Jesus, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, Peter, James, and Paul—all were Jews of the first century A.D. But what did it mean to be Jewish at that time? A topic on everybody’s mind was how to relate Torah to the times, how to blend Judaism with the demands of a new modern international civilization. Prior to these New Testament individuals coming on the scene, Jewish leaders had been working creatively to devise strategies for coping with Hellenization. Over time, four distinct factions had arisen, chiefly in response to the serious assault on Jewish survival posed by Antiochus Epiphanes. His dire threat served to galvanize the Jewish community into action. Factious groups—all within Judaism— offered various paths to ensuring Jewish continuity.
These different approaches to the problem contributed to the confusion. For the first time, ordinary Jews had choices within Judaism. By exploring these factions, it’s possible to have a better vantage point from which to view the unique contributions of Jesus and the alternative he proposed to the political and social messages then current. It will also set the stage for understanding the radical Hellenized nature of Paul’s message and why it so offended traditional Jews.
The Sadducees were the “country club” faction of Jewish society: wealthy, connected, and firmly in control of business and religion. They arose shortly after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, in the midsecond century B.C., forming the Temple and political elite. They lived, for the most part, in the better residential sections of Jerusalem—on the prestigious western ridge connected by a private causeway to Temple Mount. Thus they were able to avoid life in the congested lower city of Jerusalem and did not have to mingle with the vast throngs of pilgrims wending their way up the huge staircases to present their offerings. They were the priests and high priests in charge of the Temple and its sacrifices. They held this exalted position throughout the decades of the first century B.C. right up until A.D. 70. The only exception was during the brief reign of Queen Salome Alexandra (76—67 B.C.), when the Pharisees exercised control for a decade.
In antiquity, a temple was a much larger enterprise than what we understand by a church or synagogue today. For us, religious centers—even the new “megachurches”—tend to have only a few clergy and perhaps a paid education director, choir master, choir, cantor, organist, and office staff all supported by dozens of volunteers. Even the largest of our churches and synagogues do not measure up to what constituted an ancient temple.
We need to visualize the Jewish Temple as by far the largest industry within the country, the focal point of agriculture, worship, local government, law, and tourism. People would come to Jerusalem for major festivals—Passover, Shavuot, and Succoth—and they had to be accommodated. Those who wished to offer sacrifice would bring their best animals or produce, to offer it within the Temple and to share in the food with the blessings of God and the participation of the priests. Unlike modern religious institutions, the Temple engaged the services of tens of thousands of individuals. It was a massive economic enterprise, being a religious center, butcher shop, restaurant, law court, and civil administration all wrapped up into one huge complex.
Herod the Great vastly extended Temple Mount before he died in 4 B.C. He rebuilt the Temple, making it and its platform into one of the largest religious complexes the ancient world had ever seen. It stood high on the highest point of the eastern ridge of Jerusalem, splendidly reflecting the light of the sun in all directions. Priests, Levites, animal inspectors, judges, and scribes all worked there, each with their specific tasks prescribed by tradition. Establishments such as foreign currency exchange kiosks, clothing stores, food shops, ritual baths, as well as housing for visitors were in evidence. So, too, undoubtedly, were the souvenir stands. By the early part of the first century A.D., Jerusalem and its magnificent Temple had become a showcase city … and one of the Roman world’s prime tourist destinations. It truly was big business.
Later rabbinic tradition would wistfully look back on these glory days with pride and yearning. One text boasted that whoever had not seen Jerusalem in its glory had never seen a beautiful city in his life. The text nostalgically went on to say that whoever had not seen the Temple while it was still standing had never seen a beautiful building in his life (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 51b). It was an impressive sight that drew hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually.
The Sadducees benefited from this rich economy and were wealthier than most. Their luxurious villas were opulent. Today we can walk through the ruins of homes of wealthy priests that have been unearthed beneath the modern dwellings of the present-day Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. These “Herodian mansions” furnish eloquent testimony to their owners’ participation in the best that their world had to offer. Their homes were spacious and boasted beautiful floor mosaics, ornate wall designs, and large rooms. We can imagine the inhabitants routinely immersing themselves in the ritual baths set inside the houses. They must have entertained lavishly, for huge jars of provisions such as oil and wine have been found, along with finely crafted dishware.1
These elite members of society were more open to Hellenistic thought, culture, and practices than were other sectors of the community. The reason was simple: their livelihood depended on getting along with their political masters—Greek and, later on, Roman. They had to make arrangements work. Hence they were more cosmopolitan in outlook than other Jewish groups, provided that their livelihood and the Temple sacrifices were not compromised. For the most part, they worked out a modus vivendi with the occupying power. They looked after the Temple, its rituals, commerce, government, and trade, while the troops remained garrisoned in a not-too-distant corner of Temple Mount to ensure the peace. More than most factions, they were sensitive to troublemakers and rebels. Messianic claimants to the Jewish throne fitted into this category, for they had the potential to disturb the peace. The Sadducees had the most to lose should rebellion occur, and they did their utmost to help keep the peace for their foreign masters. Accommodation was their strategy for dealing with Hellenization.
