The period after the Babylonian exile, between the rebuilding of the Second Temple in 516 B.C.E. and its destruction by the Romans in 70 C.E., was one of incredible growth and diversity in Jewish religion and philosophy. This FAQ will introduce the richness of the period and its repercussions in modern Judaism and Christianity. The times saw a rich tzimmes of ideas — political, religious and philosophical — that show various mixtures of ideas about good and evil, free will and destination, and Jewish tradition. The discussion below is both overlong and far too cursory. If there’s further interest we can develop an Adult Education course around this period.

We have a literature — the Hebrew Bible (Tanak), the Talmud, and other works — that teaches about the linear evolution of Judaism from Abraham through the Kings and Prophets to the Rabbis. Even Christian teaching supports this picture, as the Christians argue that their religion is the replacement of this Judaism.

As always, history is written by the victors. This story of Judaism is a myth created by the ancient Rabbis to justify their position and to hide the many alternative strains. Its first misrepresentation is the essential monotheism of the tradition. There is plenty of archaeological evidence and some textual evidence that the religion of biblical times was not truly monotheistic. But that’s a subject for another time. The other historical misrepresentation is the essential unity of the tradition. In fact, When Alexander conquered Persia and came to the Middle East he found many Judaisms, competing both politically and philosophically, all trying to work out the implications of the destruction of the kingdom, the exile to Babylon and repatriation by the Persians, and the existence of evil in the world. Over the next three hundred years these movements developed, split, and cross-pollinated. At least three eventually survived the destruction of the Second Temple. Although we know today of only one, Rabbinic Judaism, it would not have been clear in the year 70 — or even in 170 — that it would be the one to represent Judaism for the next 2000 years.

When we see the great diversity of Judaisms at this time (and in fact at other times) we can recognize that our own movement, by presenting new answers to old questions, is in the mainstream of historical Jewish tradition. We can, perhaps, even learn to avoid the mistakes of those movements in the past that did not survive.

There were three especially important movements during the Hellenistic period, which stretches roughly from the conquest of Alexander through the destruction of the Second Temple. Even during this period they will interact, change their names, and send out offshoots. The three are Zadokite, Enochic and Sapiential Judaism. Each had its own literature and its own take on the world.

Zadokite Judaism was the religion of the priesthood. Priesthood was, according to Leviticus, hereditary. All Levites had duty in the Temple. Only those who were descendants of Aaron were actually priests. The descendants of one of his grandsons, Phineas, were the High Priests. At the time of the return from exile a family known as the Zadokites, supposedly the descendants of David’s High Priest, Zadok, controlled the High Priesthood. Their holy writings consisted of the Torah (to which they had made the so-called Priestly additions — mostly the legalistic boring stuff), together with thebooks of Chronicles and the works of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their version of the creation story is the one in Genesis I. In it, God is the organizer who creates boundaries through order, stability and separation. (Note that creation here is not from "nothing" — it is from something, a something that happens to be formless — and consists of craeting boundaries.) They are responsible for a notion that permeates the Levitical laws — purity. Purity and impurity, the roots of Kashrut and much else, had nothing to do with "good" and "evil," or even "good" and "bad." For example, giving birth is obviously a good thing — "be fruitful and multiply" — but it was considered impure. This is because it crossed boundaries that separated different functions. The Zadokites believed that the covenant of Moses was the establishment of the priesthood, and that the major responsibility of humans was to keep the boundaries. They had no notion of an end for the universe; God had created a flawless creation, so there would never bee any reason for it to end.

Where the Zadokites viewed the history of the world’s creation as being the bringing of order out of chaos, the Enochians saw it as taking the direction from order to chaos. Politically, they were descendants of a priestly family that did not manage to get control of the high Priesthood. Therefore, with the Zadokites in control they could see that things were going downhill. But they had a sophisticated theology to support this view. There was an ancient myth (of which a fragment survives in Genesis 6) where the B’nai Elohim — angels — come to earth to mate with human women. While it doesn’t make much sense in the small fragment that is included in Genesis, the myth is much more fully worked out in the First Book of Enoch. There was a plot by bad angels to transmit secret knowledge to mortal women, who gave birth to a race of giants. There is a resulting battle between Michael (the angel of Israel) and Azazel (the chief bad angel). The purpose of the flood is not, as in Genesis, to punish humans but rather to kill off the giants and protect the humans. Alas, as children of both mortals and immortals, the giants had mortal bodies but immortal spirits, which survive in the world as evil. They can only be destroyed by fire. But God did not at this point want to destroy the humans as well. Instead, a future time is set for destruction of these spirits. Their major heroes were Moses and Aaron, primarily the latter.

