One Year On

It is a year today since our mum died. I have written this today.

There is no diamond glint on snow

The melody of music has faded now
Even the echoes of laughter have hollowed out
The dance has stopped
and there is no diamond glint on snow

Death has never been nothing at all
and hopes of resurrection are on pause
as life colourless for now
has gone on and gathered pace

Relationships have been reconfigured
and memory sometimes wears a smile
But I know this - and this alone
I miss her and would give anything for her to be home

I have joined Changing Attitude - Cymru

I have a confession to make. It is not an earth shattering one. I am a jobbing vicar ploughing a furrow at the edge of Wales (standing in succession to Cybi and Gwenfaen amongst others).

I have joined Changing Attitude - Cymru. The Cymru bit is important, It does not to me seem as harsh as its English sibling. I am aware that this is a value judgement.

I am an evangelical. I take evangelism, personal discipleship and the witness of the Scriptures very seriously indeed. (Other traditions do too... I can only speak from the tradition of which I am part). One of the highlights of my week at present is leading a Youth Alpha course and I long to see ordinary everyday churchgoers share their faith.

I have followed the discussions held both within the Church in Wales and the Church of England quite closely about human sexuality. Sadly, the debate has all too often revolved around same sex relationships rather than human sexuality in its broadest sense. This is not always helpful.

I have, I think, while being pastorally caring and sensitive (my care and sensitivity have led me into all sorts of problems), I have stood resolutely against the Church offering anything beyond a welcome to those in same sex relationships or people who were attracted to people of the same sex.

I have changed my mind on this issue. Many others have. Many have not. I will always defend the right of those who hold different views to me to do so. I did not stand by and allow those who were members of Changing Attitude to be attacked personally before I joined, and I will not stand by and allow people who do not agree with me now to be subject to abuse either. In any family, differences will be inevitable. What we do with those differences, whilst maintaining relationships is the key thing. Disagreement can be robust and sometimes heated, but it need not be destructive. That would go against the heart of the gospel. The advent of social media is in general a force for good, but has meant we have been able to label, categorise, box and therefore dismiss the other, without accepting that it is other humans we have 'demonised'. No theological tradition can hold up its hand and say it has not had people within it that have not done this. I trust that God will deliver us from the need to be right. One of the first theological books I read was a conversation called Essentials by John Stott and David Edwards. The world may have changed, but we still have much to learn from their respectful and courteous exchanges.

What has prompted me to change my mind?

Watching people. Quietly observing. Listening. And being forced to make a decision.

What would it be like to welcome a same sex couple into my churches and work alongside someone in a gay relationship?

Would it still be welcoming to say you can do this, but not that? I realise that there are times when this is done - and rightly so given a particular constellation of issues. Could I say to someone who undoubtedly God is using that because of their sleeping arrangements and covenant relationship that they have entered into that they were welcome to attend, give money, witness and invite their friends; but not be in leadership. What is leadership in this context? What type of things would that person be excluded from? Yet, at the same time, I am all too aware of my weaknesses and those things that should exclude me too. We allow gossip to run rife without checking it, for example.

Did it actually wash to say, 'I am not against people who are gay' and then act in a way where it would all too easily be perceived that I am? Was I at times making even same sex attraction the unforgivable sin? For me, yes that was the case. This is not the case for other people. But it was for me, and I have lost contact with some for doing so.

The question that will be put to me is what about the Scriptures? Are you going to ignore the texts which seem to condemn homosexual relationships? I hope not. I trust that I will never ignore the scriptures. I find it difficult to just coin the phrase #loveisall. It can so easily come to mean that Love is God, when God is love, yet also justice, compassion, mercy, judge and someone before whom we cannot stand. I resisted the conclusion of Richard Hays book The Moral Vision of the New Testament where he asserts that love is the primary lens through which to interpret the Scriptures, and I would not find it to be appropriate in this instance. It is a fundamental mistake to think that one lens interprets Scripture just because it is convenient for an argument we would wish to make. Scripture should be interpreted by the cacophony of salvation history (God's interaction with us) which culminated in the Christ event.