In terms of religious beliefs, the Sadducees favored the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, as the authoritative texts. They gave little weight to the two other divisions—the Prophets and the Writings—that came to make up the Hebrew Bible. They also did not believe in an afterlife, since there is no mention of that topic in the Books of the Torah. So making the most of this life was vitally important. Rejection of an afterlife brought the Sadducees into major disputes with other forms of Judaism, whose followers by the first century B.C. had come to believe in eternal life and the resurrection of the dead.
As described in the New Testament, early members of the Jesus Movement typically ran afoul of the Sadducee high priest over this very issue. So, too, did the Pharisees, who, like early followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, affirmed belief in eternal life. In one of the most amusing incidents in the New Testament, Paul was depicted being in Jerusalem and talking about resurrection before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council (Acts 23). Noting that there were Sadducees and Pharisees in the room, Paul cleverly observed that he was on trial because he believed in the resurrection of the dead. Needless to say, this set off a huge ruckus and sparked a shouting match between the Sadducees and Pharisees. Paul was almost forgotten in the fray.
The Sadducees did not survive the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70. As economic and religious leaders in Jerusalem, they were targeted by the Roman troops for elimination, and, for the most part, they were. They perished along with the Temple in which they had performed the required sacrifices.
The Pharisees were the faculty of ancient Judaism. They functioned as scholars and teachers, focusing on teaching people Jewish law. For them, education constituted the most effective bulwark against Hellenization. They ran schools, not the Temple sacrifices that formed the focal point of Jewish worship in the ancient world.
The New Testament often mentions the Pharisees. In the gospels, they are typically portrayed as opponents who shadowed Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew, for instance, Jesus is depicted as denouncing the Pharisees for hypocrisy. This may represent an unfair portrait, however, for they were highly popular teachers and their scholars attracted huge crowds. The Book of Acts, in fact, presents a different picture of the Pharisees than the Gospels do, seeing them as defenders of the Jesus Movement. In one instance, the leaders in Jerusalem are arrested by the Sadducee high priest and hauled into court. The leader of the Pharisees, Gamaliel, “respected by all the people,” spoke in their defense. He noted that there had been many messianic claimants—Theudas and Judas the Galilean, for instance—and he urged the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin, to let these leaders alone. His rationale was that if the movement was “of God,” then it would be futile to oppose them. Conversely, if the movement did not come from God, then it would wither away like the other messianic movements (Acts 5:17—39). The Book of Acts also mentions that some Pharisees had become members of the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem. So who were they, really?
Like the Sadducees, the Pharisees arose as a group after the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, although their beginnings are somewhat murky. They may have emerged out of a group of ultraorthodox supporters of Judas Maccabeus called the Hasidim, or they could have had a separate origin. They resisted the intrusion of Hellenization into Jewish life by teaching the traditions, anchoring the people in the covenant and the observance of Torah.
However they originated, by 100 B.C. they were clearly a force to be reckoned with. So much so that by the early decades of the first century B.C., they were thrust into a civil war with the Sadducees over the direction of society. Alexander Jannaeus, the king and high priest who governed Israel from 103 to 76 B.C., was a ruthless ruler who slew six thousand of his citizens, including Pharisees and their supporters, during a Succoth festival. Apparently, as a Sadducee, he had not carried out the rites properly. He poured water on his feet rather than on the altar as the Pharisees preferred. This incident sparked an ensuing revolt during which Alexander slaughtered fifty thousand of his subjects. Later on we find Jannaeus crucifying eight hundred Pharisaic leaders as their wives and children were killed before their eyes.
As these events indicate, disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees were bitter and often deadly. These were not just religious in nature but, as so often happens with religion, they were fierce political battles as well—so much so that virtual civil war erupted from time to time between the Sadducees and Pharisees.
After his death, Jannaeus’s wife, Salome Alexandra, ruled as queen from 76 to 67 B.C. She switched sides and placed the Pharisees in control of the Temple. The reasons for this abrupt turn of events are not clear, but it may have reflected growing popular approval of the Pharisees among the people. It was only during her reign, however, that they ever enjoyed such political power in Jerusalem. Now it was the turn of the Sadducees to feel persecuted. Some Sadducees may have left the unfavorable political climate of Jerusalem at this time for the relative safety and obscurity of the Dead Sea area.
