NT Backgrounds and Development – Class subjects #3 & #4
[Sept 19] The wider Greco-Roman world [Ferguson pp.45-88,100-103,124-125]
Hellenism and the Roman Empire as preparing the way for the Gospel
1) Koine Greek like American English. People used it as a ‘common language’ for trade, etc. If a Latin-speaking person needed to talk to a Jew, a Phrygian, an Illyrian, they would communicate in Greek. Spoken in whole Eastern part of Roman Empire, as well as being widely known and studied in the West too. Herodotus in the 5th century BC already assumed that everyone knows Greek and could understand you if you spoke it loudly and sternly enough. Sound familiar?
2) Greek philosophy. Justin Martyr in the 2nd century AD would regard philosophy as the schoolmaster who was to bring the Greeks to Christ, just as the Law served this function for the Jews. Much of the morality was the same as Jewish ethics, and much philosophy moved in monotheistic directions.
3) Ease of travel. Roman roads [On trade see Rev.18:11-13]. It is estimated that Paul traveled nearly 10,000 miles on his missionary journeys. Note also how many people he knew by name in Rome, even though he had never been there (cf. Romans 16). Some he may not have met personally; others he had met in Asia and elsewhere (e.g. Priscilla and Aquila, Epaenetus). People in Roman times traveled more than they ever had before, or ever would again until the 19th century.
4) Peace (no need to explain that when there isn’t peace, travel is affected). The Roman empire was vast. I lived near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England; I then lived near the other end of it in Romania. From there, the Empire continued East into Turkey and South into the Middle East, Palestine, North Africa, etc. That’s a pretty vast empire, and the Romans managed to maintain a stability and peace there that was unprecedented.
Similarities with our situation today
1) Cultural pluralism leading to moral relativity
2) Religious pluralism (religions spread in the Roman world as never before – Christianity is only one example).
3) Increased individualism
However, don’t ignore the differences!
4) [Sept 26] Jewish religion in New Testament times [Ferguson pp.480-485]
We’re going to spend several weeks looking at the Jewish religious context of the New Testament. The reason for focusing on the Jewish context is that it is the one in which and from which Christianity was born. Christianity began as a movement within Judaism. Part of the difficulty in understanding the New Testament today is the presupposition that when the New Testament speaks about ‘the Jews’ it speaks as one major world religion talking about another. In fact, the real situation was quite different. Thus, in relation to the Jewish religious background of the New Testament there will be some unlearning to do as well as some learning.
There is perhaps nowhere that this statement applies more than in relation to the Pharisees. This is probably the group within first-century Judaism that we are most familiar with, since they make regular appearances in the Gospels. Yet it is precisely this familiarity that is what can cause problems. Today, if one looks in the dictionary, one will find ‘Pharisee’ there, and its definition will be ‘hypocrite’. This stems from Jesus’ criticism of them in the New Testament, but it should also be clear that Jesus is giving a negative evaluation of a group that has its origins in a movement of people willing to die rather than disobey God. That a group with such noble origins could within less than two centuries come to be criticized so severely should cause us to stop and think. It also warns us against any simplistic understanding of the Pharisees as being like ‘the other guys’, not like us. It is essential that we understand both who they were and what they were doing wrong if we are to understand the power and relevance of Jesus’ words about them for us today.
Thanks to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, we know that during this period in history there were roughly 6,000 Pharisees, making them the largest ‘party’ within Judaism in this period. This information challenges a common misconception, namely that most Jews in Jesus’ time were Pharisees. In fact, most Jews in New Testament times had ‘no denominational affiliation’. The Pharisees were influential, and within a few centuries their program for Judaism would come to dominate what eventually became ‘orthodox’, Rabbinic Judaism. But during this time period they are simply one movement in an extremely diverse Judaism. They could not be regarded as the defenders of Jewish orthodoxy, because there was no such thing during this period. Of course, there were common denominators such as belief in one God, in God’s covenant with Israel, in the importance of the Law. But there were also crucial differences of opinion regarding where and how the one God should be worshipped, and on how the Law should be interpreted and implied. There was probably as much diversity in early Judaism as there is in Christianity today. The Pharisees, although widely respected, were not universally recognized leaders of Judaism. The situation in early Judaism has been compared to the multi-party system in America today. There will have been a few groups that were particularly popular, but also many small groups. Even the biggest will not have represented everyone. Just as today neither Democrats nor Republicans can say ‘we are the only truly American party’, neither could the Pharisees have said this. OK, they could have said it, but it wouldn’t have been true. It is important to distinguish between propaganda and reality. The later followers of Hillel try to give the impression that pretty much everyone agreed with them from the outset. The reality is much more complicated.
