THE SILENT YEARS: Essenes

But the Hasidim weren’t the only ones to react negatively to the corruption of the priesthood and the Temple system. There was also another group that responded with as much zeal and passion as the Hasidim, but with a different methodology. This group was called the Essenes.

*It should be noted that there continues to be much debate about this group called the Essenes and what we truly know about them. Every time the scholastic community seems to make some headway in deciding who this group was and what they did, a whole different discussion arises that questions even the most basic assumptions that scholars have made.

One of the places that has been uncovered and has led us to learn so much about the Essenes is the work at Qumran and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Most are familiar with the fact that we found an unbelievable amount of biblical text in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but we also found much along the lines of extra-biblical text as well. One of the documents that was uncovered is called The Community Rule and explains much about the lifestyle and expectations for those living in the Essene community.

From what we can tell, the Essenes were made up of disillusioned priests who recognized the corruption of the Temple system and rejected the priesthood that had become so tattered. Some of them continued to perform their priestly duties twice a year, while others abandoned their posts altogether. While we used to think that only male priests were allowed into the group, we have recently found the bodies of several females in the cemetery at Qumran, causing many to suggest that the priests’ families were allowed to live there, or maybe that others were allowed into the sect, as well.

At any rate, we know this group of priests came out to the desert in order to preserve God’s way. They were determined to know the path and walk it well. They were stationed out in the desert in order to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
        For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

They would be the voice crying out in the desert. They would be the group that would know the ancient paths when the words of Jeremiah would come to life:

This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.

When the people began coming back to God’s way, the Essenes would be ready. When people found themselves standing at a crossroads and asking for the ancient paths, the Essenes would know those paths. They were committed to knowing the path of God and walking in it.

To know the path. And to walk it.

These Essenes went to work, not only memorizing the Text, but preserving it. One of the main accomplishments of this sect is the unbelievably accurate transmission of the biblical text through copying the words and preserving the scrolls. Without the Essenes, there would be no Dead Sea Scrolls. Without the Essenes, we would still be wondering about the accuracy of our scriptures. To know the path.
But they were also committed to walking it. According to The Community Rule, in order to join this sect, you had to sell all of your worldly possessions and everything you had became common property in the community. They lived in strict, disciplined community with others, including a rigid commitment to ritual and obedience, meal times, and communal responsibility. The extent of their commitment to following God’s commands is astounding. To document the work of the Essenes adequately would be far beyond the scope of this blog post (even ignoring how much it is debated within scholarship). To walk the path.

When I travel to Israel with groups, one of the most significant stops we make is at Qumran, as we observe the dedication and passion with which these men (and apparently women) devoted themselves to learning, knowing, and walking the Text. I have stood on the mountain overlooking Qumran many times and shouted, “I want to be an Essene!”

To be the voice of one crying in the desert. To be the answer to the one standing at the crossroads and asking for the ancient paths and the good way. To know the path. To walk it.

I want to be an Essene.

THE SILENT YEARS: Sadducees/Herodians

So the Hasidim moved up north to walk the path of God as faithfully as possible. But what happened to everyone they left behind in the south?

In short, they continued to walk the path as they saw fit upon their return from captivity. This group of people who had worked at trying to figure out how you live within empire and then influence it for the Kingdom of God, who developed the approach Brueggemann calls “accommodation/resistance,” established a lifestyle they believed was a response to God’s calling to live in shephelah and be at the crossroads of the earth.

However, not all of them were well intentioned. Josephus tells us that not long after the Maccabean revolt, the current leadership under the Hasmoneans became as Hellenistic as the Greeks. When this self-serving worldview came in contact with power, the situation was ripe for corruption. The Hasmoneans ruled for just over a century when they looked up to see the Roman empire dominating the horizon. They knew that there would be no standing against this new world rule and began to position themselves politically for survival. The system of tithes and offerings had served this ruling elite quite well. Now that there were millions of Jews living in the land, and thousands of priests, the system that was built for a much smaller Israel wandering through the desert was now producing quite a bit of wealth for those in charge. The arrival of Rome threatened their very lifestyle.

