Lecture #2: Intertestamental Period

COURSE: New Testament

Lecture #2: Intertestamental Period

Daniel

Shortly after the outbreak of the Maccabean wars an unknown writer composed the book of Daniel
He was undoubtedly one of the Hasidim and his purpose was to rekindle the faith of Israel and summon the Jewish people to loyalty even in the face of persecution.
He affirms that history is completely under YHWH's control and sets forth the theology of the Maccabean revolution.
it has rightly been called "The manifesto of the Hasidim"
Some people have been misled by the author's portrayal of incidents and visions experienced by Daniel and have regarded it as a prophecy of the future.
It has become the happy hunting ground for those who are fascinated by "biblical prophecy" and who look for some mysterious blueprint of the future hidden in its pages.
However, Daniel is not classed with the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures but is considered part of the writings.
The author of Daniel spoke to his time in the guise of a writing that was predated in the Babylonian period, as though one was looking to the future not backward from the present.
In this late post-exilic period when prophecy was believed to have ceased, it was common to release writings under the name of some figure of ancient Jewish tradition.
The Pseudepigrapha (which means spurious writings) contain works issued under the names of various biblical characters such as the assumption of Moses, the Testament of the twelve patriarchs, etc.
This literature has been increased with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which I will discuss later).
In this case the author chose Daniel, a traditional pious Israelite and hero of the Ras Shamra literature.
the type of literature is known as Apocalyptic which means in Greek "to uncover or reveal "
There are many examples of this type in the late post-exilic and Christian period.
The most outstanding example is the book of Revelation which is written in an idiom that is strikingly similar to and even dependent upon, the book of Daniel.
Apocalyptic literature abounds with bizarre visions, strange symbolism, and supernatural happenings.
It is written in a time of persecution and employs a kind of spiritual code that makes it a "sealed book" (Dan 12:4) to those outside the circle of faith.
The central theme of apocalyptic literature is God's revelation (apocalypse) concerning the end-time, the coming kingdom of God.
Israel's sense of the linear progression of history means that from the first her faith had been future oriented toward a fulfillment of the promise of YHWH and his control on all history.
Before the exile, the prophets foresaw a new age in which Israel would be healed and the new covenant would be written on the hearts of the people (Jer 31)
They did NOT expect that the course of human affairs would come to an end, but that the course of Israel's rebellious history would be ended.
Beginning with the Exile a shift in prophetic emphasis took place.
Ezekial, who stood on the boundary between the old national and emerging Judaism, spoke in accents of doom and hope like his predecessors but his message was cast in a new style of bizarre visions and weird symbolism.
He looked beyond the judgment day and drew a pattern of a "priestly utopia"
He believed that the new age would be preceded by a final assault on Jerusalem by Gog from Magog, a symbolic foe from the north.
This overthrow of Gog is a good illustration of how apocalyptic literature tends to shift the burden of responsibility from Israel's covenant failure to the sway of mysterious powers of evil (the mythical powers of chaos) must be overthrown in the final battle of history
Most apocalyptic writers see the sufferings of Israel--or other peoples-- cannot be explained on the basis of sin (remember Job).
Israel is the victim of a monstrous power of evil that sweeps over the righteous and the wicked as Habakkuk perceived (Hab 1:6-11)
Israel is not a criminal but a victim and even if there is punishment, it is all out of proportion to the crime.
Therefore, apocalyptic writers who are grappling with the problem of evil are profoundly pessimistic about the present age and see it under the domain of sinister evil powers, symbolized by Satan.
They all see the age to come as a time of freedom from moral corruption, evil oppression and death.
Nothing can be done humanly speaking to change things but God himself must intervene to destroy the whole present system in a cataclysm.
In the New Testament, the kingdom of Satan is overthrown
In the apocalyptic vision history is moving with inexorable momentum and with a predetermined divine plan toward the final showdown and the final victory of God's kingdom.
Zechariah 12-14 come from this later time and see when all nations gather at Jerusalem for a final showdown,
Isaiah 24-27 comes from this time also and is called "the little apocalypse".
However, I will add here that in Is 26:19 we have the first clear reference in the Hebrew Scriptures to the resurrection of the individual in the context of the righteous of earlier generations being raised from the dead in order that they may participate in the consummation of history.
Ezekial 37 had spoken of the resurrection of Isra3l, but this was the first time applied to the individual.
Eventually, the doctrine was extended to cover a general resurrection at the end of time, in order that the wicked might not escape the final judgment and that the righteous might receive the reward of their faithfulness.
There is no biblical view of a soul separate from a body but the life of the individual is tied up with the body and a resurrection of it.
The idea of a soul in a body is Greek.
Daniel is divided into two parts.

