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

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Divine 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.

Introduction

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Universal Law ◽  
Divine Law

In part II, we examined Jewish writings to the end of the first century CE that navigate the incongruity between Greco-Roman and biblical conceptions of divine law. For the most part, these writings accept and work within the framework set by the Greco-Roman dichotomy of divine law vs. human law. Philo and Paul are two of the clearest examples of writers who employ this dichotomy and seek to assimilate Mosaic Law to one or the other of its terms. They arrive at radically different conclusions as to whether the Mosaic Law can be classified as divine law or positive human law, and they rely on different elements of biblical divine law discourse to support their particular classification. Philo identified the Mosaic Law with the divine natural law of Greco-Roman (primarily Stoic) tradition. Paul differentiated Mosaic Law from the universal law written on the heart....

What's Divine about Divine Law?

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 ◽  
Divine Law

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.

Going Through Hell; ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΣ in Greco-Roman Culture, Second Temple Judaism, and Philo of Alexandria

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-378
Author(s):  
Clint Burnett
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Second Temple Judaism ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Greek Myths

This article questions the longstanding supposition that the eschatology of the Second Temple period was solely influenced by Persian or Iranian eschatology, arguing instead that the literature of this period reflects awareness of several key Greco-Roman mythological concepts. In particular, the concepts of Tartarus and the Greek myths of Titans and Giants underlie much of the treatment of eschatology in the Jewish literature of the period. A thorough treatment of Tartarus and related concepts in literary and non-literary sources from ancient Greek and Greco-Roman culture provides a backdrop for a discussion of these themes in the Second Temple period and especially in the writings of Philo of Alexandria.

The Vow-Curse in Ancient Jewish Texts

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-357
Author(s):  
Avigail Manekin-Bamberger
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Binding Mechanism ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
Semantic Expansion ◽  
Interpersonal Situations

AbstractUttering a vow was an important and popular religious practice in ancient Judaism. It is mentioned frequently in biblical literature, and an entire rabbinic tractate, Nedarim, is devoted to this subject. In this article, I argue that starting from the Second Temple period, alongside the regular use of the vow, vows were also used as an aggressive binding mechanism in interpersonal situations. This practice became so popular that in certain contexts the vow became synonymous with the curse, as in a number of ossuaries in Jerusalem and in the later Aramaic incantation bowls. Moreover, this semantic expansion was not an isolated Jewish phenomenon but echoed both the use of the anathema in the Pauline epistles and contemporary Greco-Roman and Babylonian magical practices.

The Origins of the Seder and Haggadah

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-134
Author(s):  
Joshua Kulp
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Jerusalem Temple ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Last Supper ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Temple

Emerging methods in the study of rabbinic literature now enable greater precision in dating the individual components of the Passover seder and haggadah. These approaches, both textual and socio-historical, have led to a near consensus among scholars that the Passover seder as described in rabbinic literature did not yet exist during the Second Temple period. Hence, cautious scholars no longer seek to find direct parallels between the last supper as described in the Gospels and the rabbinic seder. Rather, scholarly attention has focused on varying attempts of Jewish parties, notably rabbis and Christians, to provide religious meaning and sanctity to the Passover celebration after the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. Three main forces stimulated the rabbis to develop innovative seder ritual and to generate new, relevant exegeses to the biblical Passover texts: (1) the twin calamities of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Bar-Kokhba revolt; (2) competition with emerging Christian groups; (3) assimilation of Greco-Roman customs and manners. These forces were, of course, significant contributors to the rise of a much larger array of rabbinic institutions, ideas and texts. Thus surveying scholarship on the seder reviews scholarship on the emergence of rabbinic Judaism.

