The Karaites are Jews who accept the authority of the Hebrew Bible but reject the authority of the rabbinic traditions. (The Karaites are not believers in Jesus and so have that in common with rabbinic Jews.) Their name is derived from the Hebrew root k-r-’ (or q-r-’), “to read,” related most directly to the noun mikra’ (or miqra’), “Scripture.” Thus, the Karaites see themselves as the ultimate “people of the Book.” What are the origins of this Jewish group, a group that numbers less than fifteen thousand people today?
An official Karaite website boldly states:
Karaism is the original Judaism which has existed throughout history under various names including Righteous, Sadducees, Boethusians, Ananites and Karaites, all of whom obeyed the Torah with no additions.[112]
What exactly does this mean? Their website spells things out in greater detail:
Karaism has been around since God gave his laws to the Jewish people. At first those who followed YHWH’s laws were merely called “Righteous” and it was only in the 9th century CE that they came to be called Karaites. The question of why God’s followers are today called Karaites is really a question of the origin of the other sects. At first there was no reason to label the righteous as a separate sect because there was only the one sect which consisted of the whole Jewish people. Throughout history a variety of sects appeared and it was only to distinguish the righteous from these other groups which caused them in different periods to take on such names as Sadducees, Boethusians, Ananites, and Karaites.[113]
So then, just as traditional Jews today claim to be the true bearers of the Torah, the Karaites make a similar boast. They argue that: (1) in Old Testament times, those called “righteous” were identical to those later called Karaites, since the righteous in biblical times adhered to the written Torah without the rabbinic traditions, just as the Karaites do; (2) once Pharisaic Judaism began to develop more than two thousand years ago, the Pharisees ostracized other groups like the Sadducees and Boethusians (a sect apparently closely related to the Sadducees), since these groups rejected the Pharisaic traditions. According to the Karaites, it was groups like the Sadducees and Boethusians that were authentic and true to the Torah, while it was the Pharisees, whose traditions developed into rabbinic Judaism, who were the inauthentic ones; (3) beginning in the eighth or ninth century a.d., the true followers of Torah were identified as Ananites (i.e., followers of Anan ben David; for more on him, see immediately below) and then as Karaites, the latter name sticking to this day. Thus the Karaites trace themselves back 3,500 years to Moses and the Torah.
Is there any truth to this claim? On the one hand, it is similar to the Islamic claim that all past true worshipers—including Abraham, Moses and Jesus—were actually Muslims. That is to say, the Karaites are projecting their own beliefs back onto the Bible, just as Muslims do (with the very marked distinction that the Quran rewrites and distorts the Tanakh and New Testament whereas the Karaites hold tenaciously to the veracity of the Tanakh). On the other hand, the Karaites are correct in rejecting the antiquity of Pharisaic Judaism, meaning, they are correct in stating that the rabbinic traditions do not go back to Moses in an authoritative, unbroken chain.
From a historical standpoint, however, the Karaites are wrong in claiming that there has been an unbroken chain of Karaite Jews. Rather, rabbinic Judaism largely held the day among the Jewish people for a number of centuries, with relatively few dissenting voices, until it was challenged by Anan ben David and others beginning in the eighth to ninth centuries a.d. Anan proclaimed himself the exilarch of Babylonian Jewry—this was a leading, governing position—and led other antirabbinic Jews into a different expression of Judaism, one that was subsequently developed into Karaism by more practically minded, yet antirabbinic Jews. (According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Anan’s legislation “was better fitted for the world-renouncing recluse than for the free citizen of the world.”[114])
This growing antirabbinic movement—specifically, in its initial Ananite phase—was the subject of strong polemical attacks by Rabbi Saadiah Gaon, the leading tenth-century voice in Babylon (a.d. 892–942), and his writings helped turn the tide against the anti-rabbinic Jews. The Karaite attack on rabbinic Judaism was fierce as well, as reflected in a famous antirabbinic polemic by the tenth-century Karaite leader Salmon ben Yeruham, part of which contrasted the spirit of the Mishnah (see #3) with the spirit of the Bible:
I have discovered in my heart another argument,
A handsome one, and majestic enough
To be placed as a crown for the Karaites,
To be their ornament, pride, and glory.
I have looked again into the six divisions of the Mishnah,
And behold, they represent the words of modern men.
There are no majestic signs and miracles in them,
And they lack the formula: “And the Lord spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron.”
I therefore put them aside, and I said, There is no true Law in them,
For the Law is set forth in a different manner,
In a majestic display of prophets, of signs, and of miracles;
Yet all this majestic beauty we do not see in the whole Mishnah.[115]
So then, according to the Karaites, the rabbinic writings were the words of men, in sharp contrast with the Scriptures, which were the Word of God.
Some scholars have estimated that, at its heyday, roughly one thousand years ago, Karaite Jews made up as much as 10 percent of the world’s Jewish population, presenting a real threat to rabbinic Judaism, which had limited or no authority over them in some of the Muslim lands in which both Karaite Jews and rabbinic Jews lived. During this golden age of Karaism, a number of fine commentaries were written on parts of the Tanakh—indeed, the greatest of the Karaites were excellent Hebrew scholars and thoroughly immersed in the biblical text—but only a tiny portion of these writings has been preserved. Other important legal material was developed by the Karaite authors, although, again, almost none of it has been preserved. Ironically, a book entitled Hizzuk Emunah (meaning “Faith Strengthened”), which religious Jews often cite as the most effective, anti-Christian work ever written, was penned by a sixteenth-century Karaite, Isaac Troki! Subsequent editions of this book incorporate quotes from the Talmud and other rabbinic sources—sources that Troki himself would have repudiated—making it appear more “orthodox.” So, a major polemical work used by rabbinic Jews for centuries was actually written by a Karaite.
On the flip side, it is ironic that the Karaites developed traditions and law codes of their own, some of which were in harmony with rabbinic traditions, which would seem to support the rabbinic claim that, without their oral traditions, it is impossible to observe the Torah (see #3). The Karaites, however, claimed that their traditions were subject to the Scriptures and were derived by proper scriptural interpretation.[116]
In any case, over the course of the centuries, Karaite numbers dwindled dramatically, squeezed out by the overwhelming numbers of rabbinic Judaism, and thus a popular online entry states: “At one time Karaites were a significant portion of the Jewish population. However today there are left an estimated 2,000 Karaites in the USA, about 100 families in Istanbul, and about 12,000 in Israel, most of them living near the town of Ramleh.”[117]
Earlier in this book, we explained why traditional Jewish men wear white fringes on their clothes, why they put black boxes, called phylacteries or tefillin, on their heads and left arms when they pray and why they wear side curls (see #18, #19 and #20). In contrast, Karaite Jews wear blue fringes, do not use phylacteries and do not wear side curls. The Karaite explanations for their practices, in contrast with rabbinic Judaism, provide excellent example of contemporary Karaite biblical interpretation. For the question of the fringes, see http://www.karaite-korner.org/tzitzit.shtml; for the question of phylacteries, see http://www.karaite-korner.org/tefillin.shtml; for the question of shaving and wearing side curls, see http://www.karaite-korner.org/shaving.shtml.