f35

21 See Part III below. Examples from our period are Jubilees, 4 Maccabees, Josephus. Even those writings whose form is not that of Story tell stories nonetheless: the Qumran commentaries on scripture tell the story of the community, its origins, struggles and destiny, under the medium of detailed pesher exegesis. Philo may be the exception that proves the rule, though he too used stories at certain stages, as did Plato himself.

22 See particularly Frei 1974; Alter 1981.

23 On all this see ch. 3 below; and cf. Beardslee 1969; Rhoads and Michie 1982, and other recent writers. Compare also H.-D. Betz’s commentary on Galatians (1979). Much recent work on the gospels as stories (e.g. Mack 1988) assumes that the ‘story’ phenomenon is a late development, but this is actually absurd: see Part IV below, esp. ch. 14.

24 On the different things that stories can do, see Thiselton 1992, ch. 15, section 3.

25 See Crossan 1988b [1975]. On metaphor see Ricoeur 1977; Caird 1980; Soskice 1985.

26 cf. ch. 5 below. I am grateful to Professor Christopher Rowland for emphasizing this point to me.

27 See Newbigin 1986, 1989; Walsh 1989; and many other writers.

28 My use of ‘controlling stories’ is similar to Wolterstorff’s discussion of ‘control beliefs’ (1984 [1976] part I, esp. ch. 1). The question of whether one could ever in fact ‘see’ contradictory evidence (since it might be supposed to be ‘screened out’ precisely by the worldview according to which it ought not to exist) is a complex one, but I strongly suspect that the problem is really a variant on the puzzle of the hare and the tortoise. We all know that the hare does in fact overtake the tortoise; we all know that radical conversions, radical shifts of worldview accommodating new evidence, do in fact take place, though not usually without predictable trauma.

29 See ch. 4 below.

30 Meyer 1979, 80.

31 This whole paragraph is indebted to MacIntyre 1985.

32 See Thiselton 1992, 372: ‘What remains central for Ricoeur is the double function of hermeneutics: the hermeneutics of suspicion which unmasks human wish-fulfilments and shatters idols, and the hermeneutics of retrieval which listens to symbols and to symbolic narrative discourse. Where criticism operates, this is only to arrive at post-critical creativity on the yonder side of the critical desert.’

Chapter Three:Literature, Story and the Articulation of Worldviews

1 See, for examples of this already, Young and Ford 1987, ch. 5; Morgan 1988, ch. 7.

2 For background, see Beardslee 1969, 1989; Frei 1974; Alter 1981; Frye 1983; Barton 1984; Cotterell and Turner 1989; Hauerwas and Jones 1989; Sanders and Davies 1989, chs. 15–16; Warner 1990; and many others, e.g. Poythress 1978. Two of the most important recent books on the whole area of this chapter are Moore 1989 and Thiselton 1992.

3 Walter de la Mare, ‘The Listeners’, in de la Mare 1938, 316–17.

4 See Louth 1983, 103, discussing Eliot’s distinction between things that can and must be ‘got right’ in criticism and things that must be left ‘open’.

5 Mann 1968 [1947]. Mann was forced to acknowledge in a note at the end of the book (491) that this twelve-tone row ‘is in truth the intellectual property of a contemporary composer and theoretician, Arnold Schönberg’. One can understand Schönberg’s annoyance at the ‘borrowing’ more particularly if one considers the implications of the novel as a whole: see Carnegy 1973, ch. 4 (I am grateful to my colleague Mr F. J. Lamport for this reference and some helpful discussions).

6 Mann 1968 [1947], 490.

7 On the development of Monet’s intentions and achievements see e.g. House 1977, 3–13; on the present point, esp. 12f.

8 On the idea of something appearing as something else see particularly Berger 1969.

9 Strecker 1988.

10 Talk about Jesus is risky philosophically, in the same way (ultimately) as it is risky to say ‘I see a house’: one might be mistaken. There are theological risks as well, which we shall come to later; not least the danger that if we did find Jesus we would not know what to do with him.

11 e.g. Jos.Ant. 18.12–15.

12 See Bultmann 1960, 342–51.

13 The reader, of course, is never an isolated individual: see ch. 2 above.

14 On the strange sense of longing for something just out of reach, which pervades much of de la Mare’s work, see Leavis 1963 [1932], 47–51.

15 Here we can, as it were, ‘check up on’ authorial intent: Mann said himself that he wrote the last lines of the book on January 27 1947, ‘as I had had them framed in my mind for a long time’ (Mann 1961, 183). (The account is very stylized, however, and we may legitimately question whether Mann himself can be trusted at this point.) On the counterpoint between Germany and the composer see ibid., 107.

16 See now especially Meyer 1989, ch. 2; Bergonzi 1990, passim; Thiselton 1992, passim.

17 On the ‘New Criticism’ in general and its effects in biblical studies, see Morgan 1988, 217ff.; Moore 1989, 9–13; Thiselton 1992, ch. 2, section 2.

18 Tillyard and Lewis 1939. The debate is discussed helpfully, and set in the wider context of the so-called New Criticism, by Bergonzi 1990, 62f. See also Moore 1989, 9–13.

19 Lewis 1961. The almost prophetic significance of Lewis’ position is also discussed by Bergonzi 1990, 64f.: Lewis was ‘even hinting at the “free-floating signifiers” of poststructuralist theory’.

20 See Moore 1989, 4–13.

21 One example of this in modern biblical studies is the technique known as Sachkritik, the criticism of a writer on the basis of the inner logic of his or her own ideas. This is what is going on, for instance, when someone relativizes a section of Paul (as Bultmann does with Romans 9–11) on the grounds that if Paul had thought through his ideas properly he would not have put it like that. It is also what is going on when people accuse Bultmann of not following his own theology through far enough, and still holding on to the historicity of the cross. On this see Wright 1991a, 4, 6.

22 So Caird 1980, 222f.Meyer 1989, 28 describes structuralist analysis, along with various other current options, as ‘the contemporary flight from interpretation’.

23 See Thiselton 1992 on the reasons for structuralism, which arose as part of the desire in the post-war period for a quasi-objective goal in literary studies, once authorial intention had been declared invalid. But, for biblical studies at least, part of the proof of this pudding is in the eating. Structural analysis of the biblical text has so far failed to resonate with the power and promise that many readers still instinctively find there. Can one preach week by week from deep structures?

24 Beardslee 1969; Johnson 1976; Polzin 1977; Patte 1976, 1978, 1983; Petersen 1978, 1985. See the discussions in Barton 1984, chs. 8–9; Tuckett 1987, ch. 10; Sanders and Davies 1989, ch. 15; and Thiselton 1992.

25 On all this, see Petersen 1978, 20f.; Galland 1976, 3f.

26 On allegorical and other pre-critical exegetical and hermeneutical methods, see Louth 1983; Thiselton 1992, chs. 4–5.

27 So, in relation to biblical studies, Moore 1989, 174.

28 Küng 1964 [1957], xvii: Barth, in his preface, writes that ‘your readers may rest assured … that you have me say what I actually do say and that I mean it in the way you have me say it’.

29 cf. Meyer 1989, 87: ‘Without human authenticity, interpretation trails off into the capricious, thwarted by absorption in pretentious or unpretentious trivia … This includes, on the part of literary scholars who for whatever reason find themselves with nothing very compelling, or even very definite, to do, a misplaced hankering to break out into creativity and inventiveness. There follow declarations of independence from the tyrannies of philology and history, from the merely intended sense of the text, and finally from the text itself. But faddism, and particularly the faddism that hinges on forms of alienation, is notoriously ineffective occupational therapy.’

30 Moore 1989, chs. 7–8. On Barthes, and his ‘infinite plurality of meanings’, see Thiselton 1992, ch. 3 section 3; on Derrida, ibid. ch. 3 section 5, and Bergonzi 1990, ch. 8. For a thorough critique of Fish (and Rorty) see Thiselton 1992, ch. 14; cf. Moore 1989, ch. 7.

31 See Taylor 1982, 114, speaking of reading in terms of autoeroticism. This is not far from Roland Barthes’ phrase about the reader ‘taking his pleasure with the text’, where the emphasis is on his; see Moore 1989, 144. See the criticism of this by Lundin in Lundin, Walhout and Thiselton 1985.

32 This sharp point has broadened out in recent biblical studies, in what is called ‘reader-response’ criticism; see Sanders and Davies 1989, ch. 16.

33 See e.g. Crossan 1976, 1980, 1988b.

34 See Moore 1989, 143–6; and cf. Wilder 1982, 29–33; Thiselton 1992, ch. 3 section 6; and now Crossan 1991. The ‘Jesus’ whom Crossan wants to find is far more gnostic than the picture one would get from the synoptic tradition; hence his preference for the Gospel of Thomas and a reconstructed (and reinterpreted) ‘Q’ as the favoured sources (see ch. 14 below). But can one, as a good deconstructionist, ever hope to find any historical referent, even another deconstructionist (as Crossan supposes Jesus to have been)?

35 I am here conscious of an ongoing debt to Meyer 1989; cf. also his articles of 1990, 1991b.

36 Compare the point (made by Meyer 1991b, 10 drawing on Bergonzi 1990, 111): ‘the followers of Nietzsche and Foucault are passionately persuaded that truth is a mere rhetorical device employed in the service of oppression, and say so at length. What, then, is the status of their saying so? We should give them their choice. Is it false? Or in the service of oppression?’ See too Moore’s criticisms (1989, 145f.) of Crossan. Moore himself, though in many ways an advocate for a postmodern reading of texts, has provided an essentially modem reading of the writers he discusses. See, finally, Norris’ critique of Rorty, discussed in Thiselton 1992, ch. 11 section 3.

