxed and challenging.

My work on this book and the previous volume of essays has been supported by the University of Oxford and Duke University, which granted leaves, the Guggenheim Foundation and the British Academy. I am extremely grateful to these institutions and their officers.

Martin Goodman and James McLaren read and commented on chapter 21, as a result of which I made several revisions (though not quite every one that they suggested). Hyam Maccoby has corresponded with me in great detail about some of the topics covered in Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah. This has allowed me to correct a few points in the present volume. I am most appreciative of the time and energy that he has spent, and I am deeply indebted to him. I discussed most of these chapters with Margaret Davies, who also read the penultimate draft in 1990. As a result, a lot of the book is clearer than it otherwise would have been. John Bowden read the same typescript and made recommendations for revision, every one of which I have tried to follow. Rebecca Gray read two drafts, five years apart, and made several very helpful suggestions. She also assisted substantially in the final editorial revision. The reader is the beneficiary, and my own gratitude is profound. The undergraduates in ‘Religion 52.3, Introduction to the New Testament’ (Duke University, 1991) divided up the proof and read it. They caught several errors and infelicities; I appreciate their work very much.

Linda Foster and other members of the staff of SCM Press have been both diligent and helpful. Deborah Gray began work on the Bibliography, which was completed by Lynne Degitz and Frank Crouch, who also did the most difficult part of the work on the indexes of names and passages. My thanks to all three for their care and accuracy. Duke University generously provided funds. This assistance has saved at least six months of my life, which I am now old enough to value very highly.

Professors W. D. Davies and David Daube have done me the great honour of allowing me to dedicate the book to them. Their academic achievements, coupled with their warm and compassionate humanity, put them at the head of the list of those who have studied Judaism and Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world. This book is a very inadequate tribute, but it is the best that I can do, and I offer it to them.

Abbreviations

Chronological Table

Context

1

Preview

Judaism in the period of our study was dynamic and diverse. Our first task is to understand the context in which various individuals and groups came to different views about how best to be Jewish. In Palestine, the topic spans everything from private behaviour to the Jewish state, and in the Diaspora it includes private and group behaviour. We shall not cover every possible point with equal thoroughness, and on many topics, especially socio-political questions, we shall concentrate on Palestine.

In their quest to be properly Jewish and to live as God willed, first-century Jews sometimes co-operated and compromised with one another, sometimes competed peacefully, and sometimes shed blood. Being Jewish meant living in a certain way; ‘Judaism’ was more a way of life than a doctrinal system. Consequently agreements and disagreements often concerned practice, which is the principal topic of our study. Underlying practice, however, were beliefs, and we shall also give an account of these.

The period requires definition. We shall consider in general the time enclosed by great revolts: the Hasmonean (or Maccabean) revolt against the Seleucids and the first Jewish revolt against Rome (c. 167 bce to 73 or 74 ce).[1] We shall give closer attention to the Roman period (63 bce to 74 ce) than to the Hasmonean (167–63 bce), and we shall not discuss the first revolt (66–74 ce). Thus the study concentrates on the period that begins with the conquest of Jerusalem by the Roman general Pompey (63 bce) and ends with the outbreak of revolt against Rome (66 ce). Even within this span, we shall pay more attention to the situation in Judaea and Galilee after the death of Herod the Great (4 bce) than to events of the previous years. I shall use ‘first-century Judaism’ as a convenient term to describe the period under investigation. The phrase is intended to refer generally to the early Roman period (63 bce–66 ce). The principal dates of the entire period are these:

The political and military history of this period is not our major concern, and I shall try to avoid a historical summary that catalogues events—preferring, rather, to be always in pursuit of a question. Despite this preference, a certain amount of cataloguing is necessary. The reader will encounter a barrage of names, dates and events. These will be presented in tabular form from time to time, and comprehensive tables are given on pp. xxv–xxvii. Some will wish to read a proper history of the period, of which several are available. Some of these are listed, with short comments, in the Bibliography.

The Jews of Palestine in our period faced the questions common to societies: foreign and domestic relations. In terms of foreign affairs, the question was how to relate to the great empires of the Mediterranean: when to fight, when to yield; when to be content with partial independence, when to seek more. In terms of internal affairs, the primary issue was who would control the national institutions: the temple, the sacrifices, the tithes and other offerings, and the administration of the law.

These two questions, throughout the period, were interrelated. Inevitably the people who controlled foreign policy also controlled—or at least had the power to control—domestic policy. This was a constant source of tension. There was no simple distinction between ‘church’ and ‘state’ or ‘religion’ and ‘politics’. God, in the eyes of Jews, cared about all aspects of life; no part of it was outside ‘religion’. Thus, in any case in which there was a choice—whether between would-be rulers, competing architectural plans for the temple, or various prohibitions on the sabbath—Jews would attempt to discern and follow God’s will. Not infrequently they disagreed. Although often there was a good deal of tolerance, every disagreement was potentially serious, since to some it might reveal that certain others rejected the will of God. In our period, some people cared intensely about government and relations with foreign empires, and they regarded some of the alternatives as being absolutely against the will of God. Some cared relatively little about Israel’s stance towards the Hellenistic monarchies or Rome but were deeply concerned about the priesthood and the calendar, which determined holy days. Rulers or leaders might be supported on one score and opposed on another. Their very success in war and diplomacy might make them suspect with regard to piety. Since God had views on everything, issues from quite diverse areas of life might become matters of religious principle. This point helps explain some of the contentiousness among Jews during the period of this study.

The history that we consider is both tense and intense, and it would be important and interesting even were its outcome less momentous than it was. As things turned out, however, first-century Jewish Palestine was the cradle of two of the West’s three major religions: rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

Sources

The principal source for the history of the period, and for its social, political and religious issues, is the work of the Jewish author, Josephus. For the Hasmonean period, I and II Maccabees are also important. Josephus, however, so determines what we know and think of the period, and the evaluation of what he wrote is so crucial to any reconstruction of it, that it will be worthwhile to give a thumbnail sketch of his career.

Joseph ben Mattathias, who subsequently became known as Flavius Josephus, was a member of the Jewish priestly aristocracy who lived from about 37 to 100 ce.[2] In an idealized sketch of his youth he says that his learning was respected by his seniors by the time he was fourteen. He later studied the various parties within Judaism and decided to follow the views of the Pharisees. When war broke out between the Jews and Rome in 66, he was assigned military responsibility for part of Galilee. After Rome’s conquest of Jotapata, where he was in command, he and others formed a suicide pact. Through trickery or coincidence he and one other were the last to draw the fatal lot, and he convinced his colleague to join him in surrendering. As a captive, he found an opportunity to praise the Roman general, Vespasian, predicting that he would be emperor. When in fact Vespasian came to power in 69, he freed Josephus. Josephus was present at the siege of Jerusalem, where he served as interpreter. Among other services, he tried to convince the Jerusalemites to surrender, but he was not successful.

He moved to Rome under the patronage of Vespasian and his son Titus, members of the Flavian family, and took the name Flavius. He turned his hand to history, being aided by Greek assistants, and with access to Roman records. His first work, the Jewish War (hereafter War), was published in both Greek and Aramaic. It has two principal themes: (1) The Jewish revolt was caused partly by Roman misgovernment (on the part of a few administrators) and partly by a very small group of irresponsible Jewish brigands; most Jews wished to be loyal participants in the Empire. (2) Rome is invincible and it is futile to rebel. The Flavians had the work circulated in the Near East, probably hoping that it would discourage other nationalist uprisings. Subsequently Josephus wrote a long explanation of and apology for Judaism, called the Jewish Antiquities (hereafter Antiq.); an apologetic and defensive account of his own life (Life); and a defence of Judaism against numerous criticisms, including an attack by Apion (Against Apion). He planned, but did not live to write, a longer explanation of Judaism, to be called On Customs and Causes. It seems that a preliminary outline of this work appears in the last fourth of Apion.

Josephus had his weaknesses and biases, but his general merit as a historian is considerable. Since in the early parts of Antiq. Josephus employed sources to which we have access—the Bible and I Maccabees—scholars can attain a view of how he used sources and of characteristic changes. Further, some of the account in War is rewritten in Antiq., and some in Life; the dual accounts allow critical questions to be posed and often answered. Even had Josephus been a worse historian than he was, we would be bound to follow his account of events, since often there is no other. Fortunately, wherever he can be tested, he can be seen to have been a pretty fair historian.

A pretty fair historian in the Hellenistic period did not live up to the ideal of disinterested inquiry and objective reporting to which modern historians aspire (but do not fully attain). History was written with a purpose—or two or three. Josephus’ purposes are often clear. We just noted two of the main themes of War. The message of Antiq. is less pro-Roman, even more clearly pro-Jewish: Judaism is an ancient and noble culture and religion, of no pernicious effect on civilization as a whole, but rather an elevating and benevolent force. Josephus again emphasizes that Jews are not overly inclined to revolution. Apion is an even more forceful and cogent argument in favour of Judaism. Josephus’ Life is sometimes shamefully self-serving, though also very useful critically, because of its overlaps with War.

