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Diversity and Unity in Judaism before Jesus |
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Sources of Diversity There were a number of factors that promoted the diversification of early Judaism, just as many factors promote the formation of religious factions in our own day. Some groups formed because its members shared similar views on some matter of biblical interpretation. Josephus’ “Fourth Philosophy,” for instance, was united in its belief that its adherents could accept no human monarch. Sometimes, groups coalesced around a prominent teacher. The Dead Sea Scrolls sect first formed as an association of individuals distressed by the religious laxity they observed in Judean society and then crystallized under the leadership of their Teacher of Righteousness. But we shouldn’t ignore the fact that religious notions are often shaped by historical, social, and cultural factors. The aristocratic Sadducees were far less enamored with the notion of heaven and eternal rewards than were the modest Pharisees or the struggling masses. They were enjoying the fruits of piety in this world, not some “world to come”! Apocalyptic visions of a vengeful messiah riding forth to exact judgment on the unrighteous were more comforting for those to whom this present world seemed unjust than for those who believed that the Good Lord helped those who helped themselves. So the socio-economic stratification of Judean society, encouraged by the opening of new trade markets in the West (after Alexander the Great’s time), was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the religious diversity of the Second Temple period. But contact with foreign cultures was not just indirectly responsible for the variegation of Judaism in this era. We’ve already noted that the idea of the resurrection of the dead is first attested in Judaism after the Persian conquest. It’s possible that the Jewish notion was encouraged through contact with the Persians.[8] The idea of the resurrection and judgment was central to the Persians’ Zoroastrian faith, and some Jewish texts of the Second Temple period seem to demonstrate a detailed knowledge of Zoroastrian teachings on the subject. The Jewish sages developed a notion of resurrection from material gleaned from their own Scriptures and traditions, but contact with Zoroastrianism might well have encouraged them to explore this topic in depth. It’s also apparent that Zoroastrianism exerted some influence on the development of Jewish angelology and demonology. Prior to the Persian era, angels were never named in the Hebrew Bible, and their personalities were largely subsumed to that of God. Demons appear infrequently in the Bible, and little is said there about their machinations. (Probably, there was some angel and demon lore in pre-exilic Yahwism, but that lore was suppressed in the Bible due to concerns that such creatures would be mistaken for demi-gods by unsophisticated Israelites.) But both angels and demons played an extensive role in Zoroastrianism, and the Zoroastrians’ hierarchical view of the celestial realms allowed them to maintain a strict distinction between such spirits and the gods. So with Zoroastrianism as a model, the Jews could develop this realm of their faith as well. (It’s interesting to note that these two features of Pharisaic and popular religion—belief in spirits and life after death—were rejected by the Sadducees. Contrary to some caricatures of the group, the Sadducees represent a religiously conservative element of Judean society. Their inability to assimilate new spiritual insights undoubtedly contributed to their extinction after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.) Yet another cultural force that contributed to the diversification of early Judaism was Hellenism. Hellenism refers to the form of Greek culture that spread throughout the Mediterranean world, especially after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the East (332 B.C.). Scholars have long debated the extent to which this infiltration of foreign influence affected Judaism. The pendulum has swung several times in the last century alone. There was once a general notion that Hellenism’s influence was confined to the Diaspora—those Jews living outside their Palestinian homeland—where Jews were outnumbered by foreigners, and knowledge of Greek language and culture were essential for daily living. Influential studies in the mid-twentieth century swung the pendulum the other direction, to the idea that all Jews were deeply affected by Greek culture.[9] Today, the consensus seems to favor a moderate position that all Jews in the Mediterranean world were influenced by Greek culture, but that the influence was more pervasive in the Diaspora than in the Judean homeland. The question is a complicated one, and certainly geography isn’t the only variable involved: politics, social class, educational attainment, and religious sentiments all affect how open a person is to adopting elements of a foreign culture. But it’s safe to say that no one in the Mediterranean world was totally isolated from the pervasive effects of the Greek invasion. The effects of Hellenism on the Jewish religion are difficult to assess, but we can make some general observations. First, it’s certain that most of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora were more open to Greek ideas than were the Jews of Palestine. We can illustrate the contrast by considering the writings of Josephus, an upper-class Palestinian Jew, and those of Philo, a Diaspora Jew of similar social status. Philo demonstrates a good grasp of Greek philosophy and seeks to incorporate its insights into his writings. Indeed, he attempts to synthesize Platonic thought with the words of Moses and the prophets. What’s more, Philo knew of some Jews in Alexandria who went much farther in their efforts to accommodate Judaism to Greek thought than he himself was willing to go—even to the extent of “spiritualizing” the distinctive Jewish practices like keeping kosher. Josephus, on the other hand, demonstrates only a rudimentary knowledge of Greek philosophy—and may well have acquired that knowledge after he left Palestine and settled in Rome. He makes no attempt to apply the methods of interpreting sacred texts that were current among the Hellenists to the Hebrew Bible. He feels compelled to apologize for his poor grasp of Greek language and thought, even though he claims to have excelled in his studies of Hellenistic culture far beyond his countrymen (Ant. 20.263-264). These two figures demonstrate that a major distinction must be made between Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism—a distinction that’s all the more apparent in a comparison of religious texts. To our knowledge, all the religious texts composed by Diaspora Jews in the centuries just before and immediately after he time of Jesus were composed in Greek, while all those composed in Palestine were written in Hebrew or Aramaic. The influence of Greek thought is obvious in the writings of Philo and some other Diaspora Jews. In other cases, the influence is more subtle. Saul of Tarsus—the Apostle Paul—demonstrates little direct knowledge of Greek philosophy in his writings, but his universalistic outlook seems consonant with the generally tolerant spirit of Hellenism. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls Community—a group that expresses deep disdain for the Gentiles and their ways—demonstrates how Hellenism had permeated Jewish thought. A number of astrological texts were discovered among the Scrolls. Even though astrology was invented by the Babylonians, it was developed into a pseudo-science by the Greeks. It is this Greek form of astrology that appears in the Scrolls. Sources of Unity No doubt there were many forces seeking to pull Judaism apart, to unravel the cord that bound the Children of Abraham into one. But there were equally potent forces that bound Judaism together, and helped Jews to distinguish themselves from Samaritans or other groups. Very briefly, some of the features that defined Judaism in this era included:
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