37 See the staunch defence of this in Meyer 1989, xif., and esp. 17–55. Cf. too Young and Ford 1987, 137: ‘… progress in understanding is a real experience. Meaning is in principle determinable, even if in practice we have to live with large areas of uncertainty, and even if we refuse to restrict it to authorial intention. Debates about meaning are not always settleable, but they are debates about objective realities. There is a difference between eisegesis and exegesis, and the more informed we are, the more it is possible to sense where the line is to be drawn.’

38 Since we are talking about German ideologies, we might compare the task of interpreting Wagner’s operas by means of his little-known prose works, as has been done by Dr Margaret Brearley (1988).

39 See Funk 1988, 298: ‘I share the conviction that the interplay of texts is inevitable and perpetual, but I am also convinced that humankind, on rare occasions, catches glimpses of reality aborning, of fellow men and women without disguises, of the “beyond” of texts.’ On this possibility even in modern and postmodern theory, see the discussion of Heidegger’s notion of an ‘opening’ in Thiselton 1992, ch. 3 section 5.

40 On the importance of metaphor see particularly Ricoeur 1977, discussed helpfully in Thiselton 1992, ch. 10 section 2; Soskice 1985; the suggestive essay of White 1982; and particularly Caird 1980.

41 I am well aware—and to be aware of such things is part of the model itself—that this word has various other shades of meaning elsewhere: see Barr 1987.

43 On the question of whether the ‘conversation’ model is adequate for this task—a question which goes back to Schleiermacher at least—see now Thiselton 1992, ch. 10 section 3, ch. 11 section 3, discussing Gadamer and Tracy.

44 See above, p. 55f.

45 See, for a fascinating description of the analogous task within a very different sphere, that of music, Menuhin 1977, 182–9. ‘Like a biochemist discovering that every human cell bears the imprint of the body it belongs to, I had to establish why these notes and no others belonged to this sonata; and it was important that I do it myself, no more accepting ready-made explanations than I would consider myself acquainted with someone at second hand’ (184).

46 In the case of Paul, this has been argued most persuasively by Hays 1983 (who lists among his predecessors Via 1975) and Petersen 1985; see ch. 13 (b) below.

47 Charlesworth 1985, 177–247.

48 cf. Apion 1.53: ‘… it is the duty of one who promises to present his readers with actual facts first to obtain an exact knowledge of them himself, either through having been in close touch with the events, or by inquiry from those who knew them. That duty I consider myself to have amply fulfilled in both my works.’ Cf. too his polemic against historical fiction in 1.293. The fact that modern critics have little difficulty in criticizing Josephus (or the books of the Maccabees) by these standards does not mean that Josephus did not know what he was talking about. See the discussion of historiography in the next chapter.

49 See e.g. Mack 1988; Crossan 1991, and ch. 14 below.

50 See particularly Mack 1988, and the work of the Claremont school of which that book is a characteristic product.

51 Thiselton 1992, especially chs. 8 and 16.

52 Thiselton 1992, ch. 15 section 1. See too Ricoeur 1978, especially 191, on the way in which historical narrative, though emphatically not to be conceived positivistically, nevertheless includes a referent outside the world of the text itself.

53 See the literature already cited, especially the works of Patte, Petersen, Funk and Thiselton; and compare Rhoads and Michie 1982.

54 See Griemas 1966, 1970; Propp 1968. On these, see especially Galland 1976; Patte 1976, 1978. For an application of the method to Pauline exegesis, see Hays 1983, 92–103; Wright 1991a, ch. 10; and, for other uses of recent literary theory in Pauline exegesis, Moore 1989, xx n.18.

55 See Thiselton 1992, ch. 13 section 4; and cf. above, p. 57.

56 See e.g. Thiselton 1992, ch. 13 section 3.

57 See Moore 1989, xix, for a description of one scenario: ‘The structuralist would lumber along, laden down with some massive Griemasian … apparatus to arrive at some conclusion where, almost invariably, the unencumbered historical exegete would be waiting, having already attained it by means of a few economical strides.’

58 Barton 1984, 116, referring to Propp and others.

59 Though on Sartre see Meyer 1991b, 9f., arguing that Sartrean novels are ultimately self-contradictory: ‘an authentically Sartrean novel would be a chaotic muddle. But novelists, including Sartre, labor under a first commandment, Thou shalt not be dull.’

60 4 Ezra and 2 Bar. might be considered examples of a still more tragic story: see Part III below.

61 Marin 1976a, 1976b; Chabrol 1976; Patte 1978, ch. 3; etc.

62 See Patte 1978, ch. 4.

63 e.g. Marin 1976b, 74, assuming that the story is simply about ‘God’ and ‘Man’ (i.e. not about Israel specifically).

64 This reflects the same concern that we see in Tannehill 1985b, though I do not agree with Tannehill’s assessment of Luke-Acts as a whole.

65 In the Matthaean account (21:41) this part of the story is added by the hearers in response to Jesus’ question as to what the owner will now do.

66 It is only Matthew (21:41) who makes explicit the fact that the new tenants will give him the fruit, but this is clearly implicit in the other accounts.

67 See chs. 13–15 below.

68 This could be queried on the basis of Matthew’s explanatory note (21:43), where the vineyard is given to a nation (ethnos) that produces the fruits. This cannot be discussed here.

69 cf. the remarks of D. O. Via in the foreword to Beardslee 1969, vi; and Via 1967, passim.

70 On this point see Pannenberg 1970, 15–80, esp. 77–80; and chs. 8–10 below.

71 See Hays 1983, 1989; Fowl 1990; Wright 1991a, ch. 10; and ch. 13 below.

72 As a good example, see Caird 1980, 211, listing ten different ways in which the NT writers describe the death of Jesus.

Chapter Four:History and the First Century

1 Among the important works that can only be mentioned, not discussed in detail, are those of Collingwood 1956 [1946], 1968; Butterfield 1969; Elton 1984 [1967]; and Doran 1990. I have found particularly helpful Carr 1987 [1961] (on which, however, see Elton 24–8); Fornara 1983; Meyer 1989, passim; Gilkey 1976, part 1; Florovsky 1974, 31–65; and Caird 1980, ch. 12.

2 cf. Carr 1987 [1961], passim.

3 There is more than a hint of this in Sanders 1985, 321–7.

4 See Florovsky 1974, 34ff. A good example of the view I am criticizing can be found in Nineham 1976, 187f.: ‘Because the early Christians belonged to a period before the rise of scientific history, and were mostly unlettered men at that, they not only mingled history and story inextricably together, but it must be confessed they sometimes allowed the demands of the story to modify the details of the history. It may be worth repeating that there was no intent to deceive in this; at that period it seemed perfectly natural … to modify a historical narrative in such a way as to bring out the place of the incident in the total story … This does mean that it is very often impossible for us to get back to the history …’ This patronizing positivism is interestingly self-contradictory. In telling the story he wants to tell, Nineham (as we shall see) is actually falsifying the history of historiography.

5 On this see Caird 1980, 209–14.

6 On this whole paragraph see especially Fornara 1983; cp. Hemer 1989, ch. 3.

7 Fornara 1983, 16ff.

8 Fornara 1983, 163.

9 Fornara 1983, 99–101; cf. the discussion of Josephus above, p. 68. Fornara’s chapter on the recording of speeches (142–68) should be of interest to all New Testament scholars. He sums up as follows (168): ‘We may certainly assert that the record of the speeches of the Romans and their opponents is substantially trustworthy from the time of the Second Punic War to the end of the fourth century AD.’

10 Tacitus, Annals, 1.1: ‘I shall write without indignation or partisanship.’ Cf. too Cicero’s mention of the ‘laws of history’, cited by Fornara 101.

11 See Russell 1961 [1946], 311ff. See also the much less cool and detached account in Russell 1967 [1957].

12 cp. the remarks of Carr 1987 [1961], 13f., on the way in which our impression of the Middle Ages as a period in which people were deeply concerned with religion is irrevocably derived from the fact that the sources on which we depend were all written by people who were themselves deeply concerned with religion.

13 See Part III below.

14 See the book of this title by R. L. Wilken (1971).

15 See Part IV. A good example of the fragmented nature of the current picture of early Christianity may be found in Koester 1982b.

16 See Carr 1987 [1961], 14f., pointing out the needless worry of Lord Acton that the pressure to write history was threatening ‘to turn him from a man of letters into the compiler of an encyclopedia’. Carr goes on to speak (16) of a ‘nineteenth-century fetishism of facts’.

17 The latter example is adapted from Lewis 1943 [1933], 62f.

18 Perrin 1970, 69.

19 Holmes 1983a, 131.

20 See the criticisms of Bultmann in e.g. Thiselton 1980, 205–92, and the summary on 444. On the familiar question, whether Bultmann should have gone even further and demythologized the kerygma itself, see now Moore 1989, 175.

21 See Thiselton 1980, 439f.

22 One might consider at this point the question: are historians thus in some sense ‘priests’, mediating the ‘truth’ to the faithful? The correct answer, I think, to such an idealist viewpoint is that which goes back to the OT, and is highlighted by Caird, 1980, 217f.: historians are in some sense or other prophets, offering a perspective on events which is both their own and (in aspiration at least) that of God. If this brings home to the historian the dangers and responsibilities of the task, so be it.

23 See Florovsky 1974, 40–4; Collingwood 1956 [1946], 42ff. See too Meyer 1989, 62, etc.

24 e.g. Mack 1988.

25 Where it will also become clear why I wish to put ‘miracle’ and its cognates into inverted commas.

26 The metaphor is taken from an actual debate, in Bonn in 1987, in which several theologians present urged more or less the view I am attacking, using the swamp-and-bridge illustration. I find this very perplexing. After centuries of insisting that what one must do is historical criticism, history is being abandoned just when, at last, it is (arguably) actually getting us somewhere. See, for an explicit statement of this, Morgan 1988, 199.

27 Bultmann, of course, retained ‘history’ to the extent that the cross remained central for him. But even there he insisted that it could not be ‘objectified’: see Thiselton 1980, 211. On the new Bultmannian school see Part IV below.

