Freethought & Rationalism Archive

semiopen · 03-28-2013, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

With the exception of Reform Jews, Maccabees is not used by Jews to explain Hanukkah.

Is that really the case? Where did the Askenazic knowledge of the revolt come from? Does not Rashi show knowledge of the books in his comments on how the feast should be celebrated?

Do not the books of Maccabees stand behind what we find in Bikkurim 1:6, Rosh HaShanah 1:3, Taanit 2:10, Megillah 3:4 and 3:6, Moed Katan 3:9, and Bava Kama 6:6 and in the Gemera at Shabbat 21?

What about what's found in the M’gillat Antiochus (“The Scroll of Antiochus”) that was read in Medieval celebrations of the feast?

So too M’gillat Beit Chashmona’i(m) (“The Scroll of the House of the Hasmoneans”) and M’gillah Y’vanit (“The Greek Scroll”)? Does not the the liturgical formula "'Al ha-Nissim", which was part of the prayers said in the synagogue on the celebration of the feast show knowledge of Maccabees?

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The explanation is tenuous because 2 Maccabees is not an accurate account, it's Pharisaic roots are dubious, and it is even more doubtful that Rabbinic and Pharisaic Judaism are the same.

Do you actually doubt that there was a Jewish revolt in 167-164 BCE and that the Temple was not recaptured and purified in c 164? If you do not, I cannot understand what you mean by "tenuous". How does questioning the historicity of the story that Reform Jews take from Maccabees when they celebrate Hanukkah make tenuous/doubtful the fact that Maccabees is the source of the story they recite then?

Jeffrey

Thanks for providing a reference Jeffrey, but it doesn't mention the Maccabees.

Hanukkah -

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The story of Hanukkah, along with its laws and customs, is entirely missing from the Mishna apart from several passing references...

One would think that the nutcases who wrote Maccabees would have noted the eight day miracle, it's not like they were interested in just the facts -

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The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is first described in the Talmud, written about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees. [10]

so I wonder where the Rabbis picked it up (or pulled it from).

I think there was a civil war between two groups of "Hellenistic Jews" (was there any other kind?), that the Seleucids intervened in. According to Chabad (and other Orthodox I suppose) the Republicans beat the Democrats but the difference between the parties was not so clear back then, so we might ask why we celebrate what seems like a pointless loss of Jewish lives.

I don't know what your problem with tenuous is, I think I'm using the word properly. We don't know much more about the Pharisees than what is in the NT, we don't know much about Hanukkah, etc.

Tenuous means having little substance, flimsy, without strength. Are you arguing that this stuff is the opposite?

thief of fire · 03-28-2013, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I note the fact that Josephus tells us about a conflict between the Pharisees and their opponents during the later Hasmonean period and nothing else chronologically about them.

He gives a discussion about the various Jewish sects which is based on Nicolaus of Damascus and says that he settled on the Pharisaic persuasion, which doesn't seem to add any history to the pot, given that his presentation seems idealized and his choice may be based more on idealization than reality.

Rabbinical sources don't give any indications of 1st century conflicts between the Pharisees and anyone else. They give Hillelite/Shammaite conflicts in the 1st century.

It seems we are left with the christian literature to give us the impression that the Pharisees and Sadducees were still in operation in the 1st century. But is it true?

You may be unaware of the new rules in the forum. I was till I looked at them now. Would you be able to supply exact refrences so that readers can check for themselves?

The new rules

Thank you for your assistance

spin · 03-28-2013, 07:09 PM

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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

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Originally Posted by semiopen

Jacob_Neusner is the big academic expert on the Pharisees and he considers them to have been active in the first century,

In Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. Louis Feldman & Gohei Hata, (Detroit: Wayne State, 1987), Neusner wrote a survey paper on the Pharisaic references in Josephus's works ("Josephus' Pharisees: A Complete Repertoire", 274-292) and concluded "As a political party [the Pharisees] function effectively for roughly the first fifty years of the first century BC. While individuals thereafter are described as Pharisees, as a sect the group seems to end its political life with the advent of Herod and of Hillel." (292)

Has he changed from that position?

Just to clarify. Neusner's position is that the Pharisees were active, maybe even flourishing, at a grass-roots level in the early 1st century CE, but they were not politically active after the time of Herod.

I didn't get any grass-roots notion, Andrew.