And so the Hasmonean family took their daughter and married her to a neighboring ruler, the man we know as Herod the Great. Herod was the man who inherited from his father the Nabatean/Idumean kingdom that we spoke about in the book of Obadiah. This group of traders had become incredibly wealthy and powerful; to this day, scholars are baffled by the social and economic accomplishments of this nomadic group of people who began to build cities in the eastern desert.

According to some estimates, Herod was the richest man ever to live (including through today). According to history, his income sat at well over a hundred times his country’s GDP. If this is even remotely true, Herod could have bought the Roman empire a few times over. This gave Herod incredible clout in a political conversation. Rome, however, had all of the power and might, so Herod feared for his safety. As long as the two agreed to play nice, the relationship would be incredibly beneficial for both parties. Herod would enjoy great regional power and immeasurable wealth; Rome would have a leader with enough influence to rule a very difficult and tumultuous region.

And so the Hasmoneans arranged for this brilliant political situation and positioned themselves to enjoy a dynasty under Roman rule. One of Herod’s first acts would be to find a new high priest for the Jewish Temple system. He held the office up for bid to the Hasmoneans. The Hasmonean leadership was made up of seven families who were directly descended from Zadok, the high priest from the days of Solomon. These descendants were called Zadoki or Zadokim, which we translate as “Sadducee.” While the term Sadducee originally referred to the direct descendants of Zadok, it eventually became used of the priesthood to describe any descendant of Aaron. The term became used more to speak of a “party,” rather than a descent.

However, these seven families will be spoken of in Scripture as the “chief priests.” These seven families, or chief priests, were offered the high priesthood by Herod to the highest bidder. (Please understand, this was a total corruption of the system.) Amongst these seven families, the house of Ananus (we often translate as Annas) bought the high priesthood and his house would hold it until the destruction of Jerusalem. The corruption was well known and grew to such an extent that the best way to understand the chief priests would be to see them as a mafia.

Here are some details we know from history (mostly from Josephus):

 – The chief priests only paid the other priests for the two weeks they worked each year, keeping the remaining tithes for themselves.

 – The chief priests owned the system of money-changers and merchants who sold on the Temple Mount; they were called “the booths of Ananus” and they were built off of a complete ownership of the economic system AND the regulations that oversaw the system.

 – The chief priests had their own Temple Guard, who were notorious for carrying out behind-the-scenes executions of their enemies.

 – The chief priests had their own “Sanhedrin,” who met in the private home of the High Priest and functioned outside the formal Sanhedrin, who were made up of both Pharisees and Sadducees.


And we need to clear up some terms, so that we understand the writings of the gospels:

 – The “chief priests” are the leading families of the priesthood, descended from Zadok, who function as a mafia.

 – The High Priest is their leader and continues to function as the leader described in the Books of Moses, although much of the public understands the system to be completely corrupt and no longer bearing any resemblance to the Levitical priesthood. The Mishnah is brutal in its description of the priesthood under Herod and the corruption of God’s Levitical standard.

 – “Sadducee” is a term that refers to a party (think Republican/Democrat) and is any member of the serving priesthood who sees themselves as a part of the priestly system. While they may or may not share directly in the corruption of the chief priests, they are giving their passive nod to the system they oversee.

All of those mentioned above would be priestly descendants of Aaron.

However, there would also be a portion of the general public that would approve of the Hellenistic lifestyle. They would rejoice in the world that the rule of Herod has ushered in. While they certainly would not rejoice in the corruption of the Temple, they turn a blind eye to it and continue to carry on with business as usual. This group of non-priests who share the same worldview are called Herodians.

To be certain, the entire spectrum of responses to Hellenism and obedience to God’s way would be represented in the Herodian worldview. There certainly would have been Herodians seeking to love God with all their heart, soul, and might. Although we have cast this discussion in a fairly negative light, it is very important to realize that not all Herodians were self-seeking people turning a blind eye to corruption. A Herodian simply believed that they could follow God and be a part of the Hellenistic world that Rome offered them. They did not see those two things as mutually exclusive. This separated them from their brothers in the north, the Hasidim.