28 See the next volume, Jesus and the Victory of God. It is sometimes claimed, moreover, that this process begins in the NT itself (Dodd, Jeremias).

29 See Hooker 1975, 36, criticizing Norman Perrin.

30 There is a similarity between this suggestion and Troeltsch’s famous principle of analogy (we only have historical knowledge of events that are analogous to events that we ourselves know of), with the all-important difference that now it is set within a critical-realist framework of what ‘history’ actually is.

31 Some such thing seems to have been envisaged by Paul in 1 Cor. 8:1–6: cf. Wright 1991a, ch. 6.

32 See Meyer 1979, ch. 4 for what is probably the finest statement on historical method by a practising contemporary New Testament scholar; further valuable material is in Meyer 1989. Sanders 1985, 3–22, is also clear and helpful, though not as philosophically grounded or nuanced as Meyer. For the background philosophical debates see e.g. Toulmin 1958.

33 cf. Carr 1987 [1961], 14–16.

34 This task is that which Anthony Harvey (1982) described as the plotting of ‘Historical Constraints’. I find this to be a helpful and useful notion, though it needs more fine-tuning. I shall be conscious of my debt to Harvey, and my use of his model, at various stages: see Wright 1986a.

35 The same trick can be played on Paul, and is there given the name Sachkritik, the process by which the critic understands Paul’s thoughts better than Paul did himself, and can relativize some parts of his thought in the light of others. See Morgan 1973, 42–52, and Meyer 1989, 59–65, esp. 63–4.

36 Tyrrell 1963 [1909], 49, referring particularly to Harnack (though McGrath 1986, 86 disputes the applicability of the point to Harnack himself). Harnack, in fact, had said that a life of Jesus could not be written: see McGrath, 61.

37 Schoeps 1961; Maccoby 1991.

38 This would not, of course, be the counter-argument usually advanced; but it might well be the real one, hidden behind learned rhetoric.

39 See Neill and Wright 1988, 288–91, 379–401.

40 Wrede 1971 [1901]. See the discussion in ch. 13 below.

41 A modern example of a hypothesis which constantly dismembers the evidence in the interests of a broad overall scheme is Mack 1988. For my own view of secrets, messianic and otherwise, in the ministry of Jesus, see the next volume.

42 Thus, for instance, Sanders (1985) is sometimes guilty of using Bultmann to help him get rid of this or that passage, despite the fact that his whole book utterly rejects the methods, scheme, hypotheses and results that Bultmann used and proposed (see his pp. 26–30).

43 Thus Bultmann 1968 [1921], passim: e.g. 145, 262, etc.

44 We might contrast, for instance, Livy’s account of the Punic Wars, or Josephus’ of the Maccabaean uprising.

45 See Theissen 1978, 4, 121; Borg 1984, 132f., 190.

46 See, once more, Neill and Wright 1988, 379–403.

47 Theissen 1987, 66.

48 A good example of a case being made on the basis of evidence outside the text may be found in Fee’s argument (1987, 699–708) for the non-originality of 1 Cor. 14:34–5.

49 For a recent argument using exactly this criterion in the field of synoptic studies, cf. Downing 1992, 34f.: ‘The simplicity of an hypothesis about literary interdependence cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the number of conjectural sources involved. Goulder’s hypothesis [about Luke’s use of Matthew] has fewer documents than has Streeter’s. But to justify it there are innumerable hypotheses about what was going on in Luke’s mind …’ On the importance of examining ‘what happened next’ as part of the historical task, see Meyer 1979, 252f., following Kant; Neill and Wright 1988, 399.

50 See Wright 1991a, ch. 1.

51 This idea is thoroughly debunked by Wilken 1971.

52 On Baur, see Neill and Wright 1988, 20–30.

53 See Neill and Wright 1988, ch. 9; and the introductions to the next two volumes in the present series. That these accounts, too, are oversimplified may be taken for granted.

54 See again Carr 1987 [1961], ch. 1.

55 Collingwood 1956 [1946], passim. See the illuminating discussions in Meyer 1989, chs. 2 and 3.

56 See ch. 5 below. I am conscious that many different categorizations could be made at this point, of which Aristotle’s (in the Nic. Eth.) is only one. My adoption of technical terms in the next paragraphs is purely heuristic: I do not intend to import into the discussion layers of meaning from other spheres of discourse, but only to give convenient and, in a measure, arbitrary labels to things that seem to me to need distinguishing when discussing the ‘inside’ of historical events.

57 On ‘worldviews’ themselves see ch. 5 below.

58 Aristotle, Nic. Eth. book 7; cf. Hare 1963, ch. 5.

59 On this whole point see ch. 5 below.

60 I owe this shaping of the point to Dr Brian Walsh.

61 See further ch. 5 below.

62 See Carr 1987 [1961], ch. 4.

63 On this whole point see Elton 1984 [1967], 160–77.

64 This is perhaps due to the belated influence in the field of Lord Acton’s principle, that one should study problems not periods: see Elton 1984 [1967], 161.

65 See Bury 1951 [1909]; Russell 1961 [1946]. Exceptions include the New Testament Historys of Filson 1965; Bruce 1972; and parts of Koester 1982a. Other possible candidates will be discussed in Part IV.

66 Schürer 1973–87.

67 On all this see Part III below. The three stages of historical work—sifting sources, imaginative reconstruction, coherent synthesis—are set out by Neill in Neill and Wright 1988, 304. The whole passage (304–12) repays close attention.

68 See Meyer 1979; Harvey 1982; Borg 1984; Sanders 1985; Horsley 1987; Crossan 1991. On the first four see Neill and Wright 1988, 379–96.

69 cf. e.g. Carr 1987 [1961], ch. 5; Barraclough 1967 [1964], 14f. A similar point could be made, of course, about thinkers who collapse the past into the present: see Thiselton 1992, ch. 16 section 3, criticizing Thomas Groome. Barraclough rightly points out, however, that one of the greatest historians, Thucydides himself, was writing ‘contemporary history’.

70 Schweitzer 1968b [1931].

71 Meyer 1979, 253; a controversial claim, of course, which we will discuss in vol. 2.

72 See Thiselton 1980 passim.

73 Wittgenstein 1961 [1921], 14: ‘only in the nexus of a proposition does a name have meaning’ (n.b. 13: ‘in a proposition a name is the representative of an object’).

74 See MacIntyre 1985 [1981], ch. 15.

75 Carr 1987 [1961], 3–6.

76 This response, in Stoppard’s film, is an addition to the stage play (Stoppard 1967, 89).

77 On worldviews see further ch. 5 below.

78 See Part III below. If the point is now commonplace in NT studies, the credit for this belongs to a large extent to E. P. Sanders (1977). See Neill and Wright 1988, 371–8.

79 Pace Goodman 1987; see Part III below.

Chapter Five:Theology, Authority and the New Testament

1 Schlatter 1973 [1909], 125f.

2 So, rightly, Nineham 1976, 188; Räisänen 1990, 199. Both writers see this belief as typifying the sort of view that is impossible for us today.

3 On worldviews see especially Geertz 1973; Holmes 1983b; Walsh and Middleton 1984; Olthuis 1989 [1985]; and particularly Marshall, Griffioen and Mouw 1989.

4 For a recent assessment of Tillich, see Kelsey 1989; as he says: ‘[Tillich] has added a religious term to the English language: “ultimate concern” has become a common term in secular discourse to designate “the religious dimension” as vaguely as possible’ (148).

5 On this whole problem see particularly Rowe 1989. My use of the term is close to the use of ‘symbolic universe’ in e.g. Berger and Luckmann 1966.

6 See Walsh and Middleton 1984, 35; I have turned the singular form of their questions into the plural. Cp. the questions which Vatican II suggested were common to all humans: ‘What is man? What is the meaning and purpose of life? What is upright behaviour, and what is sinful? Where does suffering originate, and what end does it serve? How can genuine happiness be found? What happens at death? What is judgment? What reward follows death? And finally, what is the ultimate mystery, beyond human explanation, which embraces our entire existence, from which we take our origin and towards which we tend?’ (Flannery 1975, 738).

7 On aims, intentions and motivations see pp. 109–12 above.

8 Berger and Luckmann 1966, 110.

9 I have refrained from attempting to plot ideology on this grid, not least because of the large number of possible meanings the word currently bears (cf. Eagleton 1991, esp. ch. 1). It can mean something close to ‘worldview’ itself; it can also mean a much more specifically articulated corpus of beliefs; or it can denote the interaction between either or both of these and social reality. It can also, of course, carry pejorative overtones which make it even more slippery as a technical term.

10 So, rightly, Meyer 1979, 17, 255 n.12, against Bultmann.

11 Compare once more the notion of ‘control beliefs’ expounded by Wolterstorff 1984 [1976].

12 It is of course out of the question to attempt more here than a bald and inadequate summary of many hugely complex issues. I shall interact in more detail with contemporary theological debate elsewhere. On the whole area see particularly Ford 1989.

13 Petersen 1985, 29f.; cf. 57–60, 200–2, and Berger and Luckmann 1966, 92–128.

14 See Pannenberg 1971, ch. 6.

15 On metaphor and god-language see Ramsey 1964a, 1964b; Ricoeur 1977; Soskice 1985.

16 An example of this sort of work is Berkhof 1941.

17 e.g. the work of Moltmann (e.g. 1974, 1985, 1990).

18 See ch. 3 above. On narrative and theology see particularly Goldberg 1982; Stroup 1984; Tilley 1985.

19 cf. Lucas 1976, 136: ‘I do not believe in Marx or Freud. Money and sex are important, but not all-important.’

20 See Wright 1978, 75–7.

21 On this whole topic see particularly Newbigin 1989.

22 See particularly Caird 1980, chs. 12–14.

23 See again Caird 1980, ch. 12.

24 1 Cor. 15:19.

