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Originally Posted by JoeWallack
It's generally only Apologists that try to defend the historicity of 7:3 and the only supposed ammunition available to them are the famous "Eighteen Measures" developed by the Schools of Hillel and Shammai shortly before the Temple destruction as described in the Talmud. One of the measures was ritual bodily immersion which was considered impracticable and therefore could be substituted with ritual hand washing.
The Talmud is a combination of History, Teaching and Commentary so it's difficult to know how much weight to give supposed historical claims. Assuming that Bet Hillel and Shammai did make such a historical declaration it's likely that rather than something more than all the Pharisees following such a decree it was actually less than all the Pharisees. You have the following reasons than, to consider:
"3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders;"
anachronistic:
1) The Talmud indicates the Eighteen Measures were well after the supposed time of Jesus.
2) The Eighteen Measures would have been primarily motivating to Bet Hillel and Shammai and not all the Jews per 7:3.
3) In general The Jewish Bible supports Ritual washing for the Priests and the Talmud supports transfer of Rituals from the Priesthood to the Household after the destruction of the Temple.
4) 1)-3) above probably appealed to "Mark" as subject matter because of the Ritual, Temple and Destruction issues.
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Okay, so the extrabiblical evidence that handwashing was practiced comes from the Talmud, which was written much later, and says that the "Eighteen Measures" were developed by certain schools shortly before the temple destruction. These Eighteen Measures include the command for body immersion which could perhaps have been substituted by hand washing. We can't be sure that this history reported by the Talmud is true. Assuming it is true, we cannot know that all Pharisees followed it, and certainly not all Jews. But the Talmud does seem to indicate that the measure was at least somewhat prevalent beginning around the time of the destruction of the Temple. Before those Eighteeen Measures, we can't know if any non-priests practiced this handwashing ritual.
I don't have access to the Talmud, but assuming the above is true, then that certainly is evidence that the handwashing referred to in Mark 7 could have been a post-70CE tradition that anachronistically got inserted into Mark.
I also found the link
Jesus and the Law to be helpful. It states:
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In the Law, eating ordinary meals in a state of purity is explicitly required of priests and their families when the food eaten consists of foods dedicated to God (Lev 7:19-21; 22:3-16)
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Lev. 22 is particularly important here, as it specifically demands that priests purify themselves with water before eating holy food. It makes no such demand on ordinary people.
So it does seem likely that, before those schools of Pharisees instituted those Eighteeen Measures, only the priests practiced ritual handwashing as prescribed in Leviticus. The Pharisaic schools apparently extended the law to cover ordinary people.
RA argues that the Essenes practiced this handwashing at the time of Christ. Again, referring to the
Jesus and the Law source, I read:
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According to Josephus, the Essenes also aimed to preserve the ritual purity of ordinary food. According to War 2. 129, they purified themselves by means of full immersion in cold water before eating, and in Ant. 18.22 Josephus explains that, since they had higher purity requirements than non-priests, priests prepared the common meals.
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So the Essene practice involved full immersion, not just hand washing. So regardless of when the Essene practice started, this does not support the historicity of handwashing rituals as described in Mark 7.
So we don't seem to have any evidence outside the Bible that such handwashing was done until near the time of the temple destruction. Even if some Pharisees did it earlier, they would have been a minority faction in the time of Christ. The asserion of Mark 7:3 that all Jews did this in the time of Jesus would be anachronistic.
So the weight of the evidence seems to indicate Mark 7:3 is an anchronism.
11-11-2007, 12:29 AM
