Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews The Dawn of Christianity Between the Testaments and the Early Church Age Lesson 2 People of the Book Steve Plaster

Lesson Structure Clash of Cultures: Judaism and Hellenism People of the Book The Sacred Writings Apocryphal Literature, Messiahs, and Resurrection The Essenes and the Maccabees The Herodians, the Romans, and the Prophets Trials and Tribulations of Jesus Resurrection and the Birth of the Church Paul’s Missionary Journeys Paul’s Letters and Trials Jewish Revolt Groups and the Temple Destruction How We Got the Bible

The rallying point for the Jews became the belief and adherence in the Torah. Around 196BC, the Sanhedrin came into existence with responsibility for the temple and regulation of religious affairs. The Sanhedrin consisted of 70 leaders from the wealthy, aristocratic, and priestly classes who were mostly Sadducees. After the destruction of the temple in 70AD by the Roman Titus, temple ritual was replaced by Torah reverence, priesthood gave way to rabbi, and temple attendance was succeeded by synagogue attendance.

The Mosaic covenant required the following practices: circumcision, pork forbidden, Sabbath observance, and idolatry prohibition. There were arising in this period four sects of Jewish party affiliation. These were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. In Palestine in the time of Jesus, the Jews numbered about 600,000 of which the Pharisees numbered about 30,000, the Sadducees about 6,000, the Essenes about 6,000, and the Zealots about 17,400.

The Pharisees are first mentioned in 104BC as an emerging sect of the Hasidim with the following characteristics: legalistic, lay persons, interpreters of the oral traditions, non-political, maintained ritual purity, and led in the synagogues as rabbis, school teachers, and community needs. The Sadducees are first mentioned in the period of the Maccabees (160BC) with the following characteristics: priestly, wealthy, landowners, aristocratic, pro-Greek culture, modernizers, collaboraters with Rome, political, controlled the temple, accepted only the Pentateuch, and remote from the people.

The Essenes arose about 150BC during Hasmonean rule with the following characteristics: ascetics, emerged from the Hasidim, separatists, doomsday proponents, settled in Qumran, copiers of religious text (Dead Sea scrolls), communalists, non-militant, anticipated the Messiah, and extreme ritual purists. The Zealots arose in 6AD as a political sect but with roots of rebellion going back to 175BC. The Zealot characteristics include: very militant, very political, consisted of robbers, brigands, and patriots, caused the rebellion in 66AD, included the disciple Simon the Zealot, and included several rebel leaders.

The Dawn of Christianity Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews The Dawn of Christianity Between the Testaments and the Early Church Age Lesson 2 People of the Book Steve Plaster