6
‘Jewish Doctrine
Takes Three Forms’Josephus affirmed that ‘Jewish doctrine takes three forms. The follow-
ers of the first hairesis [school] are called Pharisees, of the second
Sadducees, of the third Essenes.’ He made quite frequent references to
these schools within Judaism in the course of his histories, introducing
them first into his narrative of the different groups which sought influ-
ence over John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonaean High Priest from 135 to
104 bce. In later Christian usage, the term hairesis was to denote ‘her-
esy’, but its literal meaning is ‘choice’, and it is clear that Josephus saw
nothing untoward about the existence of these separate streams within
Judaism. Indeed, he went out of his way to claim that these three phi-
losophies had existed among the Jews ‘from the most ancient times’, in
contrast to the novel (and, in Josephus’ view, wicked) Fourth Philos-
ophy which was invented at the start of direct Roman rule in Judaea in
6 ce. It cannot be certain whether these groups were indeed ancient or
originated only when first mentioned by Josephus in the second half of
the second century bce, but it can be said that they flourished in this
period, and that the ethos of the Hellenistic world, in which there co -
existed competing philosophies of life such as Stoicism, Epicureanism
and Pythagoreanism (to some of which Josephus on occasion explicitly
compared these Jewish schools), provided the environment in which
this could occur.^1
By the beginning of the second century bce, when almost all the Bible had
been composed and much had already been translated into Greek, the
common core of all later forms of Judaism – until the emergence of
Humanistic and Secular Judaism in the modern era – was in place. Jews
worshipped and obeyed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose
actions in the world were recorded in the sacred histories and who was
worshipped in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews believed themselves bound
to obey the commandments of God, especially as laid down in the first five