Introduction

Can you see the real me … ?—Pete TownshendAT A GLANCE, the biblical tradition paints a fairly simple picture of the Levites. They were a tribe descended from one of Jacob’s sons (Levi); Moses and Aaron emerged from their ranks in Egypt, and saw to their sacerdotal investiture during the wilderness period. Once the Levites had settled in the land of Canaan, they continued these priestly duties under the leadership of major priestly figures who descended from Aaron. They supported the building of Solomon’s temple, and they returned to Jerusalem following the end of the Babylonian Exile to help build the Second Temple and minister therein under the leadership of the Aaronide priesthood. The Levites then remained in this secondary position and were charged with a variety of duties to support the sacrificial cult conducted and regulated under Aaronide auspices. They also assisted powerful figures such as Ezra and Nehemiah in reading ritual texts, transmitting sacred teachings, and administering society according to divine law....

What's Divine about Divine Law?

10.23943/princeton/9780691165196.001.0001 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Hayes

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Dissonance ◽

Second Temple ◽

Hellenistic Period ◽

Philo Of Alexandria ◽

Rabbinic Judaism ◽

Early Christian ◽

Greco Roman ◽

Western Idea ◽

Jewish Writers ◽

In the thousand years before the rise of Islam, two radically diverse conceptions of what it means to say that a law is divine confronted one another with a force that reverberates to the present. This book untangles the classical and biblical roots of the Western idea of divine law and shows how early adherents to biblical tradition—Hellenistic Jewish writers such as Philo, the community at Qumran, Paul, and the talmudic rabbis—struggled to make sense of this conflicting legacy. This book shows that for the ancient Greeks, divine law was divine by virtue of its inherent qualities of intrinsic rationality, truth, universality, and immutability, while for the biblical authors, divine law was divine because it was grounded in revelation with no presumption of rationality, conformity to truth, universality, or immutability. The book describes the collision of these opposing conceptions in the Hellenistic period, and details competing attempts to resolve the resulting cognitive dissonance. It shows how Second Temple and Hellenistic Jewish writers, from the author of 1 Enoch to Philo of Alexandria, were engaged in a common project of bridging the gulf between classical and biblical notions of divine law, while Paul, in his letters to the early Christian church, sought to widen it. The book then delves into the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism to reveal how the talmudic rabbis took a third and scandalous path, insisting on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Greco-Roman and Pauline conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West. This book sheds critical light on an ancient debate that would shape foundational Western thought, and that continues to inform contemporary views about the nature and purpose of law and the nature and authority of Scripture.

The Attraction of Aristocratic Women to Pharisaism During the Second Temple Period

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816000030376 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 88 (1) ◽

pp. 1-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Tal Ilan

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Eighteenth Century ◽

Second Temple ◽

Reform Movement ◽

Second Temple Period ◽

The Real ◽

Important Study ◽

Jewish Religion ◽

Wissenschaft Des Judentums

Unlike Christianity, which regards the word “Pharisee” as synonymous with “hypocrite,” “legalist,” and “petty-bourgeois,” Jews have always understood Pharisaism as the correct and trustworthy side of Judaism. Since the eighteenth century, all disputants who participated in the great controversies and schisms within Judaism have claimed to represent the true heirs of the Pharisees. For example, adherents of the strong anti-Hasidic movement initiated by R. Eliyahu of Vilna in the second half of the eighteenth century, who are usually referred to in literature by the negative appellation “opposers” (םירננחמ), referred to themselves by the positive title “Pharisees” (םישורפ). When the Reform movement was founded in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, with the goal of reforming the Jewish religion to make it more “modern” and acceptable to its neighbors, the reformers perceived themselves as the true heirs of the Pharisees. In his important study of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Abraham Geiger, one of the founders, ofWissenschaft des Judentumsand an important spokesman for the radical wing of the Reform movement, formulated the view of the flexible open-minded Pharisees, who reformed Judaism to the point of contradicting the laws set out in the Pentateuch, in order to accommodate them to their changing needs. Geiger's opponents easily produced evidence that negated his findings and proved beyond doubt that they, in their conservative strain, were the real heirs of Pharisaism. To his opponents, Geiger was a representative of the detestable Sadducees or their later counterparts, the Karaites.

The Islamic State: The Real Islam?

Cuadernos Iberoamericanos ◽

10.46272/2409-3416-2019-4-20-30 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 20-30

Author(s):

Antonio Alonso Marcos ◽

Samir Khalil Samir

Keyword(s):

Islamic State ◽

The Real ◽

Spiritual Leader ◽

Political Project ◽

The Law ◽

From the origins of the Muslim religion, Muhammad was both military and spiritual leader. His political project was materialized in the form of an Islamic state, where the law was the divine law. Throughout the centuries, this caliphate has been established in different places and in different ways. In June 2014, it was proclaimed in the Sham, in Iraq and Syria. It should be asked if this model of Islamic State is the real one and whether the violence is consubstantial to Islam or it can get away with it.

