Despite its intesely nationalist spirit, Judaism attracted larte numbers of Gentile proselytes, who were full converts, and God-fearers, who were Gentiles willing to practice Judaism in part but unwilling to undergo circumcision and observe the stricter Jewish taboos. These Gentiles found Jewish theology superior to pagan polytheism and supersition, for the Jews emphasized their monotheistic belief in one God and opposed idolatry even in their own temple. Unconverted pagans, on the other hand, could not comprehend a temple without an idol. Why build a temple if not to house an idol? The Jewish emphasis on moral behavior also appealed to the conscience of Gentiles offended by the immprality of the pantheon as described in pagan mythology and of the devotees of those gods and goddesses.
Jewish beliefs sprang from the acts of God in history as recorded in a collection of sacred books (the Old Testament) and not, as in paganism, from mythology, mysticism, or philosophic speculation. The Old Testament emphasized the fate of Israel the nation; hence, the doctrine of individual and therefore on the doctrine of individual resurrection. Nationalism and the awareness of being God's chosen people had by no means died out, however.
Jews were looking for the Messiah to come. Indeed, some of them awaited a variety of messianic figures - prophetic, priestly, and royal. But they did not expect the Messiah to be a divine as well as human being, or to suffer, die, and rise from the dead for their salvation from sin. Instead, they looked for God to use a purely human figure on bringing military delieverance from Roman domination. Or God himself would deliver his people, they thought, and then introduce the Messiah as ruler. "This present age," evil in character, was to be followed by the utopian "days of the Messiah" or "day of the Lord," indeterminate or variously calculated as to length. Afterwards, "the coming age," or eternity, would begin. Occasionally in Jewish thinking, the messianic kingdom merged with the eternal age to come.
Monday, February 25, 2013
The Literature of Judaism
The Religious Calendar
Closely related to worship in the temple were the religious restivals and holy days of the Jews. Their civil year began approximately in September-October, their religious year approximately in March-April. The Mosaic law prescribed the first six items on the calendar (Passover-Tabernacles). The remaining two (Hannukkah and Purim) arose later and apart from scriptural command. Pilgrims thronged to Jerusalem from elsewhere in Palestine and also from foreign countries for the three main festivals: Passover-Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
The Literature of Judaism: Old Testament
The Old Testament existed in three linguistic forms for Jews of the first century: the original Hebrew, the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and the Targums 9oral paraphrases in Aramaic, which were just beginning to be written down). The Targums also contained traditional, interpretatitve, and imaginative material not found in the Old Testament itself.
Apocrypha
Written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and dating from the interestamental and New Testament periods, the apocryphal books of the Old Testament contain history, fiction, and wisdom. The Jews and later the early Christians did not generally regard these books as sacred Scripture. Thus apocrypha, which originally meant "hidden, secret" and therefore "profound," came to mean "noncanonical." The apocrphal books include the following:
1 Esdras
2 Esdras (or 4 Ezra, apocalyptic in content)
Tobit
Judith
Additons to the Book of Esther
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
Baruch
Letter of Jeremiah
Prayer of Azariah
Song of Three Young Men
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
Prayer of Manasseh
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Pseudepigrapha and Apocalyptic
Other Jewish books dating from the same era are labeled pseudepigrapha ("falsely inscribed"), because some of them were written under the falsely assumed names of long-deceased Old Testament figures to achieve an air of authority. Some pseudepographal writings also fall into the class of apocalyptic literature, which describes in highly sumbolic and visionary language the end of present history with the coming of God's kingdom on earth. By promising the soon arrival of that kingdom, apocalyptists encouraged the Jewish people to endure persecution. Repeated disappointment of the hopes built up in his way eventually stopped the publication of apocalytpic literature.
