Continued
from Last Week…
One
of the saddest days of the Jewish year is Tisha b’Av,
a day of fasting and mourning. It is the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av,
usually occurring in late July or early August by modem reckoning. Among the
five calamities that took place on this fateful day, was the destruction of the
Jerusalem Temple, not once but twice on that same sad anniversary - first by the
Babylonians and then by the Romans.
The
Temple which housed the Ark of the Covenant was the place of sacrifice and
God’s house on earth. It was first built by King Solomon in 832 BC and was destroyed
by the Babylonians 587 years before the birth of Jesus, though rabbinic sources
dispute this precise dating. The temple was rebuilt upon the return of the
exiles of Judah in 516 before the birth of Jesus. It was remade and expanded by
King Herod the Great just before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and was perhaps
the most wonderful building of the Greco-Roman world. It was destroyed by the
Romans in the year 70 after Jesus’ birth.
Remember
that the northern tribes of the Israel were deported from the Promised
Land by the Assyrians in 732 BC. They lost their ethnic and religious
identity during the exile, probably becoming part of the mid-eastern
communities in which they lived. The southern tribes suffered a similar fate
when the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Simeon as well as the Levites and priests
among them were deported by the Babylonians in 587 BC when the southern kingdom
of Juda and its temple were destroyed. The southern tribes, the largest of
which was the tribe of Judah were able to maintain their ethnic and religious
identity. They longed for Jerusalem and its temple and returned to the land
after 70 years of exile. However, not all returned to the land. A substantial
part of the exiled tribe of Judah remained in Babylon where they had built a
thriving community.
They
were a changed people after 70 years in that great cosmopolitan city, Babylon.
They had exchanged their native language for the common language of the Middle
East, Aramaic - a close relative of the Hebrew language of their ancestors, and
more significantly, after two generations of exile, they had learned how to be
Israelites without a temple. The temple had been the undisputed center of the
Israelite religion since the exodus from Egypt. Sacrifice and the rituals of
life happened there. The temple was so important that when the northern and
southern tribes split, the kings of the north established a temple lest the
norther tribes return to their old Jerusalem alliances.
Temple
worship had been everything for the Judah and Israel. Now there was an addition
to the life of Israel: the synagogue. From now on the synagogue would be the
center for Jewish life outside the Holy land, and even within the borders of
the holy land. Rituals of cleansing, and sacrifice slowly took second place to
the moral and ethical content of the Torah, the Jewish law. In short, Judaism
became a form of the Israelite religion that didn’t need a temple.
There
was a period of perhaps 500 years in which temple rituals and the vibrant life
of prayer and study that is still the orthodox Jewish synagogue functioned side
by side. The synagogue opened up the religion of Israel up in way that had
previously been unthinkable. People not from the tribe of Levi could now have a
ritual function within the religious community. Some scholars maintain that the
more extreme strictures of Jewish law applied only to the priestly class and
those going up to the temple in Jerusalem, though Orthodox Judaism would
strongly disagree with this. However, if this is true, then it would seem that
a new school of thought encouraged the common man, the non-priest to enter into
the ritual life of Israel, by participating in the rules that had formerly
applied only to religious elite. This, I emphasize, is merely theory, and not
acceptable to modern Jewish orthodoxy.
Certainly
the dietary restrictions of kosher law seem universal during this period and
before. An Israelite archaeological site is always easy to denote by its lack
of pig bones, but the prohibitions of certain types of clothing and certain
types of labor and some health conditions may only have applied to
participation in temple ritual. Now the common man could become part of elite
by following the laws of the temple, whether or not the temple was accessible
to him. They would be a people set apart in the same way they had been set
apart when they had gone up to the temple.
The scribes, authorities on the law,
and the sages who developed Israelite thought and ethics in the course of these
centuries eventually produced a theological/political party called the
Pharisees, a Hebrew word meaning, “the separate ones.” The rabbi replaced the
priest in the everyday life of the common Israelite, and the synagogue came to
replace the temple, when the temple was no more. The religion of Israel had
become rabbinic Phariseeism, or as it is usually known: Judaism.
Next
week: The end of the temple and the beginning of Christianity.
on to part 4
ReplyDeleteYou might agree on the distinction I am making here: Is Hinduism Older than Judaism and Christianity?
ReplyDelete"Judaism and Christianity are both New Testament era religions. The New Testament and the Fathers on the one hand and the Mishna and Gemara on the other hand are rival and pretty contemporary claimants to being true heir of the Old Testament Temple religion. Judaism claims to be its heir and continuation 'on the backburner', but this time for about 2000 years since latest destruction of temple, unlike the only 70 between one destruction and the rebuilding through Ezra. Christianity claims to be its eternal true meaning, and the Body of Christ is the true temple of which the old one was only a symbol. Christianity does not claim to be 'on the backburner' in that sense."