JWST231/HIST219C
Major Jewish Sects in the Hellenistic and Early Roman Period (167 BCE–66 CE)
I. In Palestine
1. Pharisees. Unlike Saducees, believed in resurrection, balance of free will and fate, emphasized practices of ritual purity and importance of tithing for priests and temple. Said to have traditions “not written in scripture” (Josephus) or “traditions of the elders” (New Testament). The earliest historical figure Pharisees are linked to is John Hyrcanus when the Pharisees reportedly insult him and/or question his legitimacy, and he shifts alliance to Sadducees. Apparently particularly influential under Salome Alexandra, ruled 76–67. Not identical with later rabbinic movement, but rabbis may trace their origins to them. (Sources: Josephus, New Testament, rabbinic texts.)
2. Sadducees. Conservative with respect to law and theology, basing themselves on Scripture, rejecting the Pharisees’ “tradition,” and therefore such newfangled and not-well attested ideas as resurrection or punishment after death. Associated by Josephus with aristocrats and priests. Name probably derives from “Zadok,” the name of a high priest under David, from whom all the high priests until the Hasmonaeans were said to descend. (Sources: Josephus, New Testament, rabbinic texts.)
3. Essenes. Unlike Pharisees and Sadducees, a group where we can identify distinctive membership and marriage practices: one branch said not to marry, and to live in exclusive settlement; concern with washing and purity; according to Josephus knowledge of angels and prophecy. First hear about someone called an essene in connection with Judah Aristobulus I (104/3 BCE). (Sources: Josephus, Philo [a 1st century Jewish philosopher], Pliny the Elder [a Roman writer]. See also “Dead Sea Sect.”)
4. Dead Sea Sect. The group associated with the settlement and documents found at Khirbet Qumran, near the Dead Sea. Their own texts suggest that the Hasmonaean period, and their relationship with one or more Hasmonaean priests was important for their development. Most scholars still associate them with the Essenes, although many have questioned this connection. Unlike the descriptions of the Essenes, the Qumran texts emphasize an dualistic eschatological [=concern with “last things”] ideology in which they are the righteous remnant of Israel (the sons of Light) who will survive and be rewarded in the coming battle between the sons of Light and the sons of Darkness. In addition, many texts give importance to “priests the sons of Zadok.” Recently one important scholar has argued that the emphasis on Zadokite priests suggests that the sect should be understood as a radicalized branch of a Zadokite (“Sadducee”) movement. (Sources: the Dead Sea Scrolls.)
5. Samaritans. Like the other “sects” emerge as distinct in the Hellenistic period (many see John Hyrcanus’ destruction of the Temple on Mt. Gerizim, 128 BCE, as the dividing point), but with an ethnic/regional dimension: associated with the region between Judah and Galilee. Like “Jews” accept Torah as authoritative (although in slightly different version). Paradoxically, whatever their “ethnic origins” (Acc to Jews: descended from the “gentiles” settled by the Assyrians after 722 BCE; Acc to later Samaritan tradition: Israelites loyal to Shechem since the time of Judges), Samaritan identity may result from Hasmonaean hegemony (hence the centrality of the Torah), but expressed in ethnic terms (we have continuously been Israel; you are schismatics). (Josephus, New Testament, later rabbinic, and still later Samaritan texts.)
6. “Early Christians”I. More properly: “followers of Jesus”; “Christianity” as we know it is a somewhat later development. Jesus fits within a pattern of prophetic and/or messianic figures known (far less well!) in the first century CE. While scholars debate how much of what we know comes from Jesus and how much from early Christian tradition, Jesus may have preached a coming “Kingdom of God,” announced through miracles and healing. For developing Christianity, the most significant fact came to be that he was killed by Pontius Pilate, understood as a sacrificial offering that brought salvation to the world. The Gospel of Matthew (from the late first century), shows how some early Christian groups continued to understand themselves as a Jewish group engaged with other such groups (hence the concern with the Pharisees, including doing “what they say, not what they do,” and having one’s piety “exceed that of scribes and Pharisees”). (Sources: New Testament)
B. Diaspora
7. Therapeutae. Described only by Philo, this was a kind of philosophical, mildly ascetic group. Interesting in that (a) it is described as located in Egypt; and (b) it has explicit place for women as full participants. (Compare Philo’s discussion of Essenes!) In its separatism and sexual abstinence it may be a religious/social phenomenon similar to the Essenes. Shavuot (Pentacost/Weeks) is the main festival, marked by ecstatic song and dancing. Some scholars have questioned whether, or to what extent, they existed as a real group rather than Philo’s ideal. (Source: Philo.)
8. Early ChristiansII. In fact, our earliest Christian documents (predating the “Gospels”) are the letters of Paul, and these relate to new Christian communities in the Greek world and in Rome. The letters attest to a process that will eventually make Christianity a self-consciously “gentile” group, fulfilling Biblical prophecy in a way that Jews have failed to. However, at the stage at which they were written, they attest to the appeal of “Jewish” preachers of a Judaean messiah (= “Christ”) to circles of diaspora Jews and gentiles, and to a struggle to define just how “Jewish” these messianic, eschatological (Paul’s letters suggest that he preached Christ’s coming very soon), Bible-reading, communities should be. (Sources: New Testament, and other early Christian works.)