chap 1-6 tell about Daniel and his friends

Chap 7-12 contains his visions.

Part of it is in Aramaic, part Hebrew
The book in its present form is fundamentally a unity issued during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes' persecution--probably about 165 BCE.
The author has made numerous historical blunders on details of the Babylonian exile. He did not have his history of the Persian empire straight.
His purpose was not historical accuracy, thank heaven, but to proclaim a religious message to his embattled fellow Jews
He wrote in a cryptic code which the enemy could not understand and cleverly disguised his references to contemporary historical events and personalities in narratives and visions.
Read between the lines, it is quite a good history of the period of the Maccabean revolt.
The Maccabean revolution was successful for a time but eventually lost the religious zeal it had initially and returned to the old political game with the most successful schemer being the high priest.
Edom (which Rome called Ideomenia) was forcibly converted to Judaism as part of the revolution.
The last daughter of the Maccabees married into the Ideomenian family of Antipater, who was not accepted by pious Jews since they had been forcibly converted, and were not trusted
Antipater was behind the Roman rule which began in 63 BCE when the Romans took Jerusalem w/o siege due to internal Jewish fights
Antipater is the father of Herod I (the Great) who lived till 4 BCE and under whom Jesus was born.
Samaria split off at the same time rejecting the revolution and this is the source of the hatred of Samaritans during Jesus day.
Orthodox Jews felt the Samaritans had become too multicultural even though they used only the Pentateuch as their scripture and had their own temple.
The borders of Judah and Israel were pushed to that of 800 BCE.

Sects within Judaism

Sadducees

Sadducees advocated a policy of tolerance and compromise, which was understandable since they were from the more wealthy, priestly and prestigious families.
they rejected the doctrine of the resurrection because they found no support for it in the Torah (the Pentateuch)
They also rejected any apocalyptic thinking including belief in angels and demons and the predictions of the end time.
Their view of history was essentially that of the priestly version of the Pentatuch in which the divine plan came to fulfillment in the establishment of a theocratic community, patterned after the law and revealed to Moses.
They advocated the priestly status quo and advocated a policy of collaboration as long as the temple services were permitted to continue.

Pharisees

Out of the circles of the Hasidim there eventually arose a party known as the pharisees.
They practiced strict devotion to the customs that separated Jews from Gentiles: dietary laws, circumcision, fasting, prayer.
In one sense they were stricter than the Sadducees but in the
Sense that they accepted the teachings found in books outside the Torah, such as the prophets, they were more liberal.
In addition they believed Moses had not only been given written law, but oral law that interpreted the meaning of what was written.
This is called the tradition of the elders and was eventually codified in the Mishnah (CE 200). and finally in an expanded version known as the Talmud
It is the Pharisaic version of Judaism which survived the fall of the temple in 70 CE and basically it is their form which Jews today have inherited.

Zealots

The Zealots are closely related to the Pharisees but their views on political action was more akin to the Maccabees
They wanted to act to bring about the new age and were basically the cause of the revolt which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple from 66 to 70 CE.

