1985 - E.P. Sanders - Judaism and the Grand Christian Abstractions - Love, Mercy, And Grace

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1985 39: 357Interpretation E. P. Sanders

Judaism and the Grand ''Christian'' Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace

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Judaism and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and Grace

E. P. SANDERSProfessor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture, Oxford University

Professor of Religious Studies, McMaster University

The body of Rabbinic material that has beenrelied upon for the view that Pharisaism waslegalistic points ra ther toward confidencein God's grace and toward obedience as one'sappropriate response.

F IRST CENTU RY JUDAIS M has, on the whole, had a remarkably badpress. Th er e have been apologists, such as Jose phus an d George Foot

Moore; 1 but the Gospels above all, and following them other Christianauthors, have depicted Juda ism in the time of Jesus as an unfortu na tereligion, one wide open to the attacks of any reformer who believed inlove, mercy, and grace. 2 Fu rther, many Jewish scholars have joi ned theirChristian colleagues in criticism of aspects of ancient Judaism. The description of Juda ism, as we shall see, has seldom been objective. It has beentainted with either polemic against Juda ism (or aspects of it) or apologeticsfor it. In an attempt to avoid or minimize bias, I should indicate my ownstarting viewpoint: Judaism is one of the world's great religions, and assuch, it is presumably noble in its main goals and intentions. ProfessingJews have been human beings and therefore subject to frailty and mis-

1. George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era The Age of theTannaim, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927—1930).

2. See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism- A Comparison of Patterns of Religion(London/Philadelphia: SCM/Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 33-59.

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direction. Thus Jews have run the full gamut from utter depravity tosainthood. It is possible, however, to study a religion or a way of life and toreach some conclusions about the professed values and the attainment ofthem at any given time. Even great religions have their bad moments(witness the later crusades), and concrete study of a given period mayreveal that unfortunate elements have taken over even the noblest faith.

I shall divide discussion by focusing on major groups in the first century:priests, Pharisees, common people. We shall consider first the negativeview of each group and then the positive, noting the bias of our sources as

we go. The conclusion will attempt to reach fair generalizations.

THE NEGATIVE VIEW

The Priests. Before the birth of Jesus the priests were already accused ofimpiety and, indeed, of heinous sin:

They wrought confusion, son with mother and father with daughter;They committed adultery, every man with his neighbour's wife . . . .They plundered the sanctuary of God, as though there was no avenger.They trode the altar of the Lord, (coming straight) from all manner of

uncleanness;And with menstrual blood they defiled the sacrifices, as (though these

were) common flesh (Psalms of Solomon 8:9-14).

These charges are from the time of the invasion by Pompey in 63 B.C., andthey are directed against the Hasmonean priest/kings, who may well have"transferred" money from the temple to the state and who could bedepicted as coming to the altar straight from battle, and thus impure. Thepious author or authors doubtless belonged to a group which wished toextend the period during which a menstruating woman was consideredimpure; and they could thus accuse the priests, who kept the biblical law(Lev. 15:19), of being made unclean by contact with "menstrual blood."The charges of adulte ry and incest are ha rd to evaluate, tho ugh we shouldnote that accusations of sexual immorality are very common in religiouspolemic (see Paul's accusations of Gentiles in Rom. 1:18—32).

There are similar charges in other literature. In the Dead Sea Commentary on Habakkuk the "Wicked Priest" is accused of committingabominable deeds and defiling the temple (IQpHab 12.8). This priest,

whose identity is not quite certain, was one of the Hasmone an priest/kings.The Covenant of Damascus accuses the priests of having intercourse withwomen who are menstruating and of incest (CD 5.6—8; cf. 4.18). According to Mishnah Niddah 4.2, the Pharisees accused the "daughters of theSadducees" of not observing the correct rules concern ing purification

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Judaism and the Grand "Christian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and GraceInterpretation

after the menstrual period. Thus ¿he priesthood had plenty of critics.The high priest plays a major role in the Gospels, since it is he who

interrogates Jesus (Mark 14:60; Matt. 26:62; cf. John 18:15-24), but t hetrial scene does not offer a view of the religious and moral cha rac ter of thehigh priest or of the priesthood in general. That comes, however, in thetemple scene: The statement that "you have made it a den of robbers"(Mark 11:17) has made an indelible impression on subsequent Christiansand Jews alike. The priests have been depic ted as exploiting their office to"rip o f f the pious who br ou gh t sacrifices and, consequently, as being

commercial and impious. Years ago a Jewish scholar, I. Abrahams, wro tethat "When Jesus overturned the money-changers and ejected the sellersof doves from the Temp le he did a service to Juda ism." 3 Joac him Jer emía soffers the standard Christian evaluation: The priests "misuse their calling. . . by carrying on business to make profit." 4 Recently another Jewishscholar, Nahman Avigad, describes the priests of the time of the JewishWar (A.D. 66-70 ) as having "abused their position . . . th ro ug h nepotismand oppression." 5