THE SILENT YEARS: Hasidim

So the Greeks move into town and the people of God respond in different ways. Some of them certainly thought that this lifestyle was not inherently evil and preferred everything that Greece had to offer. And also, for sure, you would have seen all kinds of people responding with different commitment levels to walking the path of God, from true compromisers to those who just wanted to hold both worlds in tension.

And there’s an argument to be made there, but we will deal with this later.

Other Jews, however, responded with fierce resistance. They refused to engage the new Greek world as passive consumers of this new message and philosophy. They resisted in the choices they made, they resisted in the way they worshipped, and they resisted in where they chose to live. And all of that worked out alright until the Greek world went into turmoil. Alexander the Great died and the Greek empire was passed on to four different generals. We will talk about the first two later, but the far eastern part of the empire (think Babylon/Chaldea) was given to a Greek ruler named Seleucus, and the southern portion (think Egypt) was given to a general named Ptolemy.

Originally, the land of Israel lay in the southern kingdom of Ptolemy. Ptolemy’s style of rule was one of passive invitation and suggestion; similar to Alexander, Ptolemy believed that if you built it, they would come. However, Seleucus was bent on the domination of the Greek empire and wanted to be Greece’s new emperor of fame. As Seleucus pushed west, he went to war against Ptolemy and the southern kingdom fell to Seleucus. This changed the world of the Jews dramatically.

Seleucus’s style of leadership was starkly different from Ptolemy. Seleucus said, “Become Greek or die.” Massive persecutions were launched at those who would refuse to take on the Hellenistic world and its value systems (namely Jews). Seleucus was famous for the torture that was pursued in the city squares under his rule. People were boiled in oil, pulled apart limb from limb by horses, and skinned alive as they peeled one-inch strips of hide from their bodies.

This bloody mess only fueled the fire of resistance. One day, Seleucus stormed into the Temple of God, desecrated the holy place, and offered pigs on the altar. This was the last straw for many of the resistive Jews and they mounted a revolt, led by Judah “the Hammer.” We know him as Judah Maccabee and the Maccabean revolt. This revolt is also the story of Chanukah. The eight-day uprising led to the miraculous overthrow of what some might argue was the most powerful army in the world at the time. A little band of Jewish rebels took back the Temple and supposedly walked in to find the menorah out of oil, but still burning. This is the celebration of the festival of lights.

Let’s get back to the story. The Maccabeans took control of the Temple and the land of Israel and, for a brief time in history, the Jews had their land back. The Maccabeans turned control of the Temple over to the priesthood — the rightful rulers of God’s Temple system. The priestly family was known as the Hasmoneans and they were direct descendants of the family lines of Zadok, the high priest who was put in place at the opening of the Temple of Solomon (more on them later).

However, this priestly Hasmonean family, within a matter of years, became as Hellenistic as the Greeks. Josephus tells us that there were so many priests at the Greco-Roman mud-wrestling on the Sabbath that there were not enough left in the Temple to hold Sabbath services.

Let that sink in.

Yes, many of the Jewish people felt betrayed. After all of that work to push out the Seleucids and God’s miraculous provision to defeat their enemies, how could they simply compromise the way of God and become as Greek as their imperial counterparts?

And so, in disgust and dismay, those groups of fiery rebels headed north to the Galilee, which we have already discussed. They became people of fierce devotion and commitment to walking the path of God. They were people of the insula, the rabbi, and the synagogue. Set apart. Holy. Devoted unto the LORD.

They called themselves Hasidim, or “the Pious Ones,” and they were made up of two groups:


ZEALOTS

This group held on to the passion that led the Jews to revolt. They believed that the Kingdom of God would come through total devotion to God’s path, complete resistance and rejection of the Hellenistic world, and a commitment to redemptive violence. They believed that if they would rise up in faithful obedience — with the sword — that God would defeat their enemies. He did it at Chanukah. He did it with Joshua and the conquest. He would do it again.

One of the zealot sects that we know of was the Sicarii, known for their short daggers called sicae. They were known for hiding a dagger up their sleeve and taking a vow to kill any Roman they found who was alone. They saw any cooperation with Rome or acceptance of Hellenism as a rejection of God and complete idolatry. Their poster boys were guys like Phinehas, who speared the Israelite man and the Moabite woman who were having relations in front of God’s house.

Realize the teachings of Jesus that were committed to principles of forgiveness and loving your enemies would run counter to this worldview. Realize that every time Jesus interacts favorably with a Roman, it would be incredibly offensive to this group. Realize that Jesus called some of these guys to be His disciples. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.


PHARISEES

This group believed that the Kingdom of God would come through complete devotion to God’s path and completely resisting and rejecting the Hellenistic world. They did not believe that God would want them to take up the sword against their enemies, but that if they would simply worry about obedience, God would bring rescue to their situation.

You see, the Pharisees get a really bad rap in our teachings. Admittedly, this is for good reason: Jesus is ruthless against many Pharisees. But what we often fail to see is that, of all the groups that will be at Jesus’s disposal, He is going to insist, by His own choice, on working with this religiously pious group of leaders. Certainly, their piety bred a self-righteousness that prevented them from seeing those on the outside, those on the margins, and the very people who were forgotten in the stories of the Old Testament.

But this was a group of people who were fiercely devoted to God’s commands and walking the path well. Their commitment to God would put our personal walks with the LORD to shame ten times over.


The Hasidim were the pious ones. They headed north to start a new home for a new kind of Judaism. And it worked. When God showed up to do His work amongst us, He decided to set up shop right under the noses of the Hasidim. He didn’t build an apartment on the wing of the Temple in Jerusalem; He went right up to the Galilee and lived in Nazareth. He planted His ministry in Capernaum for three years — the Pharisee capital of the Jewish world. He called zealots and fishermen who were the sons of Hasidim to be His first disciples.

There is something here to learn from the fierce and zealous devotion of the Hasidim.

THE SILENT YEARS: Culture

So the Jews come back with a renewed vigor for the Text. But there’s one more major historical shift that sets the stage for the arrival of Jesus.

There was a cultural change that affected the course of human history more (in my opinion) than any other shift in history. We saw this shift just begin to peek it’s head through the curtains during the reign of the Persians, but it never really made an entrance. We spoke of the kingdom of Persia and the differences inherent in their methods of ruling the world. They sought to rule through your surrender and acceptance of their rule, rather than destruction and domination of everybody and everything. This is because the Persians were at least somewhat influenced by the Greeks to the West.

The Greek philosophers had been contemplating some of the most complex questions that mankind had ever considered. It was a completely different way of thinking and asked radically different sets of questions. While most of the world had been focused on the concrete and practical things, this new Western world was asking big questions about the abstract and the unknown. This led to some new convictions.

At the heart of this new worldview lay a core premise and belief. One can find many different Greek philosophers who mention this idea, but Protagoras is often given credit for stating that “man is the measure of all things.” Now, that may not strike you as all that loaded of a statement, but this became the fundamental shift that brought about the worldview known as Hellenism. Hellenism (named after “Helles”) is usually used to speak of the spread of the Western worldview that had made a major shift. No longer were the gods or God at the center of man’s existence; now, MAN stood at the center of his own existence.

Hellenism certainly never did away with the gods — that would be foolish. Hellenism simply shifted their place from the center of the universe to one of many other categories of thought. Man was now at the center; man is the measure of all things. This idea quickly begins to bear fruit in the world. No longer is man made in God’s image, but the gods are made in man’s image (think of Greek mythology and how the gods are often pictured as foolish super beings who look and act a whole lot like men). At this point, our worldview begins to revolve around ourselves and a different set of priorities begin to emerge: power, pleasure, luxury, leisure, and comfort.

When Greece took over, their greatest weapon was not their military — it was their new worldview. Greece came bringing what they called euangelion. We translate this word “gospel” or “good news.” Greece had a gospel. They had good news to share. This good news was that the kingdom of Greece was here. We often talk about Alexander the Great as an amazing military commander (and he was), but Alexander was much more than a military officer; Alexander was an evangelist. And no, that’s not me waxing eloquent; I mean that Alexander was an evangelist. He was convinced that if he could take control of an area and simply build his Greek cities, the indigenous people would flock to this newfound worldview.

If you build it, Alexander said, they will come.

And it worked. Alexander changed the world forever.

And please don’t hear me as trying to be dramatic. I’m trying to make a point that sits right under our noses. If you are an American, you live in the most Hellenistic culture in human history. The Greco-Roman world is still the world that serves as our blueprint for society. In the universities I work with, we are unashamed to teach the Greco-Roman way. From our economics, to our politics, to our architecture, athletics, art, and social infrastructure — we are Greek.

Now, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it’s essential to understanding what is happening in history when God wraps Himself in flesh and joins the story. It’s critical to realize that we are no longer dealing with “some other ancient culture.” We have now entered OUR world.

“You deserve a break today.”
“Have it your way, right away.”
“Just do it.”
“You’re worth it.”
“You deserve the best.”

I hate to break it to you, but Alexander the Great won. There are Golden Arches in every country I’ve ever been in — even in countries where a cheeseburger isn’t kosher! The Greeks had traded the immortal God for the images of mortal man, and they loved it.

And the world loved it.

They couldn’t get enough of it. They welcomed the Greco-Roman world with open arms. This new day was bringing power, security, comfort, leisure, pleasure, and entertainment. It brought a new kind of infrastructure that provided healthcare and education. It entertained you with media, art, and competition. This same competition called out the best of humanity and drove us to continue to become better and better and better.

And it still is. We’re still breaking world records.

Isn’t mankind amazing?

And yet, somewhere, God got lost. And don’t worry, people have found Him again; every now and again we try to dust Him off and make sure we give Him the prominent place on our mantels where He belongs. We even use Him to try to get more stuff and bigger houses with better mantels to put Him on.

There’s a word for this: idolatry.

But there were a few groups of people who saw this all coming. They refused to buy the greatest lie of human history and fought to stand against the kingdom of self. Some of them missed the point, and all of them struggled. Every attempt to stand against it was flawed, but there were groups of faithful God-followers who sought to hang on to the way God was trying to redeem the world.

The world Jesus was born into was deeply entrenched in cultural struggle and in the midst of a battle of worldviews. Before we start to look at the New Testament, we need to understand how some different Jewish groups were responding to this new worldview shift. It will help us realize who Jesus is working with and talking to in the gospel accounts.

And it just might help us find our place in the story.

THE SILENT YEARS: Text!

As we begin to look at synagogue, we can learn a lot by studying the physical structure itself. Certainly one will need to realize that the components of this post are not universally found in each and every situation. Each synagogue that the world of archaeology uncovers seems to be unique and challenges different assumptions that we make about synagogue as a whole, but we can take a look at what we’ve found and draw relatively safe general conclusions. In other words, to say that EVERY synagogue matches the description below would be incorrect; but to say that the following description gives us an understanding of the world of first-century synagogue would be far more accurate.

When I teach my students about synagogue in the first century, I always teach them that synagogue has seven main parts:

 1. Mikveh: Before entering the space of worship, it was important for the worshipper to make sure that they were spiritually prepared. This meant a ceremonial washing that would invite God to cleanse their minds (thoughts), hearts (desires), hands (actions), and feet (walk). Outside of most synagogues, you would find a Jewish baptismal — otherwise known as mikveh.

2. Basilica: As you enter the synagogue, you would notice the pillars that run along the inside of the structure, supporting a raised central roof. This arrangement of pillars makes up the basilica. Not possessing the technology to span large distances in their architecture, the people were often forced to support the roof internally. An opening in the roof also allowed you to “read the Light (Torah) with God’s light (the sun).”

3. Chief Seats: Reserved for the elderly of the community, the chief seats were the place of honor. (Everyone else sat on the stone/dirt floor.) Jesus told his disciples never to seek out the chief seats, but always practice service and humility.

4. Bema: There was a slightly raised platform in the center of the synagogue where the Text was read from known as the bema. It is important to note that the bema stood in the center of the room; this made a statement about the Text in the life of the community. The community comes and gathers around the Text and it is central to their worship. As the world is westernized, the bema will move closer and closer to the “front” of the room and act more like a stage with an audience. No longer is it a community gathered around, but an audience coming to watch.

5. Moses Seat: The Torah reader for that morning would sit in the Moses Seat. Notice, as well, that there are no clergy in synagogue. A rabbi plays no special role in worship. Synagogue is about the community and the Text; everybody takes a turn reading from Torah. Furthermore, there is very little by way of a “sermon.” There is what’s called a derashah, but that is a 60- to 90-second statement of what the Text means to you. In our culture, we read the text for two minutes and talk about it for thirty minutes. In their world, you read the Text for thirty minutes and talk about it for two.

6. Torah Closet: The scrolls are kept in the Torah Closet. Very rarely would a village own the entire Torah, and definitely not the whole Tanakh, but your village might have the scrolls of Exodus, Jeremiah, and Esther, plus a portion of Isaiah. The neighboring village might have Deuteronomy, Judges, and Daniel. You get the idea. So how in the world did you know your Text? We’ll cover that in a moment.

7. Study Room: There was often a room adjoining the main synagogue where the community’s education would take place, known as the Study Room.


Before we move on, it’s worth noting that even in the construction of the building, the message is clear: The people of the Galilee returned from Babylon with a renewed passion and vigor for the Text. They had decided that if God punished them for not following His ways, then one of the main problems was that they hadn’t KNOWN His ways (remember, there was no printing press). They committed themselves to making sure that they would never again be found ignorant of God’s Word.

And so they came back with synagogue.

But that synagogue also came with an education system that the world of Judaism had never seen.

** To be sure, history is hard to decipher and the records are slim and spotty at best. How the “system” operated and the dates surrounding when everything took place are hotly debated topics. If I’m allowed to use the writings of the New Testament as evidence, it becomes much easier to piece history together; please realize that most scholarship does not allow the use of New Testament writings as evidence, so much of what I am drawing together will be debated. This is the “minimalist/maximalist” debate in history. I have pulled much of my information from the teachings of Ray Vander Laan and Rob Bell and continue to seek information from other sources. I have much work to do in this department.


BET SEFER: Ancient Jewish schooling started around the age of five, when children began attending bet sefer. During what we would call “elementary years,” the students were taught basic education through the lens of the Text. For example, math would be taught through elements of the Text: “The Tablets of Moses, plus the Books of Moses, equals the days of creation.” However, the main task of these young students was to commit the Books of Moses to memory. When I say “to memory” you may be wondering how serious I am about this claim. Realize that without the printing press, and without a copy of the Tanakh in your village, a remnant committed to knowing their Text will need to have that Text memorized.

BET TALMUD: The meager historical reports do not allow us to draw distinct lines around exactly how the next two stages work. There is much debate about which stage came first, what it entailed, and whether they were two separate stages or not. The process, however, seems to be relatively clear. The next stage of Jewish learning was reserved for only the best of those coming out of bet sefer. Most estimates I’ve heard of put less than 10% of the student population moving on, somewhere around the age of 10. Only the best students were invited to progress to this stage. Again, education would progress through the lens of Text, but this stage was even more strenuous, with the expectation being the student would memorize the entirety of the Tanakh. That is, the entire Old Testament, committed to memory.