Josephus especially controlled what his characters said, as did other historians of the time. Speeches were the historian’s opportunity to show command of rhetoric (highly prized in Graeco-Roman society) and to inculcate noble thoughts. The good historian, consciously or unconsciously following the advice of Thucydides, composed speeches that were appropriate to those who made them and to the occasion.[3] Josephus’ greatest masterpiece is the speech that he attributes to Eleazar, a rebel leader, just before the mass suicide of the defenders of Matsada in 74. The speech can hardly have been reported to Josephus, and so he was free to have Eleazar say precisely what he wanted. He very probably used this and other speeches to say things that he could not say in his own voice. Throughout his work Josephus attacked the more ardent revolutionaries and their leaders. His intention was to argue that Jews as a whole were trustworthy members of the empire, not rebellious subjects to be watched with suspicion. Thus he characterized the rebels as no better than common criminals. Yet Eleazar’s speech is full of nobility. It is eloquent in favour of Jewish freedom and the unconquerable will to escape Roman domination. Josephus, we thus learn, could in his heart admire the rebels, even the most radical. It is safe to assume that he gave to their leader an eloquent statement of their intention and goal, as they themselves saw them. That is, the speech allows the author to drop his artificial denigration of ‘brigands’ and to let them speak for themselves. The objective historian would write about the last hours of the doomed rebels, ‘I do not know’. Josephus freely invented, but what he invented is probably truer to their spirit than any few lines of authentic shorthand could be. We may even guess that Eleazar’s speech tells us something about the wider group of Jews who fought for independence—of which Josephus had been one.

It is helpful to compare Josephus’ generalizations with his accounts of individual events. We shall see below, for example, that he says that the Pharisees were so popular that they always got their way. Yet it is extremely hard to find any specific incidents in which this is true. Generalizations are easier to write and more likely to reflect an author’s bias than his report of individual events. Even the latter, of course, are not free from twists that the author may wish to give them, but they are more resistant to editorial shaping than are generalizations.

These two cases (Eleazar’s speech and the influence of the Pharisees) are only examples. They illustrate that, though the modern historian must follow Josephus, his work can be analysed critically.[4] This is also true of the other bodies of primary literature with which we shall deal. I shall try throughout to allow the reader to see the course of critical analysis: why Josephus’ word—or that of some other source—is accepted at one point but rejected at another. It is my hope to do more than to present another summary of conclusions, but rather to tackle questions, and to let the reader follow the investigation.

In addition to Josephus, the works of Philo are important, especially his treatises called The Special Laws. I shall use these selectively, but I shall not offer a general evaluation of them. The same is true of many of the books now included in the ‘Apocrypha’ and ‘Pseudepigrapha’.[5] In these collections, we find ‘apocalypses’ or ‘revelations’, which do raise questions that require brief consideration. These books offer descriptions of the other world, the afterlife, God’s action in the future, and other ‘hidden’ topics.[6] The four main apocalypses (or works with appreciable apocalyptic sections) are either too early or too late to be primary evidence for our period: I Enoch and Jubilees are too early, IV Ezra and II Baruch are too late. Jubilees, though it has apocalyptic sections, is full of details about practice, and we shall note some of these, especially when there are parallels in later sources (as there often are).

The subject matter of the apocalypses, however, was current in our period. I shall offer an outline of various hopes for the future (ch. 14). Other topics, such as angels and other heavenly beings, the number of heavens, and the details of the final judgment (or judgments), will appear very briefly or not at all. There are two reasons for this.

One is that I do not regard apocalypticism as an ideology that competed with other ideologies, or as a movement that included only people who were not in other movements. Jews did not have to choose between apocalypticism and worship in the temple, or between apocalypticism and the Pharisaic interpretation of sabbath law. Our ideas about Judaism are often shaped by the way people of previous centuries (both ancient and modern) preserved, organized and published Jewish literature. We have rabbinic literature, and so we speak of ‘rabbinic Judaism’; apocalyptic literature, and so we speak of ‘apocalyptic Judaism’. Although rabbinic literature reveals that the rabbis were aware of esoteric knowledge, it does not contain descriptions of heavenly tours. Does it, then, come from a different group? Not necessarily. People who debated details of sabbath law in the morning could have contemplated the mysteries of the heavenly chariot in the evening. The briefest glance at ancient documents will show that authors (and editors) had more than one interest. Jubilees contains both legal and esoteric material, and I Enoch includes calendrical details as well as visions of the last judgment. Paul expected a dramatic cosmic event, the return of the Lord, and he had visions and heard voices, but he was also a very practical man who could organize the details of travel plans and give concrete instructions about worship services.[7] To take an example from more recent centuries: Isaac Newton took a keen interest in apocalypses. An ancient apocalyptist may also have been a legal expert, a priest, or anything else.

