“Salvation is of the Jews.”¹ This wonderful people, whose fit symbol is the burning bush, was chosen by sovereign grace to stand amidst the surrounding idolatry as the bearer of the knowledge of the only true God, his holy law, and cheering promise, and thus to become the cradle of the Messiah. It arose with the calling of Abraham, and the covenant of Jehovah with him in Canaan, the land of promise; grew to a nation in Egypt, the land of bondage; was delivered and organized into a theocratic state on the basis of the law of Sinai by Moses in the wilderness; was led back into Palestine by Joshua; became, after the Judges, a monarchy, reaching the height of its glory in David and Solomon; split into two hostile kingdoms, and, in punishment for internal discord and growing apostasy to idolatry, was carried captive by heathen conquerors; was restored after seventy years’ humiliation to the land of its fathers, but fell again under the yoke of heathen foes, yet in its deepest abasement fulfilled its highest mission by giving birth to the Saviour of the world. “The history of the Hebrew people,” says Ewald, “is, at the foundation, the history of the true religion growing through all the stages of progress unto its consummation; the religion which, on its narrow national territory, advances through all struggles to the highest victory, and at length reveals itself in its full glory and might, to the end that, spreading abroad by its own irresistible energy, it may never vanish away, but may become the eternal heritage and blessing of all nations. The whole ancient world had for its object to seek the true religion, but this people alone finds its being and honor on earth exclusively in the true religion, and thus it enters upon the stage of history.”²

Judaism, in sharp contrast with the idolatrous nations of antiquity, was like an oasis in a desert, clearly defined and isolated; separated and enclosed by a rigid moral and ceremonial law. The holy land itself, though in the midst of the three Continents of the ancient world, and surrounded by the great nations of ancient culture, was separated from them by deserts south and east, by sea on the west, and by mountain on the north; thus securing to the Mosaic religion freedom to unfold itself and to fulfill its great work without disturbing influences from abroad. But Israel carried in its bosom from the first the large promise, that in Abraham’s seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Abraham, the father of the faithful, Moses, the lawgiver, David, the heroic king, and sacred psalmist, Isaiah, the evangelist among the prophets, Elijah the Tishbite, who reappeared with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration to do homage to Jesus, and John the Baptist, the impersonation of the whole Old Testament, are the most conspicuous links in the golden chain of the ancient revelation.

The outward circumstances and the moral and religious condition of the Jews at the birth of Christ would indeed seem at first and on the whole to be in glaring contradiction with their divine destiny. But, in the first place, their very degeneracy proved the need of divine help. In the second place, the redemption through Christ appeared by contrast in the greater glory, as a creative act of God. And finally, amidst the mass of corruption, as a preventive of putrefaction, lived the succession of the true children of Abraham, longing for the salvation of Israel, and ready to embrace Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah and Saviour of the world.

Since the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey, B.C. 63 (the year made memorable by the consulship of Cicero, the conspiracy of Catiline, and the birth of Caesar Augustus), the Jews had been subject to the heathen Romans, who heartlessly governed them by the Idumean Herod and his sons, and afterward by procurators. Under this hated yoke their Messianic hopes were powerfully raised but carnally distorted. They longed chiefly for a political deliverer, who should restore the temporal dominion of David on a still more splendid scale; and they were offended with the servant form of Jesus, and with his spiritual kingdom. Their morals were outwardly far better than those of the heathen; but under the garb of strict obedience to their law, they concealed great corruption. They are pictured in the New Testament as a stiff-necked, ungrateful, and impenitent race, the seed of the serpent, a generation of vipers. Their own priest and historian, Josephus, who generally endeavored to present his countrymen to the Greeks and Romans in the most favorable light, describes them as at that time a debased and wicked people, well deserving their fearful punishment in the destruction of Jerusalem.

As to religion, the Jews, especially after the Babylonish captivity, adhered most tenaciously to the letter of the law, and to their traditions and ceremonies, but without knowing the spirit and power of the Scriptures. They cherished a bigoted horror of the heathen and were therefore despised and hated by them as misanthropic, though by their judgment, industry, and tact, they were able to gain wealth and consideration in all the larger cities of the Roman empire.

After the time of the Maccabees (b.c. 150), they fell into three mutually hostile sects or parties, which respectively represent the three tendencies of formalism, skepticism, and mysticism; all indicating the approaching dissolution of the old religion and the dawn of the new. We may compare them to the three prevailing schools of Greek philosophy—the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Platonic, and also to the three sects of Mohammedanism—the Sunnis, who are traditionalists, the Sheas, who adhere to the Koran, and the Sufis or mystics, who seek true religion in “internal divine sensation.”

1. The Pharisees, the “separate,”¹ were, so to speak, the Jewish Stoics. They represented the traditional orthodoxy and stiff formalism, the legal self-righteousness, and the fanatical bigotry of Judaism. They had the most influence on the people and the women and controlled the public worship. They confounded piety with theoretical orthodoxy. They overloaded the Holy Scriptures with the traditions of the elders so as to make the Scriptures “of none effect.” They analyzed the Mosaic law to death and substituted a labyrinth of casuistry for a living code. “They laid heavy burdens and grievous to be borne on men’s shoulders,” and yet they themselves would “not move them with their fingers.” In the New Testament they bear particularly the reproach of hypocrisy; with, of course, illustrious exceptions, like Nicodemus, Gamaliel, and his disciple, Paul.
2. The less numerous Sadducees¹ were skeptical, rationalistic, and worldly-minded, and held about the same position in Judaism as the Epicureans and the followers of the New Academy in Greek and Roman heathendom. They accepted the written Scriptures (especially the Pentateuch), but rejected the oral traditions, denied the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul, the existence of angels and spirits, and the doctrine of an all-ruling providence. They numbered their followers among the rich and had for some time possession of the office of the high-priest. Caiaphas belonged to their party.

The difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees reappears among modern Jews, who are divided into the orthodox and the liberal or rationalistic parties.

3. The Essenes (whom we know only from Philo and Josephus) were not a party, but a mystic and ascetic order or brotherhood, and lived mostly in monkish seclusion in villages and in the desert Engedi on the Dead Sea.² They numbered about 4,000 members. With an arbitrary, allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, they combined some foreign theosophic elements, which strongly resemble the tenets of the new Pythagorean and Platonic schools, but were probably derived (like the Gnostic and Manichæan theories) from eastern religions, especially from Parsism. They practiced communion of goods, wore white garments, rejected animal food, bloody sacrifices, oaths, slavery, and (with few exceptions) marriages, and lived in the utmost simplicity, hoping thereby to attain a higher degree of holiness. They were the forerunners of Christian monasticism.

The sect of the Essenes came seldom or never into contact with Christianity under the Apostles, except in the shape of a heresy at Colossae. But the Pharisees and Sadducees, particularly the former, meet us everywhere in the Gospels as bitter enemies of Jesus, and hostile as they are to each other, unite in condemning him to that death of the cross, which ended in the glorious resurrection, and became the foundation of spiritual life to believing Gentiles as well as Jews.^[1]

A Deeper Dive Into Judaism

Judaism was a religion and culture of the Jewish people from the beginning of the postexilic period (538 BC) to modern times. The term “Judaism” is derived from “Judah,” the name of the southern kingdom of ancient Israel, while “Jew” is a shortened form of “Judeans.”

The Period of the Second Temple (516 BC–AD 70)

Historical Survey. The united kingdom of Israel under Saul, David, and Solomon, came to an end shortly after the death of Solomon. Rehoboam, his son, provoked a revolt about 933 BC. on the part of the 10 northern tribes by levying unreasonably high taxes (1 Kgs 12). From that time on, the kingdoms of Israel, or Samaria (the northern kingdom), and Judah (the southern kingdom) maintained a separate existence. The northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC, and thousands of captives, primarily members of the upper class, were exiled forcibly and taken to Assyria where they presumably intermarried with the native population and disappeared from history. The kingdom of Judah survived as an independent state until 597 BC, when it came under the control of the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. The temple was finally destroyed in 586 BC. and many captives were carried off to Babylonia, beginning a period of exile that was to last two generations. The Babylonians were defeated by Cyrus the Persian in 539 BC, and the following year the king issued a decree permitting all captive peoples to return to the lands of their origin (2 Chr 36:22, 23; Ezr 1). At least four waves of Jewish expatriates returned from Mesopotamia to Judea during the century following the decree of Cyrus under such leaders as Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Many Jews chose to remain in their adopted Mesopotamian homeland. The dedication of the second temple in the spring of 516 provided a formal end to the exilic period of 70 years (Jer 29:10), and was a direct result of the prophetic exhortations of Haggai and Zechariah.