Thus it is not at all difficult to draw a completely negative picture of thepriests aroun d the time of Jesus (in this case the evidence spans the periodfrom approxima tely 65 B.C. to A.D. 70): Th ey were insincere a nd imp ious,using their inherited positions for personal gain; they were not evenscrupulous to keep the laws; they committed gross immorality.

At the same time, we should note the source of these accusations: Theyall stem from enemies.

1. The authors of the Psalms of Solomon belonged to a pious groupobviously out of power and deeply resentful of the Hasmonean government . This is clear in Psalms of Solomon 17:6—8, where the Jewish leadersare accused of casting "us" out and of establishing a worldly mona rchy. AsGray put it, "we are dealing with a strongly partisan work. Neither therighteousness of the righteous, nor the sinfulness of the sinful, must beaccepted too literally." 6

2. The authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls belonged to a pious group whichhad broken entirely with the Jerusa lem establishment and which had been

3. I. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospel, First and Second Ser ies (Cambridge: University Press, 1917, 1924; repr. New York: KTAV, 1967), I, 88.

4. Joachim Jeremías, New Testament Theology I: The Proclamation of Jesus, Eng. trans.(London: SCM, 1971), p. 145.

5. Naham Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1983), pp. 130—31. Ievaluate these charges and discuss the role of trading in connection with the temple in Jesusand Judaism (London/Philadelphia: SCM/Fortress Press, 1985), pp. 61-67.

6. G. Buchanan Gray, "The Psalms of Solomon," in The Pseudepigrapha of the OldTestament, ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: University Press, 1913), p. 628.

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persecuted by at least one of the Hasmonean priest/kings.3. Th e Pharisees were the principal opposition "party" to the Sadducees,

who dominated the chief priesthood after the destruction of the Has-moneans by Herod.

4. The early Christians were subject to persecution by the chief priests(e.g., Acts 4:6; 5:17) and wanted to depict Jesus as having been executed atthe behest of an iniquitous leadership.

The Pharisees. The negative view of the Pharisees is der ived largely fromthe New Testament. There is, first and foremost, Matthew 23, with itsrepeated refrain of "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," and especiallyverse 23: The Pharisees tithe minor herbs but neglect the weightiermatters of scripture, justice, mercy, and faith. The y wash the outside ofdishes, but within they are full of "dead men's bones and rottenness"(Matt. 23:25—28). Up to the Passion narrative, the Pharisees are Jesus'principle oppo nents , and they are depicted as harrassing him about trivia:letting his disciples pick grain on the Sabba th, allowing them to eat withoutwashing their hands, and the like (Mark 2:24; 7:1—5). This has led naturally to depicting the m as conce rne d only with exte rnali sm, triviality, andlegalistic observance.

A great deal of effort has been expended in the attempt to prove, on thebasis of Rabbinic lite rature , tha t the Pharisees were in fact legalistic. 7 It haslong been thought (though not entirely correctly) that Rabbinic literature(all writ ten after A.D. 70) represen ts the views of pre -70 Pharisaism. EarlyRabbinic literature is largely concerned with the details of observing thelaw, and these details can be brought forward as proving a preoccupationwith legalistic minutiae . This arg ume nt , however, gives inadequate attention to the question of literary genre. A law code is necessarily concernedwith legal detail, but that does not prove that its authors were legalists inthe pejorative sense (escaping moral responsibility by casuistry, valuingtrivia more highly than "weightier matters," preoccupied with soteriologi-cal bookkeeping). A fair study of early Rabbinic literature shows that theview that the rabbis believed in counting deeds for de te rmin ing salvation isnot correct, that the "trivia" were pursued on the basis of higher commitments (loyalty to God, who gave the commandments), and that thegreat religious abstractions (love, mercy, grace, repentance, and forgiveness) were given preeminent place by the rabbis. 8

Thus Rabbinic literature must be dropped from the material which

7. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, pp. 33—59.8. Ibtd., pp. 125-82; 233-38.