The combination of topics and literary genres (in Jubilees, Paul’s letters and elsewhere) proves beyond doubt that a type of literature does not constitute a distinct kind of Judaism. But we should not think that every author put all of his or her thoughts into one book. A person who had views on both the divine throne and sabbath law might have written them up separately. Paul wrote occasional letters, and thus discussed widely diverse topics in the same place. Some people were tidier. Isaac Newton did not publish his studies of apocalypses in the Principia. This fits in perfectly with everything we know about humanity: one interest does not necessarily exclude others; sometimes people categorize their interests and deal with one at a time, and sometimes not. Rabbinic literature shows a high level of categorization, which has numerous effects, one being the exclusion of apocalyptic visions.

The present study is organized according to aspects of practice. This reveals more than just my present interest. I think that the description of first-century Judaism according to the categories of surviving literature (apocalyptic, rabbinic, philosophical, mystical and the like) is an error. It makes a lot of sense to study one body of literature at a time, but it is unreasonable to think that a convenient way of arranging our own time reflects the social organization of living and breathing people in the first century. A collection of literary remains represents one of the special interests of an individual or a group; but we should not suppose that each collection corresponds to an isolated group of people who had no other ideas and who would have denounced other literary collections as belonging to a different ‘Judaism’, or would have found them incomprehensible.[8] This is no more true of ancient people (for example, Paul and the author of Jubilees) than of modern (such as Isaac Newton and every reader whose shelves contain books on different topics, arranged by subject). Thus in dealing with religious practice, I think that I am also dealing with ‘apocalyptists’, who, in my view, did not form separate conventicles and spend all their time contemplating the heavenly secrets.

This brings us to the second reason for not giving apocalyptic themes a separate place in this book. Once one assumes, as I do, that anyone may have conceived of the other world as having seven heavens, each with its own characteristic, one must immediately confess ignorance about what role visionary conceptions played in ordinary religious life. Jews did have ideas about the future (often vague ones) and sometimes we can tell that concrete actions were predicated on the basis of hopes about what God would do. We shall examine some instances. Apart from this, it is impossible to know what the practical effect was of thinking graphically and pictorially about things that lie beyond sense perception. The Essenes were greatly concerned with purity, and they also thought that angels in some way or other dwelt in their midst. Was there a causal connection? This is a topic that I shall discuss in its place; here I shall say that angels were only a part of Essene thinking about their own community and that many factors in addition to belief in angels bore on the Essenes’ purity rules.

I doubt that very many Jews spent much time contemplating the other world. As they went about the daily business of feeding and clothing themselves, worrying about the mortgage, saying the daily prayers, and saving up for a banquet at the next festival, no doubt their concerns were sometimes lightened by the thought of angels watching over them, or by the hope of a better age. But our principal concern is precisely to consider their daily, weekly, seasonal and annual practices, as well as the beliefs that bore directly on them. If I could tie metaphysical speculation to practice, I would do it, but at the present time I am inclined to doubt that a causal connection can be demonstrated often enough to enlighten us about the motives of Jewish religious practice.[9]

Rabbinic literature poses special problems, which require a few words here and several more in other sections of the book. The rabbinic compilations (Mishnah, Tosefta, Midrashim and Talmuds) are later than our period, being no earlier than the first part of the third century ce. They certainly contain older material. Scholars of all schools accept attributions to a named Pharisee or rabbi as being fairly reliable: a rule attributed to Shammai probably reflects his view. Material attributed to a pre-70 Pharisee or to one of the earliest post-70 rabbis[10] constitutes a body of evidence that most scholars accept as representing Pharisaism. But how much of the rest is early tradition? Here there are sharp disagreements. In this study, I shall sometimes cite second-century rabbinic passages in order to illustrate points; but when I wish to derive hard information about actual practice I shall take a minimalist view of rabbinic evidence, making use only of material that can be confidently assigned to the early period. I shall especially follow this limitation in discussing the Pharisees. I know that there are many instances in which a discussion first attested in the mid-second century is substantially earlier. It sometimes happens, for example, that a debate attributed to second-century rabbis is illuminated by, or illumines, a passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In such cases we may assume that earlier rabbis or Pharisees also discussed the topic, even though the surviving attributions are later. For this and other reasons, I am persuaded that many early traditions in rabbinic literature are overlooked when one focuses only on passages that are attributed to pre-70 Pharisees or to early rabbis. Despite this, in the present work I take a very cautious approach to rabbinic literature, and for the most part I use only passages that are attributed to a pre-70 Pharisee or to the Houses of Hillel and Shammai.[11] Exceptions to this rule will be justified case by case.[12]

The date of rabbinic traditions, however, is not the most serious problem. The bigger issues concern genre and authority. Scholars frequently suppose that an argument in rabbinic literature is a law and that Pharisaic or rabbinic law determined common practice. The two principal books that cover more-or-less the same ground as the current volume, Schürer’s History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, vol. II, and Jeremias’ Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, are, to different degrees, based on the assumption that rabbinic views disclose first-century practice. Indeed, most historians of Judaism assume that what people actually did corresponded to what the rabbis thought they should do, and that one discovers behaviour by determining what rabbinic opinion was. Scholarly differences about first-century practice usually spring from disagreements about what the Pharisees or rabbis thought.

