Second Temple Judaism refers to the religion of Judaism during the Second Temple period, between the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 515 BCE, and its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. This period witnessed major historical upheavals and significant religious changes that would affect not only Judaism but also Christianity (which calls it the Deuterocanonical period or Intertestamental period). The origins of the authority of scripture, of the centrality of law and morality in religion, of the synagogue and of apocalyptic expectations for the future all developed in the Judaism of this period.

History

Periods

(Note: dates are in cases approximate and/or conventional)

- Ptolemaic, 301-200 BCE
- Seleucid, 200-164 BCE
- Hasmonean, 164-63 BCE

Jerusalem and Yehud

The First Temple era ended in 586 BCE when Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians, the Temple of Solomon was destroyed, and the elite of the population were deported to Babylon (the "Babylonian exile").[1] In 539 BCE Babylon itself fell to the Persian conqueror Cyrus, who permitted the exiles to return to their homes.[2] Only a minority chose to dod so, over several decades.[3] They were rich, had imperial Persian backing, and claimed ownership of the land, and as a result there was conflict between them and those who had remained in the land over issues of ethnicity (who was a true "Israelite" and who was a "Canaanite"), religious practice, and, not least, the construction and control of the rebuilt Temple.[4][3] The Temple was probably rebuilt by about 500 BCE, possibly in the period 520-515 BCE, but the biblical account is confused and it seems from Nehemiah 8-9 that it was not completed until a century after Cyrus' conquest of Babylon.[5][2][6] It is unclear whether early Persian Jerusalem was uninhabited, or sparsely inhabited, or a small but thriving settlement; the question is important because many arguments hinge around it, notably how and why the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) came into existence.[7]

The end of the Persian period in Yehud is conventionally dated from Alexander the Great's conquest of the Mediterranean coast in 333/332 BCE. His empire disintegrated after his death, and Palestine, including Yehud, fell to the Ptolemies, the Greek kings who ruled Egypt. In 200 BCE Palestine and Yehud were captured by the Seleucids of Syria, and, for reasons that remain obscure, a 2nd-century Seleucid king, Antiochus Epiphanes, later attempted to suppress Jewish worship, provoking a Jewish revolt (the Maccabean revolt that led to the effective end of Seleucid control over Jerusalem. The conventional date for this is 164 BCE, when Jewish ritual was restored in the Temple, but it was not until 143 BCE that the Seleucids granted de facto autonomy to the Jewish Hasmonean kings (in the words of 1 Maccabees, "the yoke of the Gentiles was removed from Israel").[8]

The Hasmoneans created a Jewish kingdom within boundaries not far short of Solomon’s realm, but in 63 BCE the Romans intervened to vastly reduce the size of the their domains and make what remained a client kingdom.[9] The kingdom disintegrated on the death of Herod the Great, the last of the client kings and not actually a Hasmonean, and in 6 CE Judea, Samaria and Idumea (the historical Edom) were amalgamated under direct Roman rule as the province of Judea.[10] Heavy taxes and insensitivity towards the Jewish religion lead to a steadily increasing resentment of Roman rule and eventually to revolt.[11] The insurrection took several years to bring under control, but in 70 CE the Roman general (and later emperor) Titus captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, thus bringing an end to the Second Temple period.[12]

The diaspora

The Babylonian exiles were not slaves or prisoners, nor were they badly treated;[13] accordingly, when the Persians gave permission for them to return to Jerusalem, the majority elected to remain where they were.[3] They and their descendants in the Babylonian diaspora formed a large community of Jews living outside Palestine, and the 1st century CE historian Josephus reported that there were more Jews in Syria (meaning the Seleucid empire) than in any other land.[14][15] There was also significant Egyptian diaspora, although the Jews of Egypt were immigrants, not deportees, "...attracted by Hellenistic culture, eager to win the respect of the Greeks and to adapt to their ways" (John J. Collins, "Between Athens and Jerusalem).[16] The Egyptian diaspora was slow to develop, but in the Hellenistic period it came to outstrip the Babylonian community in importance.[17] In addition to these major centres there were Jewish communities throughout the Hellenistic and subsequently the Roman world, from North Africa to Asia Minor and Greece and in Rome itself.

Literature

In recent decades it has become increasingly common among scholars to assume that much of the Hebrew bible was assembled in the 5th century, with older material assembled and revised and edited and new material being written to reflect the realities and challenges of the Persian era.[18][3] The returnees had a particular interest in the history of Israel: the written Torah (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus book of Numbers and Deuteronomy), for example, may have existed in various forms during the Monarchy (the period of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah), but it was in the Second Temple that it was edited and revised into something like its current form, and the Chronicles, a new history written at this time, reflects the concerns of the Persian Yehud in its almost-exclusive focus on Judah and the Temple.[18]

Prophetic works were also of particular interest to the Persian-era authors, with some works being composed at this time (the last ten chapters of Isaiah and the books of Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and perhaps Joel) and the older prophets edited and reinterpreted.The corpus of Wisdom books saw the composition of Job, parts of Proverbs, and possibly Ecclesiastes, while the book of Psalms was possibly given its modern shape and division into five parts at this time (although the collection continued to be revised and expanded well into Hellenistic and even Roman times).[18]

In the Hellenistic period the scriptures were translated into Greek by the Jews of the Egyptian diaspora, who also produced a rich literature of their own covering epic poetry, philosophy, tragedy and other forms. Less is known of the Babylonian diaspora, but the Seleucid period produced works such as the court tales of the Book of Daniel (chapters 1-6 of Daniel - chapters 7-12 were a later addition), and the books of Tobit and Esther.[19] The eastern Jews were also responsible for the adoption and transmission of the Babylonian and Persian apocalyptic tradition seen in Daniel.[20]

Worship and the Jewish community

The Hebrew bible represents the beliefs of only a small portion of the Israelite community, the members of a tradition that insisted on the exclusive worship of Yahweh, who collected, edited and transmitted the biblical texts, and who saw their mission in a return to Jerusalem where they could impose their vision of genealogical purity, orthodox worship, and codified law on the local population.[21][22]

Central to Second Temple Judaism was the unity of the Jewish people as a people chosen by God - a belief that, ironically, gave rise to innumerable break-away movements, each declaring that it alone represented Jewish holiness; the most extreme example was the Qumran sect (the Essenes), but Christianity too began as a Jewish sect that saw itself as the "true Israel".[23] Jews defined their holiness against non-Jews, and as one sect against another, by ritual purity; the only sect which seem to not to have based their identity on purity were the Saducees.[24]

Textual Judaism: priests and scribes

Second Temple Judaism was not like modern Judaism, centred on synagogues and the reading and study of scripture. It centred instead on the Second Temple itself, and on a cycle of continual blood sacrifice (meaning the sacrifice of live animals). Sacrifice had deep religious symbolism, and this was taken up later in Christianity: the sacrificee of Christ is meaningless without a background in Second Temple religious ritual. Synagogues began to appear in the 3rd century BCE, in the diaspora, where Jews did not have access to the Temple. Torah, or ritual law, was also important, and the Temple priests were responsible for teaching it, but the concept of scripture developed only slowly, but but while the written Torah (the Pentateuch) and the Prophets were accepted as authoritative by the 1st century CE, beyond this core the different Jewish groups continued to accept different groups of books as authoritative.[25]

Hillel and Shammai

Hillel the Elder[26] in Jerusalem was one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Talmud. Renowned within Judaism as a sage and scholar, he was the founder of the House of Hillel school for Tannaïm (Sages of the Mishnah) and the founder of a dynasty of Sages who stood at the head of the Jews living in the land of Israel until roughly the fifth century of the Christian Era.

Shammai was the most eminent contemporary and the halakhic opponent of Hillel, and is almost invariably mentioned along with him. Shammai founded a school of his own, known as the House of Shammai, which differed fundamentally from that of Hillel, though both were Pharisees.

Messianic movements and the emergence of Christianity

Jewish messianism has its root in the apocalyptic literature of the 2nd century BC to 1st century BC, promising a future "anointed" leader or Messiah to resurrect the Israelite "Kingdom of God", in place of the foreign rulers of the time. This corresponded with the Maccabean Revolt directed against the Seleucids. Following the fall of the Hasmonean kingdom, it was directed against the Roman administration of Iudaea Province, which, according to Josephus, began with the formation of the Zealots during the Census of Quirinius of 6 AD, though full scale open revolt did not occur until the First Jewish–Roman War in 66 AD.

Judaism is known to allow for multiple messiahs, the two most relevant are Messiah ben Joseph and the traditional Messiah ben David. Some scholars have argued to varying degrees that Christianity and Judaism did not separate as suddenly or as dramatically as sometimes thought and that the idea of two messiahs, one suffering and the second fulfilling the traditional messianic role, was normative to ancient Judaism, and in fact predated Jesus.[27][28][29][30] Alan Segal has written that "one can speak of a 'twin birth' of two new Judaisms, both markedly different from the religious systems that preceded them. Not only were rabbinic Judaism and Christianity religious twins, but, like Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac and Rebecca, they fought in the womb, setting the stage for life after the womb."[31]

The first Christians (the disciples or students of Jesus) were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. In other words, Jesus was Jewish, preached to the Jewish people and called from them his first disciples. Jewish Christians regarded "Christianity" as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief — that Jesus was the Messiah.[32] The doctrines of the apostles of Jesus brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities (Acts records dispute over resurrection of the dead which was rejected by the Sadducees, see also Persecution of Christians in the New Testament), and possibly later led to Christians' expulsion from synagogues (see Council of Jamnia for other theories). While Marcionism rejected all Jewish influence on Christianity, Proto-orthodox Christianity instead retained some of the doctrines and practices of 1st-century Judaism while rejecting others, see the Historical background to the issue of Biblical law in Christianity and Early Christianity. They held the Jewish scriptures to be authoritative and sacred, employing mostly the Septuagint or Targum translations, and adding other texts as the New Testament canon developed. Christian baptism was another continuation of a Judaic practice.[33]

According to many historians, most of Jesus' teachings were intelligible and acceptable in terms of Second Temple Judaism; what set Christians apart from Jews was their faith in Christ as the resurrected messiah.[34] Recent work by historians paints a more complex portrait of late Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Some historians have suggested that, before his death, Jesus created amongst his believers such certainty that the Kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead was at hand, that with few exceptions (John 20: 24-29) when they saw him shortly after his execution, they had no doubt that he had been resurrected, and that the restoration of the Kingdom and resurrecton of the dead was at hand. These specific beliefs were compatible with Second Temple Judaism.[35] In the following years the restoration of the Kingdom, as Jews expected it, failed to occur. Some Christians began to believe instead that Christ, rather than simply being the Jewish messiah, was God made flesh, who died for the sins of humanity, marking the beginning of Christology.[36]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Grabbe 2010, p. 2.
  2. ^ a b Coogan, Brettler & Newsom 2007, p. xxii.
  3. ^ a b c d Berquist 2007, p. 3-4.
  4. ^ Davies & Rogerson 2005, p. 87-88.
  5. ^ Grabbe 2010, p. 2-3.
  6. ^ Davies 2005, p. 89.
  7. ^ Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 399-400.
  8. ^ Grabbe 2010, p. 5-17.
  9. ^ Nelson 2010, p. 256-257.
  10. ^ Malamat & Ben-Sasson 2010, p. 245-246.
  11. ^ Malamat & Ben-Sasson 2010, p. 249-260.
  12. ^ Malamat & Ben-Sasson 2010, p. 299-303.
  13. ^ Albertz 2003, p. 101.
  14. ^ Coogan, Brettler & Newsom 2007, p. xxv.
  15. ^ Hegermann 1990, p. 146.
  16. ^ Collins 2000, p. 5.
  17. ^ Hegermann 1990, p. 131.
  18. ^ a b c Coogan, Brettler & Newsom 2007, p. xxiii.
  19. ^ Coogan, Brettler & Newsom 2007, p. xxvi.
  20. ^ Coogan, Brettler & Newsom 2007, p. xxvxxvi.
  21. ^ Wright 1999, p. 52.
  22. ^ Nelson 2014, p. 185.
  23. ^ Flusser 2009, p. 8.
  24. ^ Flusser 2009, p. 8-11.
  25. ^ Grabbe 2010, p. 40-42.
  26. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia: Hillel: "His activity of forty years is perhaps historical; and since it began, according to a trustworthy tradition (Shab. 15a), one hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem, it must have covered the period 30 B.C.E. -10 C.E."
  27. ^ Daniel Boyarin (2012). The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ. New Press. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  28. ^ Israel Knohl (2000). The Messiah Before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls. University of California Press. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  29. ^ Alan J. Avery-Peck, ed. (2005). The Review of Rabbinic Judaism: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 91–112. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  30. ^ Peter Schäfer (2012). The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other. Princeton University Press. pp. 235–238. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  31. ^ Alan F. Segal, Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.
  32. ^ McGrath, Alister E., Christianity: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing (2006). ISBN 1-4051-0899-1. Page 174: "In effect, they Jewish Christians seemed to regard Christianity as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief — that Jesus was the Messiah. Unless males were circumcised, they could not be saved (Acts 15:1)."
  33. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia: Baptism: "According to rabbinical teachings, which dominated even during the existence of the Temple (Pes. viii. 8), Baptism, next to circumcision and sacrifice, was an absolutely necessary condition to be fulfilled by a proselyte to Judaism (Yeb. 46b, 47b; Ker. 9a; 'Ab. Zarah 57a; Shab. 135a; Yer. Kid. iii. 14, 64d). Circumcision, however, was much more important, and, like baptism, was called a "seal" (Schlatter, "Die Kirche Jerusalems," 1898, p. 70).
  34. ^ Shaye J.D. Cohen 1987 From the Maccabees to the Mishnah Library of Early Christianity, Wayne Meeks, editor. The Westminster Press. 167-168
  35. ^ Paula Fredricksen, From Jesus to Christ Yale university Press. pp. 133-134
  36. ^ Paula Fredricksen, From Jesus to Christ Yale university Press. pp. 136-142

Bibliography

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