In Judea the Jewish people were ruled by governors who held office at the pleasure of the Persian king. One of the earlier governors was Zerubabbel (Hg 1:1; 2:1), a descendant of David (1 Chr 3:10–19). In some way he shared rule with the high priest Jeshua ben Jehozadak. Palestine was part of one of the 20 satrapies of the Persian Empire, which lasted from 539 to 331 BC, when it fell to the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Little is known about the historical developments in Palestine during most of the Persian period. When Alexander died in 323 bc, his empire was divided up among his generals; Egypt and Palestine fell to Ptolemy I. The Ptolemies were benevolent despots who allowed the Jews of Palestine a measure of freedom and autonomy. After the battle of Paneion in 198 BC, Palestine came under the rule of the Seleucid Empire, founded by Seleucus I, another of Alexander’s generals.

The Seleucid Empire embraced a very large area with a diverse population, extending from Asia Minor and Palestine in the west to the borders of India on the east. Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) ascended the Seleucid throne in 175 BC. and attempted to unify his vast empire by Hellenizing it (i.e., by forcing the adoption of Greek language and culture). Local cultures and religions were forcibly suppressed as a result of this policy, and the Jewish state in Palestine was perhaps the hardest hit of all. In 167 BC. Antiochus IV dedicated the temple in Jerusalem to Olympian Zeus, sacrificed a sow on the altar, destroyed scrolls containing the Jewish Scriptures, and forbade the rite of circumcision. This repression triggered a revolt led by an aged priest named Mattathias and his sons. The Seleucids were repulsed, and finally in 164 v. the temple was retaken by Mattathias’ son Judas the Maccabee (an epithet meaning “the hammer”). This Jewish victory has been commemorated annually by the festival of Hanukkah (“dedication”). Judas and his brothers, called Maccabees or Hasmoneans (Mattathias was of the house of Hasmon), and their descendants ruled Judea from 164 to 63, when Palestine fell to the Roman general Pompey. Thereafter, Palestine remained a vassal of Rome.

Hyrcanus, a Hasmonean, was high priest after the conquest of Judea by the Romans, though Antipater, an Idumean, was the real power behind Hyrcanus. The sons of Antipater, Phasael and Herod, were governors of Jerusalem and Galilee, respectively. Upon the assassination of Antipater in 43 BC, and through his connections in Rome, Herod (later called Herod the Great) was named king of Judea by the Roman senate; he reigned from 37 to 4 BC. When he died, Palestine was divided up by the emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14) and placed under the governorship of three of Herod’s sons: Herod Archelaus (ethnarch of Judea, Idumaea, and Samaria from 4 BC to ad 6), Herod Antipas (tetrarch of Galilee and Perea from 4 BC to AD 39), and Herod Philip (tetrarch of Batanea, Trachonitis, and other small states from 4 BC to ad 34). These territories were generally placed under Roman procurators after the sons of Herod had died or been deposed. For a brief period (ad 41–44), Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great, ruled virtually the same territory as his grandfather. Upon his death (narrated in Acts 12:20–23), his territories were placed under Roman procurators. The greed and ineptness of these procurators provoked the Jewish populace to rebel. The illfated Jewish revolt of ad 66–73 resulted in the destruction of the second temple by the Tenth Roman legion under Titus in 70. The revolt was completely quelled in 73, when more than 900 Jews under siege in the desert fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea committed mass suicide rather than fall into Roman hands. These tragic events ended permanently the temple cult and the priestly system in Judaism.

Social and Religious Developments. The Babylonian conquest of Judea and the destruction of the Solomonic temple in 586 BC. produced dramatic social and religious changes in Jewish life. The cessation of the temple cult struck a serious blow at the heart of the Israelite religion, since the Jerusalem temple alone was the legitimate and divinely appointed place for discharging much of the ritual requirement of the Mosaic law, chiefly the sacrificial cult. Even the three annual pilgrimage festivals, Succoth (“Tabernacles”), Pesach (“Passover”), and Shavuoth (“Weeks”) could no longer be observed by pious Jews who had remained in Judea after 586 BC. When after 538 BC. many exiles chose to return to Judea, many others elected to remain in their new homeland. For the latter, the temple cult, even when reinstituted in 516 BC, could no longer play a significant role in their religious lives.