So what does the name ‘Pharisee’ mean? [Does anyone here know?] It doesn’t mean ‘hypocrite’. It almost certainly comes from the Hebrew prushim meaning ‘separated ones’. In other words, this name means something like ‘separatists’. A good question to ask is whether this was a name they chose for themselves, or a nickname given by others. ‘The separatists’ is not a name that most religious groups would choose for themselves, although I suppose there are many today who quite proudly wear the label ‘fundamentalist’. At any rate, it is interesting to note that the later Rabbis call their founding fathers ‘the sages’, and they use the term ‘pharisees’ to label groups they consider to be kind of extremists. So here again we see that Jesus was probably not the only one to criticize certain extremes within the Pharisees. There were probably other critics, both within and outside the movement. Yet we should not neglect the fact that these were for the most part serious people, presumably many of them were well-meaning and good-intentioned. They had a reputation as being careful about obeying God’s Law. And thus, while we hear the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and know who the hero is supposed to be; the expectations of Jesus’ contemporaries would have been reversed. [If you want to hear the parable and feel its original effect, simply replace the Pharisee and the tax collector with an Evangelical pastor and a Muslim fundamentalist. I think you’ll get the point].
There was certainly a lot of diversity within the movement itself. In the early first century two of Pharisaisms most influential teachers lived and taught, namely Hillel and Shammai. They founded the two main schools of Pharisaism that lasted for at least most of the next century. Shammai’s school was stricter and seems to have predominated in the first century, whereas Hillel’s less strict teaching came to predominate in what later became Rabbinic Judaism. There is a famous story that a Gentile came to Shamai and said ‘I would like to learn Torah [i.e. the Jewish Law], but only as much as you can teach me while I am standing on one leg’. The story (told by followers of Hillel) says that Shammai picked up a stick and chased him away. When the same Gentile came to Hillel and said ‘Teach me Torah, but only as much as I can learn while standing on one leg’, Hillel is said to have replied ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor’. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now, go and learn’. This story is helpful inasmuch as it shows that not all in first century Pharisaism were unaware of what was of fundamental importance in the Law. Not all were gross caricatures of legalism. It is also interesting to compare this summary of the Law with that offered by Jesus slightly later. He said something similar, but put it in positive terms: rather than saying ‘don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you’, he said ‘do to others what you want them to do you’. The difference is important; yet the similarities between Jesus and some of his contemporaries in the movement of the Pharisees are also interesting.
In the New Testament, scribes and Pharisees are closely associated. The two are not synonymous, however. The scribes were those who made a living out of knowing how to do something that very few in the ancient world could: read and write. Obviously, groups like the Pharisees and Saducees whose beliefs focused on the interpretation of the Law needed to have scribes among their members, experts in the Law precisely because they could read and thus instruct and inform others. It is possible that many who followed the Pharisaic way of life were or became scribes; but it is also clear that not all Pharisees were scribes, nor were all scribes Pharisees.
The differences between the ‘parties’ in Judaism in this period are not exactly like the differences between Christian denominations and sects today. The focus was less on what we would tend to call ‘doctrine’ and more on interpretation of the Law. However, there were certainly a few doctrines that set the Pharisees apart from other parties like the Sadducees (it is unclear to what extent the majority of Jews did or didn’t agree with the Pharisees on these points). One important doctrinal difference was the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection. Resurrection as a Jewish doctrine appears relatively late in the Jewish Scriptures, and some (such as the Sadducees) regarded it as an illegitimate and unbiblical innovation. There is some evidence that this belief was very popular and not limited to the Pharisees. It is also a clear point of agreement between the Pharisees and Jesus.
A clear point of difference and disagreement between the Pharisees on the one hand and others like Jesus or the Sadducees on the other was the emphasis the Pharisees put on the oral Law, the traditions of the fathers. All of those who have a system of beliefs that focuses on a book also have some kind of oral tradition – answers to difficulties, harmonizations, interpretations, explanations, etc. The Pharisees, however, had such beliefs as an explicit set of traditions that they carefully passed down, discussed and interpreted. Eventually, these traditions came to be written down in the Mishnah (around 200 CE) and then later others were written down, along with explanations and commentary on the Mishnah, in the Talmudim (around 500-600 CE). It is clear that these writings preserve traditions going back to Jesus’ time, but not all of it does, which is why the Rabbinic literature can only very cautiously be used to shed light on topics relating to the background of the New Testament.