Essenes

The Maccabees were not felt to be in the proper priestly line by many and this caused a split
Those who felt that only the proper lineage of priests should serve in the temple split from the 2nd temple and became the Essenes, who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Nothing was known about them until the discovery of these scrolls in 1947 in a cave where they had been hidden from the encroaching armies of Rome in 70 CE and following.
The group saw itself as the community of the "new covenant" and separated itself from the world to practice monastic devotion to the Torah and wait the end of the historical drama
Their zeal for the Torah and their hope for the apocalyptic kingdom led them to revive the ancient concept of "holy war" (herem) by which they would be purified from pagan culture in the "war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness."
This book, among others, was found in the caves, including fragments of every book buc Esther of the Hebrew canon.
They believed there would be two messiahs, one a priestly and one a military.
They practiced baptism and it is possible that John the Baptist, though certainly not Jesus, may have been influenced by them.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Until the discovery of the Dead sea Scrolls in a cave by a Bedouin Shepherd boy in 1947, little was known about the Essenes except that they were listed in Josephus' histories and by Philo Judaeus of Alexandria as one of the sects of Judaism.
Before this time, scholars had almost no Jewish literature dating from the centuries immediately before and during the formative period of Christianity.
These scrolls provide an entire religious library dating from the mid second century BCE to the end of the first century CE. This is the area where John the Baptist (possibly an Essene himself) and Jesus began their ministries.
Some scholars propose that the Dead Sea Library represents a variety of religious groups but the largest group of scholars believe that the scrolls were produced by the Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect that flourished in Palestine from about 140 BC till 68 CE when it was destroyed or dispersed by Roman legions.

THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY: It is believed that this group began after the Maccabean revolt (167-164 BC) over which was the "proper" lineage for the Priesthood in the temple of Jerusalem. Many priests felt that the Hasmonean rulers who assumed the high priesthood after the Maccabean revolt, were not in the "proper" lineage to be priests in the temple and split off forming a new community.

They saw themselves as the community of the "new covenant" and separated themselves from the world to practice monastic devotion to the Torah and wait until the end of the historical drama.
They awaited two messiahs, one priestly in the line of Aaron who would take over the temple and re-install the proper priesthood. And the second in the line of David who would be a military messiah who would set up David's kingdom as it was meant to be again
They emphasized MELCHIZEDEK, a mysterious king-priest mentioned in Gen. 14 and possibly influenced the writer of Hebrews who tried to prove that the risen Christ fulfilled the roles of both messiahs.
Their zeal for the Torah and their hope for the "apocalyptic kingdom" led them to revive the ancient concept of "Holy War" (Herem) by which they would be purified from pagan culture in the "War of the Sons of light against the Sons of Darkness".
This book, among others, was found in the caves, including fragments of every book except Esther of the Hebrew Canon.
There are scholars who theorize that this group was an early form of Christianity. Others such as Barbara Theiring and Dr. Eisenman believe that the Teacher of Righteousness was James the Just, Jesus Brother and leader of the first church in Palestine. He was known as "James the Righteous". Jesus was part of this group, according to them, although going against their purity laws and it was Jesus seen as the "wicked Priest" according to Theiring.
Some have seen the apostle Paul as the "Wicked Priest" whom the scrolls condemn because he rejected keeping the Torah in favor of divine grace.
Despite a few extreme, and almost universally repudiated claims the scholarly consensus believes the primary value of the scrolls is studying Christian origins is the evidence they provide for the Palestinian roots of earliest Christianity as opposed to Hellenistic roots.
Documents outlining the Essenes' mode of worship, communal meals using bread and wine, purification rites, involving baptism, and the conviction that they alone formed a New covenant community representing the True Israel demonstrate abundant parallels with Christianity.
Most scholars think that it simply shows that many rituals were shared in common just as the Greco-Roman myths of a dying and rising savior deity foreshadowed theological interpretations of Jesus' life and death.

The Scrolls

First: the scrolls contain the oldest surviving copies of the Hebrew bible pushing back the dates about 900 years over previously known copies.

Some are remarkably accurate when compared but others differ from the medieval texts. This suggests that by the first century Jewish scholars had not yet adopted a universally recognized version of the sacred writings.

Second: the scrolls include copies or fragments of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works: tobit, I Enoch, Jubilees. Generally written later than the canonical books. They use names of people of the distant past to write. It appears these were studied and preserved as scripture.
Third: are essene commentaries on canonical books, called Targums. These use methods interpreting the biblical texts almost identical to the New Testament writers. Matthew is a good example, who sees the Hebrew bible as a repository of prophetic texts foretelling Jesus.