The pseudepigraphal literature, which has no generally recognized limits, also contains anonymous books of legendary history, psalms, and wisdom. A list of well-known pseudepigraphal books follows:
1 Enoch
2 Enoch
2 Baruch, or the Apocalypse of Baruch
3 Baruch
Sybylline Oracles
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Testament of Job
Lives of the Prophets
Assumption of Moses
Martyrdom of Isaiah
Paralipomena of Jeremia
Jubilees
Life of Adam and Eve
Psalms of Solomon
Letter of Aristeas
3 Maccabees
4Maccabees
In addition, the Qumral scrolls discovered in caves near the Dead Sea include literature similiar to the traditiona pseudepigrapha:
Damascus (or Zadokite) Document (fragments of which were known before)
Rule of the Community, or Manual of Discipline
War Between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
Description of the New Jersusalem
Temple Scroll
Psalms of Joshua
Pseudo-jeremianic literature
Apocruphal Danielic literature
Various commentaries (pesherim) on the Psalms, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah
Various books of laws, liturgies, prayers, blessings, mysteries, wisdom, and astronomical and calendrical calculations
Closely related to worship in the temple were the religious restivals and holy days of the Jews. Their civil year began approximately in September-October, their religious year approximately in March-April. The Mosaic law prescribed the first six items on the calendar (Passover-Tabernacles). The remaining two (Hannukkah and Purim) arose later and apart from scriptural command. Pilgrims thronged to Jerusalem from elsewhere in Palestine and also from foreign countries for the three main festivals: Passover-Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
The Literature of Judaism: Old Testament
The Old Testament existed in three linguistic forms for Jews of the first century: the original Hebrew, the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and the Targums 9oral paraphrases in Aramaic, which were just beginning to be written down). The Targums also contained traditional, interpretatitve, and imaginative material not found in the Old Testament itself.
Apocrypha
Written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and dating from the interestamental and New Testament periods, the apocryphal books of the Old Testament contain history, fiction, and wisdom. The Jews and later the early Christians did not generally regard these books as sacred Scripture. Thus apocrypha, which originally meant "hidden, secret" and therefore "profound," came to mean "noncanonical." The apocrphal books include the following:
1 Esdras
2 Esdras (or 4 Ezra, apocalyptic in content)
Tobit
Judith
Additons to the Book of Esther
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach
Baruch
Letter of Jeremiah
Prayer of Azariah
Song of Three Young Men
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
Prayer of Manasseh
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Pseudepigrapha and Apocalyptic
Other Jewish books dating from the same era are labeled pseudepigrapha ("falsely inscribed"), because some of them were written under the falsely assumed names of long-deceased Old Testament figures to achieve an air of authority. Some pseudepographal writings also fall into the class of apocalyptic literature, which describes in highly sumbolic and visionary language the end of present history with the coming of God's kingdom on earth. By promising the soon arrival of that kingdom, apocalyptists encouraged the Jewish people to endure persecution. Repeated disappointment of the hopes built up in his way eventually stopped the publication of apocalytpic literature.
The pseudepigraphal literature, which has no generally recognized limits, also contains anonymous books of legendary history, psalms, and wisdom. A list of well-known pseudepigraphal books follows:
1 Enoch
2 Enoch
2 Baruch, or the Apocalypse of Baruch
3 Baruch
Sybylline Oracles
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Testament of Job
Lives of the Prophets
Assumption of Moses
Martyrdom of Isaiah
Paralipomena of Jeremia
Jubilees
Life of Adam and Eve
Psalms of Solomon
Letter of Aristeas
3 Maccabees
4Maccabees
In addition, the Qumral scrolls discovered in caves near the Dead Sea include literature similiar to the traditiona pseudepigrapha:
Damascus (or Zadokite) Document (fragments of which were known before)
Rule of the Community, or Manual of Discipline
War Between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
Description of the New Jersusalem
Temple Scroll
Psalms of Joshua
Pseudo-jeremianic literature
Apocruphal Danielic literature
Various commentaries (pesherim) on the Psalms, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah
Various books of laws, liturgies, prayers, blessings, mysteries, wisdom, and astronomical and calendrical calculations
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Juadaism
The Synagogue
More important for the New Testament study than the pagan religious and philosophical milieu is the Judaism out of which Christianity arose. Judaism as it was in the first century originated toward the close of the Old Testament period during the Assyro-Babylonian exile. The prophets had predicted exile as punishment for the idolatry practiced by the people of Israel. Fulfillment of the prediction permanently cured them idolatry. Temporary loss of the temple during the Exile gave rise to increased study and observance of the Old Testament law (the Torah) and at least ultimately to establishment of the synagogue as an institution. It is debatable whether synagogues originated during the Exile, during the restoration, or during the intertestamenta period. But a reasonable conjecture is that since the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the first temple (Solomon's) and deported most of the Jews from Judea, they established local centers of worship called synagogues ("assemblies") wherever ten adult Jewish men could be found. Once established as an institution, synagogues remained and multiplied even after the rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel's leadership.
