Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

andrewcriddle wrote:

spin wrote:To use this material for historical purposes you would have to be able to date it.

Tosefta Parah 3:8 recounts a quarrel between Yohanan ben Zakkai (1st century CE) and a Sadducee (IIUC a Sadducee High Priest) about ritual purity in the rite of burning the red heifer. The story feels a bit legendary but if it has an historical base it implies Sadducees holding senior positions in the Jerusalem temple in the mid 1st century CE.

Don't have access to tParah, but it certainly helps create the circularity in the discourse here. We need to establish Yohanan ben Zakkai's pharisaism, which is where this thread is coming from. (See Nathan's last post.)

It is not important what Ben Zakai was, redemption is an ever-present thought in the observant man .

The New Testament is a product of the community that lived during the second temple period.

Diversity in Judaism and Qumran Messianism
The era of the Qumran Community at the Dead Sea (approx. 150 BC-AD 68) was one of theological diversity. There was no one "Judaism" which everyone uniformly practiced by all Jews or a singular Jewish creed they all affirmed. Instead, history shows there were "Judaisms" (plural) that ran a broad spectrum of beliefs, hopes, and Torah observation. The common view that Pharisaic Judaism - as later represented in the Talmud and "Orthodox Judaism" - was the norm for all Jews is historically inaccurate and wishful idealism.
...
Concepts of the "Messiah" at Qumran are also mixed. There is no cohesive theme spread across the scrolls that can be neatly summarized into The Qumran Doctrine of the Messiah. But there are themes that are strikingly similar to many of those found in the New Testament.

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/qum ... ssiahs.pdf

spin wrote:

andrewcriddle wrote:

spin wrote:To use this material for historical purposes you would have to be able to date it.

Tosefta Parah 3:8 recounts a quarrel between Yohanan ben Zakkai (1st century CE) and a Sadducee (IIUC a Sadducee High Priest) about ritual purity in the rite of burning the red heifer. The story feels a bit legendary but if it has an historical base it implies Sadducees holding senior positions in the Jerusalem temple in the mid 1st century CE.

Don't have access to tParah, but it certainly helps create the circularity in the discourse here.

Tosefta Parah 3:8:

A certain Sadducee had awaited sunset [for purification] and came to burn the cow. And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai became cognizant of his intention, and he came and placed his two hands on him and said to him, "My lord, High Priest. How fitting are you to be High Priest! Now go down and immerse one time." He went down and immersed and emerged. After he came up, [R. Yohanan] tore his ear [rendering him unfit to serve. The High Priest] said to him, "Ben Zakkai—when I have time for you." He said to him, "When you have time." Not three days passed before they put [the High Priest] in his grave. His father came to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and said to him, "Ben Zakkai, my son did not have time."

The story is apparently intended to illustrate a prior statement from Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus:

They made the priest who burns the cow unclean, because of the Sadducees, so that they should not say that it is done by someone upon whom the sun has set for the completion of his purification.

spin wrote:We need to establish Yohanan ben Zakkai's pharisaism, which is where this thread is coming from.

Ellis Rivkin was content to maintain Yohanan ben Zakkai's Pharisaism because he (pp. 221-2):

appears in [tannaitic texts] as the strident opponent of the Boethusians-Sadducees ... he appears as the champion of the anti-Sadducean legal position ... This identity [with the Pharisees], however, is made even more secure when it is noted that he stoutly defends a principle that was espoused by the prushim ... We are thus justified in labelling Johanan ben Zakkai a Pharisee. And Johanan ben Zakkai's orientation is shown to be identical with that of the Pharisees: (1) He is an opponent of the Boethusians-Sadducees. (2) He collides with them on legal issues. (3) He refutes their mode of exegesis. (4) His hallmark is not ritual purity but his approach to the Law ... (5) He is juxtaposed to the Boethusians and Sadducees and not to the am ha-arets.

On this last point he's referring back to an earlier observation in the article (p. 212):

The prushim [in tannaitic sources] are not differentiated from the am ha-arets but only from groups or individuals representing a contrasting approach to the Law.

iskander wrote:

rakovsky wrote:...
You are cornering me and forcing me to feel the same way about you wrt to those two quotes.

They enclose you like a pack of dogs , trying to prick your balloon , pierce the typing fingers in your hands and make you as the dust of history.

/you said "pierce". Isn't that a dishonest translation? What does the real original.... NVM

Nathan wrote:I missed this earlier, neil:

neilgodfrey wrote:Fwiw, it is not "a fact" that rabbinic Judaism descended from the Pharisees. I came across a claim that scholars were increasingly expressing doubts that this was in fact so by Burton Visotzky in "Aphrodite and the Rabbis". I enquired further and have turned up the following:

The first of the articles questioning this identification was Ellis Rivkin, "Defining the Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources," HUCA 40-1 (1969- 70), 205- 49. He noted Mishna Yadaim 4 where one of the prominent founders of the Rabbinic movement, Yohanan Ben Zakkai, seems to distinguish himself from the Pharisees. Indeed, Rivkin points out that the most common usage of the term Pharisee in rabbinic literature refers to separatists and not the sect Josephus and the NT refer to.

Your source is misleading (and seems to misuse Rivkin's study). Rivkin does not deny the Pharisaic connection to Rabbinic Judaism.

I fear you have misread me and my quoted source. No-one is "denying" the connection as you infer. But there is room for doubt. Caution is recommended. We need hard evidence that suffers no potential contradiction before claiming something to be an indisputable "fact". We cannot afford to be cavalier about what is and what is not a fact.

Nathan wrote:

neilgodfrey wrote:But that point aside, I know of no evidence pointing to the Pharisees as voices of widespread popular messianic expectations in the first century. Can you point me to what I am overlooking?

I didn't mean to suggest there was clear and unequivocal evidence of that (that I'm aware of). I was only suggesting the possibility based on: (a) ancient statements that speak to Pharisaic dominance in the religious landscape in the land of Israel, and (b) the fact that Rabbinic Judaism shows numerous points of contact with a first century Judaism that can sometimes be identified with the Pharisees (such as the tannaim's frequent dependence on the teachings of the first century Pharisee, Gamaliel the Elder). Given Rabbinic Judaism's dependence on Pharisaism, and given the presence of messianism within Rabbinic Judaism, it seems at least possible that messianism was a part of Pharisaism as well. If that was the case, then again it is at least conceivable that messianism was widespread in the first century considering the Pharisees' preeminence.

With respect to the Pharisees I have in mind the usual texts from Josephus:

Antiq. 13.288, 297-8:

[The Pharisees] have so great a power over the multitude ... the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses ... the Pharisees have the multitude on their side.

Antiq. 18.17:

[The Sadducees] are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates ... they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

Bavli Yoma 19b is also instructive on this last point:

An incident with a Sadducee: ... his father met him (and) said to him, "My son, although we are Sadducees, we are afraid of the Pharisees."

So there is no evidence that the Pharisees were mouthpieces for popular messianic expectations of the early first century. Possibility is not evidence.

Nathan wrote:

spin wrote:To use this material for historical purposes you would have to be able to date it.

andrewcriddle wrote:Tosefta Parah 3:8 recounts a quarrel between Yohanan ben Zakkai (1st century CE) and a Sadducee (IIUC a Sadducee High Priest) about ritual purity in the rite of burning the red heifer. The story feels a bit legendary but if it has an historical base it implies Sadducees holding senior positions in the Jerusalem temple in the mid 1st century CE.

spin wrote:Don't have access to tParah, but it certainly helps create the circularity in the discourse here.

Tosefta Parah 3:8:

A certain Sadducee had awaited sunset [for purification] and came to burn the cow. And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai became cognizant of his intention, and he came and placed his two hands on him and said to him, "My lord, High Priest. How fitting are you to be High Priest! Now go down and immerse one time." He went down and immersed and emerged. After he came up, [R. Yohanan] tore his ear [rendering him unfit to serve. The High Priest] said to him, "Ben Zakkai—when I have time for you." He said to him, "When you have time." Not three days passed before they put [the High Priest] in his grave. His father came to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and said to him, "Ben Zakkai, my son did not have time."

The story is apparently intended to illustrate a prior statement from Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus:

They made the priest who burns the cow unclean, because of the Sadducees, so that they should not say that it is done by someone upon whom the sun has set for the completion of his purification.