The Targum on Habakkuk sees his words as a predictor of recent Essene leaders' experiences.

Both Essene and Christian writers see God's only loyal worshippers as their community and as the culmination of the divine plan for humanity.

Finally: are scrolls produced entirely by and for the Essene community. There are numerous works whose existence had never been suspected.
These include 7 scrolls:
"A manual of Discipline" giving requirements and regulations for life in Qumran. Humanity is divided into two mutually exclusive categories>

A. the children of light who are guided by a "spirit of truth" and ruled by a "Prince of Light" and.

B. Children of falsehood who walk in darkness under an "angel of Darkness". This kind of language typifies John's gospel.

A compendium of messianic rules designating qualities of age, purity, orthodoxy, etc. for the community. Especially relevant, a solemn meal of bread and wine which strikingly resembles accounts of Jesus Last supper.
Hymns: sung during Qumran worship since they rejected the temple as contaminated by the Sadducees, they wrote their own hymns and rituals.
Liturgical fragments: blessings and curses
The "Zadokite Document" which outlines the New covenant made in the "land of Damascus", a code word for the Qumran community.
Passages of biblical interpretation such as "blessings of Jacob", admonition of Moses, etc. also an exposition of signs marking the last days and an anthology of messianic predictions.
Finally, a scroll: The war of the sons of light against the sons of Darkness" a surprisingly mundane battle plan for the cosmic war that would culminate in the defeat of the ungodly and the establishment of God's kingdom.
The Essenes are not mentioned in the New testament at all. This may reflect the fact that by the time the gospels were written, they had ceased to exist. Other scholars say that the Gospel's silence may reflect their author's consciousness that Jesus and the first disciples may have been influenced by Essene teaching. Some even suggest they were the first Christian community.
John the Baptist was probably an Essene, but whether Jesus was or not is really unknown. If he was, he later rebelled against it.

Apocalyptic Literature

Apocalyptic literature was by far the most popular literature coming out of this time.
It was held that prophecy ceased with Ezra so writers couched their prophecy in the form of a revelation given to a figure of ancient times (Adam, Enoch, Noah, Moses, etc.)
Enoch, for example, is given a trip through heaven and hell, a la Dante and his divine comedy, and dates from early in the Christian era.

Greek Religion

Greek religion is the product of a fusion of the cults of a native population, the Pelasgians, with those of northern invaders (Aryans).
Behind the pantheon of gods with which most are familiar are rituals and practices tied in with tribal patterns of thought and behavior.
Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey seems to be responsible for the formalization of the various ritual beliefs into a systematic pantheon of gods in which each divinity possesses a distinctive individuality.
The pantheon which emerged during the classical period included Zeus, the sky god, Hera his wife; Ares, god of war; Hephaestus, god of fire and of the smithy, Pallas Athena goddess of wisdom who guided Athens; Apollo the sun god and god of music. He is the exemplar of calm, clear reason, and light. The non-Aryan, non-Olympian element in Greek religion is the presence of various "mystery religions" religions" Don't know if they are indigenous to Greece or brought in from Asia Minor.
Three are important: Orphism, the Dionysian cult and the Eleusinian mysteries.
The Eleusinian mysteries celebrates the story of Demeter and her daughter Kore, who was abducted by Hades, god of the dead, and taken to his realm.
Demeter, one form of the great mother of fertility, mourned and did not allow the agricultural realm to rejuvenate itself.
Zeus convinced Hades to give up Kore but while there she had eaten a pomegranate seed and thus had to return to Hades each year. Winter and summer were the seasons of her descent and return.
The rites of this cult enabled the members to feel they were participating in the divine events proclaimed in the myth. This was a nine day ceremony and was the "thing to do" in the ancient world.
The Cult of Dionysus, still present in the Mardis Gras, cultivated frenzied and orgiastic emotions and dances and is often contrasted with the calm and clarity of Apollo.
He was the son of Zeus, born from his father's body when his mother died before giving him birth.
The Orphic cult has a similar story to tell about Orpheus but is mainly concerned with Orpheus' search for his love in the land of the dead.
These mystery cults promised the initiate access to a kind of immortality not available to the outsider.
Other cults that influenced Mediterranean cultures include the mysteries of the Phrygian Cybele and Attis (made the official religion of Rome by Claudius in 51 A.D.) and the cult of Isis and Osiris. In the second cent. The cult of the Persian light-god Mithras was popular. (B. day on Dec. 25)
The important feature of these cults is they reveal a growing independence from their original culture. Most of the mystery cults are not tied to a specific tribe, or nation, but form universal societies composed of members from a variety of places.