The Pharisees were not the priestly political elite. They saw their mission quite differently. They were teachers of Torah, a position that required a two-year training program. Thus they taught biblical texts, explained them, and encouraged people to observe the commandments. We can visualize them going through the Book of Deuteronomy, for instance, outlining the laws and commandments and providing illustrations of what these meant for ordinary people in their day-to-day lives. For them, the Bible consisted of three parts: the five Books of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. This is the same as the Hebrew Bible for Judaism or the Protestant Old Testament today.
Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees believed in an afterlife. They thought that in the world to come, God would raise up the righteous from the dead. Along with righteous people then alive, the resurrected dead would live eternally in a re-created world where there would be universal peace and all people would worship the one God. As the Pharisees and other Jewish groups of the time thought of it, “the world to come” represented that point in human history when God would act decisively to remake the world. So they looked forward to a re-created earth, populated by the righteous, worshipping the one God, eternally, the way creation was meant to be. Paul later built upon this view of resurrection in his letter, 1 Corinthians. Resurrection represents a very different view of the afterlife than is found in many Jewish, Christian, and Islamic groups today. These build more upon an “immortality of the soul” concept popularized by Plato and other Greek philosophers as well as by ancient Egyptian religion.
The Pharisees possessed a powerful weapon, the “oral law,” in addition to the “written law” found in the scrolls. Everybody else had access to the written law—but only the Pharisees had the oral tradition. This was a remarkably flexible interpretive principle, helping to illuminate passages from the Bible and making them applicable to daily life. They thought that along with the written text of the Books of the Law, this oral tradition went back to the time of Moses. Without the oral law acting as a guide, many parts of the biblical text would be difficult to act upon. For example, the meaning of the written commandment “to observe” or “to remember” the Sabbath would not be clear without reference to an oral tradition that interpreted the prohibited activities. What does observing the Sabbath require? people would have asked their Pharisaic teachers. What kinds of things could they do and not do on the Sabbath that would enable them to “keep it holy”? This was a practical question by homemakers, farmers, craftsmen, traders, and merchants scattered across the land who were concerned to take the precepts of the law seriously. But how should it be interpreted? Could they cook, for instance? Travel? Look after the livestock? Repair tents? Buy or sell fish? Do home repairs? Discuss business? Fetch water?
Moreover, when did the Sabbath start? When did it end? In the world before clocks, this was an important question. In time, Jewish groups would determine temporal markers—counting the number of visible stars in the sky Friday evening, for one thing, to mark the onset of the day of rest. In Jerusalem, people had an advantage. On the southwest corner of Temple Mount, there was a “place of trumpeting,” that is, an area where a trumpeter stood to announce the onset and the close of the Sabbath. The stone sign for this location exists to this day.
The Pharisees used oral law to help answer these practical questions. Other groups were also addressing these issues, by different means. One surviving document of the Dead Sea Scroll community laid out its interpretation of what the commandment meant in actual practice.2 The Damascus Document prohibited such activities as: making financial decisions, doing business, preparing food, taking things out of the house or bringing goods into it, walking more than two thousand cubits, spending the Sabbath in a place near to Gentiles, and so on.3 These interpretations created the pattern for Sabbath observance at Qumran. The Sabbath there would have been a quiet, reflective time. Judaism had not yet established the thirty-nine categories of creative work prohibited on the Sabbath—that would come somewhat later—but groups were already moving in that direction.
The process of interpretation was greatly assisted by the efforts of two prominent Pharisaic teachers: Hillel the Elder and Shammai. Each founded a school—the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai—and they disagreed over Torah interpretation. According to later sources, there were over three hundred points at issue. Most, in time, became settled in accordance with the more liberal views of Hillel.
Hillel lived just prior to Jesus, from the midfirst century B.C. to about A.D. 20. Someone outside the Jewish religion approached him and asked him to summarize Jewish law, standing on one leg. He obliged, saying, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and study it,” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 3la). Somewhat later, Jesus, too, would speak of the Golden Rule in terms similar to that of Hillel but expressed positively: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). Hillel added an important last phrase: “Go and study it.” Providing an encapsulation of the law did not replace Torah. Rather, it provided a starting point. It constituted the first step in understanding its meaning.
