Diversity and Unity in Judaism before Jesus
The diversity of Second Temple Judaism was one of the characteristics that allowed the faith to survive the destruction of the Jerusalem
Bethel College
Mishawaka, IN
February 2004
In my recent book, Judaism Before Jesus, I offer a popular survey of the events and ideas that shaped the Jewish landscape in the Second Temple period (515 B.C. to 70 C.E., the time when the Second Temple was standing in Jerusalem). It’s a variegated landscape, indeed. The fact is Second Temple Judaism was characterized by such a plurality of beliefs and practices that some scholars have adopted the term “Judaisms” to describe Jewish religion in this era.[1] While I believe this term smacks a bit of pedantry, I understand the motive behind its use. Among many people, there’s a mistaken notion that there was an unbroken stream of “pure” Judaism flowing down through the ages, running from Moses to the Jewish sages. (The scheme holds that this unbroken stream flows freely into either Christianity or rabbinic Judaism, depending on one’s faith perspective.) But in the last century or so, scholars have come to increasingly appreciate that this picture is a distortion of the historical situation.
There was no such thing as a “normative” Jewish faith in pre-exilic, Second Temple, or early rabbinic times. While we may well believe that there was a true faith and false faiths, we cannot argue historically that there was a single set of beliefs that was recognized as “legitimate” Yahwism or Judaism because there was seldom anyone in a position to make an authoritative statement on what constituted the fundamentals of the faith. Occasionally a leader would arise, like King Josiah (640-609 B.C.E.) or the governor Ezra (5th or early 4th century B.C.E.), who would redraw the boundaries of legitimate worship; they didn’t attempt to any rigid definitions of what it meant to be a Jew. It wasn’t until the third century C.E., at earliest, with the wide recognition of the rabbis as leaders in Jewish society, that anything like a “normative” Judaism can be said to have existed.
Jewish Sectarianism
Until the efflorescence of the rabbinate, Judaism was like a rope of many strands. Flavius Josephus (writing around the end of the first century C.E.) describes the situation in his own day with these words:[2]
At that time there were three schools of thought among the Jews, which held different opinions concerning human affairs; the first being that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes. As for the Pharisees, they say that certain events are the work of Fate, but not all; as to other events, it depends upon ourselves whether they shall take place or not. The sect of the Essenes, however, declares that Fate is mistress of all things, and that nothing befalls men unless it be in accordance with her decree. But the Sadducees do away with Fate, holding that there is no such thing and that human actions are not achieved in accordance with her decree, but that all things lie within our power, so that we ourselves are responsible for our well-being, while we suffer misfortune through our own thoughtlessness.
Josephus inserts this passage into his historical narrative after his account of Jonathan Hasmoneus’ career (161-142 B.C.E.). Apparently, in the sources that Josephus used in composing his account of the Hasmonean dynasty, the “sects” played a part in some episode that Josephus chose to omit in his own account. So we can probably assume that these three sects were in existence in the second century B.C.E. and continued into Josephus’ day.
But we can also infer that this picture is an oversimplification. The scheme of “three sects” that Josephus employs is a rhetorical device that would have appealed to his Greco-Roman audience; it’s not a historical description of reality. There was once a day when scholars took Josephus’ description of a tripartite Judaism at face value. But Josephus tells us there were only about 6,000 Pharisees and about 4,000 Essenes and that the Sadducees constituted only a small group of aristocrats. These three sects together account for only a fraction of the millions of Jews living in those times. So apparently many Jews weren’t aligned with any particular sect, while others were members of sects that Josephus failed to include in his schematic account. Josephus himself tells us about a “fourth philosophy,” similar to the Pharisees in their beliefs, but characterized by their unwillingness to submit to foreign domination. He also wrote about the (Judeo-) Christians, who already constituted a substantial group in Josephus’ day—but they were excluded from his three-fold Judaism.[3] So we needn’t try to make every religious movement of the day fit into the Pharisee-Sadducee-Essene scheme; other factions were present and active throughout the era. They simply weren’t as prominent, or at least not as interesting to Josephus, as these three were.
So when we talk about Jewish diversity, we need to bear in mind that the three sects of Josephus’ scheme don’t exhaust the possibilities for the era. They can be considered illustrative of the variety of Jewish experience (and belief), but they must not be regarded as exhaustive.
