Diogenes the Cynic

Whose general assumption is that? Based on what actual evidence? These "town halls" do not show up in the archaeology that I'm aware of.

Diogenes the Cynic

Is this some kind of Scotsman fallacy? Are you saying that no Creationists are Christians or that no Christians are Creationists?

ApostateAbe

Sorry, why is that?

spin

Hey, that's alright. Neither does sotto voce.

Maklelan

What's important to acknowledge here is that lineage was quite critical to groups that worked in the temple as well as to groups that did not. The Sadducees saw themselves as descendants of Zadok, and thus the rightful stewards of the temple and its priesthood. Levitical descent was obviously critical to exercising any priesthood duties, and family records would have been fiercely guarded by the Sadducees, and most likely in the temple. Those records would have established the aristocracy of the time period, and they wouldn't leave them in the synagogues, which were under the control of the non-Levitical groups. Those groups found a way to undermine the religious hegemony of the priestly classes by gathering and worshipping in synagogues, which is what you might call the equivalent of a "town hall." Their own family records would have likely been kept there.

sotto voce

That has already been mentioned.

That is unknown. There are various theories of how the Sadducees got their name, and it must always be remembered that both they and the Pharisees were totally unofficial, unappointed other than by themselves; their interest was primarily in the religion of Mammon, not Jehovah, and it showed. They would have been promptly put to the sword by David, Hezekiah and any decent monarch of Israel, so harking back to David's day was hardly likely to be a sensible part of their strategy. There is no very good evidence that they were descended from the Zadok of David and Solomon's reigns, though there were several later men of that name who might have been the source. Many of them were not priests; but they were all wealthy, and well connected to the Romans, which connexion was their real power base, not the Temple.

Which was about the last place they would have kept any contentious records, because the Pharisees had as much access to the Temple as they did. In any case, being landowners and pals of the imperium, they would have had the most secure facilities available for any family genealogies.

And in any case, Joseph was not a priest.

Maklelan

I apologize. I haven't read every post in the thread and was just commenting on your post.

The legitimacy of their connection with Zadok is absolutely immaterial. They gained and kept majority control of the high priesthood because their connections with, and support of, Hasmonean rulers allowed them to deeply entrench themselves in the aristocracy. That the Sadducees claimed privileged access to the priesthood is the point, and it is made only to highlight the sharp lines that divided, in the minds of first century Jews, those who controlled the temple from those who did not. The high priest and other Sadducees would have kept their genealogies in the temple long before they would have ever stored them in a synagogue.

Next, their connections with Rome were in large part based on their connection with the temple. The high priesthood after the Hasmonean line was eradicated were mostly Sadducees, and the high priest was Judaism's representative to Rome (he was also appointed by Rome). The temple owned the majority of the land in and around Jerusalem, collected virtually all funds that came into Jerusalem from other lands, and was the quickest route to wealth as well as to peace or unrest in Judea.

On a side note, while there are different propositions regarding the etymology of the name Sadducee, the majority of scholars today favor the conclusion that they derived the name from the name of the high priest Zadok. Whether or not they were actual descendants of the high priest is another story and is, again, immaterial.

Pharisees would not have had the access a Sadducee high priest would have had, but I don't agree that these records were contentious, especially to the degree that there was risk in storing them in the temple. Sadducee genealogies were certainly not kept in "town halls," or synagogues. They developed outside Jerusalem, and as a place of public and local gathering and worship stood in ideological opposition to the temple and its priesthood.

The temple was widely viewed as the most secure facility in all Jerusalem.

I'm not arguing that he was.

sotto voce

Minimalist

You're really grasping at straws there!

DCHindley

If the temple aparatus really controlled much of the land in Judea (aside from royal land managed by the Romans and land gifted to Greek cities and key figures such as the emperor's family and power interests), someone in that apparatus had to keep records to see who was responsible for the tithes. So centralized records would be expected. How far back they were saved, that is another matter altogether. That wouldn't stop folks from extracting from them for their own purposes. That would not, though, cover control of land outside of Judea.

Some interesting studies on these matters are:

Fabian Udoh, To Caesar What Is Caesar's: Tribute, Taxes, and Imperial Administration in Early Roman Palestine: 63 BCE - 70 CE (or via: amazon.co.uk), (Brown Judaic Studies, No. 343), 2006

Jack pastor, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1997

David A Fiensy, The Social History of Palestine in the Herodian Period (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1991

However, these cannot agree as to the significance of the temple in the subject of land tenancy. Udoh, for instance, speaks of tracts of land under control of a sort of "temple state" operating with the authorization of the ruler (Herod or later the Roman governors).

The good description of "temple lands" as they operated in Asia and Egypt can be found in

Henry A. Green, "The Socio-Economic Background of Christianity in Egypt" in
Pearson, B and Goehring, J E, The Roots of Egyptian Christianity,
1986, pp 100-113

Six distinct land ideologies were identified in Jewish scripture by Norman Habel in The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies (or via: amazon.co.uk), 1995:

1) The Royal Ideology (1 King 3-10 & Royal Psalms)
2) The Theocratic Ideology (Deuteronomy)
3) The Ancestral Household Ideology (Joshua)
4) The Prophetic Ideology (Jeremiah)
5) The Agrarian Ideology (Leviticus 25-27)
6) The Immigrant Ideology (Abraham narratives)*

Three of these six imply or guarantee perpetual right to land tenure (Theocratic & Ancestral Household actually give rights to ancestral households, not individuals. Only the Agrarian ideology gave that right to individual peasant farmers). The other three do not. In fact, the Royal ideology came closest to that employed by Hellenistic kings, who claimed a right of conquest (conquered land became "spear-won" land, belonging exclusively to the king).

In the case of Ptolemy I of Egypt, who captured Palestine in 301 BCE, Jack Pastor emphasizes that most researchers (Rostovtzeff, Schalit, Hengel and Bagnall) have accepted that Ptolemaic policies of land tenure in Palestine probably resembled that known in other parts of the Ptolemaic empire: Egypt, Galilee, Beth Shean valley, etc):

"The Ptolemaic king ruled Egypt as his personal property; all the soil, the subsoil, and ultimately the products of the soil were his.

There were essentially three kinds of land in Ptolemaic Egypt:
(1) royal land (GH BASILIKH) managed directly by the king;
(2) land granted (GH EN AFESEI) or released to the management of others;
(3) and city land (GH POLITIKH) - land assigned to the cities and their citizens.

Granted land had various subcategories:
a) temple land (GH IERA)
b) land to servants of the state (GH EN SUNTAXEI)
c) land to soldiers (GH KLHROUCIKH)
d) gift estates to highest officials (GH EN DWREAi),
e) and finally land held in private ownership (KTHMATA or GH IDIOKTHTOS).

We should note that the gift of land in Egypt never included villages, but only areas of land. Furthermore, the lots of land were contingent upon military service, and upon rank and arm of service." (Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine, pp 22-24, formatting is mine)

This was also the basic model adopted by the Seleucids.

David Fiensy agrees with this view (that tenure policy in Palestine resembled this Egyptian model), but also emphasizes that land "still belonged to the king and could be recalled." (Social History of Palestine, pp 21-22. He also makes it abundantly clear that the vast majority of land throughout the region was in the form of private estates of either the kings or their retainers.

It is clear from this that hereditary ancestral plots were the norm, rather than the exception, and then only on conditions! What I suggest was that what passed for ancestral land in Herod's time was granted "temple land" that was distributed according to the Agrarian Ideology of Leviticus 25-27. Considerable record keeping was apparently involved in this kind of system, no matter who the ruler was.

DCH