Later sources tell of Hillel standing in a marketplace in Jerusalem. People passed him going to and fro on their way to work. Hillel asked, “How much will you make today?” “Perhaps one coin,” said one. “Two coins,” said another. Hillel inquired, “And what will you do with the money?” One person responded that by working, he’d be able to provide for the necessities of life. Hillel then followed up with a zinger: “Why not come with me and make Torah your possession, that you may possess both this and the world to come?” (Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, recension B, 26). So the challenge was this: What’s of greatest value? What should be our greatest priority?
Later on, Jesus would make much the same point in parables that tout the Kingdom of God as life’s greatest treasure.
The oral law is often misunderstood as having been given, in its totality, on Mount Sinai along with the written law. Nor should it be pictured as a kind of secret lore that was passed on, person to person, whispered to select individuals throughout history from Moses on down to the present day. The Torah or written law is like legislative law: it sets forth the broad principles that are to be followed. It’s like present-day constitutions and other foundational pieces of legislation that govern society. Oral law, on the other hand, is analogous to judicial law, the ever-growing body of interpretation of the law, with its cases, judgments, and precedents. This tradition of debating, interpreting, agreeing upon, or continuing to disagree about the meaning of the fixed text—that’s oral law.
In time, the oral law became codified. Pronouncements by various rabbis, including Hillel and Shammai and many others, were collected and edited around A.D. 200 by Rabbi Judah haNasi (Judah the Prince). This writing is known as the Mishnah. Over the next three centuries, commentaries were produced on the Mishnah, providing further interpretation and examples, and this became known as the Gemara. The Mishnah and the Gemara together are referred to as the Talmud. This was the greatest blog ever created—debate, responses, as well as interpretive commentaries over the centuries: it was all there, like one gigantic electronic thread spanning hundreds of years.
The Pharisees survived the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in A.D. 70 in part because they were not concentrated just in Jerusalem. They assumed the leadership role in reconstructing Judaism after the destruction of the Temple, to take religious traditions into the home and the community. It is through the insights of these sages that we get Rabbinic Judaism, and, hence, modern Judaism.
In the gospels, Jesus was depicted as having conversations with Jewish leaders, chiefly Pharisees. Why primarily the Pharisees? For one thing, Pharisees were located throughout Israel, including the Galilee, where Jesus typically taught. More importantly, other than the members of the Jesus Movement who were then still part of the Jewish family, the Pharisees were the only major Jewish group to have survived the Roman onslaught of 70 with the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. Gospel authors wrote after this event, and they would naturally depict Jesus talking and discussing matters with the religious leaders of their own time. Thus they typically used a Jesus-Pharisee dialogue to heighten the contrast between their movement and Pharisaic Judaism. Both were in transition, and it was important for writers during the latter part of the first century to pit the views of Jesus against those of the Pharisees. Whether he did so in real life, and whether he talked primarily with Pharisees, is hard to say.
Had there been newspapers at the time, the members of the Dead Sea Scroll sect or Essenes would have expected to wake up one morning to read on the front page of the Jerusalem Trumpet the following headline:
EVIL ERADICATED, THE RIGHTEOUS REWARDED
Jerusalem. All evil rulers have disappeared. No more Romans occupy the land. Righteous people who have followed the law in its entirety are now in control. The righteous dead have, miraculously, returned to life—suddenly we have Abraham, Sarah, Moses, David, Solomon, Amos, Ezra, Esther, and many others in our midst who are shocked and bewildered by what has happened to them.
Israel has become the preeminent state in the world and people from all over the globe are beginning to flock to it. A new Davidic king—the long-awaited Messiah—has been installed in Jerusalem. All people acknowledge the sovereignty of God. Everyone who is righteous has eternal life. Peace reigns.
See details. Interviews with Moses and David.
This was their powerful vision—a wonderful new era in human history, a complete re-creation of the world as we know it. Much like messianic cults today, they thought they were living in the worst of times, that society was totally corrupt, and that the only way to escape God’s wrath was separation from the rest of society. This they did, and they harbored no doubts that God was poised to act decisively within human history.
These end-time dramatic events would unfold during their lifetimes, they confidently asserted, although they were unsure how it would come about. According to one document, God would act, assisted by two Messiahs—one political and one priestly. Along with mighty archangels, God and his Messiahs would help the members of their sect wage war against all the unrighteous of the world. Then the righteous who had remained faithful to the Torah would be rewarded with eternal life. At other times, the scrolls talked of one Messiah. One remarkable document, 4Q521,4 A Messianic Apocalypse, said that “the Heavens and the earth will obey His Messiah.” This writing went on to affirm that God will glorify “the Pious Ones” on the “Throne of his Eternal Kingdom.” Thus the righteous will be rewarded. God will then “release the captives, make the blind see, raise up the downtrodden.” Then he (that is, God, or possibly the Messiah) will “heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and to the meek announce glad tidings.” Whoever the agent of transformation would be, the members of this group were confident and excited to be living on the cusp of the most important years in all human history.