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points to a negative view of the Pharisees, and we are left with the SynopticGospels. About these it should be observed that the early Christian movement, or at least some sections of it, found the heirs of the Pharisees toconstitute the most formidable competition. I cite a small but significantpoint: Matthew several times refers to "their synagogues," apparentlyindicating thereby the synagogues dominated by the opponents of (orcompetition of) the Christian movement (e.g., Matt. 4:23; 9:35). It is in"their synagogues" that the persecution of the early Christian missionaries

takes place (Matt. 10:17). In Matthew 23, directed against "the Pharisees,"Jesus is depicted as saying that "you" will scourge the evangelists in "yoursynagogues." This reflects not the lifetime of Jesus but the situation of o newing of the early church. We see here the hostile and competitive contextof part of the early Christian mission, and so we realize that the attacks onthe Pharisees are not disinterested description but more likely the sort ofpolemic that two contenders often mount against each other.

The Common People. Here the negative view comes from Rabbinic litera

ture. Hillel is reported to have said that no common person (K

am ha-arets)can be pious (hasîd) (Aboth 2.5; ET 2.6), and we also read of certainrestrictions placed on relations between the "associates" (those who werestrict with regard to purity and tithing) and the common people. ThusMishnah Demai 2.3: An associate may not be the guest of a commonperson, nor receive him unless the latter changes his garment. This rulehas to do with ritual purity, which the associates were concerned to keep aspart of their program to live secular life as if it were life in the temple, thussanctifying all of life. Despite the nobility of the intention, it implies a

criticism of the common people for not being strict or pious enough, andthus it may be read as an attack on their level of observance.

The rabbis favored their own brand of piety and in doing so implicitlydepicted the common people as relatively impious. This depiction isobviously partisan. A thorough investigation of Rabbinic comments on thecommon people reveals that the rabbis granted that the commoners weremembers of Israel in good standing and would share in the world tocome. 9 Nevertheless, from reading Rabbinic literature we would have noidea of the devotion and piety of the common people.

Summary. All the evidence which we have thus far considered has its settingin a party program of some sort or other, which led to denigration ofothers. We should pause for a moment to consider the nature of polemic

9. Ibid., pp. 155-57.

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priest by birth, as well as an aristocrat. He claims to have studied all themajor religious parties of Juda ism and to have joi ned the Pharisees. 11

During the first revolt, he at first aided in the defense of Galilee butdefected to the Romans when defense became impossible. He wrote The

Jewish War shortly after 70 with the support of the Flavian imperial family,and the work was apparently intended to discourage other revolts byemphasizing the invincibility of Roman arms. Late in the century, after helost imperial support, he wrote The Jewish Antiquities, a lengthy work of

explanation a nd defense of Jud aism. We also have from him an au tobiography (The Life) and an answer to criticisms of Juda ism (Against Apion).We shall briefly recount his descriptions of the three groups which wereconsidered in the first section.

The Priests. Josephus at tributes the administration of Jewish law to thepriests, and his discussions indicate that they administered it fairly andevenhandedly. They exercised "a strict superintendence of the Law andthe pursuits of everyday life; for the appointed duties of the priests

include general supervision, the trial of cases of litigation, and the punishment of condemned persons" (Against Apion II . 187). After the deaths ofHerod and Archelaus, he writes, "the constitution became an aristocracy,and the high priests were entrusted with the leadership of the nation"(Antiquities XX.251). Josephus ' detailed and circumstantial accounts ofconcrete events show that these summaries of the priests' authority arelargely accurate , for it is always the chief priests who unde rt ak e mediationbetween the Roman government and the nation of Israel, and it is alwaysthey who are held responsible by the Romans for the good behavior of the

people. 12 Further, we learn that they had no small influence with theJewish people, even when they had to calm the crowds after a massacre byRoman troops. At the behest of Florus, the last Roman procurator, theyeven manage d to pe rsuade "the multitude " to leave Jer usa lem a nd goalong the road to meet arriving Roman troops. There was another massacre, however, and revolutionary forces then took charge. Even so theirinfluence did not altogether evaporate. The former high priest, Ananus,had enough authority and influence to offer real resistance to the Zealotsand their I duma ea n allies, who took Je rusa lem only with gre at difficulty.According to Josephus, eighty-five hund re d died defending the te mpleand the high priest against the insurgents (War IV.313) . Jo se ph us corn

i l . Josephus, The Life 1 — 12. All quotations from Josephus are from the Loeb ClassicalLibrary edition (London/Cambridge, Mass.: William Heinemann/Harvard Univ. Press,1926-1965).

12. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, pp. 314—17.

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The Pharisees. Josephus has two substantial descriptions of the Jewishparties. The Pharisees are discussed in War 11.162-63, and AntiquitiesXVIII. 12—15. In the earlier account, they are named second and givenonly a paragraph. The Essenes are named first and receive forty-three(War I I. 119—62). Nevertheless the Pharisees are called "the first," which isusually taken to mean "the most important," though it could mean "theoldest." They are said to be "the most accurate interpreters of the laws," tobelieve in both fate and free will, and to teach that the soul is immortal. In

the Antiquities they are given pride of place and their beliefs are spelled ou tin greater detail. From these descriptions they emerge as devoted to Godand his law.

In summarizing statements in the Antiquities, Josephus attributes greatpower and influence to the Pharisees. They are said to have the "supportof the masses" (XIII.298), to be followed with regard to prayer andworship (XVIII. 12—15), and to be believed "even when they speak againsta king or high pr iest" (XIII .288). In such statements the re is implicit pra iseof their religious and ethical goals.

As Morton Smith has pointed out, by the nineties, when the Antiquitieswas composed, the Pharisees had emerg ed as the leaders of Juda ism . Thegreat influence which Josephus assigns to the m before 70, the refo re, maybe part of his general apologetic effort to depict the leaders of Judaism asnot rebellious and so to win support from Rome for Israel's new leaders.Thus we may suspect the historian of exaggeration, at least of theirinfluence. 14

The Common People. Jo se ph us several times discusses the laws, practices,and beliefs of Jews, that is, of Jews in general rather than of one party oranother. The most compact and convenient discussion is in a late work,

Against Apion 11.164-295. This section has the additional advantage of notincluding point-by-point discussion of very many of the particular laws(though some are emphasized) but instead focuses on the basic principles.

In the first place, Jo se ph us emphasizes the unity of the Jewish people inkeeping the law. It is obedience to the law which produces the "admirableharmony" of the Jews (11.179). Religion (literally, "piety towards God") isthe motive of actions and words (171). This is so throughout the nation:"Even our womenfolk and dependents would tell you that piety must bethe motive of all ou r occupations in life" (181). Anothe r way of putti ng this

14. See Morton Smith, "Palestinian Judais m in the First Cen tur y" in Israel, Its Role inCivilization, ed. Moshe Davis (New York, 1956), pp. 67-81 ; repr. in Essays in Greco-Romanand Re fated Talmudic Literature, ed. Henry Fischel (New York: KTAV, 1967), pp. 183-97.

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is tha t God in his grace has revealed his law and bestowed nu me rousblessings. The Jews naturally respond by worshipping him, and worshiptakes the form of "the practice of virtue" (192, 197-98). In part of thisdiscussion, Josephus attributes the ability to perform the law to God'sgrace: "We should beseech God not to give us blessings, for He has giventhem spontaneously and put them at the disposal of all, but for capacity toreceive, and, having received, to keep them" (197).

Jewish fulfillment of the law includes hospitality to fore igners, unlike

the laws of some Greek city states (259—60); and consideration must beshown "even to declared enemies" (211).

All Jews, argues Jose phus , both know and observe the law. People inother nations find it necessary to employ professional lawyers (176—78),but that is not so of the Jews. Moses provided that once each week people"should desert their other occupations and assemble to listen to the lawand to obtain a thorough and accurate knowledge of it" (175). Knowledgeand training lead to observance:

. . . should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he wouldrepeat them all more readily than his own name. The result, then, of ourthorough grounding in the laws from the first dawn of intelligence is that wehave them, as it were, engraven on our souls. A transgressor is a rarity;evasion of punishment by excuses an impossibility (Against Apion II. 178).

