|
|
|
Diversity and Unity in Judaism before Jesus |
|
|
|
|||
|
|
A Variety of Opinions So, what insights, then, can we glean from Josephus’ descriptions of these sects and the supplementary material in the writings of Philo and the Gospels?[4] We can see that the lines delineating the boundaries of legitimate “Judaisms” were set very far apart, indeed. While our sources sometimes disagree in detail, they present substantially similar pictures of the main sects and the seemingly vast differences between them. In the text quoted above, Josephus tells us of the various sects’ positions on the role of “Fate.” While the notion of an impersonal Fate was utterly foreign to Palestinian Judaism (no doubt he used the term for the benefit of his Greek-reading audience, among whom “Fate” was an important philosophical concept), it’s apparent that what Josephus is describing here is a variety of notions on the concept of divine Providence and predestination. Among these three representative sects, the entire gamut of possible positions on Providence is displayed: the Sadducees, at one extreme, argue that there is only free will and no predetermined destiny; the Essenes, representing the other extreme, declare that our fates are determined by divine mandate; and the Pharisees, as the happy medium, argue that some things are decreed for us, but freedom has been granted in others (a view apparently equivalent to that of the later rabbis; see Mishnah, Aboth 3.16). Josephus, recognizing that the concept of free will was central to Greek philosophical debates, placed this aspect of Jewish religion at the forefront of his discussion. But from a modern perspective—and probably the perspective of most Jews of the day—this difference probably doesn’t seem all that substantial. After all, modern Christianity can accommodate both Calvinists and Arminians, and not a few Pelagians must be counted among the number as well. But what of someone who denied the idea of an afterlife? Would someone put him or herself outside the boundaries of Christianity if he or she denied the central affirmation of the early church: that Jesus, the Christ, had risen from the dead? Ancient Christianity wasn’t willing to extend the hand of fellowship to those who denied the resurrection. But Judaism, at least in the era before and the century or so after Jesus, had no such sensitivities. The Pharisees, the largest of the sects, believed that the dead would be reconstituted with new physical bodies (Jewish War 2.162; Acts 23:8). This notion, unattested in pre-exilic Yahwism, probably first appeared in Judaism during the Persian period (538-332 B.C.E.). It’s clearly stated in only one biblical text, Daniel 12:1, probably the latest composition in the Hebrew Bible. But even such biblical support as Daniel provided couldn’t assure the doctrine a general acceptance by all the Jews. The Essenes apparently believed in a non-corporeal afterlife, a scheme that Josephus describes as being similar to the concept of some Greeks (Jewish War 2.154-155). The Sadducees, on the other hand, believed in no afterlife at all (Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:8). The Jewish fold, at least through the first century C.E., was big enough to include them all. Later, rabbinic Judaism stated categorically that those who deny the resurrection of the dead have “no share in the world to come,” while arguing simultaneously that “all Israel has a share in the world to come” (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10.1), apparently implying that those who deny the resurrection of the dead are not truly part of Israel. With the imposition of “orthodoxy,” the idea of the resurrection was deemed a Jewish non-negotiable. Another area of disagreement concerned the significance of what is often called “oral law.”[5] Josephus and the Gospels agree that the Pharisees, in addition to the biblical laws, ordered their lives by means of a great many traditional teachings (Ant. 13.297; Mk. 7:2-4). These halakhot (plural of halakhah, which designates biblical interpretation on matters of practice and law) were surely the foundation for the great rabbinic legal work of the second century A.D., the Mishnah. Scholars have debated just what these rules entailed and how they had developed by the time of Jesus. But their significance to the Pharisees must not be diminished. Josephus draws a stark contrast on this issue between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, whom he says observed nothing apart from the Law of Moses (Ant. 13.297, 18.16). Undoubtedly the Sadducees had traditional interpretations of their own, as did the Essenes and other groups. The biblical laws in and of themselves were too ambiguous to provide a clear set of guidelines for daily living. But Josephus clearly states that there was a difference in the way the Pharisees regarded their traditions. They considered them binding in a way that the other sects did not. The disagreement might have extended beyond even the matter of interpretation of Scripture: the sects might have actually disagreed on what texts constituted the Bible. The Psalms text from the Dead Sea Scrolls contains a number of compositions not found in the canon later adopted by the rabbis. The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), too, contains a number of texts—the so-called “Apocrypha”—not found in the Hebrew versions.[6] In the last couple of centuries before the Common Era, there was a good deal of disagreement over what constituted the Jewish “Bible.” Some scholars have argued that Josephus’ statement that the Sadducees observed nothing except the laws of Moses actually means that they accepted only the books of the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—as Scripture. If such was the case, it could explain why Jesus, when debating with the Sadducees over the issue of the resurrection of the dead, made no reference to the explicit statement about the resurrection in Daniel 12 nor to the less explicit references in Isaiah and the Psalms, but referred them instead to Exodus 3:6: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Mt. 22:23-32). If the Sadducees didn’t recognize the authority of the Prophets or other Jewish Scriptures, they would hardly have been convinced by arguments based on these passages from the Bible. So there was certainly ample doctrinal basis for friction between the major Jewish sects of the time. But in contrast with Josephus, when the Mishnah speaks of the conflicts between Pharisees and Sadducees, it seldom mentions matters of doctrine. Rather, the typical arguments concern matters of halakhah, or practical observance of the law. “We have this against you, O Pharisees,” begins a typical complaint, followed by some point of dissension, like, “You declare that handling the Books of Moses renders the hands ritually unclean, but handling the Books of Homer does not!”[7] If this picture is an accurate remembrance of the disputations between sects, then the Pharisees probably would have found it easier to have forgiven the Sadducees for not believing in the resurrection of the dead than to forgive them for, say, improperly washing their hands before dinner. We have a bit of corroborating evidence for this perspective in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In one text (designated 4QMMT, Miqsat Ma’aseh ha-Torah, “Some Matters of the Law”), the Scrolls sect states explicitly why it separated from the rest of the Jews. The text never mentions theological differences between the Scrolls Community and other groups; rather, it was matters of halakhah that made them so unwilling to fellowship with others. Washings, festival observances, sacrificial practices—these were the issues that splintered Judaism of the time. We do well to note that among Palestinian Jews of the time before Jesus, orthodoxy—proper beliefs—wasn’t nearly so important as orthopraxis—proper actions. Early Christianity’s emphasis on orthodoxy would come to distinguish this particular “sect” from the more prominent Jewish groups of its day. We also do well to remember that to the Jews of this era, these differences weren’t matters of legal quibbling, but of grave importance. For instance, the authors of 4QMMT held that the priests serving in the Temple were improperly washing their hands before performing their sacrifices. If the sacrifices were performed with hands that were ritually unclean, were the rituals still valid? And if the priests’ sacrifices weren’t acceptable to God, it would mean that the entire nation still bore the guilt of its sins and stood in danger of being abandoned by God!
|
