Jews in the First Christian Century

• The Jews of the First Christian Century started with Herod the Great's death in 4 B.C. and ended with the close of the Second Jewish Revolt in A.D. 135.
• John the Baptist, Jesus, and His disciples lived and ministered during this time span.
• These figures were Jews living in Palestine.
• First-century Judaism formed the environment where Jesus and Christianity arose.
• Jewish history during this time was characterized by religious and political unrest.
• Judaism had multiple opposing sects with differences that had religious, political and social elements.

Jewish Sects

• The Pharisees advocated for legalistic puritanism with a rigorous moral code.
• The Sadducees represented the political and social aristocracy.
• The Essenes/Community of Qumran remained distant and waited for the Messiah in monastic isolation.
• The Herodians and Zealots held extreme political views, either collaborating with the Romans or leading insurrections.
• Jewish life largely revolved around the local synagogue.
• Synagogues were places to worship, study, and interpret the Law and the Prophets and schools for Jewish youth.
• Jews impacted the pagan world through their writings and way of life.
• They actively sought converts, either as sympathizers or fully converted, circumcised Jews (proselytes).
• A proselyte is a new convert to Judaism.
• Strong messianic expectations were present among the Jews, with many believing the Promised One was about to appear.
• Pharisees and Essenes had detailed ideas about the Messiah's arrival.
• The atmosphere allowed impostors to claim to be the Messiah and gather followers.
• The expectation of a world deliverer existed not only in Judaism but also in less developed forms in the heathen world.
• Jewish political unrest was worsened by the succession of unscrupulous Roman procurators ruling Judea.
• Conditions worsened until the Jews revolted against the Romans in A.D. 66, continuing until A.D. 73.
• Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed, and the nation was dispersed.
• After a period of recuperation, minor Jewish insurrections occurred in the Roman Empire.
• A full-scale rebellion broke out in Palestine in A.D. 132, but within three years, the Jews were defeated by the Romans.
• To prevent further revolts, the Romans forbade Jews from entering Jerusalem.
• Afterward, Palestinian Judaism ceased to be centrally important to the history of Christianity.

Political Divisions

• The Romans divided the region given to Herod the Great and his descendants into areas based on custom and dialect.
• Judea was in southern Palestine west of the Dead Sea, including territories of the Hebrew tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon.
• It included cities like Joppa, Jamnia, Gaza, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Hebron, with Jerusalem as the capital.
• Samaria was north of Judea, settled by the tribes of Ephraim, western Manasseh, and part of Benjamin and had Samaria as its capital.
• Samaria consisted of rolling fertile country.
• The enmity between Jews and Samaritans originated from the separation of the northern and southern kingdoms.
• The separation lasted from Jeroboam I's secession in 931 B.C. until the northern tribes' captivity in 723/722 B.C.
• The Assyrians deported many Israelites and replaced them with people from other conquered provinces.
• These new settlers brought their heathen gods with them.
• The Assyrians sent them an Israelite priest to introduce them to the God of the land, Jehovah, when disaster occurred.
• The mingling of Israelites and heathen immigrants resulted in a mixed religion, combining worship of Jehovah and heathen rituals.
• The religious situation intensified the hatred of the Samaritans when the Jews returned to Judea from Babylon.
• Friction soon emerged, the Samaritans interfered with rebuilding Jewish cities, and the Jews rejected their offers of alliance.
• The Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim to rival the one in Jerusalem, which caused unending enmity.
• During the Maccabean struggle, the Samaritans collaborated with Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
• No social interaction existed between the two peoples.
• King Antiochus IV Epiphanes killed 80,000 Jews and killed pigs in Solomon's Temple during the Seleucid Empire and was seen as a prototype of the Antichrist.
• Galilee was north of Samaria, bordered by the Litani River and Mt. Hermon's foothills to the north, and the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River to the east.
• Galilee included cities like Gischala, Chorazin, Capernaum, Nazareth, and Jezreel, encompassing the territories of Issachar, Zebulon, Naphtali, Asher, and northern Dan.
• Galilee was fertile, with industrious, independent people and because of a Greek-speaking population, the Galileans of Israelite descent were zealous about retaining their Judaism.
• Galilee was Christ's boyhood home and the province from which He drew most of His disciples.
• Peraea was east of the Jordan River, opposite Samaria and Northern Judea, comprising the ancient lands of Reuben and Gad.
• Prominent features: Mt. Nebo and the brook Jabbok, an area used for grazing cattle and sheep.
• Other areas north and east of the sea of Galilee were also ruled by the Herodian family like the district of Gaulanitis, with cities like Bethsaida Julias and Gergesa, lay on the eastern shore of Galilee.
• Paneas (Caesarea Philippi) was further north, east of northern Galilee extending north to Mt. Hermon and east to the environs of Damascus.
• Decapolis was an autonomous area within Herod's dominion with a Greek-speaking population, once ten in number, hence its name.
• The Decapolis district began at the eastern end of the Valley of Esdraelon, extending across the Jordan to include a wide area north and east of Peraea.
• This area ran from the river Yarmuk south to Philadelphia.
• The tribe of Manasseh inhabited much of this area in ancient times.

