THE JEWISH

BACKGROUND
 Galilean society at the time of Jesus was strongly
patriarchal, religiously conservative, and
increasingly divided economically.
 Jesus clearly challenged the social and religious
values of this world, as is evident from his parables.
1. In Jesus time, social issues were seen within a
culture which was itself pervasively religious.
2. Jesus cannot be understood apart from the
religious tradition that formed his culture and
shaped his own religious imagination.
 Jesus education was primarily religious, learning
the stories and traditions contained in the Jewish
Scriptures, certainly in his home and from the
elders in the synagogue school in Nazareth.
 His own public life begins as a result of a profound
religious experience, his baptism at the hands of
John.
3. The religious climate of his time was one of
anticipation.
 The sacred texts of Jesus’ people rehearsed a
tragic history of covenantal infidelity, social
tensions, failed kings, lost sovereignty, religious
persecution, exile, and martyrdom, as well as an
effort to come to terms with the mystery of
suffering, injustice, and death in the theological
terms.
 The traditions that had emerged through the
suffering of the people were still influential in Jesus’
time and were used by the early Christians to
interpret the story of Jesus.
 Three of them stand out: the messianic tradition,
Wisdom tradition, and the relatively late
apocalyptic tradition.
The Messianic Tradition
 The messianic tradition has its roots in the Israelite
monarchy, particularly in the person of David who
remains the ideal Israelite king. The Israelite
monarchy begins with Saul, a warrior from the
small and centrally located tribe of Benjamin who
became king about 1030 B.C.E. when he was
anointed by the prophet Samuel. (1 Sam 9: 1 ff)
 The Oracle of Nathan
 At the roots of the messianic tradition is a promise
made to David by the prophet Nathan.
 According to the story in the book of Samuel (2
Samuel 7: 1-16), David conceived the idea of
building a temple to the Lord in Jerusalem.
 Nathan at first welcomed the idea, but learned
that night in a dream that the Lord did not want
to build this house. (2 Sam 7: 11-14)
 In its historical context, this “Oracle of Nathan”
referred to David’s son Solomon who did build
the Temple in Jerusalem that David had
proposed.
 Under David’s son, Solomon, the Davidic kingdom
reached its zenith, but it was not able to survive his
death in 922. the unity that David had nurtured
collapsed as the traditional tribal divisions
reasserted themselves. The result was two
kingdoms, Israel in the north with the majority of
the people, and the secessionist Judah in the
south.
The Davidic Messiah
 The image of the Davidic messiah is rooted in the
Oracle of Nathan. Some of the “royal psalms”
dating from before the eighth century, most
probably used in the crowning of the king, repeat
the idea that the king is begotten by God and can
be called God’s son.
 The image of the “anointed” offspring of David
appears frequently in the Prophets. Often the
anointed is one who would govern Israel
righteously and deliver the nation from its
enemies…
 Micah describes an ideal ruler who will come from
Bethlehem (Mic. 5:1-5). Jeremiah proclaims the
coming of “a righteous shoot to David” who “shall
reign and govern wisely” (Jer. 23:5)
 During and after the exile, with the loss of the
kingship, the anointed or messiah becomes
increasingly a figure in the indefinite future
through whom God himself would reestablish the
Davidic dynasty and bring about a new order of
Justice, peace, and righteousness.
 Isaiah 11: 1-9 is a marvelous illustration of these
themes.
 This passage moves from a vision of the future king
in David’s line governing wisely and bringing justice
to the poor to a more distant vision of an ideal
future in which the predatory violence of the
natural world is replaced by a new harmony
among all creatures.
The Wisdom Tradition
 A tradition focused on the “good” life, a life that
from the Jewish perspective necessarily involves
one’s relationship to God.
 It is very much concerned with the very day life of
the individual, but it also represents a reflection on
God’s wisdom.
 A number of wisdom themes have a particular
importance for Christology.
• Wisdom Personified
o As a personification of the divine wisdom, wisdom
appears as a feminine figure. ( Prov. 9: 1-15)
o Comes forth from God
• Wisdom comes forth from the mouth of God
(Sirach 24:3); she is begotten before the world was
created ( Prov. 8:22-23), reflects the glory of God,
and is an image of God’s goodness (Wis. 7:25-26
o Present at Creation
• Wisdom is portrayed as having a role in creation.
She is created before all things (Prov. 8:22-24),
present at creation (Wis. 7:22), playing in God’s
presence.
o Has a Mission for God’s People
• In the book of Sirach, Wisdom is sent down from
heaven by God to make her dwelling in Israel; it is
God who determines the place for her tent.
• There are obvious parallels here with the Prologue
of John’s Gospel.
o Sustains the Righteous Sufferer
• The mystery of the suffering of the righteous person
is another strong theme in the Wisdom literature.