They thought they would never die.
So who were these visionaries who flourished during the first centuries B.C. and A.D.? In their writings, they veiled their identities, using such code words as “Teacher of Righteousness,” “the Wicked Priest,” and “the Liar.” It would have been helpful to us had they inserted a few footnotes into their text telling us precisely to whom each of these epithets refer. But they did not. So we have to reconstruct the early history of this movement in light of what we now know of the second and first centuries B.C.
Some say that the Essene movement originated, as did the Sadducees and Pharisees, shortly after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. This would place their origins in the midsecond century B.C., as yet another protest group against intense persecution and Hellenization in general.5 On this view, a group of dissidents left Jerusalem and headed down to the shores of the Dead Sea to practice a life of dedication and extreme purity.
Another reconstruction locates their origin six or seven decades later, during the reign of Queen Salome Alexandra, 76—67 B.C. Perhaps this group arose out of disgruntled Sadducees who had become apoplectic with the Pharisaic takeover of the Temple and who, quite rightly, feared for their lives. It was payback time for the Pharisees, who had long suffered under the Sadducee yoke, and prominent leaders of this latter faction were by no means safe. In an interesting historical reconstruction, Michael O. Wise looks at the psalms that the Teacher of Right eousness wrote during a time of intense persecution.6 It might well have been during this time that the Teacher of Righteousness fled Jerusalem, besieged by a wicked Pharisaic high priest. Over the decades, this renegade band of fearful Sadducees might have become transformed into the group that Josephus refers to as Essenes, an ascetic group living on the western shores of the Dead Sea, south of Jericho.
However they emerged as a distinctive group, their strategy for dealing with Hellenization was to separate from impurity and create a pure community of their own. To create a true community of the righteous—that was their ambitious objective.
We know more about the Essenes or Dead Sea Scroll community than the other groups because we now have their writings.7 Following the advice of Isaiah, they “went out into the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord” (Isaiah 40:3). This setting in the wilderness of Judea provided an austere location for these dedicated and pious individuals to practice their religion, uncontaminated either by foreigners or by apostate Jews who had compromised their religion. Qumran, their headquarters, was located on a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. Even today it is a strangely quiet place: no lapping of waves, not much traffic along the highway, and few birds chirping overhead. This settlement boasted a two-story tower and a walled settlement. Inside there were a number of rooms—a large multipurpose room for dining or for meetings, cooking areas and a pantry, a room identified as a “scriptorium” or place for writing, storage rooms, a stable, and many other rooms whose purposes cannot now be reconstructed. Inhabitants would have lived in tent shelters outside the main walled-in settlement.
Northward, on the rare clear day when the mist and haze of the Dead Sea lifts, we can see the settlement of Jericho and the Jordan River emptying into the quiet sea. Southward, behind a land mass jutting to the water’s edge, lay the springs of Ein Gedi and, a few miles farther, the imposing fortress of Masada. A few springs near Qumran provided water, as did rainfall, which occurred only once or twice a year. Channels had been built by earlier inhabitants of Qumran to collect the rainwater from the cliffs above, directing it toward huge reservoirs interspersed throughout the settlement. Located about twenty miles east of Jerusalem, Qumran was just far enough away to be out of mind of the rulers, but not so far away as to prevent its members from keeping in touch with developments there. It would have been a two-day walk in antiquity up to the heights of Jerusalem from the floor of the Dead Sea, and one day back down the steep slope. While headquartered at Qumran, the members of this community had enclaves scattered throughout the land of Israel, including one in Jerusalem, entered through “the Essene Gate.”
Their response to Hellenization was to live a righteous life according to Torah, strictly, as interpreted by their inspired leader, the Teacher of Righteousness. Their teacher’s understanding of the biblical message represented, for them, the decisive meaning of scripture. They saw in ancient writings clear references to their times and events. An example from their commentary on the prophet Habakkuk illustrates how they applied scripture to their situation. Habakkuk was writing in the days just before the Babylonian Exile, around 600 B.C. When he wrote that the wicked are encompassing the righseous, Habakkuk had in mind the wicked of his own day—those who were not following the law and who were undermining the integrity of society, paving the way for Babylonian military success over Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom. Sensing that disaster was again looming, however, the Teacher of Righteousness interpreted Habakkuk’s words as applying to his own era some five hundred years later. Thus “the wicked” really referred to “the Wicked Priest,” and “the righteous,” to himself, “the Teacher of Right eousness.”8 Similarly, references by Habakkuk to the Babylonians on the move were interpreted by the Teacher of Righteousness as actually designating the Romans under whose sway the entire world would fall.
The Teacher of Righteousness was perceived by this movement as the one “to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of His servants the Prophets.”9 This was their powerful weapon—an inspired teacher—and his words functioned very much like the oral law method did for the Pharisees. For his followers, the Teacher of Righteousness alone could ascertain the accurate interpretation of scripture and what it meant to be authentically Jewish.
Who was this influential Teacher of Righteousness? Amazingly—and frustratingly—we simply don’t know. He would have been a priest, a writer, and an inspired leader who acted as a catalyst, bringing a group of individuals together who thought they were living in the last days. He taught, led, defended, and suffered on behalf of his community. He was not a Messiah, but he sought to prepare his people for life at the end of time when the Messiah would appear and God would transform the world. When he died, leadership was transferred to a “Master” supported by a council.
For the most part, other groups in society did not share their doom-and-gloom outlook. In particular, the Pharisees did not. Not everyone believed that the end of time was near or that the Messianic era was just around the corner. The Dead Sea Scroll community parted ways with the Pharisees in other respects as well: a three-year training program (versus the Pharisees’ two-year requirement) and sharing communal property. The Dead Sea Scroll group also vilified a movement they called “the seekers after smooth things” (4Q169, Commentary on Nahum), that is, those who sought compromise or accommodation. This is widely interpreted as referring to the Pharisees. If true, this would constitute another important point of difference. It is interesting to observe that whereas the Gospel writings present the Pharisees as strict interpreters of the law, the members of the Dead Sea Scroll community saw them as excessively lax and loose in their requirements.
The objective of the Dead Sea Scroll community was to create a community of the truly righteous who would uncompromisingly follow Jewish law. In a legal text referred to as 4QMMT,10 they set forth more than twenty objections they had to the way sacrifices were being observed in the Temple by the Sadducees. They objected, for instance, to the use of Gentile grain in the sacrifices or vessels made from copper mined or fashioned by Gentiles. They contended that non-Jews should not be able to offer sacrifices in the Temple. Vessels made of the skins or bones of unclean animals should not be utilized in Temple offerings. Dogs should not be allowed inside Temple precincts. They rejected illicit marriages such as those between uncle and niece. Many of these laws had to do with preserving the sanctity and purity of the Temple and its rites, which they believed had been corrupted. Thus they very much detested the Sadducees and their policy of accommodating the foreign occupiers of the land.
Most importantly, these disputes show the extent of Hellenization within the Temple. Non-Jews were even permitted to offer sacrifices. Copper utensils for the Temple were manufactured by non-Jews. And the priests were using vessels made of pig skin. All of these practices represented illegal compromises as far as the members of the Dead Sea Scroll community were concerned.
We can imagine members of this pious sect devoting themselves to prayer, study, tending the goats and sheep, fetching fresh water, and writing. They were entirely certain they were on the right track, living life fully in accordance with God’s instructions. They were contemptuous of their fellow Jews, whom they viewed as having abandoned the covenant, being co-conspirators with the occupiers, and placing in jeopardy all God’s promises. For them, evil lurked everywhere—among the Romans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and ordinary Jews—and they had to be on their guard constantly. All these compromises had to be strenuously resisted.
By living at Qumran or in separate sections of towns and villages, the Essenes avoided many of the difficult problems caused by Hellenization. They did not have to meet or talk with the foreign occupiers. Issues of ritual purity, eating, or intermarriage did not crop up. Separation from the rest of society did not mean that the members of this community ceased from spiritual struggle, however. Rather, they saw themselves on the forefront of spiritual warfare, battling against the forces of evil that threatened the very fabric of society. The Community Rule, one of their writings, described how all humans are buffeted about by two spirits: the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. People are called upon to make choices, to resist evil, and to choose the good. How a person decides through life determines his future. Those who have opted primarily for the spirit of truth throughout their lives have an amazing reward: “healing, great peace in a long life, and fruitfulness, together with every everlasting blessing and eternal joy in life without end, a crown of glory and a garment of majesty in unending light.”11
Members of the Dead Sea Scroll community were prolific writers; manuscripts from over eight hundred different texts have been found and reconstructed. These comprise all the books of the Hebrew Bible (except the Book of Esther) as well as important noncanonical writings such as the Book of Jubilees, a treatise on understanding the phases of history. Their own writings included the Community Rule, a document outlining the procedures to be followed by this community; a Temple Scroll, which proposed modifications to the existing Temple in Jerusalem; a War Scroll, which envisaged a forty-year war against the unrighteous; a mysterious Copper Scroll, referring to huge deposits of buried treasure; along with many commentaries on biblical writings, psalms, and miscellaneous writings. They regarded themselves as living at the pivotal point in human history, and thus it was important to grasp the message of the Bible fully and completely. They thought they had this understanding.