The present work breaks fundamentally with that view. Rabbinic arguments are frequently only arguments, not laws, and in any case Pharisaic or rabbinic views did not govern first-century Jewish practice. The degree of Pharisaic influence varied from time to time and issue to issue. A lot of examples will appear in the course of this work, becoming most prominent in ‘Who Ran What?’ (ch. 21). I shall follow an eclectic method, attempting to discover actual practice by studying diverse, sometimes contradictory opinions in the various sources. As I indicated above, I shall try to make the line of reasoning clear, so that the conclusions can be assessed. It will not be possible to do this on every single point, but the reader will see enough instances to be able to assess the method. Those who are accustomed to deriving information about actual behaviour from rabbinic opinions may wish to begin with p. 720, ‘The Rabbis Had Laid It Down’.

Besides the fact that the rabbis did not dictate practice, rabbinic legal discussions are sometimes idealistic, referring to the way things should be done, not describing how they were done. This too requires that the material be used with caution.[13] Idealism marks all the sources, not just rabbinic literature. Josephus’ discussions of the law of Moses, for example, are not necessarily descriptions of what his contemporaries did. His narrative of events, however, gives us some control. The Mishnah contains very little narrative, but what there is makes the idealization of the more theoretical discussions stand out by contrast (see p. 660–61 below, on Sanhedrin 7.2). Further, only the Mishnah discusses an entire ideal world in the present tense, a world in which God’s will is revealed through prophets, and the Urim and Thummim on the high priest’s vestments still give oracular advice (Shevu’ot 2.2; cf. Sanhedrin 11.5f.).[14] Other parts of the Mishnah, however, do seem to reflect current practice, and I shall attempt to derive some of the details of sacrifice from the tractates Tamid and Yoma.

While there are a lot of differences between the present work and other introductions to first-century Judaism, the views that the Pharisees did not control Palestine,[15] and that the Mishnah does not necessarily describe general practice, may be the most important. A second distinguishing feature of this work is the effort to describe common Judaism, that of the ordinary priests and the ordinary people. This means that the special views of the famous parties (Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes) are relegated to their proper place. Many scholars write on the assumption that Judaism was divided into parties; but the parties were quite small, and (as we shall see) none of them was able to coerce the general populace into adopting its platform. We shall try to uncover what was common in two senses: agreed on among the parties, agreed on by the populace as a whole.

As I shall explain more fully below, the discussion of common Judaism in Part II will include information about the Greek-speaking Diaspora. The principal focus, however, is on Palestine.

The description of common Judaism occupies over half the book. Judaism as a religion, like most other religions, is based on repeated cycles: daily, weekly, seasonal and annual observances. A description of such a religion is by definition static: repeated religious practices do not change often, and such changes as there are usually take a long time. One can, to be sure, detect changes between the Persian period and the Roman, but we shall be able to find fewer changes from the early to the late decades of the Roman period. Further, the descriptions of practice that ancient sources offer the reader are also static—this is the way we observe Passover—and we do not have enough such descriptions to permit much of a history of change and development. When we turn to groups (Part III), it will be possible to offer a little more analysis of chronological developments.

Although we cannot often give an evolutionary history of religious belief and observance, we are dealing with a concrete historical period, one that influenced Jewish behaviour in countless ways. For example, pilgrimage in the Roman period was not precisely the same as in the Persian period. Not only were its physical and social circumstances different, it also had political implications. The pilgrimage festivals, as times of national remembrance, were prime occasions for social, political and economic protest. To understand this, we must have some idea of the actual circumstances of our period. Put another way, to understand Judaism we must know what the Jewish people were doing and what others were doing that affected them. The Jews’ ‘religious’ behaviour was closely related to the political and social environment.

Thus we need to know the history, but I do not intend to spend hundreds of pages describing it. As a compromise, we shall begin by looking at the situation that produced competing parties and groups. Focusing on some historical disputes will allow us to sketch a few salient points of political and military history, and, more importantly, to lay out some of the major issues within first-century Judaism. The parties were formed because of real issues. Once we see what they were, we can better describe common Judaism, returning to groups and sub-groups in the last part of the study.


On the date of the last battle of the first revolt against Rome, see HJP I, p. 512n139.