The strongest arg umen t for universal observance is the Jewish readiness to meet dea th r ath er t han to transgress the law. Jos ephus devotesappreciable space to this point. Even the Spartans surrendered their lawswhen they lost thei r liberty and ind epende nc e (227), while Jews remainedloyal to theirs "notwithstanding the countless calamities in which changesof rulers in Asia have involved us" (228). "Has anyone," he asks, "everheard of a case of our people, not I mean, in such large numbers, butmerely two or three , proving traitors to the ir laws or afraid of de ath, " evenwhen faced with death by torture? (232-33). His answer is "no": Jews face"death on behalf of [their] laws with a courage which no other nation canequal" (234). He returns to the theme: "And from these laws of oursnothing has had power to deflect us, neither fear of our masters, nor envyof the institutions esteemed by other nations" (271); "Robbed though we

be of wealth, of cities, of all good things, our Law at least remainsimmorta l; and th ere is not a Jew so distant from his country, so much inawe of a cruel despot, but has more fear of the Law than of him" (277).

This is the description of a noble religion indeed, one in which the massof the people, not ju st the professionally pious and the especially devout,recognized the love and mercy of God and responded to him by studying

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Judaism and the Grand "Chnstian" Abstractions: Love, Mercy, and GraceInterpretation

and observing his commandments, even in the face of torture and death.The setting of this description is in an apologetic work, one explicitly

formula ted to answer calumny against the Jews and their "constitution"(the law). Exaggeration is readily proved: It is not true that all Jewseverywhere agree with one another (170—71, 179), nor that no Jew everdefected, but preferred death (232-33), nor that there was not a singleJew who feared the law more than a despot (277). Does this apologetic andexaggerated setting destroy the value of the section for underst anding the

piety of the mass of Israel? It is now time to try to find the reality behindthe arguments of enemies and apologists.

I N SEARCH OF FAIR GENERALIZATIONS

We have seen that all the evidence is biased one way or another.Dispassionate and disinterested description of fundamental beliefs andways of life was even rare r in the ancient world than it is toda y—and todayit is rare enough. We can never entirely overcome the limitations imposedby the evidence , but I think that it is possible to reach reasonable and even

convincing conclusions on some crucial points.

The Priests. I earlier refer red to the fact that not all of Jo se phus ' referencesto the priests were favorable. It will be useful to cite some examples inorder to help us attain perspective on his bias. He tells us that the highpriests Ananias (A.D. 47—59)

. . . had servants who were utter rascals and who, combining operations withthe most reckless men, would go to the threshing floors and take by force thetithes of the [ordinary] priests; nor did they refrain from beating those whorefused to give. The chief priests were guilty of the same practices as hisslaves, and no one could stop them (Antiquities XX.206—07).

This does not quite save the reputation of Ananias, who evidently condoned the practice. Further, other members of the aristocratic priestlyhouses ("the chief priests") are directly said to have committed robbery. Inthe years jus t preceding the revolt, the high prie sthood became somethingof a political football, and high priests came and went with considerablefrequency. King Herod Agrippa II deposed one Jesus as high priest a ndappointed another. Each priest "collected a band of the most reckless sortand it frequently happened that after exchanging insults they went further and hurled stones" (Antiquities XX.213).

We see that Josephus, despite his undoubted partiality to the priestlycaste, was capable of pointing out the grave failings of some of its members. This perhaps makes us more willing to credit his general view of the

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priesthood, namely, that its members were conscientious and devout. It isnoteworthy that the result of the theft of tithes was tha t some of the priests,many of whom depended completely on the tithes, starved to death(Antiquities XX.207). They did not, it app ears, resort to theft in tu rn . Th usthe corruption into which some of the aristocratic priests fell seems not tohave infected the lower orders.

It is worth noting that the Ananus whose death was so bemoaned byJosephus, and to whose memory he dedicated a moving panegyric (War

IV.319—22), was the same Ananus who was a Sadducee and who hadJames the brother of Jesus executed. The action, Josephus notes, causedoffense to those who were "strict in observance of the law" —probably thePharisees 15 —and as a result the high priest was deposed. In this contextJos ephus remarks that the Sadducees were "savage" in ju dgm en t and thatAnanus shared that character. Besides, he was "rash in his temper"(Antiquities XX. 199-203).

