jules?

Brian Can I join your group?.....
Reg Listen. If you really wanted to join the PFJ, you'd have to really hate the Romans.
Brian I do.
Reg Oh yeah? How much?
Brian A lot!
Reg Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
PFJ Yeah
Judith Splitters.
Francis And the Judean Popular Peoples Front.
PFJ Oh yeah. Splitters.
Loretta And the peoples Front of Judea.
PFJ Splitters.
Reg What?
Loretta The Peoples front of Judea. Splitters.
Reg We're the Peoples front of Judea.
Loretta Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
Reg Peoples Front.
Francis Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
Reg He's over there.


I needed to do a short description of 1st century religious groups of Judea, so quickly looking up Sadducee and Pharisee in the encyclopaedia gave me the impression Sadducee were conservative Temple Jews and Pharisee were rabbinical with progressive attitudes to the Law. But a bit more research says something different. Sadducee are Hellinised Epicurians, strict with the law but living it up as the wealthy elite, Pharisee are also conservative. Flavius Josephus is not much help painting a picture of Essene as peace loving monks. I understandthere were also Boethusians, Bana'im, Dositheans, Gorothenes Hemerobaptists, Herodians, Hypsistarians, Maghariya, Masbotheans, Nasaraeans, Ossaeans, Samaritans, Galilaeans, Qumranians, Scribes, Sebuaeans, Therapeutae and Zealots. I am not looking to get a description for these or the Essene.

So my question is really what did the two main parties believe? Am I approaching this wrongly was it politics and should I be looking at these groups as I would approach, say Democrats and Republicans/ Labour/Conservative.

thanks

Ray Moscow

What little I've have read of the Pharisees indicates that that the gospels paint them completely wrong -- which makes one wonder how much "Jerusalem" Judaism that the gospels writers actually understood.

Robert Price goes into some detail on this in his The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Ray

mountainman

Hello jules?

Are you another profile?

Magdlyn

The Sadducees (a Greek word, perhaps Zadokim in Hebrew) were the priests of the Temple sacrifice. In the first century CE, they were corrupt "quislings" of the Roman government, and appointed by Rome.

The Temple priests and Levites were always the Jerusalem nobility. IMO, they wrote the Torah (laws) as a prop for the taxation of the working people of Judah, demanding the best livestock, produce, wool, metals and other goods as "sacrifice" and eating of it themselves.

The Pharisees (this name might come from Parsee, or Persian, reflecting the influence of Zoroastrianism in their thought, esp resurrection) came into power during the Babylonian exile and after the final (CE) Temple destruction, when the Sadducees lost their power, b/c the sacrifices stopped. This is when the "Jews" became the People of the Book (ie: Torah/Tanakh).

The Pharisees (proto-rabbis), around the turn of the millenium, were attempting to "put a hedge around Torah," to placate YHWH. They believed it was important to always live as if they were a high priest who had purified himself on the day he approached the Holy of Holies.

Jesus is depicted as speaking as a Hillelian Pharisee in the gospel narratives. For example, "lust in your heart" is just as bad as actual adultery. Gossip is just as bad as murder.

Besides the rec. of The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (or via: amazon.co.uk), I also rec, Jesus the Pharisee (or via: amazon.co.uk), by Hyam Maccoby, a Jewish scholar.

from amazon:

judge

I was under the impression the root word here indcated a seperation.

spin

While it's almost certain that Sadducee is derived from Zadokim, the notion of corrupt quislings seems specifically to come from christian texts and those are probably later than the 1st century. The Sadducees were functionally a spent force in Hillel's time as his enemies are not Sadducee but the rival Shammaist Pharisees. (It was only Herod the Great, who imported a Sadducee family from Egypt, that kept any Sadducee influence alive.

This was true for the priests up until the rise of the Hasmonean family of priests and Pompey's destruction of the temple. But Levites?

The claim for the best was actually part of the whole Near East ethos, so the Jewish priesthood would have inherited the idea and it would simply have been part of their subconscious, which translated out to "if you wanna be a good believer you have to show god respect and present good sacrifices which are managed by his representatives on earth".

I know TW Manson put forward the view that "Pharisee" is derived from "Parsee", but it certainly isn't a status quo position. Then again there is not enough evidence to support either.

Besides resurrection though, one could add dualism, eschatology and final victory of the lord of heaven.

If I understand correctly the Pharisees actually came into some awareness of their power during the struggle for independence from the Seleucid empire. It was from then on that they enter recorded history, though they themselves pointed back to the period of the high priest Simon the Just.

I've often wondered if this is a parallel to the purity of the rank-and-file from the Dead Sea Scrolls. They both seem to be a Hebrew version of a Greek association.

(Sorry, but wasn't "Jesus the Pharisee" written by Harvey Falk?)


spin

Toto

There is also Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Harry Falk.

It's a hot topic.

spin

After my questioning of the authorship of Jesus the Pharisee, by Hyam Maccoby
Jeez, I live and I learn.


spin

Magdlyn

From my reading of Josephus, I see the constant switching of the High Priest role by the Roman appointed governors of Judea.

By reading the HB closely, one can see how the Leviim were in the catbird seat along with the priesthood. (All the priests, kohenim, were Levites themselves, remember.) The Leviim were not given land along with the rest of the tribes, according to the story, b/c they just got tribute from them, as servants of Beit HaMikdash. They've got a whole book of the Bible named after them, don't they? They were singers, teachers, judges, guardians of the Temple, and interpretors (inventors?) of Torah. Elite.

Yes, well, "subconscious" or not, they were nobility and they lived well on the best the region had to offer, without dirtying their hands.

Farsee and Pharisee just sound so similar, I see not reason except embarrassment at the Persian Zoroastrian connection, to deny its possibility.

Surely.

Both the Essenes and the Pharisees were attempting to purify what they saw as a corrupt Judaism, the Pharisees sticking it out near the Temple, and the Essenes, too disgusted to stay, taking to the hilltop monasteries.

ericmurphy

But here's my favorite part: