The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation

(Rick Simeone) #1

Jews in Palestine
• Because of a different set of circumstances, Jews in Palestine
experienced greater tensions with Gentiles, as well as greater and
sharper divisions among themselves.


•    The dominant cultural and political forces of Greece and Rome were
experienced as an “irresistible force” from the outside against the
“immovable object” that had been post-Exilic Judaism in Palestine.
o The reform of Judaism after the Exile had connected religious
devotion to the Lord with specific social and political
institutions: king, land, Torah as law of the land, and temple.
Religious observance, then, was intimately connected to
specific social institutions.

o Thus, the pressure of Greek language, culture, and religion
could be regarded as a fundamental threat, and Roman rule
(abetted by taxation and military presence) could be regarded
as oppressive.

•    The same tensions of assimilation and separation were, therefore,
more fraught because they involved material realities rather than
simply ideas.
o Some Jews, especially those among the aristocrats, were
comfortable with Hellenization and advocated a policy of
accommodation.

o Others, such as the Maccabees and their descendants, identified
loyalty to Torah (and God) with Jewish possession of social
and political institutions. To be a Jew meant having a Jewish
king. To be a Jew meant having a safe and holy temple. To be
a Jew meant having Torah as the law of the land, not simply
something that is read in the synagogue. These Jews resisted
“outsider” influence.

o As philosophical schools, the “sects” described by the Jewish
historian Josephus, represented distinct political and religious
positions. For example, the Essenes and Zealots were militantly
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