The Second Temple and the Temple of the Samaritans

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnar Kartveit
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
The Temple

Jewish Identity and the Intercommunal Links between Diaspora Jewish Communities in the Second Temple Period

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Jonathan R. Trotter
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

Abstract Many diaspora communities identify not only with a distant homeland but also with others distant from the homeland. How exactly do these intercommunal connections take place and contribute toward a shared identity? What specific aspects of diasporan identity are created or strengthened? What practices are involved? This study will begin to answer these questions through investigating two practices which were widespread among diaspora Jewish communities during the last two centuries of the Second Temple period (1st cent. B.C.E.–1st cent. C.E.). First, we will show how sending offerings and making pilgrimages to the Jerusalem temple from these communities enabled regular intercommunal contact. Then, we will suggest some ways in which these voluntary practices reinforced a cohesive Jewish identity and the importance of the homeland, especially the city of Jerusalem and the temple, for many diaspora Jews, whether they lived in Alexandria, Rome, Asia Minor, or Babylonia.

The People of the Book, 200 BCE–200 CE

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The People ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Jewish Religion

This chapter discusses the well-documented shift of the religious norm that transformed the Jews into the People of the Book. During the first century BCE, some Jewish scholars and religious leaders promoted the establishment of free secondary schools. A century later, they issued a religious ordinance requiring all Jewish fathers to send their sons from the age of six or seven to primary school to learn to read and study the Torah in Hebrew. With the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish religion permanently lost one of its two pillars (the Temple) and set out on a unique trajectory. Scholars and rabbis, the new religious leaders in the aftermath of the first Jewish–Roman war, replaced temple service and ritual sacrifices with the study of the Torah in the synagogue—the new focal institution of Judaism.

scholarly journals Between family and temple: Jesus and sacrifices

2002 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Destro ◽  
Mauro Pesce
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Temple

Sacrifice generally aims at obtaining from and by supernatural force the right to exercise control over life. As far as Jewish sacrifices are concerned, according to Leviticus, victims’ blood serves to purify the holy places of the temple and no sacrifices can expiate voluntary sins. In Mt  6:12 God’s forgiveness is obtained through a trilateral relationship between the sinner, the “debtor”, and  God, without any expiatory sacrificial act being required. Jesus did not, however, reject the  sacrificial rituals of the temple, those rituals that did not serve to expiate voluntary sins. In Jesus’ proposal, the forgiveness by one individual of another implies a social conception, which includes the absence of debt,  reconciliation, justice and equality. Jesus transforms and relocates two aspects of the religion of the Second  Temple. In his conception, the forgiveness of sins and  a new beginning of people’s lives brought about by the Jubilee can happen anywhere (not only in the temple)  and at any time (not only once a year for Yom ha-kippurim).

Antecedents of the Hanukkah Oil Story

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Zvi Ron
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Babylonian Talmud ◽  
The Past ◽  
Summer Palace ◽  
The Temple

When the rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 21b) recounted the miracle of the oil’s lasting for eight days as the etiology of the festival of Hanukkah, they were basing themselves on biblical antecedents, in which the dedication of the Temple/tabernacle was accompanied by the descent of heavenly fire. Although there is no trace of the legend of the oil in any source before the Talmud, an analogous story is found in 2 Maccabees 1 in relation to Nehemiah, whose dedication of the Second Temple was accomplished through the fire of the First Temple, which had in the meanwhile liquefied into naphtha and was kept in an empty cistern. Another story that adumbrates the same themes is the discovery of the lost scroll under Josiah, which leads to the purification and renewal of the Temple. In each case an object from the past survives catastrophe or the reign of bad kings to provide continuity. A final case is the narrative of the building of the Temple in Ezra 6, in which the discovery of a lost scroll in the Achaemenid summer palace authorizes the construction. The Talmudic Hanukkah story is thus seen as a midrash based on biblical precedents.

Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era

2003 ◽  
Vol 122 (2) ◽  
pp. 247 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Poirier
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
The Temple

Philo of Alexandria

Classics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory E. Sterling
Keyword(s):  
School Setting ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Jewish Family ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Roman World ◽  
C 50 ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy ◽  
The Temple

Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 bce–c. 50 ce) was the most prolific commentator on the Pentateuch in the Second Temple Jewish period (539 bce–70/135 ce). Philo was a member of a prominent Jewish family in one of the largest Jewish communities in the early Roman world. An observant Jew who made at least one pilgrimage to the temple, Philo led the Jewish embassy before Caligula following the pogrom in Alexandria in 38 ce. His real contribution lay in his writings; he wrote more than seventy treatises, although a third of these have been lost. The bulk of the treatises belongs to three series of commentaries on the Pentateuch. It is possible, although not provable, that Philo produced these in a school setting similar to the schools of ancient philosophers. His writings constitute a rich deposit of exegetical traditions. He inherited a large number of these exegetical traditions that began as early as the 2nd century bce with the works of Aristobulus and Pseudo-Aristeas. He also developed his own interpretations that primarily focus on the ascent of the soul to God. This point of orientation reflects his familiarity with Hellenistic philosophy, especially Middle Platonism. He had read and digested a number of Plato’s treatises, although he also knew other traditions as well. His creative blend of philosophy and exegesis made him attractive to early Christians who preserved the writings that have come down to us.

prayer, Jewish

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan C. Reif
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Fixed Times ◽  
The Temple

Although some of the inspiration for later Jewish prayers undoubtedly came from the ancient Near East and the early books of the Hebrew Bible, there was at that early period of development little connection between the formal liturgy, as represented by the Temple cult, and the spontaneous entreaties of the individual. During the Second Temple period, the two methods of expression began to coalesce, and the literature included among the Dead Sea Scrolls testifies to the recitation of regular prayers at fixed times. The Talmudic rabbis laid down instructions for some statutory prayers, such as the shema‘ and the ‘amidah, and these gradually formed the basis of what became the synagogal liturgy.

When was the Second Temple Destroyed? Chronology and Ideology in Josephus and in Rabbinic Literature

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 547-573
Author(s):  
Meir Ben Shahar
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
The Temple

Jewish tradition holds that both the first and second Jerusalem temples were destroyed on the 9th of Av (m. Taʿan. 4:6). According to Josephus both temples were destroyed on the 10th of Av (J.W. 6.250). Although Josephus proffers an elaborately detailed chronology of the temple’s final days, an attentive reading reveals that he in fact delayed the destruction of the temple by one day. Ideological motives impelled Josephus to defer the date of the destruction of the Second Temple to the date he had for the destruction of the First Temple (the 10th of Av). He proposes an analogy between the two in support of his position that God was punishing the rebels for their sins. Finally, the article suggests that the Jewish tradition that establishes the 9th of Av as the date for the destruction of both temples, derives from a mythical conception of history.

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