25 See McManners 1981, 230.

26 See Wright 1991a, chs. 1 and 14.

27 I have already published a version of this suggestion in Wright 1991b.

28 This illustration could of course run away with itself, but it is perhaps worth noting that among the actors’ tasks would be to decide, for instance, whether the production was to be ‘safe’ or ‘relevant’, ‘authentic’ or ‘contemporary’, and so forth—and also to take proper account of the context in which the production was to take place …

29 On the notion of ‘fittingness’ as a technical criterion in aesthetics see Wolterstorff 1979, 1980.

30 I owe these thoughts to the wisdom of Professor Oliver O’Donovan.

31 That the early Christians saw history in something like this differentiated way (distinguishing between the time of Jesus and their own time) is asserted, from very different standpoints, by Nineham 1976, 188f., and Lemcio 1991, passim. See Part IV below.

32 The question, whether the NT writers imagined that there would be any subsequent generations, Christian or otherwise, will be addressed in Part IV below.

33 Thus meeting Räisänen’s objection: 1990, 137–41.

Chapter Six:The Setting and the Story

1 Though we may rightly speak of the ‘Judaisms’ of this period, it is often easier linguistically to refer to the singular ‘Judaism’ as the generic entity to which they all belong. The period is regularly known as ‘second-temple Judaism’, indicating the time roughly from the fourth century BC to the second century AD (even though the second Temple itself had been destroyed in AD 70), or occasionally ‘middle Judaism’, indicating the time between ‘early Judaism’ (the pre-exilic period) and the ‘later Judaism’ of the rabbis and beyond.

2 See the new Schürer; the Compendia; Nickelsburg 1981; Sanders 1990a, 1992; the new editions of texts in e.g. Charlesworth 1983, 1985; Sparks 1984; and see also e.g. Hengel 1974; Rowland 1985, parts I and II; Kraft and Nickelsburg 1986, 1–30; Ferguson 1987, ch. 5; Cohen 1987; the many works of Neusner; etc.

3 It is on such grounds that Sanders 1990a, chs. 3–5, mounts his criticisms of Jacob Neusner.

4 See Sanders 1977; Schürer vol 3; Stone 1984; Nickelsburg 1981, pointing out (1–5) the importance of this method.

6 See Horsley and Hanson 1985, xvi–xvii.

7 On Josephus see the recent works of Cohen 1979; Broshi 1982; Rajak 1983; Attridge in Stone 1984, ch. 5; Feldman 1984; Schürer 1.43–63; Bilde 1988; and now especially Mason 1991.

8 On 1 and 2 Macc. see Schürer 3.180–5, 531–7; Attridge in Stone 1984, ch. 4 (171–83); Nickelsburg 1981, 114–21. On 3 Macc. see Schürer 3.537–42; Nickelsburg 1981, 169–72, and in Stone 1984, 80–4; on 4 Macc. Schürer 3.588–93; Gilbert in Stone 1984, 316–19; Nickelsburg 1981, 223–7.

9 Neusner 1971, 3.304.

10 On the rabbinic literature see Schürer 1.68–118, and especially Safrai 1987; the many works of Neusner, e.g. 1971, 1973; and now Strack and Stemberger 1991 [1982]. For similar notes of caution, see e.g. Goodman 1987, 23f.; Saldarini 1988, 7–10.

11 See the texts in Charlesworth 1983, 1985; Vermes 1987 [1962]; and the discussions in Nickelsburg 1981; Schürer vol. 3; Stone 1984.

12 See Mulder 1987; Barton 1986; Fishbane 1985; Chilton 1983, 1984; and chs. 8–10 below.

13 See e.g. CAH vols. X, XI; Salmon 1968 [1944]; Wells 1984; Millar 1981 [1967]; Garnsey and Saller 1982.

14 On the nature of Hellenism and its spread in Palestine see especially CHJ vol. 2; Hengel 1974, and esp. 1989a; Schürer 2.29–80; Tcherikover 1961; Flusser 1976; Goldstein 1981 (including a useful set of definitions of Hellenism, 67); Koester 1982a, passim, esp. 39f., 153ff.; Cohen in Kraft and Nickelsburg 1986, 42f.; Rajak 1990. A good example of the phenomena in question is the temple of Augustus at Caesarea Philippi, on which see Jos.Ant. 15.363f.; Schürer 2.169; Hengel 1989 [1961] 102.

15 Schürer 2.52f. For the view that the Hasmoneans were as much zealots for Torah, in their way, as were their opponents, see Goldstein 1989, 350f.

16 So, arguably, the Essenes’ ‘War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness’. On this, see Schmidt 1982, 164–5. See also Hengel 1974, 1.218–47. For other examples of the same phenomenon see Goodman 1987, 17; Momigliano 1984, 337f., arguing that this penetration included the rabbinic schools.

17 See e.g. the eulogy of the pax Romana in Epict. 3.13.9.

18 See Borg 1984, ch. 2; though see the cautionary note in Sanders 1992, ch. 9: one must not over-stress the over-taxing. At the same time, note such remarks as that attributed by Tacitus to the Briton Calgacus: ‘they [the Romans] make a wilderness and call it peace’ (Agricola 30.6; the whole passage is significant).

19 On the question of the Roman permission of Jewish worship (the so-called religio licita status) see Schürer 1.275, 378f.; Sanders 1992, 212; Jos.Ant. 14.213–16, 241–61. On Roman respect for the Jewish cult see Goodman 1987, 15. On the Jewish protest about Roman standards, cf. Jos.Ant. 18.55–9, and below.

20 For this paragraph, see Koester 1982a, 164–204; MacMullen 1981; Lyttleton and Forman 1984; Lane Fox 1986; Buckert 1985; Ferguson 1987, ch. 3; Martin 1987, passim. On the easy transition in our period from older forms of paganism to the newer emperor-worship see Hengel 1989 [1961], 99f.

21 See Martin 1987, 10–11.

22 See Ferguson 1987, 281–302; Koester 1982a, 145–53; and ch. 9 sect. 2 below.

23 On Stoicism see e.g. Koester 1982a, 147–53; on occasional parallels with Paul see Meeks 1983, 98, 165; Malherbe 1987. Instructive examples which show both the similarity and the fundamental difference, include the parallels between Epict. Disc. 2.26.1ff. and Rom. 7:13–20 (cf. below, p. 406 n. 114); Epict. Frag. 18 and 1 Cor. 1:12. On Jesus and the Cynics see e.g. Downing 1988a; Mack 1988; and the discussion in the second volume of the present project.

24 Chadwick 1966, 7f.

25 See ch. 14 below. Cf. Bultmann 1956, 162ff. Against: e.g. Wilson 1968; Layton 1980, 1981 (see the remark by Henry Chadwick in Layton 1981, 586: ‘Perhaps any time after the middle of the second century, Gnosticism existed in time and space’); Martin 1987, 134–54; Yamauchi 1973. For more general material on Gnosticism: Jonas 1963 [1958]; Rudolph 1975, 1983 [1977]; Logan and Wedderburn 1983; Ferguson 1987, 237–51; Koester 1982a, 381–9, with fuller bibliography; Rowland 1985, 294–6. For recent attempts to argue for a Jewish (and possibly pre-Christian) origin for Gnosticism see Pearson 1980; Rudolph 1983 [1977], e.g. 308, 367 (though very cautiously); Koester 1990, 83f.

26 See e.g. Jos.Apion. 2.148; cf. War 3.536; Tac. Hist. 5.2–4; 13.1. On this charge, and its potential consequences, see Sevenster 1975, 98–102; MacMullen 1981, 40, 62f.; Goodman 1987, 237.

27 The incident is recounted in Tac. Hist. 5.9.1; cf. also Jos.Ant. 14.69–73, which emphasizes the restraint Pompey showed in his actions. Cf. the parallel with Titus in Apion 2.82 and War 6.260.

28 On the importance of the land see ch. 8 below. For an example of Roman attitudes to Jews see Tac. Hist. 5.1–13.

29 e.g. Wisd. 13–14 (and e.g. Rom. 1:18–32).

30 See now particularly Kasher 1990.

31 On pagan attitudes to Jews and vice versa see Sevenster 1975; Stern 1976; Gager 1983, esp. ch. 3; Whittaker 1984, part I; Gager in Kraft and Nickelsburg 1986, 105–16; Ferguson 1987, 341–3, with bibliography; Schürer 2.81–4.

32 For fuller details than are possible here, see CHJ, vol. 2; Schürer, vol. 1; Cohen 1987, 27–59; Ferguson 1987, chs. 1–2. A list of key dates and people can be found in the Appendix (below, pp. 477ff.).

33 On Beth Shean (= Scythopolis) see Flusser 1976, 1065ff.; Schürer 2.38 (temples), 48 (theatre), 142–5; on Caesarea Maritima (= Strato’s Tower) see Schürer 1.306, 2.115–18.

34 On removing the marks of circumcision see 1 Macc. 1:11–15; 2 Macc. 4:11–17; Jos.Ant. 12.241; T. Mos. 8.3; see Schürer 1.148–9, and n. 28, for full discussion. For the wider issue of Jewish interaction with Hellenism see Hengel 1974, and his article on the subject in CHJ, vol. 2; and e.g. Goldstein 1981. 1 Macc. 1 provides a good perspective, albeit from one side, on the whole question.

35 On this whole episode see 1 Macc.; Jos.War 1.31–40; Ant. 12.246–331; Diod. Sic. 34/5.1.1–5 (commenting on Antiochus’ magnanimity and mild manner!); cf. Schürer 1.125–73, with Mørkholm 1989 and Goldstein 1981, 1989. On its continuing significance for Jewish self-understanding see Farmer 1956, esp. ch. 6. Farmer’s book strikingly anticipates by two or three decades the historical concerns which have finally come to the fore in the modern study of Jesus: see e.g. his preface (vii–x) and ch. 8.