See Josephus, Life. In this brief summary, I shall not cite individual paragraphs. Among the older literature on Josephus, I still find Bentwich’s Josephus (1914) to be useful, despite the author’s animosity towards his subject. More recently, and more sympathetically, see Rajak, Josephus, 1983.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War I.22.1: he ‘adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said’, while composing the speech ‘in the language in which . . . the several speakers would express . . . the sentiments most befitting the occasion’.

On using Josephus, see further Gibbs and Feldman, ‘Josepus’ Vocabulary for Slavery’, JQR 4, 1986, 281–310. ‘The highest degree of probability of Josephus’ historical accuracy . . . occurs when Josephus and the Talmud (insofar as it transmits the oral tradition of Josephus’ period and earlier times) agree, when Josephus and his Biblical sources agree, when Josephus and inscriptional evidence agree, when two or more separate works of Josephus agree, or when it has been possible to set aside any motivations that Josephus may have had . . .’ (n. 4, pp. 283f.).

See Charlesworth, OTP, 2 vols; Sparks, AOT; the Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical works are also included in major English translations of the Bible. A very useful survey of some of the literature is provided by Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah.

Apocalypses usually contain ‘eschatology’ (ideas about the end), but it is incorrect to define apocalypses as simply eschatological. They reveal mysteries of numerous sorts. See, for example, Rowland, The Open Heaven; Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the mediterranean World and the Near East.

Rabbinic knowledge of esoteric subjects: Hagigah 2.1. Ezekiel’s visionary chariot is mentioned in Ben Sira 49.8, not in Ezekiel. The term merkavah (‘chariot’) has been used to describe Ezekiel’s vision of heavenly wheels (1.15–21) and later mystical speculations. Paul: expected the return of the Lord, I Thess. 4.16f.; visions, II Cor. 12.1; heard voices, II Cor. 12.8f.; made travel arrangements, II Cor. 12.14–18 and often; gave instructions about worship services, I Cor. 14.26–33. Note that three of these topics are all in the same chapter.

As Neusner has frequently proposed. See JLJM, ch. V, especially pp. 324–8.

I still do not know, after decades as a New Testament scholar, precisely what Paul meant when he said that women should cover their heads when praying or prophesying ‘because of the angels’ (I Cor. 11.10).

The term ‘Pharisee’ refers to a member of the Pharisaic party before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70

ce

. ‘Rabbis’ were the post-70 scholars who inherited and developed Pharisaic traditions, finally creating ‘rabbinic Judaism’. Some people, obviously, were both. Johanan b. Zakkai was a Pharisee who survived the war and became a leading Rabbi. The terminological distinction is early: in rabbinic literature Hillel, Shammai and other Pharisees are not given the honorific title ‘rabbi’.

See more fully JLJM, pp. 166–73. A major point of academic dispute is the date of anonymous material (the s‘tam). In JLJM I give several instances in which the s‘tam is presupposed by Pharisaic debates, and thus may be regarded as early (pp. 185, 200, 210, 213, 218, 222, 224). A full study would reveal a great many more cases.

The presuppositions of post-70 discussions may imply a pre-70 Pharisaic view. See JLJM, pp. 250–52, for a list of presuppositions about purity, and the index to that work s. v. ‘Presuppositions and consensus’ for further discussion. For an example of my use of a fairly late rabbinic passage for illustrative purposes only, see below, p. 522–23 (on Sanhedrin 10.1).

See the provocative lecture by Wacholder, ‘Messianism and Mishnah’. He gives numerous instances in which the Mishnah’s rules, especially about the temple, ‘refer primarily to a Halakhah of the First Temple which will be reinstituted in the Third Temple. These references to the Sanctuary do not necessarily embrace the Second Temple’ (p. 24).

The Urim and Thummim in ancient times were on the high priest’s ephod (an outer garment; see Added Note to ch. 6), or carried in his pocket. They were believed to disclose God’s answers to direct questions (e.g. Num. 27.21). By the time of the Mishnah they had long since disappeared; see Antiq. 3.215–18; more fully below, p. 108–9.

For other scholars who hold the same view, see ch. 18 p. 632n45.

2

The Issues that Generated Parties

The Judaism that Josephus knew as a young man—that is, Judaism in the 50s and 60s of the common era—had three main parties. He several times mentions them and twice writes fairly substantial summaries, calling them either ‘parties’ within the Jewish ‘philosophy’ or separate ‘philosophies’ (War 2.119–66; Antiq. 18.11–25; cf. 13.171f.; 13.297).[1] We may briefly define them as follows (partly in reliance on Josephus’ summaries, but partly borrowing from our later discussion):

Sadducees: aristocrats, including aristocratic priests, who followed the biblical law but not the relatively new Pharisaic ‘traditions’ and who denied the resurrection. Politically, most of them saw co-operation with Rome as Israel’s best policy.