Conclusion

Melchizedek, King of Sodom ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190946968.003.0010 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 95-98

Author(s):

Robert R. Cargill

Keyword(s):

Extended Family ◽

Second Temple ◽

Second Temple Period ◽

History Of ◽

Two Kingdoms ◽

Changes Over Time ◽

Over Time ◽

The conclusion summarizes the central arguments and evidence presented in the book. It demonstrates that the original purpose of Gen. 14 was that of a hero narrative, presenting the über-righteous Abram as a YHWH-empowered warrior who rescues his nephew, Lot, and returns the kidnaped and plundered Sodomite people and their goods to their homeland, without exacting a payment! Abram was to be depicted as the ultimate righteous hero, fighting the good fight on behalf of his extended family and demanding no payment in return. He is victorious in battle and generous in victory, “blessing those who bless him and becoming a curse to those who curse him.” However, as the history of Israel unfolded, parts of the Abram narrative required updating in the eyes of the Jerusalem priesthood. Given the sectarian political battles that came to shape Judean and Samaritan history in Israel following the collapse of the two kingdoms and the Babylonian exile, the Melchizedek encounter underwent small changes over time, each of which created new problems with each problem it solved. It was this redaction history of the Melchizedek encounter that created Melchizedek as an individual separate from the king of Sodom and gave rise to the varied Jewish interpretations of him in the late Second Temple period.

Present Affliction Affects the Representation of the Past: An Alternative Dating of the Levitical Prayer in Nehemiah 9

Vetus Testamentum ◽

10.1163/15685330-12341134 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 63 (4) ◽

pp. 605-626 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Gili Kugler

Keyword(s):

Historical Review ◽

Second Temple ◽

Second Temple Period ◽

The Past ◽

The People ◽

Second Temple Literature ◽

Abstract This article examines a group of confessional prayers found in Second Temple literature uttered by known/identifiable figures that are characterized by an admission of guilt on the part of the speaker and a request for divine deliverance and redemption. In Nehemiah 9, these elements are very obscure, the passage also demonstrating linguistic and historical signs that suggest it does not belong to this group or the same date. On the basis of the disparity between the prayer and its introduction, an analysis of its content, linguistic elements, and the features stressed in the historical review, this paper proposes that the prayer belongs not to the Second Temple period but to the days prior to the Babylonian exile, when the people were under bondage to foreign kings in their own land.

Ritual Purity

Maimonides the Universalist ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781906764555.003.0011 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 183-220

Keyword(s):

Second Temple ◽

Jewish Law ◽

Practical Application ◽

Purity And Impurity ◽

The Temple ◽

This chapter discusses the Book of Ritual Purity (Sefer tohorah), which covers a large and complicated area of Jewish law that was once as important to observant Jews but has been mostly without practical application since the destruction of the Second Temple. It stresses Maimonides' point that the bar on admission to the Temple is the main consequence of most types of impurity. It also explains that the laws of purity and impurity demonstrate anticipation of the messiah and the Temple's reconstruction. The chapter describes the Book of Purity as part of a meaningful structure whereby Maimonides conveys what he sees as the timeless value of comprehending the Torah in its entirety as a system of divine law. It relates the Book of Purity to universal philosophical concepts.

Bridging the Gap: Divine Law in Hellenistic and Second Temple Jewish Sources

What's Divine about Divine Law? ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691165196.003.0006 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Hayes

Keyword(s):

Opposite Direction ◽

Natural Law ◽

Second Temple ◽

Natural World ◽

Second Temple Period ◽

Greco Roman ◽

Mosaic Law ◽

This chapter focuses on Hellenistic Jewish writings and Second Temple period texts that to various degrees accept the Greek dichotomy between natural law and conventional law. It examines Hellenistic Jewish writings that try to bridge the gap between biblical and Greco-Roman conceptions of divine law by applying the latter's discourses of natural law to biblical divine law. This apologetic effort culminates in the writings of Philo, who identifies the Mosaic Law with the natural law and confers upon it the attributes of rationality, truth, universality, and fixity. The chapter also considers Second Temple period writings that bridge the gap between biblical and classical conceptions of divine law by moving in the opposite direction: these writings transfer some of the attributes of biblical divine law to the laws that govern the natural world.