Thanks for citing the text. I'm sure you can see the legendary nature of the passage. That RYBZ could get away with inflicting such a slight on the high priest is not credible. But then, I'd say the same is applicable to the examples that Rivkin gives of conflicts between "Sadducees" and RYBZ....

Nathan wrote:

spin wrote:We need to establish Yohanan ben Zakkai's pharisaism, which is where this thread is coming from.

Ellis Rivkin was content to maintain Yohanan ben Zakkai's Pharisaism because he (pp. 221-2):

appears in [tannaitic texts] as the strident opponent of the Boethusians-Sadducees ... he appears as the champion of the anti-Sadducean legal position ...

The touch of the old man who babbled in opposition in both cases suggests that the same calumnists wrote each story and that they cannot be taken as in any sense historical. It's similar to the putrid portrait of the Pharisees in the gospels. Rivkin's examples show a lack of critical analysis. The Sadducees are presented as RYBZ's whipping boys, who are unable to present scriptural support for their views. The Sadducees are usually presented in rabbinical literature in a more neutral and serious manner. Rivkin's examples are parody.

Nathan citing Rivkin wrote:This identity [with the Pharisees], however, is made even more secure when it is noted that he stoutly defends a principle that was espoused by the prushim ... We are thus justified in labelling Johanan ben Zakkai a Pharisee. And Johanan ben Zakkai's orientation is shown to be identical with that of the Pharisees: (1) He is an opponent of the Boethusians-Sadducees. (2) He collides with them on legal issues.

What I usually say regarding the use of gospel material as history is that one is reifying the content of narrative. The same seems true here. RYBZ is the protagonist of these legendary conflicts, easily putting the Sadducees to shame as being incompetent.

Nathan citing Rivkin wrote:(3) He refutes their mode of exegesis.

To be honest they had no mode of exegesis. The old man who in each case babbles in opposition cannot supply any supporting text. Sadducees were usually shown to be more literal regarding the law. That doesn't mean that they had no Torah support for their views.

Nathan citing Rivkin wrote:(4) His hallmark is not ritual purity but his approach to the Law ...

The Sadducees in these stories had no approach to the law, did they?

Nathan citing Rivkin wrote:(5) He is juxtaposed to the Boethusians and Sadducees and not to the am ha-arets.

Nathan wrote:On this last point he's referring back to an earlier observation in the article (p. 212):

The prushim [in tannaitic sources] are not differentiated from the am ha-arets but only from groups or individuals representing a contrasting approach to the Law.

It appears to me that none of the sources we have touched on are historical. Would you take any of them as such?

spin wrote:

Thanks for citing the text. I'm sure you can see the legendary nature of the passage. That RYBZ could get away with inflicting such a slight on the high priest is not credible.

I don't know exactly when this event is said to have happened or whether it is legendary or not, but it makes me think of this passage from Josephus Ant. 20.8.8 set during the 50's or 60's CE when ben Zakkai was alive.

And now arose a sedition between the high priests and the principal men of the multitude of Jerusalem; each of which got them a company of the boldest sort of men, and of those that loved innovations about them, and became leaders to them; and when they struggled together, they did it by casting reproachful words against one another, and by throwing stones also. And there was nobody to reprove them; but these disorders were done after a licentious manner in the city, as if it had no government over it.

neilgodfrey wrote:I fear you have misread me

Fair enough. But surely you can see why the mistake was made. You stated that "scholars were increasingly expressing doubts" that Rabbinic Judaism descended from the Pharisees, and followed with an excerpt that begins, "The first of the articles questioning this" etc. But in fact the article does just the opposite: it affirms the genetic connection, and runs directly counter to the claim you made. Hence my objection.

neilgodfrey wrote: and my quoted source.

As it stands, the quoted source inter alia casts doubt on Yohanan ben Zakkai's Pharisaism by way of Mishnah Yadayim 4 and, by all appearances, imputes that same doubt to Ellis Rivkin. But in point of fact, Rivkin uses that very mishnaic text in the course of his argument for ben Zakkai's Pharisaism. So again I object: your source misleads the reader, and misuses Rivkin's article.

neilgodfrey wrote:No-one is "denying" the connection as you infer. But there is room for doubt. Caution is recommended. We need hard evidence that suffers no potential contradiction before claiming something to be an indisputable "fact". We cannot afford to be cavalier about what is and what is not a fact.