During the exilic and early postexilic period, the peculiar Jewish institution of the synagogue (a Greek word meaning “gathering place”) began to evolve. The synagogue became such a popular and useful institution for Jewish communities outside Palestine that in the centuries after the dedication of the second temple they sprang up throughout Palestine, many in Jerusalem itself. By the end of the second temple period, the synagogue had come to play three important functions in Jewish life. It served as a house of prayer, a house of study, and a place of assembly. First-century ad. synagogue worship is illustrated in Luke 4:16–30 and Acts 13:13–42. The focus of the service was a reading of a selection from the Torah (Law of Moses), then one from the Haphtorah (Prophets). These readings were followed by a homily based on Scripture. Other elements in first-century ad. synagogue worship included the recitation of the Shema (“Hear O Israel”), a combination of biblical passages including Deuteronomy 6:4–9; 11:13–21 and Numbers 15:37–41, and the Shemoneh Esreh (“Eighteen Benedictions”) called the Amidah (“standing”) because it was recited while standing upright. Jews also wore fringes on their garments in obedience to Numbers 15:38, 39 (Mt 23:5), and phylacteries on their foreheads and left arms. Phylacteries are little boxes containing the portions of Scripture recited in the Shema; they were used in literal fulfillment of the command in Deuteronomy 6:8. Archaeologists have discovered actual first-century phylacteries in the ruins of Masada.

Outside of Palestine, Mesopotamia became the second most important center of Judaism. The Babylonian Jewish community was known as the Golah (“captivity”), and its titular head was called the Resh Galuta or Exilarch (both terms mean “leader of the captivity”). By the end of the exilic period, the descendants of the original captives had forgotten Hebrew and adopted Aramaic, the international language of the ancient Near East and a sister language to Hebrew, as their first language. Even in Palestine, Aramaic was the primary language spoken. Thus, when portions of Scripture were read in synagogue services in Hebrew, most of those present were unable to understand what was read. This problem was solved by providing a methurgeman (“translator”) who would translate orally short sections of Scripture. Eventually these Targums (“translations”) were reduced to writing, beginning in the 2nd century AD

By the 1st century ad. it has been estimated that there were from 4 to 7 million Jews in the Greco-Roman world, perhaps 3 to 4 times the population of Palestine. Jews in lands outside of Palestine came to be known collectively as the Diaspora (“scattering”). After the Greeks dominated the Mediterranean world through Alexander and his successors, Greek became the common language throughout this region. Just as Mesopotamian Jews spoke Aramaic in place of Hebrew, so Jews in the Greco-Roman world came to speak Greek. By the middle of the 3rd century BC. Hellenistic Jews began to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation, called the Septuagint (a term meaning “seventy,” based on a legend that it was translated simultaneously by 70 Jewish scholars), contained a more extensive canon of Scripture than that recognized by Palestinian Judaism. This reflects the more liberal attitudes of Hellenistic Jews in contrast with the more conservative cast of Palestinian Judaism.

During the 2nd century BC, most of the major sects within Palestinian Judaism came into being. The Hasidim (“pious”) were members of a religious association which aided the Hasmoneans in their revolt against the Seleucids (1 Mc 2:42; 7:13), but later opposed them when they claimed rights to the priesthood. Both the Pharisees and Essenes may have their origin in this religious sect. The Sadducees (a name perhaps connected with Zadok, a high priest appointed by David; Zadok’s descendants were regarded as the only legitimate priestly line in Ez 40–48) were a wealthy, aristocratic class which monopolized the high priesthood. They did not believe in angels, spirits, life after death, or the resurrection (Acts 23:8), nor did they accept the validity of the oral law as developed by the Pharisees. They left no writings and disappeared with the destruction of the temple in ad 70.