And Steve Mason, in his Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Leiden: Brill, 1991), disagrees with the notion of not being politically active, given his analysis of the Simon ben Gamaliel passage in the Life (~189ff).(Ch.18) Mason points out that Josephus was never a Pharisee, though he expediently followed the party of the Pharisees.

spin · 03-28-2013, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Jacob_Neusner is the big academic expert on the Pharisees and he considers them to have been active in the first century,

In Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity, ed. Louis Feldman & Gohei Hata, (Detroit: Wayne State, 1987), Neusner wrote a survey paper on the Pharisaic references in Josephus's works ("Josephus' Pharisees: A Complete Repertoire", 274-292) and concluded "As a political party [the Pharisees] function effectively for roughly the first fifty years of the first century BC. While individuals thereafter are described as Pharisees, as a sect the group seems to end its political life with the advent of Herod and of Hillel." (292)

Has he changed from that position?

A Life of Yohanan Ben Zakkai, Ca.1-80 C.E was written in 1970. It is available on Questia.

It goes without saying that I haven't read the whole thing.

Having stated that Yohanan ben Zakkai may not have been a real person, I did a little research to see what more learned people thought and found Neusner's biography. If he's correct, this is a guy who was a Pharisee who became a

Tannaim . I'm not sure he is right, but this seems to be a little problem with your OP statement if he is.

The o.p. was looking test the status of the Pharisees in the 1st c. I think Jos. Life, 189ff certainly tests my o.p.

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Thanks for the

Jason of Cyrene quote. This guy's actual existence is based on his presence in 2 Maccabees. I wonder what the author of 2 Maccabees did - take all the true stuff out?

The thing that interested me was that it claimed to be an epitome of an earlier work. I'd guess that if this Jason were real then the earlier work may have been written in Greek. Otherwise it might have been written in Hebrew.

And I think that despite the fact that 2 Macc is very theologiareis the high priests Jason or Menelaus in 1 Macc? What about the fall or death of Onias III? I think 2 Macc shows that it is more intimate with the era and reflects the crypto-history of Dan. 11, though it is silent over Alkimos, which may be a politico-theological choice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

2 Maccabees

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James King West writes... If the mention of 'Mordecai's day,' in 15:36, comes from Jason's work, the original from which the epitome of II Maccabees was made must have been written some time after Esther, not earlier than the last part of the second century B.C. The epitomizer, therefore, can hardly have written earlier than 100 B.C. Some scholars date his work as late as A.D. 50." (Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 468)

I mentioned previously that, 1 Macabbees doesn't mention Purim or Mordecai's Day and here we see a possible mid first century CE date.

The link doesn't mention Pharisees. I think that bullshit I mentioned in a previous post -

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propitiatory prayer for the dead, judgment day, intercession of saints, and merits of the martyrs.

is real important. I don't know why this is considered Pharisaical.

Perhaps because it doesn't reflect the little we know of the Sadducees? They supposedly are governed only by the written law.

semiopen · 03-29-2013, 10:14 AM

It seems to me that 2 Maccabees is probably not Pharisaic. If may refer to some concepts that became Pharisaic. Claiming it is Pharisaic is just speculation.

That's why the assertion by Reform Jews (at least in the contexts I've noticed) that it is Pharisaic seems silly. On the other hand, maybe it's OK to explain something today one way and change it when the position becomes untenable. Seems like an odd way to run a religion, at least the consoling old ladies part.

The Jewish religion probably had many sects at that time, and to consider things a two way race between the Pharisees and Sadducees is undoubtedly far too simple.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORAL LAW

This is the web site of somebody named Daniel Gruber, who might be a messianic Jew. Anyway his stuff seems reasonable.

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The contemporary sources bear witness that there was a significant body of Pharisaic, and then rabbinic, law in the first century. The sources do not, however, indicate in any way that the Pharisees, and then the Rabbis, claimed at that time that this law came from Sinai or that it was solely an interpretation of the Torah.
The sources all speak in terms of tradition or an "oral tradition."1 None of them speak of an "Oral Law." "We thus have indications that in the time of Josephus and Philo oral transmission was looked upon as the characteristic medium of Pharisaic tradition."2 Though Josephus and Philo mention Pharisaic tradition, they do not mention an "Oral law."

This is a significant difference with Rabbinic Judaism. We can surmise that this was an early stage of the Oral Law concept. It took some time to work up the chutzpah get all the way back to Sinai.