Prophets and Prophecy in the Qumran Community

AJS Review ◽

10.1017/s0364009408000147 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 299-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Alex P. Jassen

Keyword(s):

Second Temple ◽

Multiple Modes ◽

Ancient Judaism ◽

Religious Piety ◽

Qumran Community ◽

It has long been axiomatic in the study of postbiblical Judaism that prophecy had become a dormant institution. For scholars studying Judaism in its many ancient manifestations, prophecy was a phenomenon closely related to the heritage of biblical Israel. It disappeared as biblical Israel gave way to Judaism in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile. This scholarly assumption has found support in several texts from ancient Judaism that indeed espouse such a position. In recent years, the dominance of this consensus has begun to wither away as scholars have become both more fully aware of the diverse forms of Judaism in the Second Temple and rabbinic periods and more sensitive to the multiple modes of religious piety in ancient Judaism. In this article, I would like to extend the contours of this conversation by mapping out some methodological rubrics for the study of prophecy in ancient Judaism and discuss one context for the application of this methodology—the Qumran community.

Interpretation of the Inscription ‘Song of Ascents’ (Psalms 120-134) in the Jewish Tradition

Theological Herald ◽

10.31802/2500-1450-2020-36-1-17-41 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 17-41

Author(s):

Ириней Пиковский

Keyword(s):

Religious Tradition ◽

Second Temple ◽

Jewish Tradition ◽

The Real ◽

Historical Origin ◽

Songs Of Ascents ◽

Exegetical Tradition ◽

The Temple

«Песни восхождения» (Пс. 119-133) представляют собой сборник из пятнадцати псалмов Псалтири. Популярное толкование данного заголовка во многих «Толковых Псалтирях» связывает происхождение этой группы священных текстов с возвращением евреев из Вавилонского плена и последующим паломничеством в Иерусалимский храм на религиозные праздники. Автор настоящего исследования ставит цель проверить обоснованность данной точки в наиболее авторитетных источниках иудейской религиозной традиции II-XIII вв.: Мишна, Тосефта, Иерусалимская и Вавилонская Гемара, Таргум на Псалмы, некоторые мидраши, сочинения Саадии Гаона, Раши, Авраама ибн Эзры и Давида Кимхи. Для достижения поставленной цели был проанализирован контекст употребления словосочетания תולעמה ריש («песнь восхождений») в упомянутых источниках. Как показало исследование выражение «песнь восхождений» не имело одинаковой интерпретации в источниках одно и того же периода. Поздние источники показывают зависимость от более ранних, но на основании их невозможно сделать вывод, что в еврейской традиции было единодушие в отношении происхождения заголовка данный группы псалмов Книги Хвалений. Отсюда можно сделать вывод, что сведения об исторических причинах появления данного заголовка были утрачены до начала письменной фиксации иудейских преданий. Следовательно, последующие ассоциации надписания исследуемой группы псалмов с возвращением из плена или паломничеством в Иерусалим рождались интуитивно и были более связаны с литургическими целями употребления псалмов в ту или иную эпоху после разрушения Второго храма, чем с проникновением в реальные первоосновы происхождения заголовка. «Songs of Ascents» (Psalm 120-134) is a collection of fifteen Psalms. An interpretation of this title in popular Psalter commentaries relates the origin of this group of Psalms to the return from Exile and the subsequent pilgrimage to the Temple for major religious feasts. The author of the article aims to verify the validity of this popular interpretation in such authoritative sources of Jewish religious tradition as Mishnah, Tosefta, Jerusalem and Babylonian Gemara, Targum on the Psalms, Midrashim, works of Saadiya Gaon, Rashi, Abraham ibn Ezra and David Kimchi. To achieve the goal of the research, the context of the phrase תולעמה ריש («song of ascents») in the mentioned sources was analyzed. The study showed the expression «song of ascents» did not have the same interpretation in the sources of the same period. Later sources show dependence on earlier ones, but it is impossible to conclude that there was unanimity in Jewish tradition regarding the origin of this superscription. So, it’s possible to conclude that the historical causes for this superscription were forgotten before the written fixation of Jewish exegetical tradition had begun. Consequently, the subsequent associations of the inscription «song of ascents» with the return from captivity or pilgrimage to Jerusalem were born intuitively and were more connected with the liturgical goals of using the psalms after the destruction of the Second Temple, than with the penetration into the real historical origin of the title.

Prophets of Exile: 4QApocryphon of Jeremiah C, Apocryphal Baruch, and the Efficacy of the Second Temple

Journal for the Study of Judaism ◽

10.1163/15700631-12340388 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 44 (4-5) ◽

pp. 497-529 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kipp Davis

Keyword(s):

Religious Practice ◽

Second Temple ◽

Abstract This essay examines continuities and discontinuities between Apocryphal Baruch and the Qumran Apocryphon of Jeremiah C, and attempts to situate these texts relative to one another and within their shared social matrix. Special attention is paid to their specific usage of scripture, their respective interpretations of the Babylonian exile, their implied understanding of efficacious Jewish religious practice in the second and first centuries B.C.E., and how these were further reflected in the reputation of their protagonists: the prophet Jeremiah, and his scribal companion Baruch.