Thus, where the Zadokites saw a world that was created in perfection, so that the source of evil could only be bad choices by individuals, the Enochites believes that the source of evil was outside the human being, and that a second creation would be needed to cleanse the world. Enochites incidentally, thought of their great prophet as Enoch, who in Genesis 5:24 goes right to Heaven. They did not consider Moses to be particularly important.

The third group is also in opposition to the Zadokites, but it is a lay group. Sapiential Judaism took as its main literature Proverbs, Jonah, Job and Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). They agreed with the Zadokites that the universe was a perfect order, and rejected the Enochian notions of an end of time and an afterlife. To them, the universe is the perfect reflection of God’s will, and we know that will through personal and collective experience. They believed that all humans are part of creation regardless of whether they are Jewish, and all humans live under the same rules. The goal of God is to keep order in the universe. There is actually no such thing as evil. While we experience something that seems evil to us, that’s only because we don’t understand how God does things. To the Sapientials, God uses everything for good. While they had heroes both within and without Judaism, they especially revered — who else — Solomon.

The Sapientials saw no correspondence, such as predicated by the Mosaic Torah, between cosmic order and moral order. First because experience shows that there is no correspondence. Second, because the so-called Mosaic covenant didn’t make sense to them. Two parties could not make a covenant, because there’d be nobody to judge in case of disagreement. The point of the Job story is that it isn’t fair to have God — a party in the supposed covenant to reward like with like — to also be the referee,

During the Hellenistic Period the Zadokites begin to lose power, especially to a family called the Tobiads. The Tobiads were the official tax collectors; they bid a certain amount for the right to collect taxes — anything beyond that amount was theirs to keep. As a non-priestly family they were supported by the Sapientials. However, they use their wealth to take control of the Temple by marrying Zadokites, and gain control of the Temple Treasury. The Apocryphal books of Tobit and especially Ben Sirach attempt to reconcile the Zadokite and Sapiential traditions by positing that Wisdom is a heavenly being, the first thing created by God. ("I [Wisdom] came out of the mouth of the most High, and covered the Earth as a cloud… [T]he Creator of all things gave me a commandment, and he that made me … said, Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and thy inheritance in Israel.") Thus, the universal principle of Wisdom becomes something special to Israel. Wisdom, not Torah, is heavenly.

When the Seleucids take control of the land from the Ptolemies, they support the Zadokites (now fully merged with the Tobiads). However, the merging of the priesthood and the tax collection function was a fatal mistake, because it was now possible, by bidding for the job of tax collector, to also bid for the priesthood. Also, the Zadokite laws of purity restricted commerce. There could not be a vibrant marketplace, for example, if there were many purity boundaries between different types of animals. Antiochus IV ousts the High priest Onias III in favor of his brother Jason, who wants to expand trade by relaxing some of the barriers to Hellenism. This was not really a problem (except forr Onias) since Jason was also Zadokite. But then one Menelaeus bids to the King for the Tax Collector/High Priest position. However, he was not a Zadokite. This then opens the door for competition among all the priestly families for the High Priesthood —by promising the largest chunk of Temple treasury to the King.

The Kings had no interest in changing or suppressing the religion. It was Jason and Menelaeus who wanted open Jerusalem to trade and to make the Temple more attractive to pagans — so that pagans would purchase sacrifices and enrich the Temple. This natural tendency on the part of the urban Israelites was opposed by the rural populations; similar opposition came in other areas of the Hellenistic empire. The revolt was led by the Maccabees. The government reaction was to persecute the particular view of Judaism held by the rebels — not against Judaism in general. Thus The Maccabean revolt was not a fight for freedom or liberation. It was purely a civil war created by the Maccabean family to take control of the high priesthood. The supporters of the Maccabees were a coalition of groups including Enochians, who saw the end of the Zadokites as the last stage before the end of times.

The 25^th of Tishrai, the date of Hanukah, is not coincidentally the birthday of Antiochus.

The end of times begins as a largely Enochian idea, as noted above. It was not a Zadokite notion — they saw no need for an end of times and new creation, because Torah provided what people needed; they were only required to follow it. However, the Book of Daniel tries to create a synthesis of the Enochian and Zadokite ideas. Where the Enochians saw the degeneration of history as caused by angels at the beginning of creation, Daniel sees the degeneration as caused by the breaking of the covenant by Israel. In his dream in chapter 7 he interprets that Israel is still living in exile. Where Jeremiah had predicted 70 years of exile, Daniels says the real value is 70 weeks of years. For Daniel, the end would involve the punishment of sinning humans; for the Enochians it would be the evil angels who would be punished. (Notice the evolution from evil spirits of giants to evil angels.)