The (Ir)rationality of Torah

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Rational Character ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter continues to explore the rabbinic conception of Mosaic Law in an attempt to discern the extent to which and the manner in which that conception may have been informed by Greco-Roman discourses of natural law and positive law. Because the primary discourses of natural law in the Greco-Roman tradition underscore the rational character of the law, it takes up the question of the rationality of the Mosaic Law as represented by the rabbis. The chapter examines rabbinic sources that shed light on a constellation of questions that address the matter of the Law's essential rationality: Is the Law depicted as rational in the sense that it is not arbitrary and contains no contradiction or absurdity, no illogical or paradoxical claim, or does it defy logic and natural reason? Is it depicted as possessing intrinsic rationales or only an extrinsic utility of some kind? Is the Mosaic Law represented as rationally accessible or inaccessible? And does it derive its authority from its rational character or from a coercive sovereign will?

Health and the Origins of the Miqveh

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-459
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
The Body ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Personal Hygiene ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Medical Tradition ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Use of rock-cut stepped pools for immersion in harvested rainwater is first attested in Judean source material of the second century BCE and on archaeological record shortly thereafter. As argued here, the practice became widespread due to the impact of Greco-Roman ideas about health and well-being. Immersion of the body in water was seen in the Greek medical tradition as a beneficial activity; it balanced the humors, opened harmful blockages in the skin membrane, and helped facilitate unction. Once these ideas became widespread in Judea, local purification rituals followed, and began incorporating immersion in water. The rabbinic dichotomy between purification and cleansing was likely irrelevant for most Judeans in the late Second Temple period, who probably also saw immersion as beneficial for personal hygiene. For this reason, stepped pools nearly disappear from archaeological record with the rise of public bathhouses, which offered the convenience of large and well-maintained immersion pools in exchange for a fee.

Jewish Society in the Land of Israel and the Challenge of Music in the Roman Period

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Friedheim
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Ritual Music ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Musical Tradition ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
The Temple

Abstract During the Second Temple period, music had an important role in Jewish society. Alongside it was Greek music, which at times made inroads into Jewish cultural life. However, the Jewish institutions of the time managed to filter out the religious and cultural influences of this foreign musical tradition. After the destruction of the Temple, by contrast, Hebrew sources point to pagan ritual music that had significant, damaging influence on Jewish society. The sages tried to counter this influence through sermons, but, surprisingly, not by absolute prohibition. The influences of pagan music increased in the Talmudic period, even as the halakhic prohibitions waned. This paradox requires an explanation. This article suggests that the way the sages treated pagan music was an aspect of their complex attitude toward the Greco-Roman culture, one that alongside prohibitions increasingly tended toward leniency once it became clear that prohibitions did not provide a defense against pagan cultural influences.

Irenaeus on Law and Justification

2018 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-61
Author(s):  
Michael Jin Choi
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Mosaic Law

A theological problem in the ongoing debate on the doctrine of justification between the Old and the New Perspectives on Paul hinges on the question of whether or not legalism was assumed by Paul when he was addressing this doctrine. This study explores how Irenaeus would have responded to the same question concerning Paul’s teaching on justification. Thus, Irenaeus’ explicit comments critically relevant to the debate have been identified and analyzed. It appears that Irenaeus, in a qualified way, would have supported the idea that legalism had emerged in the period soon after the giving of the Mosaic Covenant and had persisted into the Second Temple Period. Irenaeus’ agreement with Justin’s view of the Mosaic Law helps him to see that externalized religion had become the seedbed for legalism.

scholarly journals The Influence of the Lists of Virtues and Vices in the Jewish Literature of the First Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. p8
Author(s):  
José David Padilla
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
First Century ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Second Temple Period ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Roman Literature ◽  
The People ◽  
Intertestamental Literature

Biblical texts were part of a broader literary context. Indeed, the Greco-Roman literature influenced of the first century the intertestamental literature and other Jewish Apocryphal books. One of these influences was the lists of virtues and vices from the popular philosophical schools of the time. These lists presented a group of attitudes and behaviors that should be applied or rejected for the proper functioning of society. Different Jewish groups of the Second Temple Period adapted such lists to their teachings, presenting, in a concise manner, those attitudes that did not correspond to their vocation, as well as confirming the morality proper of the “people of the covenant.”

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