Pharisees: both priests and laity, apparently mostly the latter. Few Pharisees were socially and financially prominent. They were acute interpreters of the law and were fairly rigorous in keeping it. They also had special traditions, some of which heightened, some of which relaxed the law. They believed in the resurrection. Their stance towards Herod, the Herodians and Rome is difficult to ascertain and was probably not uniform. For the most part they were willing to accept the status quo, with what degree of restlessness we do not know.

Essenes: a party of priests and laity that had more than one branch. All Essenes kept separate from other Jews to some degree. They had their own views about many matters, especially the temple and purity; and they attributed their views, in whole or in part, to Moses (or to God). One branch of the party was monastic and lived in an isolated and remote area (the Dead Sea sect). The Sectarians thought that their leaders—priests of the house of Zadok—should rule Israel.

In his summaries, Josephus refers also to the rise of a ‘fourth philosophy’, which was largely Pharisaic in opinion, but whose members would accept no master but God (Antiq. 18.23; War 2.118).

There were only a few Sadducees, more than 4,000 Essenes, and (at the time of Herod) 6,000 Pharisees (Antiq. 13.298; 18.20; 17.42). We cannot assume that these numbers are precise, but we should accept what they imply: that relatively few Jews belonged to one of the parties and that the Pharisaic party was the largest of the three, followed by the Essenes.

In some respects party positions can be said to have originated during the biblical period, and especially during the exile,[2] but the groups as we know them from Josephus, the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic literature—the principal bodies of primary evidence—were shaped by the events of the Hasmonean uprising against the Seleucid kingdom and the period of Hasmonean rule (briefly described below). During the course of the successful revolt, three things happened:

1. Israel re-established first religious and then political autonomy.

2. One option for Israelite life—merger into the common Hellenistic culture—was decisively rejected. Jewish life would be lived according to the law of Moses, which in some ways separates Jew from Gentile.

3. The old leadership of Israel—the Zadokite priesthood—was replaced by the Hasmonean family.

Complete autonomy, coupled with the removal of the previous leadership, led naturally to disagreements about how Jewish life should be constituted and lived, or exacerbated some of the disagreements that already existed. We shall trace enough of the history to see how the issues arose and what they were.

Some time after Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jewish leaders to return from Mesopotamia to Palestine,[3] they established what Josephus would later call a ‘theocracy’: local government was primarily in the hands of the high priest, who spoke for God. There was a governor, and the Jewish state could not oppose or disobey Persia, but Persia’s hand did not lie heavy on Jerusalem, and the period seems to have been peaceful and relatively untroubled. The high priest was, or was considered to be, a descendant of Zadok.

The Zadokite family traced its claim to the high priesthood back to the Zadok who supported Solomon as heir to David’s throne and who anointed him king (I Kings 1.28–45). After Babylonia’s conquest of Judaea, during the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Ezekiel saw the Zadokite priests (of whom he was one) as having been loyal to God and thus as being worthy to retain their position when the temple was rebuilt: the temple area and the right to sacrifice would belong to

the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me. [They] shall come near to me to minister to me; and they shall attend on me to offer me the fat and the blood, says the Lord God . . . (Ezek. 44.15; see also 40.44–6; 43.19; 48.11)

The high priest at the time of the rebuilding of the temple, Joshua the son of Jehozadak (Haggai 1.1), was a Zadokite (so the genealogy at the end of I Chronicles 5). Ezra, one of the leading re-founders of Israelite life, is presented as a descendant of Zadok (Ezra 7.1–6). This part of Ezra may be the work of the author of Chronicles, and the two books of Chronicles have as one of their main themes the dominance of the house of Zadok. (See, for example, the priest Azariah at the time of king Hezekiah, 715–687 bce, II Chron. 31.9–10). One may now doubt that the high priests were actually all drawn from the family of Zadok; but later, reading Chronicles, Jews thought that this had been the case.

The long and peaceful Persian period came to an end when Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 333–332 bce. Internally, however, there seems to have been little change, and the Zadokites still reigned supreme in Jerusalem. When, after his death, Alexander’s empire was broken up by disputes and battles among his leading generals, Palestine came under the control of the Ptolemies in Egypt, but again there was little change. The Ptolemies did not interfere with domestic affairs, contenting themselves with receiving tribute, as had the Persians before them.

The descendants of Alexander’s general Seleucus held Syria. During the period 202–198 bce the greatest of them, Antiochus III, managed to wrest control of Palestine from Egypt. He was supported by, among others, the Jewish high priest Simon II, a Zadokite. It is probably this Simon who is eulogized by the sage Ben Sira, and his activities are worth citing:

It was the High Priest Simon son of Onias

who repaired the Temple during his lifetime

and in his day fortified the sanctuary.