Let me ask: How do you—or perhaps Burton Visotzky since you mentioned him earlier—explain the prominence of (e.g.) the Pharisees Gamaliel the Elder and his son Shimon ben Gamaliel in the tannaitic literature? If there was no Pharisaic connection, I mean. How do you explain the fact that both Pharisaism and Rabbinic Judaism maintained a second body of law, "not written in the law of Moses" and called by both groups, "the traditions of the fathers"? Is that just a coincidence? How do you explain the presence of gospel sayings such as "by what measure you measure it will be measured to you" throughout the rabbinic canon? Have the rabbis borrowed from Christianity? Or have they each been influenced by a common Judaic source? And if the latter, what would that source be, if not the Pharisees? (The same can be asked for a number of gospel sayings and parables that also appear in rabbinic literature.) I'm interested to hear your take.

Nathan wrote:[
Fair enough. But surely you can see why the mistake was made. You stated that "scholars were increasingly expressing doubts" that Rabbinic Judaism descended from the Pharisees, and followed with an excerpt that begins, "The first of the articles questioning this" etc. But in fact the article does just the opposite: it affirms the genetic connection, and runs directly counter to the claim you made. Hence my objection.

Makes sense.

Let me ask: How do you—or perhaps Burton Visotzky since you mentioned him earlier—explain the prominence of (e.g.) the Pharisees Gamaliel the Elder and his son Shimon ben Gamaliel in the tannaitic literature? If there was no Pharisaic connection, I mean. How do you explain the fact that both Pharisaism and Rabbinic Judaism maintained a second body of law, "not written in the law of Moses" and called by both groups, "the traditions of the fathers"? Is that just a coincidence? How do you explain the presence of gospel sayings such as "by what measure you measure it will be measured to you" throughout the rabbinic canon?

The gospels repeatedly refer to Jesus debating the Pharisees and/or "teachers of the law." In the terminology of Judaism, the latter would be the "rabbis of the Torah".

I have also read Jewish websites who see the pharisees as the modern rabbis' predecessors.

This thread is still going strong many pages later ☺

Yes, it's a good thread, Rakovsky. And I'm finding myself on board with Nathan:

Let me ask: How do you—or perhaps Burton Visotzky since you mentioned him earlier—explain the prominence of (e.g.) the Pharisees Gamaliel the Elder and his son Shimon ben Gamaliel in the tannaitic literature? If there was no Pharisaic connection, I mean. How do you explain the fact that both Pharisaism and Rabbinic Judaism maintained a second body of law, "not written in the law of Moses" and called by both groups, "the traditions of the fathers"? Is that just a coincidence? How do you explain the presence of gospel sayings such as "by what measure you measure it will be measured to you" throughout the rabbinic canon? Have the rabbis borrowed from Christianity? Or have they each been influenced by a common Judaic source? And if the latter, what would that source be, if not the Pharisees? (The same can be asked for a number of gospel sayings and parables that also appear in rabbinic literature.)

I think this is where the Fourth Philosophy must have gotten their messianism from as well, which would make sense given that Josephus says that other than their militancy they "agree in all other things with the Pharisaic notions" (Ant. 18.1.6).

And I don't know how many times I've seen the argument that Jesus was a Pharisee, such as this Jews for Jesus site (not to say I necessarily agree with it, just that it is a fairly common idea and one I'd like to look into again with fresh eyes):

https://jewsforjesus.org/issues-v01-n02 ... he-gospels

And Jesus is called a rabbi in the gospels (e.g., Mk. 9:5) and is familiar with (if critical of) Pharisaic traditions, And Acts 15:5 says there were Pharisee Christians. And Paul was a former Pharisee. And Rabbi Akiva, who supported Bar Kokhba, was a Pharisee, or at least Rabbinic (even if he was criticized for it afterwards). So it looks to me like the Pharisees had something to do one way or another with the Fourth Philosophy, Christianity and the Bar Kokhba revolt, all of which were messianic.

In the case of the Fourth Philosophy and Josephus' "ambiguous oracle," even though he doesn't use the word messiah, what other figure from the OT was expected to be "governor of the habitable earth"?