Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period

Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh

Lester L. Grabbe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134615612
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia antica

The developments in Judaism which occurred during the Second Temple period (c. 550 BC to 100 AD) were of great importance for the nature of Jewish religion in later centuries, yet few studies have examined the era in full. Now Lester L. Grabbe's lucid and accessible volume provides a much-needed encyclopedic study and holistic interpretation of the period.
Topics examined include:
* views about God and the spirit world
* the temple and priesthood
* scripture and synagogue
* the main religious sects and revolutionary movements
* eschatology and messianism
* magic and predicting the future
* religion in the Jewish diaspora
* converts and 'Godfearers'.
With an extensive, up-to-date bibliography, plus numerous helpful cross-references, summaries and syntheses, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of the history of Jewish religion. It will also be of great value as a reference tool.

1
INTRODUCTION

AIMS OF THIS STUDY

Albertz, R. (1994) A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period.

Barclay, J.M.G. (1996) Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora from Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117CE).

Boccaccini, G. (1991) Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.

Cohen, S.J.D. (1987) From the Maccabees to the Mishnah.

—— (1999) The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties.

Grabbe, L.L. (1992a) Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian: Vol. I: Persian and Greek Periods; Vol. II: Roman Period (pagination continuous through both volumes).

Maccoby, Hyam (1989) Judaism in the First Century.

Maier, J. (1990) Zwischen den Testamenten: Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels.

Neusner, J. (1996) Review of G.Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, JSJ 27: 334–38.

Neusner, J., A.J.Avery-Peck, and W.S.Green (eds) (2000) The Encyclopaedia of Judaism.

Niehr, H. (1998) Religionen in Israels Umwelt.

Sanders, E.P. (1992) Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE.

Schiffman, L.H. (1991) From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism.

This book is first and foremost a synthetic history of religion among the Jewish people during a significant period in their history. In format and content it is designed to be a companion to my Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, a two-volume history which covered all aspects of Jewish life including religion (see the Preface to this volume, p. xiii). The purpose of the present volume is to focus purely on the religious side of Judaism and leave the details of political, social, and economic history to the larger work. This will allow a greater concentration on original sources, a more detailed look at the religious belief and practice, and a chance to update in areas where the earlier work is already becoming dated. Like my Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, the presentbook has as its primary aim to contribute to the field by presenting an overall synthesis and interpretation, though I hope also to make original contributions in some individual areas as well.

Although this study is a synthesis—with working scholars as a prime target— every effort has been expended to make it accessible to scholars in other areas, to students, and to others who are not specialists. For this reason, I quote original sources in English translation and try to cite English translations of secondary sources where available. I have also tried to be as complete as practicable in secondary studies, though the sheer volume in some areas means that only the most important or recent works are listed. However, because this supplements JCH, much of the bibliography in that work is not repeated. Approximately half the thousand or so bibliographical items in this book were published in 1990 or later, a sign of the astonishing scholarly activity in the field of Second Temple studies at the moment.

Several other recent volumes overlap in their aims or in the ground covered, and a word should be said about where and why I differ from them. Sanders (1992) aims to convey to the reader what it would have been like to live in Jewish society in the late Second Temple period. This is a very laudable—even brave— attempt and to some extent succeeds. My main criticism (even though there are many areas where we agree) is a methodological one: in order to gain enough data to give the picture he wants, Sanders often draws indiscriminately on sources separated by hundreds and even thousands of years in date (the OT, Josephus, the NT, rabbinic literature) with questions of reliability, credibility, development, and interpretation left unaddressed. My approach in the present study is to delineate the extent and limits of our knowledge by carefully indicating what the data are and the problems with interpreting them. As will become clear, it is often impossible to know how Judaism worked in actual daily life because such data have not been preserved. There is nothing wrong with taking the little information we have and producing an imaginative reconstruction, as long as it is carefully labeled for what it is, but such reconstructions too often take on a reality of their own and become treated as “facts” themselves.

In a very small compass, Cohen (1987) surveys some of the main areas of belief and practice. He is normally careful to distinguish between data taken from Second Temple sources and those from rabbinic literature. Maccoby’s little book (1989) unfortunately sees everything through the eyes of traditional rabbinic Judaism and shows little knowledge of developments in Jewish studies for the past twenty years. Maier (1990) gives an intelligent overview, though his book could have benefited from more sections of synthesis. Schiffman (1991) is very good on the Dead Sea Scrolls and rabbinic literature, but he gives few references to primary data and only a general reading guide rather than exact references to secondary studies. Boccaccini’s volume (1991) has some useful information on aspects of the topic but is somewhat unfocused, covers an odd period of time, and is hardly a completetreatment of belief, much less practice (see the review by Neusner 1996). Also, his attempt to clarify matters by new terminology, done with the best of intent, has in turn created its own problems, and his designation “Middle Judaism” has not caught on. Barclay (1996) gives a good account of the Diaspora.

The present study has much in common with Albertz’s (1994) two-volume work which appeared in the German original at about the same time as my Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian and had certain similarities in size and format. They naturally overlap because Albertz is interested in including the “post-exilic” period, bringing his account down to the Maccabean period. As will be clear in those areas where our studies overlap, I have found Albertz’s work stimulating and have learned much from it, but I also differ from it in a number of aspects of approach and also in many individual interpretations. Niehr (1998) has provided a useful model of how to write about the religions in this region and, although his work overlaps with mine only briefly, it provides an important example of how such works should be done.

A further characterization of my work is given below (see page) when I discuss how I approach the writing of history.

DEFINITIONS

Barstad, H.M. (1996) The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah During the “Exilic” Period.

Grabbe, L.L. (ed.) (1998b) Leading Captivity Captive: The “Exile” as History and Ideology.

——(1999a) “Israel’s Historical Reality after the Exile”, in B.Becking and M.Korpel (eds) The Crisis of Israelite Religion: Transformation of Religious Tradition in Exilic and Post-Exilic Times: 9–32.

Idinopulos, T.A. and B.C.Wilson (eds) (1998) What Is Religion? Origins, Definitions, and Explanations.

Neusner, J. (1991) Judaism as Philosophy.

——(1992) The Transformation of Judaism: From Philosophy to Religion.

Scott, J.M. (ed.) (1997) Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions.

The purpose of definitions is to clarify and aid understanding, not to obfuscate, and certainly not to become a focus in themselves and distract discussion. The following discussion is meant only to clarify to the reader what I am trying to do in this book.

Religion

“Religion” is very difficult to define. The languages of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world had no word that corresponds to “religion” asused in most modern European languages (the Latin word religio, from which we get “religion”, indicated scrupulousness or conscientiousness but included more than just the religious sphere). We all have a basic core of meaning in mind when we use the word; the problem is to set its boundaries. For example, how does one distinguish “religion” and “magic”? What definition of religion can be sufficiently broad to take in what we all agree are religious belief and practices without also including ideologies such as Communism or leisure pursuits such as football fanaticism or ardent trainspotting? A common definition is to relate religion to activities concerning the divine, but even this falls down in the case of Buddhism. There is also the perennial problem of Confucianism and even the ancient Greek philosophies. Can these, including Stoicism and Pythagoreanism, justifiably be called religions as well as philosophies? Indeed, Neusner has recently argued that rabbinic Judaism began in a philosophical mode and then developed to religion and then theology (Neusner 1991, 1992). Some recent studies (e.g. Idinopulos and Wilson 1998) have illustrated the problem and shown the variety of approaches used in the past, unfortunately without producing a more workable one. Without taking further space to discuss this knotty question, I propose to include the following sorts of mental and physical activity under the discussion of Judaic religion:

• beliefs about the deity and a spirit world
• Temple and altar cult and regulations relating to them (tithes, priestly dues and regulations)
• purity observances
• prayer
• scriptures and their study
• veneration of holy places and persons
• the “esoteric arts” (magic, divination, and mysticism)
• sects and movements (though whether some of these are religious can be debated)
• eschatology (including beliefs about salvation, reward and punishment, an afterlife, and messianism)

It is often asserted that the ancients did not distinguish between religion and other aspects of culture in the way that moderns do. This is correct up to a point, with some caveats: it actually ignores the fact that many modern people in the Western world regard religion as an integral part of their way of life and thus do not make a distinction between religion and society, either; on the other hand, the ancients were clearly able to differentiate between cultural aspects which relate to what we call religion (the gods, temples, sacred entities, piety, sacrilege) and other aspects of their culture. One of the most obvious examples was marking off the activities of the temple from those of the mundane world. Activities which might be acts ofworship (e.g. sacrifice and prayer) produced a different mental set from those used to gain food, clothing, and shelter. Those deeds that might attract the wrath of God or those claiming to act on his behalf (violation of purity or sanctity, and even many crimes) were distinguished from other deeds. In that sense, one could speak of a conscious separation between the religious and the secular spheres by pre-moderns. It was also recognized by the Persians, Greeks, and Romans that the Jews were different. Some of these peculiarities were seen simply as ethnic customs, but it was widely recognized that the Jews did certain things because this was considered necessary by their God.

Judaic

The terms “Judaism”, “Jewish”, and “Judaic” have become matters of considerable debate in recent years (cf. Cohen 1999). Are the terms religious or ethnic? At what historical point should the terms begin to be used? Are they to be used interchangeably with “Israel”, “Israelite”, and the like? The question of who is a Jew and Jewish identity are discussed on pp. 292–97 below. For present purposes, I include under Judaic those individuals and communities labeled “Jewish” in the sources (e.g. Yehudi/Yehudim, louda/ Ioudaios/Ioudaioi, Judaea/ Judaeus/Judaei/Judaicus). In the few cases where such terminology is not used, I include communities and individuals worshiping Yhwh or the God of the Jews or observing practices associated only with Jews according to present information. There are still occasionally questions, especially about the identity of particular writings and whether they are Jewish in origin (e.g. the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; these are discussed and their use as sources delineated in each case).

Second Temple period

The term “Second Temple”, referring to Judaism and to a specific historical period, has become established in recent years. The term “Early Judaism” is often used as a synonym, though there is a certain ambiguity to it since some want to include rabbinic Judaism in the term. (Boccaccini’s “Middle Judaism” has not become widely accepted and, in my opinion, creates confusion rather than the clarity it was intended to bring.) The strict dates of 539 BCE to 70 CE might be given for this period, but it is more useful to think of it as defined by the exilic period at the beginning and the Yavnean period at the end. This recognizes that both these periods were transitions to something else which represents an entity with its own characteristics and dynamics, even though there were many continuities. The Second Temple period began in the trauma of the “exile” and ended in the trauma of the 66–70 war with Rome.

Some scholars have recently questioned the accuracy and even usefulness of the term “exile” (see the essays and discussion in Grabbe 1998b; cf. Scott1997). True, recent scholarship has emphasized that only a minority of the population of Judah was removed from the land after Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem about 587/586 BGE (Barstad 1996); nevertheless, this loss of statehood and monarchy created a physical and ideological crisis that left its mark in many ways, regardless of whether “exile and return” is a historical fact as opposed to a theological one. The broad period of the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, the loss of statehood, and the incorporation of Judah formally as a province into a series of Near Eastern empires marked an important watershed in the history of the region and its peoples. Similarly, the consequences of a disastrous war, the permanent loss of the temple, and the end of apocalyptic hopes created a new situation both traumatic and fruitful after 70 CE, even if exactly what happened in the following decades cannot yet be reconstructed in great detail.

The Judaic communities and religion after 587/586 BCE incorporated much from an earlier period (Grabbe 1999a), and much continued in one form or another after 70. The Second Temple period had its own defining characteristics for Judaic religion, however, and the dynamics through this period require that it be treated as a whole. Many treatments begin “Judaism” with the coming of Greek rule to the Near East, and Alexander’s conquests are quite important. Yet the sharp changes so often assumed to coincide with the coming of Greek rule are exaggerated: the real break had come two hundred years earlier at the time of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian empires. Data from both the First Temple period and from the rabbinic period can be used with profit for understanding Second Temple Judaism, but the Second Temple period is a self-contained entity that needs to be studied and understood in its own right.

APOLOGIA PRO HISTORIA MEA

Barstad, H.M. (1997) “History and the Hebrew Bible”, in L.L.Grabbe (ed.) Can a “History of Israel” Be Written?: 37–64.

Evans, R.J. (1997) In Defence of History.

Grabbe, L.L. (1997g) “Are Historians of Ancient Palestine Fellow Creatures—Or Different Animals?” in L.L.Grabbe (ed.) Can a “History of Israel” Be Written?: 19–36.

——(ed.) (1998b) Leading Captivity Captive: The “Exile” as History and Ideology.

——(1998c) “‘The Exile’ under the Theodolite: Historiography as Triangulation”, in L.L.Grabbe (ed.) Leading Captivity Captive: “The Exile” as History and Ideology: 80–100.

——(2000h) “Hat die Bibel doch recht? A Review of T.L.Thompson’s The Bible in History”, SJOT, 14:114–38.

Jenkins, K. (1991) Re-Thinking History.

——(ed.) (1997) The Postmodern History Reader.

McCullagh, C.B. (1998) The Truth of History.

Scott, J.M. (ed.) (1997) Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions.

Thompson, T.L. (1999) The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past (UK title); The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (American title).

It is appropriate that I make explicit my approach to writing history and also why my history of Judaic religion will differ from that of others. There is currently a debate among historians about how to write history, in part a response to post-modernism (cf. Barstad 1997; Evans 1997; Jenkins 1991). It seems to me that there are insights to be gained from the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• 1: INTRODUCTION
• I: CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY
• II: SPECIAL TOPICS
• III: CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY