Judaism in the Ancient World

Related civilizations: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium.

Date: 1000 b.c.e.-700 c.e.

Locale: Middle East

Judaism

Judaism, derived from Hebrew yehudah, or Judah, one of the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob and the eponymous ancestor of the tribe of Judah, is the religion and culture of the Jewish people. Its defining belief is the existence of one and only one god, the god of Israel. The Jewish people viewed themselves as standing in a special relationship with this god, whom they called Yahweh. The relationship was defined by the terms of a covenant. Keeping the terms of the covenant, as defined by the divine law called Torah, would result in corporate blessing. The Written Torah is found in the Hebrew scriptures (the Old Testament of the Christian Bible), primarily its first five books, which are traditionally attributed to Moses.

Israelite religion (1000-587 or 586 b.c.e.)

The religion of Israel during the period of monarchy and political independence traces its origins to Yahweh’s relationship with the ancestors (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, and Leah). The exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses is the beginning of Israel’s nationhood. The revelation of the covenant at Mount Sinai mediated by Moses became the national constitution and ultimately the foundation of Judaism. However, the term Judaism is properly applied only after the destruction of Jerusalem and the first (or Solomonic) temple in 587 b.c.e. because the tribe of Judah was the sole identifiable survivor of Israel’s wars.

The Torah of Moses regulated the religious and civic life of the nation and was supplemented by the apparatus and priesthood of the Jerusalem temple beginning with the reign of Solomon (r. 961-921 b.c.e.). With the separation of Israel from Judah at Solomon’s death, Israel in the north of Palestine (the Ten Tribes) struggled to establish stable leadership, while Judah in the south was dominated by the Davidic royal line supported by the Jerusalem priesthood. Prophets such as Elijah, Amos, and Jeremiah challenged these structures largely on the basis of the ideals of the Mosaic Torah. The prophets interpreted the triumph of Assyria over Israel in 722 b.c.e. and Babylonia over Judah in 587 or 586 b.c.e. as the divine punishment warranted by the terms of the covenant.

Early Judaism (587 or 586 b.c.e.-70 c.e.)

The Judaean elite, including priests, royal administrators, and craftsmen, were exiled to Babylonia, where they established refugee communities; other Judaeans fled to Egypt and elsewhere. These diaspora communities retained a connection to their traditions yet reshaped them for managing life in exile within first the Babylonian, then the Persian, and later the Greco-Roman empires. No longer able to rely on land and temple to define Judaic identity, rules regulating food (kashrut) and the Sabbath, as well as the ritual of circumcision that marks covenant membership, took on new significance. The exilic priestly leadership was instrumental in shaping Israelite narrative and legal traditions into the canonical text of the Torah enshrined in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). Back in Jerusalem, the temple of Solomon was rebuilt, though it was much less impressive.

Late in the fifth century b.c.e., Ezra imposed the governance of Torah upon the Jews living in Palestine; some had returned from abroad, and some had never left. Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 332 b.c.e., and thereafter Greek culture penetrated the area. After the Greeks, the Seleucid Dynasty gained control of Palestine in 200 b.c.e., and pressure to forsake the distinctive ways of Judaism and adopt Hellenistic modes of thought and culture dramatically increased.

Although some Jews welcomed assimilation, others, led by Judas the Maccabee, resisted. Soon they established Jewish independence from Greek domination governed by the Hasmoneans, the dynasty of the family of Judas. The Pharisees, pietists who championed a constructive interpretation of Torah, came to have influence through their support of the Maccabean revolt. Other factions within Judaism, representing different applications of the tradition, also emerged around this time, including the Zealots who were militantly messianic in outlook, and the Essenes who were ascetic and apocalyptic. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered near Khirbat Qumran, appear to derive from them. After the transition to Roman rule in 63 b.c.e., the Sadducees, a Jewish priestly elite, cooperated with the Roman provincial government in managing the Jewish affairs of Palestine. In origin, Christianity was also a Judaic movement, one that identified Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish messiah come to establish the kingdom of God.

Rabbinic Judaism (70-700 c.e.)

The failure of the First Jewish Revolt against the Roman occupation (66-73 c.e.) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem, including the second temple. This demise of the traditional structures of Judaism, along with Roman imperial domination, forced the search for new forms of religious expression and identity. The Pharisaic tradition emerged as the most adaptable expression of Judaism. Under the sponsorship of Pharisaic rabbis, the Hebrew scriptures were canonized. With the collapse of the Second Jewish Revolt (132-135 c.e.), moderate rabbinic leadership provided an ideology and approach to religious practice that did not depend on the traditional priesthood, the Jerusalem temple, or Jewish political independence.

Judah the Prince, a second century c.e. rabbi, edited the collection of rabbinic interpretations of Torah called the Mishnah, also known as the Oral Torah, that became the standard legal code within Judaism. The Mishnah was organized by topic and was supplemented by later additions called the Toseftah by the Tannaim, rabbis of the Mishnaic period. During the third and fourth centuries c.e., rabbinic interpretations of biblical texts, called Midrashim, were compiled as commentary on the Hebrew text. This corpus was designed to regulate life within the Jewish community, including diet, hygiene, family life, civil affairs, religious festivals, and agriculture. Mishnah continued to define community practice, and further generations of rabbinic scholars, now called the Amoraim, reinterpreted and reapplied earlier legal rulings. These were collected into two Talmuds, one the work of rabbis in Jerusalem, the other the work of those in Babylon. After Palestinian Judaism lost its influence, the Babylonian Talmud, edited finally in the seventh century, became the judicial standard for much of Judaism.

Bibliography

Cohen, Shaye J. D. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987.

De Lange, Nicholas. Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews. 1987. Reprint. Lonon: Phoenix, 2001.