At first not every elaborate, the typical synagogue consisted of a rectangular room perhaps having a raised speaker's platform behind which rested a portable chest or shrine containing Old Testament scrolls. The congregation st on stone benches running along two or three walls and on mats and possibly wooden chairs in the center of the room. In front, facing the congregation, sat the ruler and elders of the synagogue. Singing was unaccompanied. To read from an Old Testament scroll, the speaker stood. To preach, he sat down. For prayer, everyone stood. The typical synagogue service consisted of the following:
The synagogue was more than a center for religious worship every Saturday. During the week it became a center for adminstration of justice, political meetings, funeral services, education of Jewish lads, and study of the Old Testament. This study tended to obscure the importance of offering sacrifices in the temple. As a result, the rabbi, or teacher of the law, began to upstage the priest.
The Mosiac law prescribed that the sacrifices could be offered only at a central sanctuary. The second temple continued to be important, therefore, until its destruction in A.D. 70. The urging of the prophets Haggain and Zechariah had spurred its building during the Old Testament period of restoration from the Exile. Plundered and descrated by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., it had been repaired, cleansed, and rededicated by Judas Maccabeus three years later. Then, at much expense, Herod the Great beautified it even beyond the glory of the first temple, which had been built in grand style more than nine hundred years earlier by King Solomon, son of King David.
The Temple
The temple proper stood in the middle of courts and cloisters covering about twenty-six acres. Gentiles could enter the outer court; but inscriptions in Latin and Greek warned them on pain of death not to enter the inner courts, reserved for Jews alone. Just outside the temple proper stood and altar for burnt offerings and a lavar or tub full of water which the priests used for washing. Inside the first room or holy place, curtained from the outside with a heavy veil, stood a seven-branched golden lampstand that burned olive oil mixed with other substances, a table stocked with bread representing God's providnetial presence, and a small altar for the burning incense. Another heavy veil curtained off the innermost room, the Holy of Holies. into which the high priest entered but once a year, alone, on the Day of Atonement. The ark of the covenant, the only peice of furniture placed in the Holy of Holies during Old Testament times, had long ago disappeared in the upheavals of invasion and captivity. Besides private sacrifices, daily burnt offerings for the whole nation were sacrificed at midmorning and midafternoon in conjunction with the burning of incense and with prayersm priestly benedicitons, pouring out of wine as alibation (liquid offering), blowing of trumpets, and chanting and singing by choirs of Levits accompanied with harpes, lyres, and wind instruments. Sabbaths, festivals, and other holy days featured additional ceremonies.
More important for the New Testament study than the pagan religious and philosophical milieu is the Judaism out of which Christianity arose. Judaism as it was in the first century originated toward the close of the Old Testament period during the Assyro-Babylonian exile. The prophets had predicted exile as punishment for the idolatry practiced by the people of Israel. Fulfillment of the prediction permanently cured them idolatry. Temporary loss of the temple during the Exile gave rise to increased study and observance of the Old Testament law (the Torah) and at least ultimately to establishment of the synagogue as an institution. It is debatable whether synagogues originated during the Exile, during the restoration, or during the intertestamenta period. But a reasonable conjecture is that since the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the first temple (Solomon's) and deported most of the Jews from Judea, they established local centers of worship called synagogues ("assemblies") wherever ten adult Jewish men could be found. Once established as an institution, synagogues remained and multiplied even after the rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel's leadership.
At first not every elaborate, the typical synagogue consisted of a rectangular room perhaps having a raised speaker's platform behind which rested a portable chest or shrine containing Old Testament scrolls. The congregation st on stone benches running along two or three walls and on mats and possibly wooden chairs in the center of the room. In front, facing the congregation, sat the ruler and elders of the synagogue. Singing was unaccompanied. To read from an Old Testament scroll, the speaker stood. To preach, he sat down. For prayer, everyone stood. The typical synagogue service consisted of the following:
- Antiphona recitations of the Shema (Deut. 6:4ff., the "golden text" of Judaism) and of the Shemone Esreh (a series of praises to God)
- Prayer
- Singing of psalms
- Readings from the Hebrew Old Testament law and prophets interspersed with a Targum, that is, a loose oral translation into Aramaic (or Greek), which many Jews understood better than Hebrew
- A sermon (if someone competent at preaching was present)
- A blessing or benediction
The synagogue was more than a center for religious worship every Saturday. During the week it became a center for adminstration of justice, political meetings, funeral services, education of Jewish lads, and study of the Old Testament. This study tended to obscure the importance of offering sacrifices in the temple. As a result, the rabbi, or teacher of the law, began to upstage the priest.
The Mosiac law prescribed that the sacrifices could be offered only at a central sanctuary. The second temple continued to be important, therefore, until its destruction in A.D. 70. The urging of the prophets Haggain and Zechariah had spurred its building during the Old Testament period of restoration from the Exile. Plundered and descrated by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C., it had been repaired, cleansed, and rededicated by Judas Maccabeus three years later. Then, at much expense, Herod the Great beautified it even beyond the glory of the first temple, which had been built in grand style more than nine hundred years earlier by King Solomon, son of King David.
