The Boethusians (Hebrew: בייתוסים) were a Jewish sect closely related to, if not a development of, the Sadducees.[1]

Origins according to the Talmud

Main article: Sadducees

The post-Talmudic work Avot of Rabbi Natan gives the following origin of the schism between the Pharisees and Sadducees/Boethusians: Antigonus of Sokho having taught the maxim, "Be not like the servants who serve their masters for the sake of the wages, but be rather like those who serve without thought of receiving wages",[2] his two pupils, Zadok and Boethus, repeated this maxim to their pupils. In the course of time, either the two teachers or their pupils understood this to express the stance that there was neither an afterlife nor a resurrection of the dead, and founded the sects of the Sadducees and the Boethusians. They lived in luxurious splendor; using silver and golden vessels all their lives, not because they were haughty, but because (as they claimed) the Pharisees led a hard life on earth and yet would have nothing to show for it in the world to come.[3] This story is historical, in that the two groups, the Sadducees and the Boethusians, denied the immortality of the soul and the resurrection. Again, the Midrash is on the whole correct in saying that the sects found their followers chiefly among the wealthy, but the origin of the sects is unconfirmed.

The Mishnah, as well as the Baraita, mentions the Boethusians as saying that the omer offering must be offered on the Sunday of Passover (in opposition to the Pharisees who offered it on the second day of Passover), resulting in different dates for the Shavuot holiday.[4] Elsewhere, it is narrated that the Boethusians hired false witnesses in order to mislead the Pharisees in their calculation of the new moon.[5] Another point of dispute between the Boethusians and the Pharisees was whether the high priest should prepare the incense inside or outside the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur[6]

As the beginnings of this sect are shrouded in obscurity, so also is the length of its duration. The Talmud mentions a Boethusian in a dispute with a pupil of Rabbi Akiva,[7] yet it is likely that the word here means simply a sectarian, a heretic, just as the term "Sadducee" was used in a much wider sense later on. A Boethus, son of Zonim, and nearly contemporaneous with Rabbi Akiva[8] is mentioned in the Mishnah;[9] he was not, however, a Boethusian, but a pious merchant. An amora, c. 300 CE, was also called "Boethus".

Relationship to other groups

A parallel to the Yoma 19b has "Sadducees" instead of "Boethusians"; and in other passages the Talmud undoubtedly uses these two terms indifferently in designating the same sect. Graetz's assumption, therefore, that the Sadducees were the political and the Boethusians the religious opponents of the Pharisees, is untenable.

Some scholars have identified the Boethusians with the Essenes, the sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.[10] Some of the scrolls express views similar to those attributed to the Boethusians by the Talmud. [11] According to this theory, the word "Boethusian" is a corruption of "Beit Essaya", meaning "House of Essenes".[12]

A high-priestly family

The Boethusians are believed to have been associated with the members of the high-priestly family of Boethus. The family of Boethus produced the following high priests:

Jewish titles Preceded byMatthias ben Theophilus High Priest of Israel 4 BCE Succeeded byEleazar ben Boethus Preceded byJoshua ben Sie High Priest of Israel ? - 6 CE Succeeded byAnnas
Jewish titles Preceded byJoazar ben Boethus High Priest of Israel 4-3 BCE Succeeded byJoshua ben Sie
Jewish titles Preceded byTheophilus ben Ananus High Priest of Israel 41-43 CE Succeeded byMatthias ben Ananus
Jewish titles Preceded byMatthias ben Ananus High Priest of Israel 43-44 CE Succeeded byJonathan ben Ananus


The hatred of the Pharisees toward this high-priestly family is shown by the words of the tanna Abba Saul ben Batnit, who lived about the year 40 CE at Jerusalem.[19] "The house of Boethus" heads the list of the wicked and sinful priestly families enumerated by Abba.

References

  1. ^ The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion - Adele Berlin, Maxine L. Grossman - 2011 - Page 148 "The rabbis considered them primarily a religious sect, founded by Boethus, a heretical disciple of the Mishnaic authority ... Other scholars connect the Boethusians with Shimon ben Boethus, high priest in King Herod's time; the family is "
  2. ^ Pirkei Avot 1:3
  3. ^ Avot of Rabbi Natan 5:2
  4. ^ Menachot 10:3; compare also Hagigah 2:4.
  5. ^ Tosefta, Rosh Hashana 1:14; Bavli Rosh Hashana 22b; Yerushalmi Rosh Hashana 2 (57d), below; compare Geiger, "Urschrift," p. 137, 138.
  6. ^ Tosefta, Yoma, 1:8; Yerushalmi Yoma 1 (39a).
  7. ^ Shabbat 108a; Soferim 1:2
  8. ^ compare Yerushalmi l.c. 10b
  9. ^ Bava Metzia 5:3
  10. ^ Y. Sussmann (1989), The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqṣat Ma‘aśe ha-Torah. Tarbiz 59
  11. ^ Sigalit Ben-Zion, A Roadmap to the Heavens: An Anthropological Study of Hegemony Among Priests, Sages, and Laymen. Academic Studies Press, 2009. p. 105
  12. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, ""Boethusian | Judaism".".
  13. ^ Josephus, "Antiquitates", 15:9§3; 19:6§2.
  14. ^ Josephus, "Antiquitates", 18:1§1.
  15. ^ Josephus, "Antiquitates", 17:13§1
  16. ^ Josephus, "Antiquitates", 19:6§2.
  17. ^ Josephus, "Antiquitates", xix. 8, § 1.
  18. ^ Yevamot 6:4
  19. ^ Pesachim 57a; Tosefta, Menachot 12:23

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Boethusians". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Its bibliography:

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