Religions of Roman civilization

The religious practices of the ancient Romans were centered around family and civic life.
Through symbol and ritual a respect was paid to the numerous powers and forces believed to be present in natural phenomena and in hearth and home. Otto coined the term "numinous" to characterize the feeling of religious awe on the basis of this Roman usage.
Later the numina, which at first were felt as vague forces in archaic symbols and rituals, took on more specific forms in the familiar pantheon of Roman gods which were in many instances patterned after Greek models.
Thus Jupiter is the sky god: Juno, his consort; Diane, the moon goddess; Neptune, the sea god; Mars, the war god.
As the Roman empire emerged in the first century its approach to religion changed. it created a cosmopolitan approach as philosophers noted similarities between the gods of different religions and cultures.
Two attitudes existed among educated romans. One was skepticism about the truth of any religious system. Thus many Romans of the period treated the gods as poetic expressions not as matters of conviction (Ovid is a good example).
The other attitude was the attempt of some philosophers to create a syncretistic comprehensive religious system in which gods from a number of different cultures are included. The Emperor Julian attempted w/o success to impose such a system as the official religion of the empire as a whole.
One Roman philosopher, Varo, summarized the forms under three headings:

mythological religion, represented by the gods referred to in the writings of poets and sometimes worshiped by numerous groups of the populace;

Civic religion, represented by those rites that maintained loyalty to the Roman state; and

natural religion, represented by the speculations of philosophers like the Flatonists and the Stoics.

The Romans had to develop a sense of loyalty to Roman authority to control its empire. Thus, rites of obeisance to the emperor as a divine personage were instituted as a supplement to other existing religious practices. This resulted from a pragmatic desire to achieve political unity.

Hellenistic Dying and Rising Gods

There is one last thing that needs to be discussed before going into the New Testament, and that is the prevailing myth over much of the near and middle east of the Mother Goddess (under several names) and her dying/rising concort/son.
The influence this myth had upon the gentile converts to Christianity can not be adequately documented, but the fact that Jesus fulfilled the myth in most ways certainly contributed to the acceptance of Christianity in the gentile world.
By the same token, the fact that Jesus was a dying/rising God probably contributed to the fact that most Jews could not accept him.
The important thing is that the same basic myth was found in several religions around the Mediterranean world, all involved with a Mother/wife goddess and all connected by some sacred tree which was important to their cult.
Each son/lover was associated with a particular tree.
Adonis with the Myrrha, Osiris with the Ceder and Attis with the fir tree in each of the myths, the son/lover is killed or dies and their respective rituals are connected with their tree.
There is only one of the many myths I will mention as it has direct bearing on later Christian ideas.
This is the cult of Cybele and Attis. In the myth Attis was a shepherd beloved by Cybele (he was originally a vegetation god, most likely).
The cult began in Pyrgia but was brought to Rome in 204 BCE.
under Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE) it was made the established religion of Rome. (about 51 CE)
Cybele chose Attis to be her priest and imposed a vow of celibacy on him.
He broke the vow and espoused the daughter of the river Sangarius. Cybele then struck him with frenzied deliriousness, in the course of which he mutilated himself (castrated) so he would not be unfaithful again.
When he recovered, he was preparing to kill himself when Cybele changed him into a fir tree.
In another version of the myth, he dies from bleeding to death after the mutilation and then Cybele changes him into a fir tree. in the ritual connected with the cult, a fir tree is cut down on the first day of a 9 day ceremony (mar. 22 is the beginning each year)
The pine tree trunk is brought to the sanctuary of Cybele and wrapped in linen like a corpse.
Following this, an effigy of Attis is hung on it. all this being done by a special group of priests
The effigy is then carried in procession through the streets of Rome.
The remainder of the ceremony included burying the tree and then digging it up the third day representing Attis' resurrection.
This resurrection was meant to also indicate to all the believers that their sins were forgiven and they would be resurrected from the dead hill.
The sanctuary of Attis and Cybele is on what is now Vatican
The temple to Cybele was torn down about 550 CE but the rites of Cybele and Attis went on nearly till then.
Emperor Julian was in fact initiated into the cult in his term (331-363 CE) after Christianity was the "official" religion of the empire.
There were many other mystery rites going on, most dealing with the idea of rebirth from death.
The Eleusinian mysteries, the rites of Dionysius, and up till around 500 CE also the rites of Isis and Osiris from Egypt.
It was into this milieu that Christianity came with its own version of a dying/rising God who would cleanse sin and bring eternal
another very important religion & want to mention is that of Mithra of Iran