There wasn’t a vision of a/the messiah, but many. The idea of a messiah — an anointed one who will come as a priest of leader — is old in Israel. David himself was a messiah. Even gentiles, like King Cyrus, might be recognized at messiahs. However, for those groups that believed in an end of days and a new creation there grew up a notion of The Messiah — the leader of the world to come. Different groups had different Messianic visions. The two most important come from groups that develop from the ones we’ve

been speaking of. The Essenes are the main branch from the Enochites, and the Zadokites lead to the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees are the High Priests, no longer Zadokites. The Pharisees were a different splinter sect. They were a lay group, opposed to the Hasmoneans (the Maccabees and their descendants). Note that the Pharisees and Sadducees had already been influenced to some degree by Sapiential thinking. The Pharisaic notion of the Messiah was a Son of David: a human leader for the world to come. This leader was unrelated to any notion of the judgment of God that might be involved in the end of days and new creation. (The Zealots, and ultimately short-lived offshoot of the Pharisees believed that this Messiah would appear before the end of time and lead the holy war against the nations.) This Messiah is not an individual savior — the Torah is the savior of individuals.

By contrast, the Essenes believed that evil is supernatural. Therefore, humans need help from heaven to overcome it, and that help must be stronger than the evil angels that cause evil. So the Essenes believe in a Son of Man who proves to have been the very first created angel, kept in a shielded silo until needed (OK, the place isn’t really labeled as a silo). In fact, this Son of Man is the angel Michael, who is traditionally the angel assigned to Israel. The Son of Man is of heavenly origin, but is not (a) god. (Note: The Essenes took the phrase Son of Man and interpreted it as a title rather than a description. Thus, the Son of Man is not a son of man.)

The Logos is an important concept that arises from another branch of Judaism that we haven’t yet met. This is a successor of Sapiential Judaism, and is known as Hellenistic Judaism.

In Hellenistic thought the Logos (the Word of God or Reason of God) is related to the notion that the universe itself is divine, a living being whose soul is God. God is everywhere and within everything. (Somewhat Platonic you might notice.) In Hellenistic Judaism as developed by Philo, this notion of Logos is unacceptable, because for Jews God created the universe, so can’t be the universe. Logos is thought of as God creating the plan of the universe, the mind of God in the act of creation. Where the Pharisees thought of Adam as the image of God, the Hellenistics would say he was the image of the image of God. Christian notions (as in John) of Jesus as the Logos derive by adoption of Hellenistic ideas within the Jesus sect. The Christian notion that the Logos was created but not preexistent — son but not father — derive from Philo.

What’s important to note about these communities is that they were open to Gentiles, but did not apparently erase all differences. That is, in addition to the Hellenistic Jews there were the Proselytes, Gentiles that now followed all the rules of Torah. In addition, there were Gentiles who followed the meaning but not all of the Laws; these were called God-Fearers.

While this structure may seem discriminatory to us, and may in fact have been discriminatory, to understand its import we need to examine Philo’s notion about Torah. The Greeks and then the Hellenists considered citizenship to be conferred by education — paideia. While there was a notion of a Greek paideia, they recognized that other peoples had their own paideia. Torah was accepted as the Jewish paideia. Philo takes this acceptance two steps forward. First, in good Platonic style, he sees the laws of Torah as allegorical. For the Jew they had a meaning rooted in Jewish history; Passover was the reminder and thank offering of the Exodus. For the Gentile, it had a different meaning — it was God’s way of reminding all humankind of creation by showing them the Spring. For Philo the behavioral laws aren’t important of themselves, but for the lesson that one learns when following them. So, circumcision is ordained so that the child will notice that Jews are different from others, and when asking why would be told that as Jews they were not following immoral ways. Gentiles could also avoid immorality. Jews weren’t "better" but had been selected to be the priests to the universe, to serve only God so as to teach humanity about God. Second, Philo taught that Torah was the best, or highest, paideia. So it was quite plausible that some Gentiles would want to accept the meaning of Torah without going through the work of following all the laws. (Circumcision is rumored to have been a particular stumbling block.)

Contrast this community structure with the one the Christians eventually evolved, in which there were no distinctions between Gentiles and Jews.

Qumran was a community of Essenes. At least that is the majority view, supported by the Dead Sea documents’ descriptions of the community and the descriptions of the Essenes as given by Josephus. They are probably not the main Essene group, but rather an offshoot. The Essenes were a communally organized group. (Primitive communism might come to mind.) The held wealth in common, ate communally, and like that. Qumran was, as far as is known, exclusively male. (The Essenes seemed to have both all-male and all-female communities, but the Qumran community — which called itself the Yahad (unity) was probably exceptional in separating itself so far from society and from women.) The Qumran cult believed in predestination. Your fate — whether you would be conquered by the influence of evil — was predetermined. Therefore they had no need of a Son of Man — because no Son of Man (heavenly but not divine) could save you from God.

There is another point of view, however, that makes the inhabitants of Qumran a group called the sicarri (for the short dagger — sica — they used), supporters of the Sadducees and freedom fighters who, with the Zealots, captured the Temple in 66 C.E. and were later the last defenders of Masada.