36 On Menelaus see Schürer 1.149f.

37 That the motivating goals of the revolutionaries, in the second century BC and the first century AD, were substantially religious and not just those of secularized self-interest (as Josephus sometimes suggests) is established by Farmer 1956, ch. 5; and see chs. 7–10 below.

38 Ps. 2:4. See again Farmer 1956, 132–58.

39 On the name ‘Hasmonean’, traced back to an ancestor of the Maccabee family, see Jos.Ant. 12.265, etc. and Schürer 1.194 n.14.

40 On all this see Schürer 1.200–80; Saldarini 1988, 85–95.

41 cf. Jos.War 1.133–54; Ant. 14.37–79; Dio Cass. 37.15.2–16.4.

42 The word ‘Kittim’ is used in e.g. Daniel and Qumran as a generic term for the new pagan enemy, Rome.

43 Ps. Sol. 2:25–31, referring to Pompey’s death in 48 BC (see the summary in Schürer 3.193f.). See Goldstein 1989, 349f.

44 See MacMullen 1967, 83–7, 145–9; 1974; Rhoads 1976; Kraft and Nickelsburg 1986, 43f.; Koester 1982a, 396; Schürer 1.336–483; Goodman 1987, 1–3, 9–11. For the details of movements of revolt, see ch. 7 below.

45 On Herod and his dynasty see the classic work of Jones 1967 [1938]; and Schürer 1.287–329. Herod was elevated by the Romans, at the expense of the last Hasmonean king, Antigonus, after Herod had helped the Romans to regain the losses suffered in the Parthian invasion. Cf. Jos.Ant. 14.470–91; Dio Cass. 49.22.6, with the interesting comment that the Roman general Sosius had Antigonus bound to a cross and flogged before being killed—a punishment, says Dio, which no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans.

46 See ch. 10 below. The Temple, begun in 19 BC (cp. Jn. 2:20), was consecrated in 9 BC, and the whole building eventually finished in AD 63, seven years before its destruction (Ant. 20.219–20). On Herod’s posing as the new Solomon see Ant. 15.380–7, and 15.421–3, which echoes 1 Kgs. 8:1–5, and notes that the inner sanctuary was completed, no doubt by a well-designed coincidence, on the anniversary of Herod’s accession. Cf. too Jacobson 1988.

47 On the considerable confusion surrounding these terms, see Schürer 1.358–60.

48 On the details of the war, and the different parties, see Schürer 1.484–513; Hengel 1989 [1961], 343–76; Goodman 1987, passim. This war, and that of 132–5, are among the events for which we have numismatic as well as literary evidence; see Meshorer 1986.

49 On the date of the fall of Masada (Jos.War 7.401) see Schürer 1.512–5.

50 bBer. 32b; the saying is attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Cf. Bokser 1982/3. See the account of the people’s despondency at the cessation of the daily sacrifice, Jos.War 6.94 (compare mTaan. 4.6); and the great lamentations of 4 Ezra and 2 Bar. (e.g. 2 Bar. 10.5–19).

51 ‘Jamnia’ is variously spelled: variants include ‘Jabneh’, ‘Javneh’, ‘Yavne’, etc.

52 A recent example is Davies and Allison 1988, 133–8, which in turn is dependent on Davies 1964, 256–315.

53 Aune 1991a. For what follows, see, in addition, Lewis 1964; Schäfer 1975; Stemberger 1977; Katz 1984; Cohen 1984; Gafni 1987, 14–20; and the other literature cited below. I agree broadly with Dunn 1991, 232.

54 Compare the list of sources in Schürer 1.534.

55 See particularly Schürer 1.514–57; Neusner 1970, 1979; Gafni 1984, 1987. Compare too Saldarini 1975.

56 On 4 Ezra see Schürer 3.294–306; Metzger in Charlesworth 1983, 416–559; and particularly Stone 1990; Longenecker 1991. On 2 Bar. see Schürer 3.750–6; Klijn in Charlesworth 1983, 615–52. On Johanan ben Zakkai see especially Neusner 1970, 1979, and also Saldarini 1975; Schäfer 1979. On the continuing desire for revolt see Gafni 1984, 31, against Cohen 1987, 216. Cohen’s argument seems to me to ignore the fact of Akiba, on whom see below.

57 Compare mKel. 5.4, mPar. 7.6, mBek. 4.5, 6.8. The new assembly is mentioned as consisting of 72 members, reflecting a desire either on the part of Jamnia itself or later tradition to evoke memories of the original Sanhedrin: see mZeb. 1.3, mYad. 3.5, 4.2, and cf. Gafni 1987, 15.

58 Gafni 1987, 21f., with references.

59 On the succession see the discussion of various views in Gafni 1984, 29f., agreeing with Safrai against Alon that Gamaliel, because of his dynastic links, could not have attained power until after the death of Domitian (not ‘Diocletian’ as Gafni, 29 n.162!) in 96.

60 Gafni 1987, 19.

61 Schürer 2.373–5, with references.

62 So Neusner in many works, conveniently summarized in his 1979 article.

63 On these debates see further ch. 7 below.

64 So Horbury 1982. Among the evidence for early, though not systematized, hostility between the communities cf. the letters of Paul, e.g. Gal. 1:13; 4:29; 1 Thess. 2:14–16; and also perhaps 1 Cor. 12:1–3 (see Derrett 1975). Cp. Robinson 1976, 72–81.

65 Cohen 1984, 50, cf. 41f.; Cohen adds in a footnote: ‘In other words, there is little evidence for the activity most often ascribed to the Yavneans.’ See also esp. Katz 1984, 48–53, 63–76, arguing that any strictures were directed ‘against all Jews who after 70 were not in the Pharisaic/rabbinic camp’, and that ‘the Birkat ha-Minim did not signal any decisive break between Jews and Jewish Christians’ (76 n.128: italics original).

66 Cohen 1984, 41–2. Cohen’s overall thesis is that the Jamnia period saw the rise of an explicitly and intentionally pluriform Judaism which rejected ‘sectarian’, one-sided readings of its heritage. The sages ‘created a society based on the doctrine that conflicting disputants may each be advancing the words of the living God’ (51). I suspect that this, too, is an idealized picture, albeit drawn to a different ideal; but that it can even be suggested shows the frailty of the normal understanding of Jamnia.

67 See Gafni 1984, 29f.

68 So Kimelman 1981, 239f.; see Ign. Mag. 8.1; 10.1–3; Philad. 6.1. Ignatius could scarcely have written as he did (in about 110/115 AD) if a binding anti-Christian decree had already been in force in the synagogue community (as is envisaged in many recent writings) for twenty or thirty years.

69 Kimelman 1981, 244.

70 For the details, see Dio Cass. 69.12.1–14.4; Schürer 1.534–57, Gafni 1987, 20ff., and the further discussions in e.g. Isaac and Oppenheimer 1985; Reinhartz 1989; Schäfer 1990, and the other literature there. I pass over here the anti-Roman rebellion of Jews in Egypt, Cyrene and Cyprus in 115–17, on which see Schürer 1.529–34.

71 On Akiba see Schürer 1.544, 552; 2.377f.; and the literature there cited.

72 Schürer 1.543–5.

Chapter Seven:The Developing Diversity

1 On all this see Freyne 1980, esp. chs. 7–8.

2 See ch. 8 below.

3 On the complex questions of Diaspora Judaism, which embraced such diverse places as Babylon, Egypt and Rome, as well as Asia Minor and Greece, see Safrai and Stern 1974, chs. 3, 4, 13; Schürer 3.1–176.

4 See further ch. 10 below.

5 Mk. 12:1–12 and pars. On the economic condition of Palestine in this period see particularly Applebaum 1976, esp. 656–64, 691–2; Oakman 1986, chs. 1–2; Sanders 1992, ch. 9. On the social groupings see Saldarini 1988, chs. 3–4.

6 Thus, for instance, the Sadducee’s aristocratic rejection of the (potentially seditious) Pharisaic doctrine of resurrection: see ch. 10 below.

7 Jos.War 2.427–9. On the poorest class as the likely recruits for revolt, see e.g. War 7.438. Josephus’ concern to blame the lower orders for everything should not blind us to the likelihood that he is here telling the truth. Sanders 1992, ch. 9 argues against the extremely bleak picture painted by some others, but there is no doubt that times were felt to be extremely hard. Brigandage on the scale we find in Josephus (even allowing for exaggeration) does not spring up easily in a time of moderate prosperity.

8 Especially if, as Goodman argues (1987), the aristocracy from the time of Herod until AD 70 consisted of nonentities promoted to power solely by Herod and the Romans.

9 On the national hope see further ch. 10 below.

10 e.g. T. Mos. 5.1–6; Mart. Isa. 3.10, referring back to Isa. 1:10.

11 On brigandage see particularly Horsley 1979a, 1981; Horsley and Hanson 1985; Crossan 1991, ch. 9. The technical term for ‘brigand’ or ‘bandit’ is lestes, often wrongly translated ‘robber’ or ‘thief’ in the NT (e.g. Jn. 18:40 in the AV and RSV): see Hengel 1989 [1961], 24–46. Josephus identifies the Sicarii, the ‘dagger-men’, as lestai (e.g. War 4.198), and aligns lestai with goetes (‘seducers’, i.e. those who lead the people astray) in e.g. Ant. 20.160.

12 See Ant. 14.158–60, 420–30; Schürer 1.275. On the problems of connecting Hezekiah with later movements see below.

13 Ant. 14.172–6; War 1.208–15.

14 T. Mos. 6.2–6.

15 Tac. Hist. 5.9: ‘sub Tiberio quies’. This scarcely warrants the placid picture of the period AD 6–44 sketched by Barnett 1975, 566–71. Sanders 1992, ch. 4, tries to tone down the impression given by some others of constant revolutionary fervour. Certainly one should not imagine that the middle years of the century were perceived, by those who lived through them, in the way we now see them, i.e. as the prelude to a major war. But even Sanders agrees that ‘insurrection was never very far from the surface’ (36).