Mithraism

Mithra was originally an Aryan god and was worshiped in Iran as the god of contracts. He preserves truth and order, destroying the disruptive forces of evil, anger, greed, pride and procrastination, all evil gods and men.
As guardian of contracts, he determines when the period of the devil's rule will end and as guardian of truth, is the judge of the soul at death. His coming amid the homage of the meek and lowly in days of victory is awaited.
Some Christian writers mention an Oracle which foretells the god's coming at the end of the world to destroy the wicked with fire and to save the righteous. Many Roman monuments depict his birth and some 5th cent. Christian texts imply there was a Mithraic myth foretelling the appearance of a star which would lead magi to the birthplace of Jesus.
Mithra is an important and popular deity and still occupies an important place in Zoroastrian ritual.
His cult was popular east to India and west to Asia Minor.
Mithraism first entered Rome in 60 B. and in the 2nd cent A. it spread as far as northern Briton. It was exclusively a male cult carried by soldiers.
Baptism was the sacrament for entrance and the initiate had to submit to both physical and spiritual tests. He was expected to adhere to a strict moral code. In return he was promised a share in the resurrection.
The central belief of the cult was the sacrifice of a bull by Mithras. This act was both creative and redemptive. The worshiper looked back to a sacrifice at the beginning, when life had come out of death, and forward to the final sacrifice by Mithras when the last animal to die would give men the elixir of immortality. A foretaste of this gift could be shared in the regular communion meal of bread and wine in which the priest represented Mithra.
One other group & will mention as they still exist…

The Mandeans

or Nazoreans, are a small sect still in existence in southern Iraq and neighboring Iran. claim descent from John the Baptist and believe their ancestors fled with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.
They are a mixture of semitic, Iranian elements and much Gnostic content.
They use no anthropomorphic language but call God things like king of light 'Lord of greatness'. the world is created by emanations from the King of light, one of the most important of these being the savior, Manda d'Hayye (the knowledge of Life, whence the name of the sect).
Everything in the material world has its heavenly counterpart. The light is trapped in people and in matter at the end of the world, the soul of the pious will be liberated. The Mandeans believe Judaism and Christianity are false religions which inhibit the release of the soul along with the planets, stars and material world.
Baptism wards off evil spirits and is essential to salvation. A ritual meal is associated with it and ritual is very important and must be done properly or dire consequences ensue. Asceticism is not practiced and is not considered a way to free the soul.
plague in the 19th century. killed virtually all the priests though a new hierarchy was formed, no new replacements seem to be coming.

Influence of Iranian religion

The influence on Islam has been such as to help it develop from an Arabian into an international religion; the growth of the mystical movement, the Sufis, and the savior concept may owe something to Iranian influence.
Iran's greatest influence has been on the development of Judeo-Christian belief. It is widely accepted by biblical scholars that the later Jewish concepts of the devil, hell, an afterlife, the resurrection, and the end of the world and the savior imagery were all colored by Zoroastrianism and Mithraism. These beliefs have affected the very foundations of Judaism and particularly Christianity.