Another branch (or twig, being an individual) of the Essenes is known to us as John the Baptist. John believed that the end of time is near, which led to the conclusion that the times were as bad as they could ever get. John believed that in this time, where it would be hardest for people to surmount the influence of evil, a kind God would give them a means of freeing themselves from their sins. This may have been suggested by a tale about Adam and Eve after the fall in which they obtain forgiveness for their sins by repenting and remaining in the river for forty days. John, by offering baptism, is interceding with God for their forgiveness. (remember that for the Essenes sin was like an infection, not a personal choice.)

Jesus comes along and does something radical. Rather than offer a "connection" to God’s forgiveness, Jesus himself claims the right to forgive. Also, before Jesus the Son of Man was to appear at or after the end of time. Jesus innovates by claiming to be the Son of Main and appearing before the end of time to offer forgiveness. Note that he never claims to be the Son of David; indeed the Essenes had a reading of scripture that makes it impossible for the Messiah to be the Son of David.

Note too that neither Jesus nor the Essenes claimed that Jesus’ intervention was necessary for reaching the afterlife. A righteous person — one who followed Torah — had no such need. Indeed, such a person would not even appear before God-as-Judge. On the other hand, for them any sinner would be both judged and condemned — if you’re arrested you must be guilty. With Paul, this view becomes changed. Paul argues that all men are slaves of the devil. As slaves they have only one freedom: they can’t choose not to act sinfully, but they can choose to think. Jesus’ message, Paul taught, is that through his death he offered freedom; a person could choose to accept it. At this point Jesus is still not considered divine.

Again by contrast, the Pharisaic thought as regarding judgment was different. The Pharisees recognized that most people were liable to some form of sin, and couldn’t accept that God would condemn almost everyone. So they developed the idea that at the time of judgment one’s good and bad would be weighed.

The Christians remained a branch of Judaism for some time. Even Paul taught that Torah was the model for behavior. But since they developed the notion that membership in their community, equated with acceptance of the freedom offered by Jesus, was congruent with salvation, they eventually dropped their ties to Judaism. Also, by allowing Gentiles full membership (none of the Hellenistic social classicism) they became both quite popular and majority Gentile.

The Hellenistic Jews survive until Constantine adopts Christianity as the official religion. Since the Christians have a better marketing message the Hellenists mostly disappeared. However until that time they were a popular and universal movement.

The Pharisees had developed a notion of there being both a written Torah and an oral law, the latter passed on from Moses. This had put them in conflict with the Sadducees — the Priests — because the Pharisees claimed that the Priests had never been true transmitters of the law, but rather only cultic functionaries. The Pharisees claimed that the members of the scholarly class were the true transmitters, because only they had the oral completion of the Law.

The Pharisees teaching elevated the individual above the cultic system — it stated that God offered eternal life to the individual through the two-fold law. The destruction of the Temple allows the Pharisees to develop those aspects of their theology that are opposed to the cultic systems, such as sacrifice. They also begin to transform the cultic holidays. For example, the first day of the seventh month had been a day on which the shofar was blown to demonstrate the expiatory efficacy of the priestly cult; the tradition is kept by redeclaring the day to be the birthday of the world. Similarly Yom Kippur, which had been the day where the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies as a cultic atonement was transformed into a day of individual atonement.

Their success was political as well as religious. Considering the rebellion against the Romans to be devoid of religious import, the Pharisaic leader Johanathan Ben Zakkai had himself smuggled out if the besieged Jerusalem (in a coffin) and made his way to Vespasian, who permitted the Pharisees to reconstitute the Sanhedrin, previously presided over by the high priest.

There is no easy path from any of the Second Temple groups to Secular Humanistic Judaism. All of the groups emphasized the importance of following the laws of Torah, and none was secular. However, we can find some intriguing parallels especially in the Hellenistic movement. Hellenistic Judaism is taking steps that are tantalizingly like those taken in the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment), because Greek thinking itself was taking steps that remind us of the Enlightenment. The application of reason and reliance on observation were significant philosophical trends in both. The openness to new ideas and to new members was significant in Hellenistic Judaism as it is in Secular Humanistic Judaism.

Hellenistic Judaism might have seemed to be the variety best suited to survive. Like Rabbinic (Pharisaic) Judaism it was flexible in responding to its environment. Where did it go wrong? Partly it was a victim of circumstances, particularly the Muslim conquest. Partly it may have made a mistake in maintaining status differences between the born Jews, the converts (Proselytes) and the God-Fearers. It may also have become too acculturated to maintain the distinctiveness it needed to survive. The important question for us is, what can we learn today to maintain Secular Humanism as a viable option for preserving the future of the Jewish people