Sects of Judaism

• The conquest of the ancient East by Alexander the Great (331 B.C.) was followed by Greek's language, customs, ideas, and religion.
• Antiochus Epiphanes' effort to Hellenize the Jews caused resistance (see on Dan. 11:14).
• Judas Maccabaeus and his family defeated Antiochus and gained freedom in 164 B.C..
• Wealthy and educated Jews and those outside Palestine adopted Greek culture (Hellenists).
• Jews in Judea clung to their customs and religion.
• A conservative movement arose opposing Greek influences, known as Hasidim meaning "pious ones" or "saints".
• The Pharisees, meaning "separatists", emerged from the Hasidim around 120 B.C. during Jean Hyrcannus's time.
• The Pharisees were the popular, orthodox majority focused on adhering to the law and traditional interpretations.
• They avoided public responsibility and civic duties but sought to avoid life's defilement so they remained critical judges of it.
• Pharisees insisted on God leading His people.
• Church and state were united in Judea, and religion was the concern of the state from Moses through Samuel to David.
• The Hasmonaean house was priestly, yet Judas, Jonathan, Simon, and Simon, sons of Mattathias, were priests and rulers of the newly redeemed country with claims to the high priestly office.
• The Pharisees objected to the union, wishing to separate religion from the state, remove the high priesthood from politics, and avoid civic activity.
• There was no divide between religion and life for Jews, thus the priesthood could not escape political involvements.
• Instead of physically withdrawing from society like the Essenes/Qumran Community and Christian monks, the Pharisees became partisans of leaders who supported their views.
• As students of the law, they were the scribes or theologians, and were popular spiritual guides, who, and pressed their beliefs with ardor and conviction.
• "Scribes," "writers", or "clerks" (sopherim in Hebrew, grammateis in Greek, also called nomikoi/"lawyers" and nomodidaskaloi/"teachers of the law") studied, interpreted, and applied civil and religious law to daily life.
• During Jesus's time, the scribes became more influential than any group of leaders and many were members of Sanhedrin.
• Some scribes accepted Christ (Matt.8:19), but most were prejudiced against Him (Matt.16:21).
• Most scribes were Pharisees.
• The Pharisees believed in a future life where God would give His people happiness in the divine presence, and where righteous men would receive rewards while the wicked would suffer forever.
• Jesus used the teachings of the Pharisees in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) to warn people.
• After His arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 23:6-10), Paul used the Pharisees' belief in resurrection to divide his accusers.
• The Pharisees had a strong messianic hope that the Anointed One (Christ) would restore Israel's glory as in David's time and rule the world with supernatural power.
• The terms legalism, nationalism, and messianism describe the Pharisees' philosophy and goals.
• As the Hasmonaean house aged and gained experience in state duties and international contacts, they became less strictly Jewish and influenced by Hellenism.
• This tendency accelerated with the Hellenizing policies of the Herodian dynasty.
• The Pharisees stood against this development.
• The Sadducees (Greek: saddoukaios, Hebrew: şāddūqi) had interests were primarily political.
• The name Sadducee may come from the priestly family name of Zadok and rallied support aristocratic perspective and were concerned with secular affairs.
• The Sadducees were the intertestamental traditional ruling class of priests who did not advocate separatism and unlike the Pharisees,
• The Sadducees were pleased with the material and political success of the Maccabean family.
• The Sadducees were not antireligious, but they allowed the welfare of the nation shaped their religious perceptions and were only concerned with the welfare of the nation.
• They accepted the Torah as canonical but rejected the rest of the Old Testament as uninspired and denied the value of tradition (see on Mark 12:26; Luke 24:44), doctrines and refused to accept teachings of a future life/resurrection, retribution, and the existence of any sorts of angels or spirits.
• Pharisees relied upon God, while Sadducees relied upon foreign alliances and strategies to benefit the nation.
• The Sadducees stood for the aristocratic side of Jewish life and not representative of the average person of the whole.
• They were a Hellenistic party like earlier Jews where Pharisees were descendants of the Hasidim (pious ones).
• The Essenes were a third Jewish sect that appears to have grown from the Hasidim.
• The Essenes represented the extreme conservative wing of the same movement that resulted in Pharisaism and put into practice the sterner tenets.
• The Essenes appear to have been separated into two groups with rejection of marriage identified in one of the groups.
• Both types of Essenes separated from society and lived monastic lives, avoided trade, refused to hold slaves, and shunned sacrifices at the Temple of Jerusalem.
• They refused to take oaths, held goods in common, had communal meals, lived apart from non-Essenes, and gave fraternal aid, dressed in white, and were meticulous about cleanliness.
• Conspicuous was their ceremonial washings in immersion which they practiced daily.
• The Essenes believed in the preexistence of souls, philosophic dualism, and rejected the resurrection of the body.
• Their teachings had elements that came from Zoroastrianism which required men's good deeds for help in the cosmic struggle against the evil spirit Ahriman.
• Archeological discoveries at Khirbet Qumrân, showed that Essenes lived at Qumrân in the 1st century B.C. and again in the 1st century A.D. before their destruction by the Roman Army.
• Manuscripts were found here and determined to be part of an Essenes library.
• Essenes also helped to prepare the world, by their purity of life and strict obedience to the law, for the coming kingdom.
• Their locale was in the wilderness of Jordan near the Dead Sea closely parallel and their washings and their emphasis on spiritual cleanliness in preparation for the Messianic kingdom parallel with the ministry of John the Baptist.
• John must have had some contact with this sect.
• The Herodians arose later than the other parties and were mainly interested in politics with only a few references in the New Testament.
• It appears they were Galileans who wanted scions of the house of Herod to rule in Palestine instead of foreigners.
• The Zealots, like the Herodians, were interested in politics under the leadership of John of Gischala during the Roman war (A.D. 66-70).
• Simon (not Peter), one of Christ's disciples, may have been a Zealot.