• The archetypal figure is job, the just man whose
faith is tried by the loss of his family, possessions,
and health.
• Implicit here is the idea that God will not
abandon the righteous one who is called the “son
of God”
The Apocalyptic Tradition
 The Greek word “apocalypsis” means
“uncovering,” or “revelation.”
 One characteristic of apocalyptic literature is its
reliance on highly symbolic or allegorical
language such as one finds in the New Testament
book of the Revelation.
 The first major apocalyptic work was the book of
Daniel.
o Life after Death
• The idea of life beyond the grave entered very
late into the Jewish tradition. For most of the
period reflected in the Old Testament, death
meant simply the end of life.
• It is only in the second century that the first clear
evidence of Jewish hope in life beyond the grave
appears.
• Thus the idea of life after death was a late
development in the Jewish tradition, related to the
basic idea of God as the Lord of life. The
resurrection of the dead was a strong image
expressing this belief, but not the only one.
First-Century Palestinian Judaism
 Jerusalem, the religious center, was garrisoned by
the occupying Roman military power.
 It was host to a number of groups and parties that
differed from each other in theology, religious
observance, and political allegiance.
 Galilee in the north was an agrarian society of
some two hundred villages.
 Under Antipas, Galilee enjoyed a period of
relative stability. Yet many of the Jews living there
were quite nationalistic, and there various
outbreaks of violence.
o Religious Life
• After three hundred years of Hellenistic rule, Jewish
religious identity was under threat. Its rituals of purity
and exclusion provided a way of maintaining a clear
sense of religious and cultural identity.
• The Pharisee movement also contributed to this
religious culture. With their emphasis on domestic
rituals, washings, unique dress, and the observance of
sacred time, the Pharisees had in a sense expanded
the range of the religious realm, of Jewish spirituality,
from the temple to the home.
• The result of these rules of purity was the
marginalization of whole classes of people.
o Social/Economic Life
• Men took an active role in the civic life of the
community; women’s proper role was in the home,
but often included helping with the crops.
• In Jesus’ time, the plight of the poor was worsening.
Economic changes were exacerbating the
differences between the poor and the prosperous.
• The practice of tax farming, selling the right to collect
taxes, was widespread. At the same time, a self-
sufficient agricultural system was shifting to an
economy based on foreign trade.
o Parties and Group
• Palestinian Judaism was made up of a number of
different groups and parties. Many of them shared
a n expectation, differently interpreted, that God
was about to act salvifically in the life of the
community in a new way.
1. The Sanhedrin or council – was the supreme
religious authority in Jerusalem. Consisting of seventy-
one members, it was made up of three different
classes: the elders, members of the chief families and
clans; the high priests, former high priest and
representatives of the four priestly families and the
scribes, most of whom were Pharisees.
o The Sadducees - whose origins probably trace to
Maccabean times, represented the priestly
aristocracy of Jerusalem. As a party they had
considerable political power, exercised through the
Sanhedrin.
• Their economic interests led them to favor political
stability.
• Theologically, they were conservative; they
accepted only the Pentateuch as authoritative,
and rejected later ideas such an angels, demons,
and the resurrection of the dead.
o The Pharisees – were descendants of the “pious
ones.” A deeply religious group comprised of both
priest and lay people, they sought to extend the
holiness of the Temple into everyday Jewish life, as
we have seen.
• They sought a theocratic kingdom governed by the
precepts of the Mosaic Law, strictly interpreted.
• It is highly probable that Jesus engaged in debates
with the Pharisees during his public ministry, though
they did not seem to have been involved in his
arrest or execution.
o The Zealots – called “stabbers” by the Romans, were
fanatic Jewish nationalists who used the tactics of
terror and assassination against those who stood in
their way of an independent Jewish state.
• They interpreted Jewish messianic hope politically.
• Simon the Zealot (Luke 6:15) seems to have been a
member of this group.
o The Essenes – like the Pharisees, were descendants
of the “pious one”
• They had withdrawn from the mainstream Jewish
community and Temple to the desert along the
western shore of the Dead Sea at the Wadi Qumran.
• Thus they had become a sect. they lived a quasi-
monastic life under a strict rule.
• The theological vision of the
• Essenes was highly eschatological. They emphasized
the strict observance of the Law, ritual purity, and
the study of the Scriptures.
o The Samaritans – lived in the high country between
Judea and Galilee. They were a mixed people,
descendants of survivors of the northern kingdom of
Israel and of those people brought in by the
Assyrians.
• Considered heretics and schismatics by other Jews,
the roots of the schism may lie deeper in the old
tensions between the tribes of the north and the
south.
• They accepted only the Pentateuch and looked for
a messianic figure they called “the Restorer.”