The Pharisees (“separated ones”) first appear in our sources toward the end of the 2nd century BC. and are involved primarily in political affairs. They represented the common people against the tyrannical Hasmonean ruler Alexander Janneus (103–76 BC), who had hundreds of Pharisees executed in reprisal. By the 1st century ad. the Pharisees seem wholly concerned with religious matters, and were noted for the scrupulous observance of the Mosaic law as traditionally interpreted. On grounds of ritual purity, they separated themselves from other Jews who were not as scrupulous, and might contaminate them. Pharisees went about in groups called Haberim (“associates”) in which they were insulated from those who were lax religiously. In their zeal to remain faithful to the Mosaic law, the Pharisees developed an oral law (later erroneously attributed to Moses) which served as a fence around the Torah. This oral law was an interpretation and expansion of the 613 commands in the Mosaic law; it was finally compiled and reduced to written form as the Mishna (“Teaching”) in the late 2nd century ad. Paul (Acts 22:3; 23:6; 26:5; Phil 3:5) and many other early Christians were converts from Pharisaism (Acts 15:5). Pharisaic Judaism survived the destruction of Jerusalem in ad 70 to form the rabbinic Judaism that dominated Jewish religious life from the 2nd century ad. to modern times.

The Essenes were another religious sect within Judaism which had its origins in the 2nd century BC. Like the Pharisees the Essenes were concerned principally with maintaining ritual purity in obedience to the Law of Moses. The Essenes lived and worked in Jewish society, seeking to influence people by the simple, altruistic life which they followed. Some Essenes also lived in their own communities, to which they returned each night after work. There were numerous religious factions within contemporary Judaism, and one such group, which may only have had vague connections with the Essenes, established a community on the western shore of the Dead Sea. This group regarded itself as the true Israel, and in the wilderness prepared for the final visitation of God by keeping themselves pure from all defilement. Many documents written by members of this sect were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea where they had been hidden just before the Romans destroyed the settlement. These documents, the Dead Sea Scrolls, have provided detailed information about this religious sect and its beliefs.

The Zealots were another Jewish sect, who may be related to the Sicarii (“dagger men”). This group of political activists flourished from ad 6 to 66. Regarding God alone as their sovereign, they attempted to overthrow the Romans and those who collaborated with them by violent means, including assassination. They helped to foment the Jewish revolt of 66–73 and perished with Jerusalem in 70.

Social class and status in first-century Palestine was determined in accordance with the rules of ritual purity. The upper class comprised members of the religious establishment, such as the Sadducees, scribes, Pharisees, and Jerusalem priests. The Sanhedrin was a deliberative body whose membership was drawn from these groups. For all practical purposes there was no middle class. The lower class consisted primarily of the Am Ha Arez (“People of the Land”), Jews who were ignorant of the Law through lack of education and who did not scrupulously observe those commandments with which they were familiar. The generally hostile attitude of the Pharisees toward the Am Ha Arez is expressed in John 7:49: “But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed.” There was yet another social class in first-century Palestine, which can be designated as “untouchables.” This group was composed of Samaritans, tax collectors, prostitutes, shepherds, those who bought and sold seventh-year produce, lepers, Gentiles, and, perhaps worst of all, Jews who became as Gentiles (e.g., the prodigal son of Lk 15:11–32). The rules of ritual purity as generally observed prevented any form of social contact between the upper class and the untouchables, and made contacts with the Am Ha Arez highly undesirable. Against this background, the horror of the Pharisees over Jesus’ association with tax collectors and sinners is thoroughly understandable (Mk 2:15–17).