The Dead Sea community did not survive the Roman onslaught, however. In A.D. 68, the Roman legions swooped down the Jordan Valley after having brutally crushed the Jewish rebellion in the Galilee. Qumran was destroyed, and presumably most of its inhabitants were killed. Some members may have fled to Jerusalem and others eventually to Masada farther south along the shores of the Dead Sea. Maybe some also escaped into Egypt. Prior to their demise, they hid their manuscripts in jar containers in a variety of caves around the plateau of Qumran.
There the scrolls remained until 1948 when the jars and their contents were accidentally discovered by a Bedouin boy. Gradually these manuscripts, along with others from different nearby caves, came to the attention of scholars. Whether all these manuscripts came from the Qumran community or whether some originated in Jerusalem is a matter of some scholarly dispute.12 Many of the original members of the Scroll team were Roman Catholic, and they refused to share these documents with other experts in the field, notably Jewish scholars. Their secrecy and clandestine behavior gave rise to speculation that they were intentionally sitting on earth-shattering revelations that they wanted to hide. Perhaps, some speculated, they contained writings that would unseat Christian teachings. It was not until the early 1990s that the scrolls as a whole were made available to the public, and we can now see for ourselves what members of this ultraorthodox Jewish community were thinking.13 Their importance—less startling than the conspiracy theorists would have it— lies primarily in helping us understand better the debates in Judaism in the first century B.C. and first century A.D.. That helps us significantly in making sense of the world in which both Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity emerged.
Were they patriots? Or terrorists?
The Zealots originated later than the other movements. They emerged as a religious and political force as a result of taxation, in A.D. 6 under the leadership of Judas of Gamla (or, as he is also called, Judas of Galilee). Their response to Hellenization was straightforward: fight. Rid the land of foreign occupation and bring about the restoration of Israel as an autonomous state. Their focus was primarily political rather than narrowly religious. They probably lived in Jerusalem as well as throughout the land of Israel. Toward the end of their existence, they probably concentrated forces along the shores of the Dead Sea.
They looked forward to God acting decisively to bring about the end-time reconstruction of the world, whether directly through their efforts in military resistance or through the instrumentality of a Messiah. For them, the task of a Messiah was very clear: restore the fortunes of Israel and establish the Davidic king on the throne. Some Zealots may have formed an alliance with the members of the Dead Sea Scroll community. The aggressive War Scroll of the latter movement advocated many of the views Zealots would have approved of: the complete removal of foreigners from the land along with the complete eradication of the unrighteous from the face of the earth. Judas Iscariot, one of the original disciples of Jesus, may have been a Zealot. Probably other disciples of Jesus were as well.
The Zealots were eventually defeated by the Romans at Masada four years after Jerusalem was destroyed. According to Josephus’s dramatic account, as the Roman armies encircled this towering mesa high above the floor of the Dead Sea, close to one thousand Zealots committed suicide rather than be taken captive by Rome. As Josephus expressed it in The Jewish War (Book 7, 386), Eleazar, their leader, urged his followers to live and die as free men. That was preferable to Roman enslavement and the rape of their wives and female children. After building a road from the ground level up to the heights of Masada, the Romans arrived only to find everyone dead. Only a couple of women and children lived to tell their tale.14
So how did a subjugated, colonized minority tackle ethnic and religious survival? How could the covenant and Jewish law coexist with the challenges and realities of the Hellenistic world? As we have seen, the various factions within Judaism proposed different answers and sparred with one another over the correct strategy. Most of the differences had to do with how much of the surrounding culture one could appropriate without ceasing to be Jewish.
The Sadducees were probably the least threatened, favoring cultural interaction so long as Temple sacrifices were not interfered with by Roman authority. For them, accommodation and cooperation with the occupiers was the best policy, to ensure peace and maximize opportunities on the world stage. Putting down revolts and carefully containing would-be Messiahs were very much in their best interests. In their view, these precautionary activities also served the general well-being of the Jewish community as a whole, helping the Romans maintain peace and stability.
Pharisees, on the other hand, believed that the populace could be educated into observance and that this would form a barrier around Jewish culture, preventing assimilation and ultimate extinction. In a sense, this would build a fence around cultural assimilation, shielding the Torah-observant Jew from practices that would lead to eventual Hellenization. This was the start of a long-standing strategy that worked itself into Rabbinic Judaism, with education acting as a hedge around later pressures to assimilate.