BET MIDRASH: Finally, the best of the best would apply to follow a rabbi (which, before the destruction of the Temple, was an unofficial term that simply meant “teacher”). If the rabbi thought that the student had what it took to become just like himself in his walk with God, he would utter the rabbinical call: Lech achari (“Come, follow me”). We are now talking about less than 1% of the student population and most scholars estimate there were no more than 100 talmidim (or disciples) in the first century. We do not know of more than five rabbis in the first century, most of whom had no more than two or three disciples. Assuming that there were more we do not know of, it still doesn’t leave room for many more talmidim.

Take a moment to realize the level of commitment that was held by this Jewish remnant to learning and knowing their Text. Not only this, but the rabbinical method was central to teaching the people of God how to LIVE the Text out. The call to follow the rabbi was a call to mimic his every move. It was a way of training up leaders that would guide the people of God — as shepherds lead a flock — in the paths of righteousness.

You see, without an understanding of this post-captivity Judaism with its unbelievable commitment to Text, we miss so much about the world Jesus is born into. It’s not just the Judaism of the Old Testament; quite to the contrary, it’s a new Judaism with a profound commitment to walking in obedience.

They have become a people of the Text.

THE SILENT YEARS: Synagogue

Now that we’ve covered all of the books in what we often call the “Old Testament,” you’re probably assuming that it’s about time we peel into the gospels and start looking at the New Testament, right?

Of course not. In between the testaments lies a few centuries of history that change our understanding of the life and ministry of Jesus in a big way. It is almost impossible (I said “almost”) to appreciate the New Testament without an understanding of what is often referred to as the “Silent Years” between the testaments. As we’ll find out, these years are far from silent and are critical to our understanding of the context and setting of the New Testament.

The book of Esther really did indirectly describe the post-remnant world and the tensions that existed inside of it. The “remnant” that we typically speak of is the one that came back and rebuilt the temple and the walls of Jerusalem. However, there was a completely different remnant that came back and set up the world that Jesus would be born into.

There was a group of people who returned under the arm of the Persian empire to rebuild. In a lot of ways, this remnant shared the worldview of those who stayed in Persia. While their personal callings were different (they were called to the difficult work of rebuilding), they shared an understanding about life under Persian rule. The writings we have from this period of history paint a picture and drive a conversation about what it will be like to live under a new rule. Walter Brueggemann calls this an “accommodation/resistance” worldview (to be held against a “rescue/return” worldview). Instead of a people who long for God to come and destroy the enemy, rescuing His people and giving them back their land, God appears to be changing the landscape and inviting His people to find a new way of living in the midst of empire. How will they accommodate this new empire and simultaneously subvert it?

Such a worldview will require making some changes that accommodate the work around you. Of course, it goes without saying that there was a completely different response to the situation (you may recall the tension of living within the shephelah). Another group, much more zealous and pious in their beliefs, responded in a different way. While the first group made their way back “home” to rebuild Jerusalem, another group would eventually make their way to the north and establish a Judaism that looked quite a bit different than the Judean counterparts. We will talk more about where this group came from later, but know that to understand the world Jesus enters, one must understand the world of the Galilee.

The people in the north settled in the area by building entirely new villages and towns that were dedicated from the start as being places where a new kind of remnant could establish a new kind of zealous, committed piety in their walk with God. Scholars estimate that somewhere around 150,000–250,000 Jews returned to the region of the Galilee to plant many villages. You will recognize some of the names: Cana, Nazareth, Zippori, Magdala, Genessaret, Capernaum, Korazin, Bethsaida, and Gamla to name a few.

And these people brought a newfound Judaism with them, as well. It was the Judaism of the rabbi, the disciple, insula, and synagogue. In the minds of the settlers in the north, this was not the Judaism of their counterparts in the south. This Judaism would have a commitment that kept them from the dangers of compromise and seduction of the imperial worldview — this would keep them pure in their walk with God.

In order to understand the Judaism Jesus is born into, I’d like to talk first about one image that will radically change our understanding of Jesus and his disciples: synagogue.

Ruins of the synagogue in Korazin