We see that even the priest whom Josephus most lauds was not immunefrom criticism. We can gra nt that his tribute to Ananus made him out to be

a greater and more democratic statesman than he was, and that there mayhave been no small numb er of the priests who were not as devoted as couldbe desired, and yet find that Josephus has not substantially misled us. Onthe whole the priests were devoted to the service of God and took seriouslytheir role as intercessors for Israel and, further, for the other nations ofthe world. 16

The Pharisees. Evidence about the Pharisees in the time of Jesuswhich is both detailed and firm is hard to obtain. From Josephus we learn

that they believed in some form of life after death and that they were"strict" in observance of the law. 17 We can take these two general points ascompletely firm. Supporting evidence may be quickly cited: (1) Josephus,who says that he himself followed the views of the Pharisees (Life 12),believed in "a renewed existence" (Against Apion 11.218; cf. War III.374)and in the immortality of the soul (Against Apion 11.203). (2) He repeats theterm "strict" or "accurate" so often in his discussions of the Pharisees thatwe must accept that he took it as a primary fact. (3) Paul had been aPharisee, and in the context of that description of himself he says that he

15 I am indebt ed to my colleague A. I. Ba umg ar ten for this sugges tion. Th e wor d"strict" or "accurat e" (akribeia) and its cognates are consistently used for the Pharisees: A I.Baumgarten, "The Name of the Pharisees," JBL 102 (1983), 41 1- 28 .

16 When the prie sts refused to continue the sacrifices for Rome, war was "officiallydeclared". War 11.409-10

17 Life after death: War 11.162-63; Antiquities XVIII. 14. "Strict", see n. 15.

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had been zealous and righteous according to the law (Phil. 3:5-6). (4) Paulbelieved in the resurrection, and he does not seem to have come to thisopi ni on only as the result of his en co un te r with th e re su rr ec te d Lo rd (forbelief in the resurrection, see, e.g., Phil. 3:11). (5) Acts depicts Paul asclaiming to have been zealous for the law (Acts 22:3) and to be a Pharisee inhis belief in the resurrection (23:6).

We r e the Phar ise es in th ei r zeal for t he law "legalistic"? T h a t is, di d the yobserve the law in the hope that they could compile enough good deeds to

win merit and obligate God to save them? This is the accusation thatgenerations of Christ ian "historians" have thrown at them, but there issimply no evidence for it . I have pointed out the enduring attempt toprove, on the basis of Rabbinic literature, that the Pharisees were mired inlegalism, but that Rabbinic evidence points the other way. There is notspace here even to begin to survey the vast corpus of Rabbinic material,and I shall have to be content to repeat the conclusion which comes at thee n d of suc h an effo rt:

God has chosen Israel and Israel has accepted the election. In his role asKing, God gave Israel commandments which they are to obey as best theycan. Obedience is reward ed a nd disobedience puni shed . In case of failure toobey, however, man has recourse to divinely ordained means of atonement,in all of which repentance is required. As long as he maintains his desire tostay in the covenant, he has a share in God's covenantal promises, includinglife in the world to come. The intention and effort to be obedient constituteth e condition for remaining in the covenant, but they do not earn it.

This general understanding of religion, although not systematically developed, in fact lies behind all the Tannaitic [early Rabbinic] literature. Itaccounts for the principal emphases in that litera ture , as well as for appa re ntcontradictions on crucial points. It appears to have informed the religiousthinking of the Tannaim consistently and thoroughly. 18

We ca nn ot say tha t th e view tha t Rabbini c lit er atu re perfectly reflectspre-70 Pharisaism is unquestionable. This is the body of l i terature, however, that has been relied on for the view that Pharisaism was legalistic, andmy ar g um e nt is tha t th e evi denc e of Rabbini c mat eri al points tow ar dsconfidence in God's grace and obedience as the appropriate response.Further, this understanding of the relat ionship between works and grace

is so wi de sp re ad in the li te ra tu re of t ha t pe ri od ( abo ut 200 B.C. to A.D. 200)tha t we mu st ass ume it to have bee n co mm on in th e Ju da is m of the time of

J 19

esus.

19. Ibid., pp. 426-28.18. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 180.

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The Common People. There is very solid evidence that indicates that in thefirst century the common people, considered as whole, hungered andthirsted for righteousness and political freedom, trusted in the promisesof God, and were loyal to the law and the covenant. I again resort toenumeration. (1) They repeatedly rallied to prophets, whether to thosewho required righteousness and repentance (John the Baptist; for thecrowds that flocked to him, see Jose ph us , Antiquities XV III . 116- 19), thosewho promised that a miracle would inaugurate the kingdom (Josephus,