16 Ant. 17.149–66; War 1.648–55.

17 Ant. 17.206–18; War 2.1–13. Josephus describes the rebels as ‘the revolutionary party of the exegetes’ (stasiotai ton exegeton).

18 It is often pointed out that this sequence, documented in War 2.80–100 and Ant. 17.219–49, 299–323, lies underneath Luke 19:12, 14 and 27; cf. e.g. Evans 1990, 668f.

19 Ant. 17.250–64; War 2.39–50.

20 War 2.55; Ant. 17.269f.

21 Apion 1.34; cp. the rabbinic tradition discussed in Schürer 1.534f. The revolt itself is described in Ant. 17.271–2; War 2.56, and will be discussed further below.

22 Ant. 17.286–98; War 2.66–79.

23 Ant. 17.273–7 and 278–84; War 2.57–98 and 60–5.

24 cf. Jos.War 1.88, pointing out that stasis (insurrection) is most likely to occur at festivals; and Ant. 17.213–18, explicitly linking the riots that followed the eagle-incident to the meaning of the Passover festival.

25 On crucifixion see particularly Hengel 1977.

26 It is possible as well that chronological speculations, based on the prophetic literature, and in particular the hope of release after seventy years of ‘exile’ (Dan. 9:2, 24; Jer. 25:12; 29:10; 2 Chron. 36:21f.; cp. Ant. 10.267; 11.1) may have fuelled hopes of sudden deliverance in the periods of 4 BC and AD 6 (roughly 70 years after the initial Roman invasion), AD 66–70 (roughly 70 years after direct Roman rule began) and AD 132–5 (70 years after the first destruction). See Beckwith 1980, 1981; Cohen 1987, 34. See p. 312f. below.

27 Ant. 17.342–3; War 2.111–13. See the discussion of Archelaus in Schürer 1.353–7.

28 Ant. 18.4–10, 23–5; cf. War 2.118. Ac. 5:37 claims that Judas was executed by the Romans. For this incident, and an account of other revolutionary activities between AD 6 and 66, see Rhoads 1976, ch. 3.

29 Ant. 18.55–9; War 2.169–74; see Schürer 1.381, 384. A similar incident occurred when Vitellius was sent to fight Aretas in AD 37: see Ant. 18.120–3.

30 Ant. 18.60–2; War 2.175–7; Euseb.HE 2.6.6–7; see Schürer 1.385.

31 Lk. 13:1.

32 Lk. 23:18–25. Luke’s description of Barabbas’ activities (committing murder (phonos) during an insurrection (stasis) in the city (polis)) reads just like a sentence from Josephus.

33 On Jesus of Nazareth see vol. 2. Josephus’ account in Ant. 18.63–4 is notoriously controversial (see the discussions in Schürer 1.428–41; Baras 1987), but it seems to me that some parts of it at least are likely to be original. The crucial sentence ho christos houtos en does not mean, as is usually supposed, ‘this man was the Messiah’, but, because of the position of the article, ‘ “the Messiah” was this man’. The implication is that Josephus expects his readers to have heard of someone who bore, almost as a nickname, the title ‘ho christos’ (cf. Suet. Claudius 25, impulsore Chresto), and is simply identifying this person with the one he is now describing. On Jesus’ followers: it is highly likely that some at least of Jesus’ disciples believed themselves to be involved in a movement of national liberation. The title of one of them, Simon ho Kananaios (Mk. 3:18) or Simon ‘called Zelotes’ (Lk. 6:12) probably indicates known revolutionary tendencies. See Hengel 1989 [1961], 69, note. On Jesus’ identification with the lestai see e.g. Mt. 26:55 and pars., and vol. 2 in the present series.

34 Philo Leg. 299–306. This incident (which happens to be recorded through Philo’s work), and those in the gospels, suggest that there may well have been several more such happenings which Josephus has passed over.

35 Ant. 18.85–9.

36 Philo Leg.

37 Ant. 18.302–8; War 2.203. On the incident see Schürer 1.394–8.

38 On his reign and its effects see Schürer 1.442–54.

39 Ant. 20.5.

40 Ant. 20.97–9; Ac. 5:36, where Luke allows the incident to be placed in company with the movements led by Judas the Galilean on the one hand and Jesus of Nazareth on the other.

41 Ant. 20.102; cf. Schürer 1.457.

42 Ant. 20.105–12; War 2.224–7; Ant. 20.113–17; War 2.228–31.

43 Ant. 20.118–36; War 2.232–46. On the details of the incident, and the problem over Tacitus’ account (Ann. 12.54), see Schürer 1.459f.

44 War 2.253.

45 Ant. 20.185–7; War 2.254; cf. Tac. Ann. 12.54. On the Sicarii see particularly Hengel 1989 [1961], 46–53; Horsley 1979b.

46 War 2.258–60. Cf. too the ‘imposters and brigands’ of War 2.264–5.

47 War 2.261–3 (30,000 followers); Ac. 21:38 (4,000).

48 Ant. 20.173–7; War 2.266–70.

49 Ant. 20.188.

50 Ac. 25:1–12.

51 War 2.271.

52 Ant. 20.252–7. This may, of course, be an exaggeration on Josephus’ part. But it is not in itself implausible, if some at least of the brigands were sufficiently desperate to make temporary alliances with a Roman official in order to prosecute their struggle, which was as much with their richer Jewish neighbours as with Rome. On the widespread anger against Florus himself, see e.g. War 2.293, 403.

53 I am thus at this point in substantial agreement with Goodman 1987, 108: ‘There was no separate anti-Roman movement in first-century Judaism; rather, anti-Gentile attitudes which originated long before AD 6, perhaps in Maccabaean times, inspired many different groups, permeating the whole Jewish population and varying only in their intensity.’ See too Horsley and Hanson 1985, xv.

54 On John of Gischala, see War 2.590–632; 4.98–577; 5–6, passim; 7.118, 263–4.

55 War 2.433–49.

56 War 5–6, passim; 7.25–36, 153–4. On Simon’s would-be ‘Davidic’ monarchy see Horsley and Hanson 1985, 119–27.

57 This inevitably involves a certain amount of over-simplification of highly complex issues. I shall not, for instance, discuss further views like those of Cohen 1987, 27–34, who follows Josephus’ ‘official’ position in minimizing the anti-Roman rebellious tendencies of Jews during the century. On the details of the whole struggle see Rhoads 1976, ch. 4. Rhoads lists (148f.) no fewer than ten distinct reasons for intra-Jewish factional disputes. On the modern Christian study of the Zealots see the interesting article of Schwartz 1992, ch. 8.

58 Hengel 1989 [1961]. Cf. too Hayward in Schürer 2.598–606; Stern 1973.

59 See, among many possible references, T.Levi 6.3; T. Jud. 9.2ff.; Jub. 30.18; 1QH 2.15; and, in Christian texts, Ac. 21:20; 22:3; Rom. 10:2; Gal. 1:14; Phil. 3:6. Hengel’s discussion of these and others (1989 [1961], 177–83) is perhaps too careful to separate Paul from the movements he is describing elsewhere; after all, Paul’s ‘zeal’, by his own account, led to actions of violence against those he saw as compromising with paganism. ‘Zeal’ cannot simply be reduced to piety.

60 Thus (a) War 2.444, where the would-be Messiah Menahem goes to the Temple in royal robes accompanied by ‘armed zealots’, zelotas enoplous; Thackeray in the Loeb edition translates this ‘armed fanatics’, though admitting in a note that the Greek seems more specific. (b) War 2.564 speaks of Eleazar the son of Simon ‘and the zealots under his command’; the phrase tous hyp’ auto zelotas is translated ‘his subservient admirers’ by Thackeray, but this seems to me less likely. (c) War 2.651 has ‘zealots’ in Jerusalem already before the war, and before the arrival of the eventual ‘zealot’ leader, John of Gischala (so Donaldson 1990, 34, noting this as an exception to Horsley’s case: see below). (d) War 4.225 speaks of Eleazar ben Gion (or Simon) and Zacharias ben Amphicalleus as leaders of the Zealots. On all this see Hengel 1989 [1961], 380–404. For the use of similar language about Mattathias, the original Maccabaean leader, in Ant. 12.271, see Hengel 155.

61 See further ch. 10 below.

62 Goodman 1987.

63 Compare Josephus’ remarks about the Sadducees, that, whereas the Pharisees are affectionate to one another, the Sadducees are boorish and arrogant both to one another and to outsiders: War 2.166.

64 Goodman 1987, 202–6.

65 e.g. 167ff. on the minimal brigand involvement; 170ff., suggesting (with no solid evidence) that Eleazar, the son of the ex-high priest Ananias, was one of the perpetrators of the ‘joke’ against Florus that helped to spark off the war.

66 Horsley 1979a, 1979b, 1981, 1984, 1985 (with Hanson), 1986a, 1986b, 1987.

67 1986b, 158–61, 190–2. Horsley’s account is supported, with an important modification, by Donaldson 1990; and by Crossan 1991, chs. 6–10.

68 See e.g. War 7.253f., 262, 324. I fail to see the significance of Horsley’s triumphant ‘demolition’ of the idea of Masada as ‘the Zealot’s last stand’ (Horsley and Hanson 1985, xv): it seems to have been the last stand of the Sicarii, and on Horsley’s own showing they were the group with more of a claim to continuity with earlier resistance movements. Hengel argues (1989 [1961], xvi–xvii) that the ‘Sicarii’ did not call themselves by that name, but regarded themselves as the true ‘zealots’, of whom other parties were parodies. It is as hard to disprove as to prove this suggestion.

69 1986a, 3; cp. 1981, 409; 1984, 472.