He laid the foundations of the double height,

the high buttresses of the Temple precincts.

In his day the water cistern was excavated,

a reservoir as huge as the sea.

Anxious to save the people from ruin,

he fortified the city against siege. (Ben Sira 50.1–4;

jb

)

Simon, like other high priests, served God and the people with splendour. When he emerged from the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement he was

like the morning star among the clouds,

like the moon at the full,

like the sun shining on the Temple of the Most High,

like the rainbow gleaming against brilliant clouds . . .

like a vessel of beaten gold

encrusted with every kind of precious stone . . .

when he went up to the holy altar,

and filled the sanctuary precincts with his grandeur . . .

(Ben Sira 50.6–11)

Thus the Zadokite high priest was in charge in Jerusalem, and he enjoyed considerable autonomy, being able to fortify the city. In his role as high priest, of course, he presented the people’s sacrifices to God and bestowed God’s blessings on the people (Ben Sira 50.18–21).

There is one other way in which Ben Sira shows the broad powers of the priesthood. In his long section praising the great men of Israel’s history he attributes to Aaron, the first priest, the right to teach Israel the law (45.17). We shall see that also in a later period the priesthood exercised the chief teaching, legislative and judicial powers.

Seleucid overlordship was to prove fateful for Israel. Shortly before 175 bce there was a split in the Jewish aristocracy, between the Zadokite high priest and his brother, the latter favouring Hellenization: the adoption of Greek education, athletics and dress. He found an ally in Antiochus IV, who came to the throne of Syria in 175.

The events and the people who took part are difficult to sort out, since the sources partly disagree, and some of them seem to be confused. Fortunately, we do not need to settle precisely who did what when, and we may instead offer a general description.[4] The question of Hellenization became acute, being fiercely championed by some and bitterly opposed by others. The initiative came from Jews: some went to the king, Antiochus IV, and asked for permission ‘to observe the ordinances of the Gentiles’, which he granted (I Macc. 1.11–13). They built a Greek-style gymnasium, where, among other things, young men exercised nude. This brought into social prominence a crucial difference between Jew and Greek. Jewish males were circumcised, and circumcision was the primary external sign of the covenant between God and Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 17). The Greeks, believing in a whole mind in a whole body, regarded circumcision as a barbaric mutilation. Young men who wanted to fit into the Hellenistic culture ‘removed the marks of circumcision’ by undergoing an operation. In the minds of many they thereby ‘abandoned the holy covenant’ (I Macc. 1.14f.).

The conflict between the Hellenizers and those who wanted clearly distinctive Jewish identity led to conflict and bloodshed. Finally Antiochus IV forbade certain Jewish practices and even required the Jews ‘to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, and to leave their sons uncircumcised’ (I Macc. 1.47). In the year 167 the altar of the temple in Jerusalem was defiled by pagan sacrifice (1.54). The standard of revolt was raised by one Mattathias, who was a priest, but not a Zadokite nor even an aristocrat. He and his family, including five sons, moved from Jerusalem to Modein, presumably to escape pagan practices, but foreign religion followed him there. He killed a Jew who was about to offer a pagan sacrifice, rallied others who were ‘zealous for the law’, and began guerilla warfare (I Macc. 2).

This family, which dominated Jewish affairs for the next hundred years, is called ‘Hasmonean’ after an ancestor, Hashmon, but often ‘Maccabean’ because of a nickname, ‘the hammerer’, given to Judas, the third son of Mattathias.

The original band was soon joined by ‘a company of Hasideans, mighty warriors of Israel, every one who offered himself willingly for the law’ (I Macc. 2.42). The word ‘Hasidean’ reflects the Hebrew hasîdîm, ‘pious’, and we have here reference to a group of people who wished to resist Hellenization and who were willing to fight and die. Though little is directly known about them, the Hasideans seem to be important for the history of the Jewish parties.[5] The influx of the pious allowed the revolutionaries wider activity, but they seem to have directed it principally against internal enemies: they ‘struck down sinners in their anger and lawless men in their wrath; the survivors fled to the Gentiles for safety’ (I Macc. 2.44).

Mattathias himself died shortly after starting the insurrection (in 166), and principal fame attaches to his sons. Under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus the Jews carried out military operations against the Syrians themselves. Judas’ efforts met with surprising success. He regained Jerusalem (except for a citadel, the Acra, which was invested), and he purged and rededicated the temple (in 164).

Full independence, however, had not been achieved, nor was internal strife over. Antiochus IV died and his heir was a minor. One

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