jews in a graeco- roman world 109
preached at the time was treated as a symptom of insanity. Both Jeru-
salem and the Temple were more glorious and prosperous than they had
ever been before. Doubtless Jews could look back with nostalgia to a
fabled past when Solomon’s Temple was thought to have been even
more impressive and God conversed more readily with the prophets
among his people. Life is never perfect, and it is always possible to
imagine a brighter future at the end of days. The notion, sometimes
mooted by scholars of early Christianity, that Jews in the first century
ce felt themselves to be in exile from God and longing for messianic
salvation is unwarranted. The varied trends within Judaism to be exam-
ined in the next three chapters were the product not of despair but of
confidence. Jews could all agree that the Torah provided them with the
best possible guide to a pious life. The question was how to live that life
in practice.^34