By way of contrast, the members of the Dead Sea Scroll community simply separated themselves from close contact with foreigners and from nonobservant Jews, being intent upon preserving a pure community fully devoted to the observance of Torah without reference to the social and political dynamics of the larger world. They took seriously the injunction to prepare a way for the Lord in the wilderness, fully expecting that he would appear and act to bring about the new world order. They aimed at being the community of righteousness that would spark the time of the end.
For the Zealots, the strategy was much simpler: resist and fight the Roman occupiers.
All Jewish groups agreed upon keeping the law. No one had yet suggested that the Torah be abandoned—except Antiochus Epiphanes, who had tried to outlaw Judaism.
Four main strategies for dealing with the challenge of Hellenization had emerged by the first century A.D.: accommodate and compromise (Sadducees), teach (Pharisees), separate (Dead Sea Scroll community), and fight (Zealots). These strategies set the parameters that affected Jewish daily life with non-Jews, establishing the boundaries and rules for social interaction. A particularly sensitive area was eating—the types of permissible foods, whether Jews and Gentiles could eat together, using common utensils and plates—for these questions went to the heart of the dietary and purity laws.
Another pressing area concerned the observance of the Sabbath, especially in the larger towns and cities where Roman practice did not include this particular day of rest. There were constant pressures to cut corners, for merchants to engage in trade, for people to provide accommodations, food, and other resources for troops and families on the move. Intermarriage, too, was always a threat, as was loose sexual morality, which could affect the fabric of family life. Education also posed problems for the wealthier families who could afford this—to what extent should study time be divided between the study of biblical materials versus the literary productions of Greek and Roman culture? Would education lead to cultural assimilation?
Overarching everything was the whole question of Torah observance, including the belief in one God. What did this mean in a world dominated by an extremely powerful society and its occupying army? How was compliance possible? Indeed, in such times, how could a fair God in charge of world history expect such observance?
In time, three more strategies for dealing with a dominant powerful culture and the threat of assimilation were added. John the Baptist emphasized rededication to Torah. Jesus proclaimed an innovative two-fold strategy: strict Torah observance coupled with preparing for a new world order—the long-awaited Kingdom of God that Jesus thought would materialize soon. Paul adopted a different route, effectively affirming assimilation into the Gentile world without any pretense at Torah observance whatsoever. His solution was the abandonment of Judaism, giving in to Hellenistic pressures.
All Judaisms of the time were political. At stake was continued Jewish identity and survival in the face of unrelenting Hellenization. Debates were fierce. If a teacher were to come on the scene and say “Love your neighbor,” that injunction was not neutral. It would immediately raise questions. Who is my neighbor? some might ask. Does “my neighbor” include the occupying Romans? others would pointedly and disdainfully inquire. The Zealots would certainly have disregarded such a teacher—their objective was to rid the land of hated foreigners, so they would not have accepted a message of loving one’s neighbor if that included Romans. Leaders of the Dead Sea Scroll community also would have rejected this message—they urged hatred of enemies such as the Romans.15
There were probably many different kinds of submovements within each faction, much as there are within political parties today. Not all Sadducees were wealthy, for instance, and probably not all Pharisees were popular teachers. There may have been many groups of Zealots, unaffiliated with one another, but sharing the same common objective. In this instance, we know of a subgroup of Zealots, the Sicarii, who used a small dagger to murder their opponents. And there may have been many other subsidiary movements among the other factions. These descriptions must be taken as true for the most part, as broad generalizations of complex movements over a two-hundred-year period responding to the pressures of Hellenization. The same would be true if two thousand years hence we were to characterize political parties of our time. Some nuances, important to us, might be missing.
But what of the mass of the people? To what faction did they belong? Probably most were unaffiliated, intent upon making a basic living, doing the best for their children, providing modest shelter, and having sufficient food to eat. These were preoccupations that would consume the waking hours for most families, leaving little time for religious reflection and social strategizing. Probably most were confused about but likely aware of the main positions of the Pharisees and Dead Sea Scroll community and, later on, the aggressive policies of the Zealots. They also knew who was running the show in Jerusalem— the Sadducees along with their benefactors, the Greeks and Romans. Never before in Jewish history had such an array of religious and political alternatives existed. There were choices among a variety of non-Jewish religions as well as options within Judaism itself. Most must have felt that they lived in confusing times.
So where was certainty to be found? Surely someone had to know “the truth.” Did scripture perhaps contain hidden meanings?