Note A: The Diaspora

• For centuries before Christ's birth, Jews had scattered and carried knowledge of the true God throughout the civilized world.
• Jewish communities existed in Roman Empire cities, such as Nehardea and Nisibis in Mesopotamia where Jews formed a majority, and Syria, where they were a large proportion of the population.
• Philo Judaeus estimated there were one million Jews in Egypt alone, and in Alexandria, they were said to be a third of the population.
• The Jews of the Dispersion (Diaspora) were greater in number than those in Palestine.

Note B: Herod the Great's Successors

• Herod left a will designating how to inherit his kingdom where the territories that he had captured were divided among his sons, Herod Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Herod Philip.
• Archelaus received Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea but was given only the title "ethnarch" (ruler of the people) because he was an uncertain ruler where the people complained so Augustus banished him to Vienne in Gaul.
• Herod Antipas became "tetrarch" of Galilee and Peraea where this term meant originally "ruler of the fourth part of a province" but applied to the ruler of any provincial subdivision.
• Herod Antipas was successful and commanded the death of John the Baptist when Herodias and her daughter Salome requested it at a banquet.
• Herod Philip received the title "tetrarch and the rulership and made his leadership a blessing; throughout his rule of 37 years he was always open to hear any case brought before him for the northeast district of Panias, Ituraea, Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Batanaea, and Auranitis.