Historical background.

Intertestamental events that shaped the world of Jesus.

-Hellenization under Alexander the great

-Maccabean revolts

-The roman empire and the Herodian kingdom

Jewish literature outside the Old Testament

-Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphia

-Philosophical and historical writings

-Rabbinic literature: the oral law.

Sects and parties

-Pharisees:

-Origin

-Doctrine

-Christ and the Pharisees

-Sadducees

-Origin

-Doctrine

-Christ and the Sadducees

-The Essenes and the Qumram community

The reforms of Ezra in the frame of the Israelite nation, was not a political institution, but the
development of a systematic religious thought rooted in the law and the prophets.

The Judean-Samaritan schism has this contrast between a nationalistic state and a religious
community.

Sirach is the example in this matter: the development of a practical religion rooted in the study of
the law and the prophets. Turning away from an eschatological or apocalyptical view to an inward
sense of ethical duty.

The secularization of the Jewish revolts began the tension between political ambitions and
religious fidelity: the need for secular policies as the expansion of the country was occurring: party
lines: “new conditions developed, not contemplated in the Law. Accordingly, the Law must be
interpreted to meet the new situations, or else they must be left outside the scope of the law”.
Either secularization or renovation: “these alternatives were embodied in two parties, the
Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Macgregor and Purdy).
According to Josephus Antt. XIII, 10, 5f the opposition between these two parties was the oral law,
this oral law can be identified with the idea of a comprehensive and renovated religious life.

Under Alexander Jannaeus a civil war broke out. Macgregor and Purdy see this conflict in the light
of a religious movement: the conflict between nationalism and universalism (this is going to shape
the political theology of later Judaism): “The Pharisees appear to be more narrowly nationalistic
than the Sadducees. But their nationalism was nor political except in a secondary sense… was a
means to an end, the creation of a people of God, as the necessary condition for the universal rule
of God” (64).

The Sadducees in their more universalistic view tend more to be a political party.

The influence of Shammai and Hillel: The interpretation of the law and the acceptance of the oral
tradition. Hillel had a more practical application of the law, while Shammai strived for a more
systematic approach to it.

At the end the Judaism as a religion became a normative and “legalistic” view. However, this is
understood only in the sense of a revealed religion. This is the primary understanding of the
Pharisees “the whole of life under revelation” (73). In that sense there was no distinction of parts
dedicated to God and other sections of the life of the individual: all life is religion. In that sense,
the ending of the revelation for the Jews signified not the forsaking of God, but the ending of his
discourse, and the turning of the responsibilities to the people to realize that revelation into the
practical life: “The corollary of this complete and final doctrine of revelation was the bringing of all
life under control of the revealed will of God” (73).

This aspect allowed a development and transformation of Judaism, despite the fact that it was
based upon a revealed absolute source. The main emphasis of the development until the writings
of the New Testament is the focus on the individual rather than the nation. This is a key element in
the religious thinking of the first century that allowed the message of Jesus to have a special place
among the people.

*Rosenzweig and Buber are right in their developments of a Jewish consciousness when they
propose the existence in community as the key element upon a national hope, that shapes their
messianic understanding of History. This is possible only as it is discovered in the I, pierced by the
revelation of the Thou.