War 11.258-63; Antiquities XX .97- 98 , 16 7-72 ), or those who more quietlylooked for the Kingdom of God and promised it to the meek and lowly ofheart (Jesus). (2) Large numbers (Josephus, "tens of thousands") werepr ep ar ed to die rat he r tha n have a statue of Caligula erected in the temple(Antiquities XVIII.262; cf. Philo, Legat. 192, referring to the same threat:"We will die and be no more, for the truly glorious death, me t in defence oflaws, might be called life"). One should especially note that on this occasionthere was no hint of a revolt. The delegation of Jews carried no arms, andthey offered the ir lives without the thr ea t of being willing to die fighting

(though Philo does, after the fact, threaten the possibility of a world-widerevolt, Legat. 213—15). (3) There were numerous other instances in whichlarge numbers of Jews indicated that they pre fer red dea th to allowingtransgression and disregard of the law. Pilate, for example, introducedinto Jer usa lem Roma n standards bearing the bust of Caesar. Taking the mto be "graven images," a delegation of Jews followed him to Caesarea andlay prostrate around his house for five days and nights. He had themsurrounded by troops, and they "extended their necks, and exclaimed thatthey were ready rather to die than to transgress the law" (War II. 169—74).

(4) On one point we have archaelogical evidence of widespread observanceof the law. Excavations in Jer usa lem have uncove red nu me rous miqvaoth,immersion pools, required for purification before entering the temple.Many of these were attached to private houses. 20 Further, a miqveh hasbeen found at Masada, 21 and others are scattered around Palestine. Thisarchaelogical evidence confirms literary evidence from Josephus thatpeople generally kept the laws of purity. Tiberias was founded on agraveyard, which made all of its residents impure and unable to worship inthe temple (without a fairly elaborate cleansing process). According to

Josephus, it proved very hard to populate the city, and Herod the Te-trarch, its founder, had to use coercion and bribes. Even so, it was

20. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, pp. 139, 142.21 . Yigael Yadin, Masada: Herod's Fortress and the Zealots' Last Stand (London: Weiden-

feld and Nicolson, 1966), pp. 166-67.

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populated by the offscourings of Israel (Antiquities XVIII.36-38). Ritualpurity is often seen as proof that Judaism was externalistic and obsessedwith trivia. The important thing to remember, however, is that it iscommanded in the Bible and thus was viewed as the will of God. Paul,surely no petty legalist, is depicted as observ ing the laws of purificationbefore en ter ing the temple (Acts 21:26). Whatever ou r pre sent theologicalevaluation of purity, we can see that in the first century the observance ofthe purity laws indicates loyalty to God and his Torah.

We also learn from the story about Tiberias that not everyone wasobservant. Despite the exaggerat ion oí Against Apion II , we can be sure t hatthere were Jews who were contemptuous of the law and who ignored it.Yet we may also be sure that the mass of the common people loved Godand kept his commandments. Can we extend our conclusions to coverJudaism as a religion and a way of life which embraced an entire nation,many resident in the land and many more dispersed throughout theMediterranean?

Judaism as a Whole. I treated Josephus' discussion of Judaism in Against Apion II as evidence for the common people. He intended it more generally, as embrac ing "us ," all Jews. Is it, despite the obvious exaggerat ionand idealization, true? I think that it is, and I shall cite two considerationswhich seem to me decisive.

1. Jo sephus ' description focuses on motivation and principle: Th e Jewsare loyal to the law because God has been gracious to them. He even givesthem the power to respond to his grace by accepting and obeying hisordinances. The decisive consideration is this: Josephus derived that elevated

theology from somewhere. He shows no sign of being a creative theologianhimself, and here he is passing on what he perceives to be the standardview of the relationship between grace and works. This indicates, I think,that it was the standard view. That does not prove, of course, that everyindividual Jew always had this theology in mind no r that every act of everyJew was consciously perceived to be the response to God's grace. Yet Ithink that it is certain that this was the theology which Josephus had beentaught , ju st as his claim that priests mad e intercession principal ly forothers, not themselves, was the "official" priestly view. They were taught

not jus t to be expert butchers, an d not ju st to perform the sacrifices andthe other elements of worship in a dignified way, 22 but to view their service

22. For the beauty and dignity of the service, see The Letter of Aristeas, trans. Herbert T.Andrews in The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. R. H. Charl es (Oxf ord: TheUniversity Press, 1913; repr. 1963), pp. 92-99.

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1985 - E.P. Sanders - Judaism and the Grand Christian Abstractions - Love, Mercy, And Grace

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Transcript of 1985 - E.P. Sanders - Judaism and the Grand Christian Abstractions - Love, Mercy, And Grace