A Comparison of Five Jewish Sects

	Essenes	Herodians [Kannai]	Pharisees	Sadducees	Zealots [Boethusians]
Origin	Possibly the Hasidim (1 Mc 2:42; 7:13)	Sadducean aristocracy (Boethus)	Possibly the Hasidim (1 Mc 2:42; 7:13)	Zadok Joshua (priest at time of return from Babylon) Anonymous Leader	Unknown
Dates	2nd cent. BC–AD 70	37 BC–AD 70	2nd cent. BC–present	200 BC(?)–AD 70	37 BC–AD 70
Prominence in Scripture	no mention	3 passages	99 passages	13 passages	1 passage
Characteristics	Legalism Rigorous probation period Exclusivism/isolationism Communal asceticism Altruism (only toward members of own sect) Daily worship, prayer, and study of Scripture Periods of silence No worship in temple Subjection to superiors Oaths of initiation/piety/obedience/secrecy Marriage eschewed	Partisans of the Herodian dynasty Not a religious or political sect	Legalism (strict observance of Mosaic law) Exclusivism (separation from common people) Flexible liberalism) Ethical emphasis	Disputations, confrontations Exclusivism (aristocratic, political) Rigid, reactionary conservatism (seeing themselves as protectors of the pure Mosaic tradition) Theological (temple cultus) emphasis Political priesthood	Patriotic fanaticism with religious underpinning Violence (including assassination) Zeal—like Mattathias and sons (1 Mc 2:24–27) and Phinehas (Nm 25:11)—for God’s law vs. all enemies of Israel
Beliefs	Separate national existence of Israel They are the people of the new covenant Emphasis on purity of life Strict predestination Immortality of soul Preexistence of soul Strict Sabbath observance Purification rites (daily ritual bathing) No war or commerce	Sadducean theology	Scripture and Oral Law are inspired and authoritative Canon = whole OT Nonliteral biblical interpretation Free will + providence Resurrection and afterlife Earthly paradise Angels and demons Messianic expectations (overthrow of Gentiles; restoration of Israel)	Torah alone is inspired and authoritative Canon = Torah Literal biblical interpretation Individual free will No resurrection or afterlife (but Sheol) No angels or demons	God as Israel’s true King Total obedience + action = messianic age

A further consequence of this religious criterion for determining social class and status was an uneasy tension between Jerusalem and the rural areas of Palestine, particularly Galilee, during the last two centuries of the second temple period. Those in Jerusalem regarded Galilee as a place where ignorance of the Torah was the rule (Jn 1:46). Jerusalem was primarily a religious center, whose major industry was the temple cult. The total population of Jerusalem in the 1st century AD. has been estimated at from 25,000 to 40,000. Most of these were either artisans and craftsmen devoted to building and adorning the temple (still incomplete before it was destroyed; Jn 2:20), or priests and Levites involved in the many ritual activities of the temple. Though Jews were expected to travel to Jerusalem for each of the three annual pilgrimage festivals, this requirement proved difficult for rural Palestinian farmers.

Further, the tithe demanded by Mosaic command was only on the produce of the land, not upon wages or bartered goods. The rural farmers, therefore, bore the brunt of this taxation and quite naturally resented the privileged position of urban artisans, merchants, and priests who were not obliged to tithe. The temptation not to tithe the produce of the land was very great, and many farmers succumbed to it. Their untithed produce was not kosher, and thus to be avoided by those, like the Pharisees, who were religiously scrupulous. In addition to the first and second tithes demanded of farmers (the second tithe had to be spent in the vicinity of Jerusalem), it has been estimated that Roman tax levies amounted to 10 to 15 percent of an individual’s income. Religious taxes together with Roman taxes added up to a crushing tax burden of from 25 to 30 percent. The fact that the Jews finally revolted against their Roman oppressors in AD 66 is not difficult to comprehend. Throughout the 1st century AD, in fact, minor revolts in Palestine occurred with predictable frequency. Many of these occurred during the 3 annual pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem, when the normal population of 25,000 to 40,000 swelled to 500,000 or more. These festivals provided ideal opportunities for uprisings, and the Romans were particularly alert for such eventualities. Jesus was executed during one such Passover festival because he was suspected of being a political revolutionary (Mk 15:26).

The second temple period provided the setting for the rise and fall of apocalypticism within Judaism. Apocalypticism (from a Greek word meaning “revelation”) was a kind of eschatology (“account of final events”) which assumed that ideal conditions could not be restored on earth unless God first intervened climactically to destroy evil (particularly foreign oppressors) and vindicate the righteous (Israel). Apocalyptic visionaries composed many documents, called apocalypses, in which they attempted to read the signs of the times and predict the coming of the visitation of God. Since there was a widespread consciousness that the era of prophecy was over, these apocalyptists wrote not under their own names but under the names of ancient Israelite worthies such as Moses, Abraham, Enoch, and Ezra. Among the more significant expectations of Jewish apocalypticism were: (1) the coming of a Messiah; (2) the coming of a great period of tribulation, sometimes called the messianic woes; (3) the resurrection of the just; (4) the judgment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous. Apocalyptic beliefs probably provided the motivation for most if not all of the Jewish revolts against the Romans.

