E.P. Sanders -- Section 2

This post will summarize "Chapter 4. Judaism as a Religion" to give a religious context to Jesus' life. The format is the same as in the previous section.

Judaism as a religion

1. Similarities between Jews and Gentiles in the Mediterranean world
a. Belief in supernatural beings
b. Worship of God or gods via sacrificing animals along with various kinds of purification and rights
c. Ethical agreements
i. Against
1. Murder
2. Theft
3. Adultery
2. Distinguishing characteristics of Jews
a. Monotheism
i. Only one true God (the “true” here being very difficult to define)
ii. However, Jews still believed in:
1. Angles
2. Demons
iii. These other beings did not, in the ancient Jewish mind, go against monotheism
iv. Only the one true God was worthy of being worshipped
b. The Law and divine election
i. God chose Israel
ii. God created a covenant with the Jewish people
c. The three most important moments in the Hebrew Bible
i. Abraham’s call
ii. Exodus from Egypt
iii. Moses’ receiving the Law on Mt. Sinai
iv. These events gave Israel its unique character
d. Forgiveness, punishment and repentance
i. Transgression of the Law required reparations via repentance and sacrifice
ii. God always forgave repentant sinners
iii. The non-repentant were subject to punishment by God (e.g. sickness)
e. The thinking of Jews is not like modern Christians; while Christians focus on personal salvation, Jews were punished and rewarded as a group. The thinking was very community-centric
3. Distinguishing practices of Jews
a. Jews were supposed to serve or worship God, the most important form of this worship was worship at the Temple in Jerusalem
i. Jewish males were required to go to the Temple three times a year at the pilgrimage festivals
ii. Even if they could not come to the Temple, they still paid the Temple tax
iii. Jews also worshipped through daily recollection of the main commandments
iv. Reciting the Sh’ma
1. The Sh’ma is the most important prayer in Judaism, which states “Hear O Israel, the Lord (YHWY) is our God, the Lord (YHWY) is one” (Hebrew transliteration: “Sh’ma Yisrael YHWY eluhanu YHWY echad”)
v. Participation at synagogues
b. Circumcision of infant sons
c. Jews did not work on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week
i. This included not only Jews but foreigners living in Jewish towns, servants, the entire family and even the cattle
ii. Along this same line of thought, every seventh year the land was allowed to rest and Jewish farmers sowed no crops
d. Jews avoided certain impure foods, such as carrion, birds of prey, rodents, shellfish and pork
e. Before entrance into the Temple was allowed, Jews were required to purify themselves
i. Impurity came from anything which represented life and death(semen, child birth, menstrual blood and corpses)
ii. This is because God is unchanging
f. Jewish Law brings the whole of life under God’s authority; therefore, all of life was elevated to the same level as worshipping God
4. Gentiles found some of these practices noteworthy and they at times ridiculed Jews for their practices
5. Leadership
a. A main qualification for leadership (when Jews were leading Jews) was a knowledge of the Law
b. Also, however, a leader was accepted even without great knowledge of the Law (e.g. Herod, the Idumean) as long as they did not publically and pointedly disobey the Law
c. Individual families (called in Hebrew the “bet-av”) actually had a fair amount of self-governing power
d. The main job for experts in the Law was to interpret the Law (e.g. what constitutes work on the Sabbath?) as well as interpretation of various traditions
i. Priests, at least since the end of the Babylonian exile, were the primary interpreting experts
ii. However, by the 1st century, the authority now rested with the Pharisees
e. The Priests of the Temple in the Jerusalem
i. constituted an actual class of people
ii. They were the only ones who could offer sacrifices at the Temple
iii. The Levites assisted them (The Levites were the tribe of Israel descended from Aaron who were assigned as priests and were thus only supported by the generosity of others)
iv. Numbered about 20,000 (Levites included)
v. Did not serve as priests year-round
vi. They, along with the Levites, were not allowed to farm the land
vii. Most priests and Levites did not belong to a particular party, like the Pharisees or Sadducees
viii. Most were not corrupt and tried to set a good example
ix. They governed during the time of Jesus
f. Non-priests were also leaders
i. When the party of the Pharisees emerged before 135 BCE and they
1. were mainly not priests
2. were fairly orthodox
3. developed their own body of non-Biblical traditions
4. mostly did not try and force their interpretations on others
5. were liked and respected by most Jews
6. often had no actual power after the Hasmonean period; however, they did command public attention