The Temple
The temple proper stood in the middle of courts and cloisters covering about twenty-six acres. Gentiles could enter the outer court; but inscriptions in Latin and Greek warned them on pain of death not to enter the inner courts, reserved for Jews alone. Just outside the temple proper stood and altar for burnt offerings and a lavar or tub full of water which the priests used for washing. Inside the first room or holy place, curtained from the outside with a heavy veil, stood a seven-branched golden lampstand that burned olive oil mixed with other substances, a table stocked with bread representing God's providnetial presence, and a small altar for the burning incense. Another heavy veil curtained off the innermost room, the Holy of Holies. into which the high priest entered but once a year, alone, on the Day of Atonement. The ark of the covenant, the only peice of furniture placed in the Holy of Holies during Old Testament times, had long ago disappeared in the upheavals of invasion and captivity. Besides private sacrifices, daily burnt offerings for the whole nation were sacrificed at midmorning and midafternoon in conjunction with the burning of incense and with prayersm priestly benedicitons, pouring out of wine as alibation (liquid offering), blowing of trumpets, and chanting and singing by choirs of Levits accompanied with harpes, lyres, and wind instruments. Sabbaths, festivals, and other holy days featured additional ceremonies.
Philosophies
The intelligentsia were turning to purer forms of philosphy. Epicureanism taught pleasure (not necesasarily sensual) as the chief good in life. Stoicism taught dutiful acceptance of one's fate as determined by an impersonal Reason which rules the universe and of which all human beings are a part. The Cynics, who have anumber of modern counterparts, regarded the supreme virtue as a simple, unconventional life in rejection of the popular pursuits of comfort, affluence, and social prestige. The Sceptics were realativists who abandoned belief in anything absolute and succumbed to doubt and conformity to preavailing custom. These and others philosophies did not determine the lives of very many people, however. Superstition and suncretism characterized the masses. Thus, Christianity entered a religiously and philosphically confused world. The old confidence of classical Athens had run out. The enigmatic universe defied understanding. Philosophy had failed to provide satisfactory answers. So also had the traditional religions. People felt helpless under the fate of the stars, which they regarded as angelic-demonic beings. Gloom and despair prevailed.
Gnosticism
Plato's dualistic contrast between the invisible world of ideas and the visible world of matter formed a substratum of first-century Gnosticism, which started to take shape late in the first century and which equated matter with evil, spirit with good. Out of this equation came two opposite modes of conduct: (1) ascetisism, the suppression of bodily passions because of their connection with evil matter, and (2) libertinism or sensualism, the indulgence of bodily passions because of the transcience and consequent unimportance of matter. In both modes, Oriental religious notions mixed with Platonic philospy. Physical resurrection seemed abhorrent so long as matter was regarded as evil. Imortality of the spirit seemed desirable, however, attainable through the knowledge of secret doctrines and passwords by which at death one's departing spirit could elude hostile demonic guardians of the planets and stars on its flight from earth to heaven. Under this view the human problem does not consist in guilt, which needs forgiveness, so much as in ignorance, which needs replacement with knowledge. In fact, Gnosticism comes gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. To keep the realm of supreme diety pure, later Gnostics separated it from the material and therefore evil universe by a series of lesser divine beings called "aeons." Thus an elaborate angelology developed alongside demonology.
Gnostic ideas seem to stand behind certain heresies attacked in later New Testament literature; but the contents of a Gnostic liberary discovered in the 1940s at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, give evidence that full-blown Gnostic mythology did not yet exist at the time Christianity arose. In the first century, Gnosticism was still developing out of an aggregate loosely related philosophical and religious ideas and had yet turn into a highly organized system of doctrine.
Gnostic ideas seem to stand behind certain heresies attacked in later New Testament literature; but the contents of a Gnostic liberary discovered in the 1940s at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, give evidence that full-blown Gnostic mythology did not yet exist at the time Christianity arose. In the first century, Gnosticism was still developing out of an aggregate loosely related philosophical and religious ideas and had yet turn into a highly organized system of doctrine.