Some portions of the Hebrew Scriptures were still in the process of composition at the beginning of the second temple period. The last three prophetic books—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—were written from the end of the 6th century to the mid-5th century BC. Later rabbis expressed the opinion that the Spirit of God had been taken from Israel when these prophets ceased their labors. The Chronicler ends his work by referring to the decree of Cyrus (538 BC), and both Ezra-Nehemiah and Esther appear to have been written in the 5th century.

The second temple period witnessed not only the completion of those writings which were later regarded as inspired and authoritative in Judaism, but also the full recognition of all 24 sacred books. Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Mosaic law had not been observed with any consistency (according to 2 Kgs 22 it had been mislaid for an unknown period of time), nor had the classical prophets always received appropriate recognition. But after 586 the Torah occupied a position of unquestioned sanctity in the lives and thoughts of the Jewish people, replacing in many respects the temple cult even before its final dissolution in AD 70.

The Jewish Scriptures are divided into three sections, designated by Jews with the acrostic “Tenak”: (1) Torah (“Law,” or “Revelation”), (2) Nebiim (“Prophets”), and (3) Kethubim (“Writings”). It is generally claimed that while the Law and Prophets enjoyed canonical status prior to the 2nd century BC, the Writings were finally declared canonical at the rabbinic council of Jamnia (c. AD 90), the historicity of which is disputed, however. The rabbis are thought to have discussed whether certain biblical books should continue to be part of Scripture. In reality, the Jewish canon of Scripture was fully defined from traditional usage by the 1st century BC. The Law consisted of five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Prophets consisted of two sections, the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings), and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve). The Writings included Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth, and Daniel. The total number of books in this canon is 24, identical with the Protestant canon of 39 books, since Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and the Twelve are each counted as only one book. The Alexandrian canon of Hellenistic Judaism was more extensive, and the extra books (called Apocrypha by Protestants) are all found in the Roman Catholic OT canon of 46 books.

The Talmudic Period (AD 73–425)

Historical Survey. According to Jewish legend, when the Romans were about to conquer Jerusalem in the revolt of AD 66–73, a prominent Pharisee, Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, feigned death and his disciples were permitted to carry him out of the besieged city in a coffin. He received permission from the Romans to move his school from Jerusalem to Jamnia, on the coast of Palestine. The temple cult and the priestly system had disappeared, and rabbinic academies such as that of Rabbi Johanan set themselves to the enormous task of reconstructing Judaism. The older Sanhedrin was reinstituted as the Beth Din (“Court of Law”), and Gamaliel II, a grandson of Hillel, who had presided over the old Sanhedrin, became its leader with the title Nasi (“Prince”), or Patriarch. The patriarchate continued until AD 425, when Emperor Theodosius II abolished the office upon the death of the last patriarch, Gamaliel VI. In Mesopotamia, Babylonian Judaism experienced a renaissance that lasted until the end of the 5th century AD. This period was called the Age of the Gaonim (“Excellencies”) after the heads of the two great rabbinic academies at Sura and Pumpeditha. It was there that the great Babylonian Talmud was compiled by the 5th century AD.

In AD 115, various Jewish communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt, Cyprus, and Cyrene, revolted vainly against the Roman emperor Trajan. Without exception these revolts were all put down by Roman legions. Finally, when the emperor Hadrian was on the brink of founding the new city of Aelia Capitolina on the site of old Jerusalem, the Jews again revolted in AD 132, led by a self-proclaimed messiah, Simon bar Kosiba, who was called Bar Kochba (“Son of a Star”) by his followers as an allusion to the messianic passage in Numbers 24:17. Bar Kosiba was aided by the famous rabbinic scholar Akiba. This revolt, though initially successful, was put down by the Romans under Julius Severus in 135. Shortly thereafter Hadrian issued a decree banning all Jews from the new Aelia Capitolina.

Social and Religious Developments. During this period the result of generations of rabbinical scholarship bore fruit with the compilation of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. The rabbinic sages consciously saw themselves as the heirs of the ancient Israelite prophets, who in turn were the heirs of the Mosaic law. They distinguished consciously between their own legal interpretations of the Mosaic law (which they called Halakah, or “walking,” i.e., a guide for life), and the commands in Torah itself (called Mitvah, or “commandment”). The oral law, developed through generations of rabbinic discussion, was finally compiled and written down through the efforts of the patriarch Judah ha-Nasi (c. AD 135–220) during the last quarter of the 2nd century AD, and became known as the Mishna (“Teaching”). This is a topical arrangement of rabbinic discussions of such subjects as the sabbath, firstfruits, sacrifices, and women. The Mishna became the basis for further rabbinic discussion in both Palestine and Babylonia. The decisions of sages who flourished after the writing of the Mishna were compiled about AD 450 in Palestine and about 500 in Babylonia. This second stage beyond the Mishna was called the Gemara (meaning either “completion” or “repetition”). The Mishna and the Babylonian Gemara make up the Babylonian Talmud, while the same Mishna with the Jerusalem or Palestinian Gemara comprises the Jerusalem Talmud. Yet another type of rabbinic literature is the Midrashim (“interpretations”), which either follow the order of a particular biblical book or consist of homilies on particular biblical texts. The Targums (“translations”), or paraphrastic translations of Scripture into the Aramaic language, finally came to be written down beginning in the late 2nd century ad

With the temple cult part of the irretrievable past, rabbinic Judaism concentrated on the religious significance of the Torah, and elevated scholarship to the central role which it still plays in Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism gradually exerted its influence upon diaspora Judaism under the initial leadership of Rabbi Johanan until a kind of rabbinic orthodoxy emerged during the 2nd century. Christianity was one of the major ideological foes of rabbinic Judaism. In order to purge Jewish Christians from their midst, the rabbis introduced an additional benediction to the Eighteen Benedictions customarily recited at synagogue services. This 19th benediction was a curse upon the minim (Christians and other heretics) which Jewish Christians who attended synagogue services found impossible to repeat. The line was firmly drawn between Judaism and Christianity by this device, which was employed late in the 1st century.

See Dead Sea Scrolls; Essenes; Pharisees; Oral Tradition; Sadducees Sanhedrin; Mishnah; Talmud.

Bibliography. J. Bonsirven, Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ; W. Förster, Palestinian Judaism in NT Times; M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols; G.F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, 3 vols; J. Neusner, First Century Judaism in Crisis and Judaism; J. Parkes, The Foundations of Judaism and Christianity; S. Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 3 vols; E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 5 vols; D.J. Silva, A History of Judaism, vol 1; Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Judaism,” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1230–1236.

MODERN ISRAEL IN BIBLE PROPHECY: Are the Natural Jews Today Still God’s Chosen People?

SCROLL THROUGH DIFFERENT CATEGORIES BELOW

BIBLE TRANSLATION AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM

BIBLICAL STUDIES / INTERPRETATION

EARLY CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM

TECHNOLOGY

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

CHRISTIAN FICTION

¹ John 4:22. Comp. Luke 24:47; Rom. 9:4, 5.

² Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Vol. I. p. 9 (3d ed.).

¹ From פָּרַשׁ. They were separated from ordinary persons and all foreign and contaminating influences by the supposed correctness of their creed and the superior holiness of their life. Ewald (IV. 482): “Pharisäer bezeichnet Gesonderte oder Besondere, nämlich Leute die vor andern durch Frömmigkeit ausgezeichnet und gleichsam mehr oder heiliger als andere sein wollen.”

¹ So called either from their supposed founder, Zadoc (so Ewald, IV. 358), or from צַדִּיק, “just.”

² The name is variously written (Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, Ὀσσαῖοι) and derived from proper names, or from the Greek, or from the Hebrew and Aramaic. The most plausible derivations are from חסיד, ὅσιος, holy; from אכיא. physician (comp. the corresponding term of Philo, θεραπευτής, which, however, means worshipper, devotee); from חזיא, seer; from the rabbinical חזּן, watchman, keeper (Ewald, formerly); from חשא, to be silent (Jost, Lightfoot); from the Syriac chasi or chasyo, pious, which is of the same root with the Hebrew chasid, chasidim (De Sacy, Ewald, IV. 484, 3rd., and Hitzig). See Schürer, N. T. Zeitgesch. pp. 599 sqq., and Lightfoot’s instructive Excursus on the Essenes and the Colossian heresy, in Com. on Coloss. (1875), pp. 73, 114–179. Lightfoot again refutes the exploded derivation of Christianity from Essenic sources.

^[1] Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), 62–66.