70 The split is in any way misleading, not least since one of the reasons for revolution was the problem about pollution of the Land, which is itself both a social and a theological issue. In 1986b, 158 Horsley shows some of the hermeneutical assumptions of his arguments: Hengel’s construct was (he says) useful in the 1960s to those who wanted to create a picture of Jesus as the prophet of non-resistance, and needed a historical foil for this. (So too Horsley and Hanson 1985, xiii–xvi.) This may or may not be the case; history is not well served either by such agendas or by their mirror-images (1986b, 192). In any case, even if Horsley were fully correct in restricting the use of the word ‘Zealot’ to the 60s of the first century, this would still not mean (as he implies in 1986b, 161) that there were no advocates of violent resistance in the time of Jesus, or that some of Jesus’ teaching could not have been directed against such movements. On this see e.g. Borg 1971; 1984, chs. 2–3. The question then becomes, not whether there were advocates of violence in the time of Jesus, nor by what name they were called, but what attitude Jesus took to them. This will concern us in the next volume.

71 So Horsley and Hanson 1985, xxi.

72 Horsley 1979a, 58 admits that the ‘bandits’, whom he distinguishes sharply from ‘official “zealots” ’, i.e. resistance fighters, were nevertheless themselves inspired by ‘zeal’. See too Ac. 22:3; Gal. 1:14; Rom. 10:2; Phil. 3:6.

73 cf. Hengel 1989 [1961], 146–83, and the numerous references there.

74 The identification of these Judases is sufficiently uncertain for the two Loeb editors to disagree, with Wikgren in favour (ad Ant. 17.271) and Thackeray against (ad War 2.118). Hengel (1989 [1961], 293, 331) supports the identification, perhaps predictably, as do e.g. Kingdon 1972/3, 80 and Stern 1973, 136; Horsley, equally predictably, rejects it (1984, 485, followed by Donaldson 1990, 24). Other details in Schürer 2.600, n.12.

75 Against Horsley, whose all-important split comes between the Zealots (narrowly defined), of whom he more or less approves, and the Sicarii, of whom he disapproves.

76 I thus agree broadly with the outline of Hengel’s work, while wishing to find different terminology in many cases and to maintain more distinctiveness than he does between some of the different groupings. Horsley’s reliance at certain points on articles by M. Smith (e.g. Smith 1977 [1956], 1971) seems to me ill-founded. Borg 1971 rightly stresses the limitations of the word ‘Zealot’ in Josephus, but then equally correctly concludes (511f.) that one cannot question the reality for which the term ‘Zealot’ is commonly used, namely widespread religiously inspired resistance to Rome, and that such resistance was not the prerogative of one group only, but ‘involved elements from all the major groups’. This means, too, that I wish at least to modify Goodman’s thesis: one cannot blame the aristocracy for everything.

77 See particularly, among the welter of recent literature, the many works of Jacob Neusner; Porton 1986; and Saldarini 1988; Sanders 1990a, 1992; and now especially Mason 1991, which came to hand at a late stage in the redrafting of this chapter, and which seems to me most important. Cf. too Schürer 2.322–403 (bibliography, 381f.) and Gafni 1987.

78 Josephus’ basic statements are in War 1 110; Ant. 17.41; 13.297, describing the Pharisees as experts in Torah; War 2.162–3; Ant. 13.172; 18.12–15, where he presents quite stylized pictures of the Pharisees as though they were a Hellenistic philosophical school (compare Life 12, where the Pharisees are somewhat like the Stoics!). His remarks about his own relation to the Pharisees are in Life 12. He stresses their importance in earlier periods in Ant. 13.288 (where the Hasmonean dynasty acknowledges their authority), 13.298 (where the masses are said to favour them), and 18.17 (according to which the Sadducees submit to Pharisaic teaching for fear that otherwise the common people will resist them: cf. bYom. 19b, bNidd. 33b). For discussion of these, see below.

79 See particularly 4QpNah, and 4QMMT, on which see Baumgarten 1991, 112, 117f. The crucial phrase is ‘those who seek smooth things’, on which see Sanders 1992, 532 n.1; cf. too 1QH 2.15, 32, and CD 1.18.

80 In favour of the identification are e.g. Schürer 1.225 n.22; Dimant 1984, 511f.; Baumgarten 1991, 117; returning an open verdict, Saldarini 1988, 278ff. See further the discussion in Stemberger 1991, 103ff.

81 cf. 4QpNah 1.6f.; 2.2, 4; cp. Jos.War 1.97; Ant. 13.380; and Sanders 1992, 382.

82 For a different reading of the rabbinic sources, based on (what seems to me) a somewhat arbitrary principle of selection, see Rivkin 1969–70.

83 Gal. 1:13–14; Phil. 3:4–6; cf. Rom. 10:2–3.

84 See the well-known passages in e.g. Mk. 2:16ff.; 3:6; 7:1ff., etc., and their parallels; and Ac. 5:34; 15:5; 23:6–9; 26:5.

85 So Schwarz 1983; see Schürer 1.28–31.

86 On Life 10–12 see the detailed study of Mason 1989, and other literature cited there; also Mason 1991, ch. 15.

87 Sanders’ reply to Mason (1992, 532–4) does not seem to me to have damaged his case.

88 See Neusner 1971, 3.304, summarized again in 1991, 79.

89 Though it is still attempted: e.g. Smith 1978, 157.

90 cf. mYad. 3.5, mEduy. 5.3. See now Safrai 1987, 189f.

91 See e.g. Cohen 1984, 36f., one example being the different stories about the riot against Alexander Jannaeus (Ant. 13.372 with tSukk. 3.16).

92 Neusner 1971, 1.208.

93 Neusner 1971, 1.210f.

94 Neusner 1971, 1.300, cf. 294ff. On the meaning of oral Torah see ch. 8 below.

95 See Maccoby 1986, 1991.

96 cf. Saldarini 1988, 241–76. His conclusion is that scribes ‘were varied in background and allegiance and were individuals filling a social role in different contexts rather than a unified political and religious force’ (276). For an attempt to link them closer, see Rivkin 1978; Kampen 1988 (e.g. 219ff.).

97 See e.g. Ant. 17. 152, 155; War 1.648. The description of Judas the Galilean as a sophistes in War 2.118, 433 may belong here also, despite Josephus’ attempt in this account to keep Judas’ movement separate. Cp. Hengel 1989 [1961], 83, 86f., 227, 333. This shows again that the categories of Pharisee and sophistes probably overlap, without becoming identical (against Rivkin’s close identification: 1969–70). For the use of ‘sages’ rather than ‘rabbis’ in the later period see Safrai 1987, xv, and of course Urbach 1987 [1975, 1979].

98 1 Macc. 2:42; 7:12f.; 2 Macc. 14:6. See Davies 1977; Blenkinsopp 1981, 16–19, 23f.; Saldarini 1988, 252; Kampen 1988, passim.

99 e.g. Jeremias 1969a, 246–67.

100 e.g. Rivkin 1969–70, esp. 245f.; Sanders 1977, 154f., following Moore 1927–30, 3.26 and others; see too Sanders 1985, 186ff., and, more cautiously, 1990a, 250. See also Goodman 1987, 82–5. The opposite view is taken in e.g. Schürer 2.398–400.

101 Epict. 3.22.

102 See Schürer 2.396–8, and particularly Baumgarten 1983.

103 This is the view that Sanders attributes to Jeremias (see now Meyer 1991a and Sanders 1991a); and see Rivkin’s view (1969–70, 1978) of the Pharisees supplanting the priests as official teachers of Torah, a view firmly (and in my view rightly) criticized by Mason 1988; Sanders 1992, ch. 10.

104 Neusner 1973, 1991.

105 So Sanders 1985, following Smith 1977 [1956]; in 1992, chs. 18–21, he seems to have softened this line somewhat.

106 Sanders 1990a, esp. chs. 3 and 5.

107 War 1.112. Sanders 1992, 382f., thinks that Josephus is accurate at this point.

108 Ant. 13.416.

109 See Sanders 1990a ch. 3, and the reply of Neusner 1991, esp. 89f. Neusner seems to me, despite his polemic, to admit the force of at least part of Sanders’ point, when he says that, according to the Mishnah (referring particularly to mHag. 2.5–3.3, a passage whose relevance is denied by Rivkin 1969–70), the Pharisees ‘are persons who eat unconsecrated food in a state of cultic cleanness, or, more accurately, within the hierarchy of states of cultic cleanness …’ (my italics). In other words, a distinction is made between the broadly-stated position often taken as Neusner’s, that Pharisees (or possibly haberim) ate their food in the purity appropriate for priests in the Temple, and the nuanced position here articulated, in which Pharisaic purity is of a different degree within the same scale as that which applied to those working in the Temple. Cf. too the story of Johanan ben Gudgada (mHag. 2.7) who is mentioned, as though he were an exception to the general rule, as having always eaten his regular food according to the second most stringent code for priests, i.e. that for those who ‘eat of hallowed things’. To the extent that Sanders is challenging Neusner’s broader point (see e.g. 1990a, 248) he is surely correct.

110 See Goodman 1987, 99f., following Mary Douglas; Saldarini 1988, 286.

111 Ant. 18.12.

112 Ant. 13.288–98, and 299, on which cf. Sanders 1992, 380. For the possibility that Pharisees were involved in the riot against Jannaeus (War 1.88f.; Ant. 13.372f). cf. Sanders 381f. The fuller statements on the Pharisees in the Ant. cannot simply, in this light, be a later pro-rabbinic exaggeration (against Goodblatt’s following of Smith’s bald assertion: Goodblatt 1989; Smith 1977 [1956], see the proper critique of this position in Mason 1990, 367–71, and Stemberger 1991, 23). On Pharisees and Hasmoneans cf. Schwartz 1992, ch. 2.

113 Ant. 15.3. That this was not a pro-Herodian act is clear from Ant. 14.172ff., esp. 176.

114 See Mason 1988; Sanders 1992, ch. 10.

115 Mk. 3:6; Ac. 9:1–2.

116 See Gafni 1987, 9f., and below.

117 See Cohen 1984, esp. 42ff., and Neusner 1991, 92f., against Sanders (see next note). It all depends, of course, on how one defines ‘sect’: see Blenkinsopp 1981, 1f.