Quote:

Josephus wrote his Antiquities of the Jews in about 93 AD. Apparently, the concept of an Oral Law received from Sinai, either directly or through authorized interpretation, had not then been put forth. The Pharisees claimed that their traditions gave the authoritative interpretation of Torah, but they did not claim to have a separately revealed oral law. "Hence, despite the insistence of the Pharisees on the validity of their ordinances, they never added them to the written canon."11

The Rabbinic concepts were undoubtedly refined over a long period of time.

Saying that Pharisaic Judaism was what they called Rabbinic before the

Mishnah was written seems like a gross oversimplification.

Clivedurdle · 03-30-2013, 06:17 AM

This isn't another co-evolutionary arms race is it? Judaism goes back to its (invented) roots as a reaction to xian ideas?

andrewcriddle · 04-02-2013, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Just to clarify. Neusner's position is that the Pharisees were active, maybe even flourishing, at a grass-roots level in the early 1st century CE, but they were not politically active after the time of Herod.

I didn't get any grass-roots notion, Andrew.

There is a description by Neusner of his understanding of the Pharisees at Neusner_Pharisees
What I meant by Neusner's claims about 1st century CE grass-roots activity by the Pharisees are statements like

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My reading of the evidence leads me to treat the Pharisees as ordinary people eating meals at home in conditions that are analogous to the conditions required of priests in the Temple or in their homes.

Andrew Criddle

semiopen · 04-02-2013, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

I didn't get any grass-roots notion, Andrew.

There is a description by Neusner of his understanding of the Pharisees at Neusner_Pharisees
What I meant by Neusner's claims about 1st century CE grass-roots activity by the Pharisees are statements like

Quote:

My reading of the evidence leads me to treat the Pharisees as ordinary people eating meals at home in conditions that are analogous to the conditions required of priests in the Temple or in their homes.

Andrew Criddle

Thanks for the link Andrew.

The article is a reply to Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies

who seriously ticked him off, but there is a lot of good stuff, especially since it confirms some of what I have been saying.

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The Mishnah took shape after the Bar Kokhba War, not "after the destruction of the Temple." It is represented by me as a response not to "Jewish political helplessness," which vastly understates Judah the Patriarch's power, but to the religious crisis represented by the failure of the scriptural paradigm, destruction, three generations, return and renewal. It is not the destruction of the Temple in 70 that precipitated a crisis, but the debacle of Bar Kokhba's effort to replicate the rebuilding in the time of the second Isaiah, that I think accounts for the distinctive emphases of the Mishnah upon the enduring sanctification of the Land and of the people, Israel.

I haven't said this at all, but I was thinking about mentioning it. It's useful to keep this in mind. Personally, the destruction of the temple confuses me, as I don't understand the supposedly incredible religious significance. Bar Kokhba puts this in the right perspective.

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Hence the Mishnah and some related writings are alleged to rest upon traditions going back to the Pharisees before A.D. 70. These views impute to the Pharisees greater importance than, in their own day, they are likely to have enjoyed. My description of the Pharisees derives from, in order of closure: (1) the Gospels, ca. A.D. 70-90, (2) the writings of Josephus, ca. 90-100, and (3) the later rabbinic compositions, beginning with the Mishnah, ca. 200-600. No writings survive that were produced by them; all we do
know is what later writers said about them.

The assertion that 2 Maccabees is Pharisaic is bullshit.

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The rabbis contend that the continuity of the Mosaic Torah is unbroken. Destruction of the Temple, while lamentable, does not mean Israel has lost all means of service to the Creator. The way of the Pharisees leads, without break, back to Sinai and forward to the rabbinical circle reforming at Yavneh. The Oral Torah—a conception that reached complete expression in unambiguous terms only in the writings of fifth century sages, beginning
with the Talmud of the Land of Israel—revealed by Moses and handed on from prophet to scribe, sage, and rabbi remains in the hands of Israel.5 The legal record of pre-70 Pharisaism requires careful preservation because it remains wholly in effect. The theological side to Pharisaic Judaism before A.D. 70, however, is not easily accessible, for the pre-70 beliefs, ideas, and values have been taken over and revised by the rabbinical masters after that time. We therefore cannot reliably claim that an idea first known to us in a
later rabbinical document, from the third century and afterward, was
originally both known and understood in the same way. For pre-70
Pharisaic Judaism, our sources of information tell little of theological
interest. A number of books in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of
the Old Testament are attributed to Pharisaic writers, but none of these
documents positively identifies its author as a Pharisee. No reliance can be placed on elements which appear in only one or another episode, or which appear in several episodes but are secondary and detachable details. These may be accretions. Above all, motifs which are not certainly peculiar to one
sect cannot prove that sect was the source. No available assignment of
an apocryphal or pseudepigraphical book to a Pharisaic author can pass
these tests. Most such attributions were made by scholars who thought
that all pre-70 Palestinian Jews were either Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes,
members of the "Fourth Philosophy," or Zealots, and therefore felt obliged to attribute all supposedly pre-70 Palestinian Jewish works to one of these four groups. That supposition is untenable.

The Oral Law is only known from Talmudic times. In addition, he explains further why the apocrypha cannot be used to identify the sect of a writer. Instead of my word tenuous he uses untenable. Ironic that my tact and thoughtfulness were severely criticized earlier in the thread.

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The rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees as a whole may be characterized as self-centered, the internal records of a party concerning its own life, its own laws, and its own partisan conflicts. The omission of records of what happened outside of the party is not only puzzling, but nearly inexplicable. Almost nothing in Josephus's picture of the Pharisees seems closely related to much, if anything, in the rabbis' portrait of the Pharisees, except the rather general allegation that the Pharisees had "traditions from the fathers," a pointmade also by the Synoptic storytellers.

The morphing of Pharisees into Rabbis is more twaddle.

Perhaps some of my interest is because while in the highly unusual event of attending a quasi-Jewish religious service with my wife (aboard ship), I sensed that she wasn't convinced that the Rabbi was as big a shmuck as I was telling her. Sort of amazing that he was an even bigger one.

Duvduv · 04-02-2013, 06:49 PM

Hmmm....Mr. Gruber must be some kind of professor, "haham" or "rabbi" to be able to know what the history of Jewish traditions are that do not appear in the Pentateuch.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

It seems to me that 2 Maccabees is probably not Pharisaic. If may refer to some concepts that became Pharisaic. Claiming it is Pharisaic is just speculation.

That's why the assertion by Reform Jews (at least in the contexts I've noticed) that it is Pharisaic seems silly. On the other hand, maybe it's OK to explain something today one way and change it when the position becomes untenable. Seems like an odd way to run a religion, at least the consoling old ladies part.

The Jewish religion probably had many sects at that time, and to consider things a two way race between the Pharisees and Sadducees is undoubtedly far too simple.

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORAL LAW

This is the web site of somebody named Daniel Gruber, who might be a messianic Jew. Anyway his stuff seems reasonable.

Quote:

The contemporary sources bear witness that there was a significant body of Pharisaic, and then rabbinic, law in the first century. The sources do not, however, indicate in any way that the Pharisees, and then the Rabbis, claimed at that time that this law came from Sinai or that it was solely an interpretation of the Torah.
The sources all speak in terms of tradition or an "oral tradition."1 None of them speak of an "Oral Law." "We thus have indications that in the time of Josephus and Philo oral transmission was looked upon as the characteristic medium of Pharisaic tradition."2 Though Josephus and Philo mention Pharisaic tradition, they do not mention an "Oral law."

This is a significant difference with Rabbinic Judaism. We can surmise that this was an early stage of the Oral Law concept. It took some time to work up the chutzpah get all the way back to Sinai.

Quote:

Josephus wrote his Antiquities of the Jews in about 93 AD. Apparently, the concept of an Oral Law received from Sinai, either directly or through authorized interpretation, had not then been put forth. The Pharisees claimed that their traditions gave the authoritative interpretation of Torah, but they did not claim to have a separately revealed oral law. "Hence, despite the insistence of the Pharisees on the validity of their ordinances, they never added them to the written canon."11

The Rabbinic concepts were undoubtedly refined over a long period of time.

Saying that Pharisaic Judaism was what they called Rabbinic before the

Mishnah was written seems like a gross oversimplification.

semiopen · 04-03-2013, 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Hmmm....Mr. Gruber must be some kind of professor, "haham" or "rabbi" to be able to know what the history of Jewish traditions are that do not appear in the Pentateuch.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORAL LAW

This is the web site of somebody named Daniel Gruber, who might be a messianic Jew. Anyway his stuff seems reasonable.

He seems like an interesting guy. I've been unable to find anything substantial on him, but have seen him referred to as Dr on google. He has several books on Amazon. My guess is that he has a PhD.

Not being a big fan of Messianistic Judaism, a lot of their websites seem excellent to me.

In any case, we see Neusner agreeing with him on Oral Law on the link Andrew Criddle provided.

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03-30-2013, 06:17 AM	#56
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	This isn't another co-evolutionary arms race is it? Judaism goes back to its (invented) roots as a reaction to xian ideas?

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