Hedge around Torah
What is work? Definitions (carrying a pen…if you are a scribe)
Mark 7:11; Matt 15:5
Note also m.Nedarim 9:1, where the majority opinion seems to be that honoring one’s parents does take precedence over the law of oaths. It is thus important to remember that in the Gospels Jesus is often disagreeing with some rabbis over against others.
Two tendencies:
1) Make Law more explicit through definition. The question ‘Who is my neighbor?’ expected a rabbinic-type answer: ‘A Jew and not a foreigner; if it is the Sabbath day then only someone who is not further than X distance from your home, etc.’ Jesus’ answer challenges this approach by rejecting narrowing definitions and posing the issue as broadly as possible: ‘Who would you like to be your neighbor? To whom are you a neighbor?’
2) To find loopholes, which they presumed God had left with a purpose. Example: Jubilee year, people didn’t lend to the poor even though God specifically addressed this in the Law. They thus found a way to avoid the canceling of debts by allowing people to deposit their ‘debt notes’ with the Temple and pick them up again after the Jubilee year. The rabbis found this loophole in order to help the poor: some would not live through the Jubilee year unless someone lent them money! Yet in doing this, we see how a Law was essentially made null and void by their tradition, and the spirit of that law was obscured.
The
Pharisees were also known for their leniency in applying capital punishment –
they sought to avoid it wherever possible. Josephus mentions this (See Ant. 13,294; Sanders, Judaism, p.419-420),
and it can also be seen in the NT. In Acts 5, we read that the apostles were
persecuted by the high priest and Sadducees (5:17,21), whereas the Pharisee
Gamaliel recommended that they be left alone (5:33-40). The Pharisees’
strictness in interpreting the Law did not necessarily imply mercilessness.
Importance of meals: in a period when they didn’t control what went on in the Temple, they moved the realm of the sacred into the home. They seem to have formed associations (haburot) who agreed together only to eat food that was properly tithed and eaten in a state of priestly purity. For Jesus meals were also important: Jesus’ table fellowship brought together sinners, the unclean, and people of very different social status as well. While the Pharisees were seeking to bring about reform by more clearly defining who the obedient people of God are, Jesus was in a sense opening the door wide and saying ‘whosoever will may come’, welcoming people even before they were pillars of righteousness and examples of upright perfection.
John 7:48-49 Am
ha-aretz
Johannan ben Zakkai, the leader of restored (Pharisaic) Judaism in the period after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, worked in Galilee for 18 years without managing to have much impact in advocating Pharisaic teaching, and so he is said to have exclaimed: “Galilee, Galilee, you hate Torah!”. It is interesting that Galilee had a reputation for representing a non-Pharisaic view of Judaism and the Law. These are presumably the traditions that Jesus grew up being familiar with!
Galilean accent: Mark 14:70. Lazar(us) = Eleazar [See further
Vermes, Jesus the Jew, p.52-57]
Summary and conclusion: What have we learned? Why is it important?
1) Jesus had much in common with the Pharisees: Belief in resurrection; Summary of the Law. The conflict is so intense in the NT not because Jesus and the Pharisees represented the most different extremes of Judaism, but because they were so similar, and were trying to occupy the same space and to win the hearts and minds of the Jewish people.
2) Jesus condemned the Pharisees for hypocrisy. Yet a little over a century before, they had led the Jewish people in being willing to give their lives for the sake of obedience to God. What defines a group is not its origins, but what it is doing today. It is good to look at our roots and say ‘This is where we came from’. Yet many of the features of Pharisaic emphasis forged in the crucible of persecution in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes actually led to an unbalanced understanding of Jewish identity later on.
3) All of us like safety, clarity, definitions, black and white situations. We like to ask ‘What if…?’ and have a clear answer. Jesus’ teaching recognizes that life is often not like that, and challenges us to an openness to others, a willingness to broaden rather than narrow our definition of who our neighbor is. The challenge of Jesus to the Pharisees is not just a message for ‘those hypocrites over there’. If we miss its relevance for ourselves, we will end up repeating their mistakes.