118 Sanders (e.g. 1990a, 248) has challenged this view in terms of its detail: the Pharisees did not attempt to live in all respects like priests, but merely made some symbolic gestures in that direction. Cohen’s argument (1984) is more a priori, and powerful in establishing the mood of Jewish sectarianism: in setting itself up as a sect, a Jewish group was automatically staking a claim for itself over against the Temple. Here is the rationale for at least a symbolic gesture towards imitating the priests’ Temple-based purity codes.

119 e.g. Ant. 15.4; 17.41–4. On their veneration of prophets, Mt. 23:29–31. See Webb 1991, 326–32, showing the essentially political (and potentially eschatological/messianic) dimension of Pharisaic prophecy.

120 See the discussions of this sort of position in Goodman 1987, 107f., 209f. The possibility of a split within Pharisaism is, surprisingly, not discussed by Sanders 1992.

121 Ant. 15.370. Samaias had spoken out against Herod at his trial for killing the brigand Hezechias (Ant. 14.172–6) On the possible identity of this Samaias with the great teacher Shammai see Gafni 1987, 10; there is no need to link this with a possible identification of Pollio, Samaias’ companion, with Hillel, and indeed this political action is far more likely to have been carried out by Shammai and a close associate, not his arch-opponent.

122 Ant. 17.41–5; War 1.571–3. These passages are discussed by Schwarz 1983 (attributing the anti-Pharisaic statements to Nicolas); Baumgarten 1991, 119f.; Sanders 1992, 384 and 532 n.5 (suggesting that the two accounts of oath-refusal are doublets, with the latter the more accurate); and now Mason 1991, passim. For the Pharisees’ generally negative attitude towards Herod see e.g. Alon 1977, 37–40. On the significance of the Ant. passage for the size of the Pharisaic party, see below.

123 War 1.567–72; Ant. 17.41–5.

124 Ant. 17.149–67; War 1.648–55; see p. 172 above. See Stern 1973, 144, linking this movement both with the later revolt and with the House of Shammai; Sanders 1992, 384f.

125 Ant. 17.149.

126 Ant. 17.152.

127 Ant. 18.4–10; War 2.118. See p. 173 above.

128 cf. too War 2.433, where he is describes as sophistes deinotatos, ‘a most forceful teacher’. The description of someone as deinos kai sophos, ‘skilful and wise’, goes back at least as far as Herodotus 5.23 and Sophocles (Philoctetes 440). On Pharisaic involvement with revolt at this stage and subsequently see Schürer 2.603 n.36 (written by C. T. R. Hayward); Sanders 1992, 385.

129 Mason 1991, 282–5, suggests that the association of Pharisees with the revolt is a ‘wild insinuation’ designed to blacken their reputation. This seems to me to carry Mason’s revisionist thesis too far. I here prefer Sanders 1992, 408f.

130 Gal. 1:13–14.

131 On the possibility that Saul was a Shammaite see below.

132 Ant. 19.332–4. According to a variant reading, the charge related to Agrippa’s part-Edomite descent. See Feldman’s note in the Loeb edition of Josephus, 9.370f. The point is irrelevant for the present discussion. There is no good reason to doubt that this Simon really was a Pharisee (see Goodblatt 1989, 27).

133 War 2.258–9.

134 So Hengel 1989 [1961], 233, following Zeitlin.

135 Ant. 20.200–2; the description of the protesters is at 201. See Baumgarten 1983, 413f.

136 War 4.159 (where he is called Symeon); Life 189–98. For the suggestion that John too was a Pharisee see Roth 1962, 69, with Jos.Life 74–6.

137 War 2.451; he is mentioned as a Pharisee in Life 197, 290.

138 Hengel 1989 [1961], 123.

139 Hengel 1989 [1961], 88, with details; cp. also 401f., and esp. Sanders 1992, 224–9, 407ff. There is a photograph of the Masada bathing-pools in Stern 1973, 140.

140 See Gafni 1987, 11, citing mShabb. 1.4; tShabb. 1.16–20; yShabb. 1, 3c; bShabb. 13b. These passages discuss the ‘18 decrees’, which enforced a stricter separation between Jews and Gentiles; the Shammaites imposed these, against Hillelite opposition, not long before the outbreak of war in 66. Cf. Cohen 1979, 218 n.73; Hengel 1989 [1961], 200–6: Hengel speaks of a ‘deep inner division within the Pharisaical party, in which the more radical Shammaitic wing was relatively close to the Zealot movement’ (206, cf. 334f.).

141 So Hengel 1989 [1961], 334, following Finkelstein, Moore and Schlatter. See particularly e.g. mShabb. 1.4, with its ‘patriotic undertones’ (Roth 1962, 78).

142 So Finkelstein 1962 [1938], 619f., discussed in Hengel 1989 [1961], 333f. See too Schäfer 1990, 296, arguing that between 70 and 135 there existed a large number of Jews who had assimilated to Roman culture, and who were predominantly city-dwellers.

143 Alon 1977, 43f., 47.

144 See now, rightly, Mason 1990, and esp. 1991, 372f., against Smith and his followers.

145 Sanders 1985, e.g. 194–8, 292; 1992, 14, 398, 412, etc., following Smith 1977 [1956], 1978, 153–7. Sanders’ new book (1992), however, makes no mention of the geographical point on which he laid such stress in 1985.

146 See e.g. Dunn 1988, esp. 280f.; Goodman 1987, 73ff.; Freyne 1988, 200ff. Dunn notes in particular the incident in Ant. 20.38–48, involving a Pharisee from Galilee named Eleazar. In addition to the arguments presented by Dunn, we might consider passages such as mYad. 4.8, which describes a dispute between Pharisees and ‘a Galilean heretic’; and the evidence for a strong hasidic movement in Galilee (see Gafni 1987, 13, citing Safrai).

147 yShabb. 16.8 (15d end).

148 Against Smith 1978, 157. Freyne (1980, 341 n.74) dismisses the possibility, suggested by Finkel and Abrahams, of Shammai himself being a Galilean. See Neusner 1970, 47 for Johanan’s residence in Galilee for eighteen years, probably between AD 20 and 40, and ibid. 47, 51 for Hanina ben Dosa also living in the area. For the possibility that Johanan had been part of the delegation sent to Josephus, see Roth 1962, 72f. Smith’s idea that the Pharisees sent as a delegation to Galilee after the start of the war ‘had been chosen to impress the Galileans by their rarity’ (Smith 1978, 157) is faintly ridiculous.

149 Saul of Tarsus, Ac. 9:1f.; Josephus, Life 62ff.; Jonathan, Ananias, Jozar and Simon (the latter from the high priestly family, the rest being Pharisees), Life 196ff.; one of Johanan’s pupils, sent to investigate a strange holy man who was living at Beth Rama, probably in Galilee (Freyne 1980, 316).

150 Josephus’ figure of ‘over 6,000’ has been greatly over-used in modern discussion, and sometimes distorted (Freyne 1988, 200, says ‘no more than 6,000’; my italics).

151 On this point see now Stemberger 1991, 129–35.

152 MekEx. on 17.14 (1.2.158). On Eliezer see Schürer 2.373–4, and particularly Neusner 1973 (for the Shammaite influence on Eliezer, cf. Neusner 1973, vol.2, index s.v. Shammai, House of; Neusner notes (e.g. 2.307–10) that the later rabbinic traditions by no means uniformly support the view that Eliezer was a Shammaite, but this is most likely a later toning down of a problematic tradition); and Hengel 1989 [1961] 108f. I think Hengel in turn tones down unnecessarily the possibility that Eliezer himself, whom he describes as ‘a “Zealot” among learned Jews’, may have been active in promoting, and not merely hoping for, revolution. See too Neusner 1979, arguing (23–30) that Eliezer represented a post-70 continuation of pre-70s Pharisaism, though not in a slavish fashion, while Johanan ben Zakkai represented the old scribal tradition (ibid., 37ff.).

153 See Neusner, 1973, 1979.

154 See the discussions in Gafni 1984, 31; Schäfer 1990, who argues that the bar-Kochba revolt was led by priests and supported by rural folk still loyal to Torah (297).

155 On Akiba see Schäfer 1978, 65–121; 1980; 1981; Schürer 1.543f., 552 n.173; 2.378–8; Urbach 1987 [1975], 673f.Alon 1977, 45f. argues strongly that ‘the majority of the Pharisees were in agreement with R. Akiba and Bar Kokhba’.

156 yTaan. 68d, with the objection coming from R. Yohanan ben Torta: see Beckwith 1981, esp. 536–9. For the view that the objection concerns bar-Kochba’s not coming from Davidic stock, see Urbach 1987 [1975], 674. Even in this case, the objectors would still have been happy in principle with the idea of a nationalist, Davidic Messiah who would come to lead Israel in a war of liberation (against Schäfer 1990, 290ff., who sees Akiba as perhaps in a minority; this seems unlikely in view of the veneration of Akiba in later Judaism despite the rejection of his political stance).

157 Sanders 1992, 412 repeats the usual view, that the post-70 rabbis are the direct heirs of the pre-70 Pharisees.

158 Notably, of course, Rivkin 1978. See the criticisms by Cohen 1980 and Baumgarten 1991, 110–14. As we saw earlier, to retreat from active ‘political’ life is itself a ‘political’ decision.

159 mAb. 3.5. Murphy 1985 has argued that 2 Bar. represents a similar position.

160 mAb. 3.6. The discussion goes on to assert that the same is true where five study; where three; where two; and even where one studies alone.

161 See Schürer 2.454–5; on Akiba see bBer. 61b. Even if this account is wholly legendary it supports the basic point about the link between this prayer and revolutionary aspirations. For the Shema as a proclamation of the kingdom of god see Hengel 1989 [1961], 92–9.