Superstition and Syncretism
Superstition had a stranglehold on most people in the Roman Empire. Use of magical formulas, consultation of hosorscopes and oracles, augury or prediction of the future by observing the flight of birds, the movement of oil on water, and the markings on a lover and the hiring of professional exorcists (experts at casting out demons) - all these superstitious practices and many more played a part in every day life. Jews numbered among the most sought-after exorcists, largely because it it was thought that they alone could correctly pronounce the magically potent name Yahweh (Hebrew for "Lord"). Correct pronunciation, along secrecy, was considered necessary to the effectiveness of an incantation. In practice known as syncretism common people simply combined various religious beliefs and superstitious practices. Household idol shelves were filled with the images of birds, dogs, bulls, crocodiles, beetles, and other creatures.
Mystery Religions
Much has been written about the widespread popularity and influence of Greek, Egyptian, and Oriental mystery religions on the first Christian century - the cults of Eleusis, Mithra, Isis, Dionysus, Cybele, and many local cults. These promised purification and immortality of the soul and often centered on myths of a goddess whose lover or child was taken from her, usually by death, and later restored. The mysteries also featured secret initiatory and other rites involving ceremeonial washing, blood-springkling, sacramental meals, intoxication, emotional frenzy, and impressive pageantry by which devotees were supposed to gain union with the deity. Social equality within the mysteries helped make them attrative to the lower classes.
On the other hand, not until the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era do we get detailed information concering the beliefs held by devotees of the mysteries. Therefore, though nobody doubts the pre-Christian existence of mystery religions, their pre-Christian beliefs remain largely unknown. Where their later beliefs look slightly similar to Christian beliefs, the direction of borrowing may have gone from Christianity to the mystery religions rather than vice versa, especially since pagans were notoriously assimilative (see "Syncretism") and early Christians exclusivistic. Besides, similarities are often more apparent than real, and even where real they do no necessarily imply borrowing in either direction.
For example, the myths of dying and rising gods do not really correspond to the New Testament of accounts of Jesus' death and resurrection. In the first place, the deaths of the gods were not thought to purchase redemption for human beings. Furthermore, the story of Jesus' death and resurrection had to do with recent historical figure; the myths usually had to do with personifications of vegetaional process (the annual dying and renewal of plant life) and thus did not move on the plane of history at all, much less recent history. Finally, the mythological gods did not rise in full bodily resurrection, but revived only in part or merely in the world of the dead. When the fourteen parts of Osiris's body were reassembled, for example, he became king of the dead in the underworld. All that Cybele could obtain for the corpse of Attis was that it should not decay, that its hair should continue to grow, and that its little finger should move - yet the story Cybele and Attis, who purportedly died by self-castration, is sometimes cited as asignificant parallel to the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. As a matter of fact, the very thoughts of death by crucifixion and physical resurrection were abhorrent to ancient pagans, who associated curcifixion with criminals and often thought of the body as a prison for the soul and as the seat of evil. If Christians had borrowed their beliefs from popular mystery religions, one wonders why the pagans widely regarded the Christian gospel as foolish, incredible, and deserving of persecution.
On the other hand, not until the second, third, and fourth centuries of the Christian era do we get detailed information concering the beliefs held by devotees of the mysteries. Therefore, though nobody doubts the pre-Christian existence of mystery religions, their pre-Christian beliefs remain largely unknown. Where their later beliefs look slightly similar to Christian beliefs, the direction of borrowing may have gone from Christianity to the mystery religions rather than vice versa, especially since pagans were notoriously assimilative (see "Syncretism") and early Christians exclusivistic. Besides, similarities are often more apparent than real, and even where real they do no necessarily imply borrowing in either direction.
For example, the myths of dying and rising gods do not really correspond to the New Testament of accounts of Jesus' death and resurrection. In the first place, the deaths of the gods were not thought to purchase redemption for human beings. Furthermore, the story of Jesus' death and resurrection had to do with recent historical figure; the myths usually had to do with personifications of vegetaional process (the annual dying and renewal of plant life) and thus did not move on the plane of history at all, much less recent history. Finally, the mythological gods did not rise in full bodily resurrection, but revived only in part or merely in the world of the dead. When the fourteen parts of Osiris's body were reassembled, for example, he became king of the dead in the underworld. All that Cybele could obtain for the corpse of Attis was that it should not decay, that its hair should continue to grow, and that its little finger should move - yet the story Cybele and Attis, who purportedly died by self-castration, is sometimes cited as asignificant parallel to the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. As a matter of fact, the very thoughts of death by crucifixion and physical resurrection were abhorrent to ancient pagans, who associated curcifixion with criminals and often thought of the body as a prison for the soul and as the seat of evil. If Christians had borrowed their beliefs from popular mystery religions, one wonders why the pagans widely regarded the Christian gospel as foolish, incredible, and deserving of persecution.
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