So, I would not ignore Scripture or seek to reinterpret it to fit a particular tradition: there is no honesty in that. I am reminded of a lecture at the Queen's Foundation, where I trained for ordained ministry, where the then Dean of Birmingham, Gordon Mursell. I believe he went on to become Bishop of Stafford. The Dean spoke of reading Scripture and sometimes acknowledging that the bridge between the world of the writer and our world is simply so different that a clash of worlds take place. I embrace the uncomfortability of scripture on the texts that speak about human sexuality and allow God to meet me in the collision between my world and the world of writer(s). The uncomfortable place could be the wrong place, but could also be the holy place.

The fact that Fred loves Ben, or Mabel loves Sarah (these are names I have plucked out of the air) does not in essence seal any argument. Fred loving Ben might produce good fruit in the same way as say Steve loving Lesley. If we believe human beings are fashioned in the image of God, we would expect human love to reflect something of God's glory, marred though we are as human beings.

Now of course Steve loving Lesley allows for procreation in the way Mabel loving Sarah does not, and yet if that is the sole purpose of a covenant relationship (marriage), then my marriage given that it is an infertile one has to be regarded as somehow deficient. That is the stark reality of that argument, one which the order of service for marriage has softened over time because of the changing cultural context of our liturgies and our understandings about God and humanity.

Individual texts need to be read in the overall context of the story of God and his people, and the loving relationship that we are called into. Some of the texts used do seem to be talking about a level of promiscuity that Christians of whatever sexuality would feel a betrayal of the life that God has called us to lead.

At the end of day, I long to see the church as a space where all are welcomed, without fear or favour, where our common life is celebrated and indeed challenged.

I have not suddenly become an advocate for Gay rights. I actually do not think same sex marriage is a particular aim that I would lay down my life for. I have though seen Christ in my brothers and sisters and pressed pause button, and asked once again the question Gamaliel asked so long ago concerning the witness of the apostles; perhaps this movement we see is of God... and if not it will fade, and I will be left with egg all over my face. Whatever happens we must have space where all people can be welcomed without fear regardless of who they are and how God made them.

I am still as passionate about evangelism, discipleship, church growth and the scriptures. God is still on God's throne :-)

Judaism at the time of Jesus 1

What is Second Temple Judaism?

Jesus, Mary, Paul, Mary Magdalene and Peter were all Jews. This course will help us understand how Judaism shaped their understandings of God, the Scriptures and the way they should live. We will examine the political (the exiles occupations and revolts), social (the influence of Hellenistic thought on Jewish thinking and Judaism in the Diaspora), religious (groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Essenes) and theological (understandings of exile and Messiah) contours which shaped the Judaism that Jesus knew. Finally, we will look at an understanding of First Century Judaism sheds light on the life and teachings of Jesus and some of the controversies in the letters of the Apostle Paul.

The period of time that we are looking at in this course begins at 569BCE (the sacking of Jerusalem and Israel being taken into Exile in Babylon) to 70CE[1] (the destruction of the Temple).[2]

Why spend time studying Judaism at the time of Jesus?

The fact that Jesus was Jewish can come as a gigantic bombshell to many Gentile Christians. Geza Vermes is correct, in one sense, ‘Jesus was a Jew and not a Christian’.[3] In another, to dismiss the connections between Jesus and Christianity is disingenuous and does not do justice to years of Christians who have wrestled to make sense of Judaism in the light of Jesus.

A particularly important reason for looking at Judaism at the time of Jesus is that to do so, takes the whole drama of God’s salvation history seriously. N T Wright has argued that for Christians, the scheme of salvation is split into different acts: Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus and the Church.[4] Thus, as Wright would argue in order to understand Jesus we need to understand the culture (including the language and histories) from which he came.

At the same time, there has been a tendency for Jews to see the Judaism of this period as merely a forerunner for rabbinic Judaism that has become dominant.[5]

Why are you studying this particular course? What three things do you hope to learn/understand more fully as a result of spending time engaging with this course?

 

What sort of faith was Judaism?

Second Temple Judaism, Early Judaism and Common Judaism have all been terms to describe Judaism of the period under discussion. All can be used to a certain extent interchangeably.

Up until the early 1970s, biblical scholarship seemed to concur that Judaism at the time of Jesus was a legalistic religion, with its emphasis on the law. This meant that it was something that stood against the faith exemplified by Jesus as one of grace. Such interpretations of Judaism are rooted in a particular understanding of the Early Church Fathers, and perhaps even of the Gospels.

In 1977, Ed Sanders produced what is now regarded as a seminal work, although with critique and caveats, which argued that Judaism, like Christianity, is predominantly a religion of grace.[6] Sanders argued that for Judaism: “obedience maintains one’s position in the covenant, but it does not earn God’s grace as such. It simply keeps an individual in the group which is the recipient of God’s grace.” (p420) In other words: “obedience is universally held to be the behaviour appropriate to being in the covenant, not the means of earning God’s grace.” (421). ‘Israel’s situation in the covenant required the law to be obeyed as fully and completely as possible … as the only proper response to the God who chose Israel and gave them commandments’ (p. 81). Sanders approach has become known as covenantal nominism. This is summarised as follows:

“(1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain election and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedience and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atonement results in (7) maintenance or re-establishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are maintained in the covenant by obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achievement.” (p422)

Do you normally think of Judaism as a religion of law or grace? How is Judaism portrayed within your local Church setting?

 Judaism during this period was ‘diverse and dynamic’.[7] There are examples of this in the New Testament; the Acts of the Apostles records the differences between Pharisees and Sadducees.

When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead.’ ⁷ When he said this, a dissension began between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. ⁸ (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.) (Acts 23:6-8).

The diversity within Judaism has led some scholars to refer to Judaisms rather than Judaism.[8] Even within such diversity, there were the contours of what might be described as ‘Common Judaism’.

          The temple, the torah, the one God who was worshipped in the temple

          and obeyed in the following of the torah, election as his covenant people to

          whom he had given temple and torah – this common Judaism gave Jews

          common identity in very concrete ways.[9]

Conclusions: Judaism was diverse, but there were discernible contours which gave flexible parameters in which Jews lived and practiced their faith.

What contours do you think are important for Judaism today?

 

  

Contours of Second Temple Judaism

The Temple: one of the best known sayings in rabbinic literature is attributed to Simon the Righteous who noted that the world stood on three things: the torah, the Temple service and deeds of loving kindness’ (m. Abot 1.2). For such a statement to make sense, the Temple and worship offered there would not only have to been highly regarded, but viewed to have had a profound significance.[10] Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (mid-1^st Century CE) holds that the Temple service is connected with the continued stability of the cosmos. The historian Josephus and the philosopher Philo of Alexandria both talk of the Temple as having cosmic significance, without seeing need to give any specific evidence. The Book of Jubilees argues that worship on earth (in the temple) is the exact mirror image of the worship offered in heaven. Second Temple Jewish literature make key figures of Jewish history to be priests, whether Abel, Noah or Moses. The Jerusalem Temple was for many the only legitimate Temple, although there is evidence of a cult on Mount Gezirim, which followed the commandments given to Moses, and one in mid-second century BCE in Leontopolis, in Egypt. However neither rivalled Jerusalem as the focal point of Temple worship. The Covenanters at Qumran believed the Temple to be corrupt and in need of renewal. As a community they believed they themselves embodied the Temple. This is particularly seen in texts like 4QFlorilegium.

The focal point of worship at the Temple was sacrificial. Sacrifices were made when worshippers wished to ask forgiveness for a particular wrong-doing or to offer thanks for a particular blessing. Thus the Temple, particularly for Palestinian Jews, would have played a vital role in ‘everyday life’, the three annual pilgrimage feats, which were Passover, the Festival of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles being particularly important. Evidence suggests that most male Jews attended Temple worship at least once per year. In addition, a Temple tax was levied. This has its roots in the time of Nehemiah, but continued; so much so that after the destruction of the Temple; Caesar decreed that the tax be transferred to the Temple of Jupiter in Rome. Worship at the Temple was a community-family affair. The sacrifices were shared together by those who had offered them.

During the third century BCE, alternative places of worship, synagogues began to develop, first in the Diaspora, and perhaps only in the first century BCE in Palestine. These were not places of sacrifice, but of learning. They were not seen as replacement gates of heaven, nor necessarily were they rival power bases to the Temple in Jerusalem. Synagogues were places where Jews gathered to be taught the Law.

Torah (The Law): ‘At the heart of the Jewish religion there lies the Torah. That collection of history, legend and Law gives the reason for Israel’s existence and sets out the means by which that existence can be continued under God’.[11] Within the Second Temple period, there were a number of different interpretations of the Torah; indeed the Pharisaic movement had the schools of Hillel and Shammai. The Qumran Community, under the Teacher of Righteousness interpreted the Law differently from those in Jerusalem. The Samaritans held only the first five books were the Law or Torah; as interestingly enough did the Sadducees.

Within Palestine of the Second Temple period, it was the priests who first and foremostly interpreted the Law, and they primarily had a cultic role.[12]

What do you think Jesus’ attitude to the Torah was?

 

The Land: That the Land of Israel had been given to his people by God was a deeply embedded belief within Early Judaism (Deut. 6:20-25, 26:5-10). Israel was to be a people separated, and devoted only to their God, Yahweh.[13] This was why the various exiles to and conquests of Israel by pagan nations caused not just national angst but theological soul-searching. Indeed, some significant developments in the understanding of God were caused by the experience of Israel, for example the ‘promotion’ of Yahweh, the God of Israel as the sole creator of the universe (Isaiah 41:8-9 cf. 44:1). Furthermore, N T Wright has demonstrated that the many Jews at the time of Jesus appear to have thought of themselves in exile whilst still in Israel.[14]

He chose Israel to be His people. And He sanctified it, and gathered it from amongst all the children of men; for there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His, and over all hath He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray from Him. 32 But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit, for He alone is their ruler, and He will preserve them and require them at the hand of His angels and His spirits, and at the hand of all His powers in order that He may preserve them and bless them, and that they may be His and He 33 may be theirs from henceforth for ever. (Jubilees 15)

Belief in one God: ‘Theology as an abstract speculative exercise did not form a significant part of the religious reflection for most Jews... the God whom the Jews worshipped was the God of the covenant’.[15] All the contours of Judaism make sense only if the God of Israel is the one true God. Such a position is classically stated in the Shema (Deut. 6:4) and Isaiah 40-42.

A Brief Aside: the Importance of Story

‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, 7 we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Deuteronomy 26:5-9 What does this story do for Jewish People? Do Christians have a similar story?

Second Temple Jewish Groups

Pharisees: Much of what most of us know about the Pharisees comes from the Gospels, and the Evangelists by and large portray this group as legalistic and hypocritical opponents of Jesus. There is however some coalescence between the Gospels and later rabbinic literature about the Pharisees. Both sources would agree that they are concerned with the traditions of the fathers and about what appears to be the legal minutiae of obedience to the Torah (e.g. hand washing, tithing and Sabbath observance).[16] The Pharisees though were in a real sense the people’s party.

Josephus, the ancient historian, writes: Now, for the Pharisees, they live meanly[17], and despise delicacies in diet; and they follow the conduct of reason; and what that prescribes to them as good for them they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason's dictates for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. They also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about Divine worship, prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction; insomuch that the cities give great attestations to them on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives and their discourses also.

Sadducees: We actually have very little information about the Sadducees. From both the NT and rabbinic sources, we know that they formed a large proportion of the Sanhedrin and the Jerusalem priestly families were drawn from their circles.

Josephus writes: That souls die with the bodies; nor do they regard the observation of anything besides what the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent: but this doctrine is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

Essenes: The Essenes are usually associated with the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. This connection was first made by the Roman writer, Pliny the Elder (Natural History 5:73).

Josephus writes: That all things are best ascribed to God. They teach the immortality of souls, and esteem that the rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for; and when they send what they have dedicated to God into the temple, they do not offer sacrifices (3) because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. It also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree, that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither Greeks nor barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. This is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer any thing to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he who hath nothing at all. There are about four thousand men that live in this way, and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust, and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. They also appoint certain stewards to receive the incomes of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men and priests, who are to get their corn and their food ready for them. They none of them differ from others of the Essenes in their way of living, but do the most resemble those who dwell in cities.

The two major documents of the Community are the Community Rule and the Damascus Document. It is clear that the Community saw themselves as the true Israel; a righteous remnant set apart from a corrupt system based in Jerusalem.

Josephus adds a fourth philosophy, which have become linked with the Zealots, which he briefly passes over.

There were however not large numbers of Jews in any of these parties: 4000 Essenes, 6000 Pharisees and a handful of Sadducees.[18]

What are our sources?

Vanderkam is correct that classifying the different types of Jewish literature of our period is difficult. Some of our canonical texts like parts of Genesis and Isaiah find their completed form in the early part of the period. Josephus and Philo of Alexandria were both voluminous in their output and their literature is using considered by itself. Other significant literature is classified under ‘apocrypha’ or ‘pseudepigrapha’, which in themselves could be taken to be theologically loaded terms.[19]

The main sources for studying Second Temple Judaism can be taken to include:

Josephus: a Jewish historian chronicling the history of the Jewish people for a Roman audience.

Philo of Alexandria; a philosopher

History: 1, 2 and 3 Maccabees

Rewritten Scripture: Jubilees and 1 Enoch (Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) and Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82)

Apocalyptic: Sibylline Oracles and Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71)

Wisdom Literature: Wisdom of Ben Sira and Baruch

Poetic Works: Prayer of Manasseh and Psalms of Solomon

The New Testament

Rabbinic Literature

We also need to note that many Palestinian Jews would not have been literate, and their access to their sacred texts, canonical or otherwise, would have been mediated by priests or scribes. Many Jews, while longing for the redemption of Israel would have been equally as, if not more so, just to make ends meet in a world of famine, war and ever-increasing taxation.

Conclusions

(1)       Judaism was diverse and should not be described as legalistic

(2)       Judaism was based on belief in the one covenant God of Israel

(3)       The God of Israel had given his people the Law

a.    There were different interpretations of the Law

b.    Jesus, for the most part, seems to have interpreted the Law in a very Jewish way

(4)       God met with the people most specifically in the Temple

(5)       There were groups of Jews who thought that the Jerusalem power base was corrupt

(6)       Jesus and the followers of the way were one stream amongst many other Jewish groups seeking to make sense of what it meant to keep the covenant under the occupation of Imperial Rome.

Why is it important to remember that Jesus was Jewish? Come prepared either to argue that it was or was not important.

 

---

[1] I use the terms BCE and CE instead of BC and AD. BCE and CE mean Before the Common Era and Common Era or sometimes Before the Christian Era and Christian Era)

[2] James Vanderkam, An Introduction to Early Judaism Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001, p. 1 and Lester Grabbe, An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism (London: T & T Clark, 2010), p. xi. Vanderkam dates the period from 516BCE and Grabbe wishes end the period at 135CE with the Jewish Revolt.

[3] Jesus and the World of Judaism London: SCM, 1983, p.1.

[4] New Testament and the People of God London: SPCK, 1993, p. 83-86.

[5] G Nickelsburg and M Stone, Early Judaism: Texts and Documents on Faith and Piety (revised edition) Minneapolis: Fortress, Press, 2009, p. 1.

[6] Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion London: SCM, 1977)

[7] E P Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63BCE to 66CE London: SCM, 1992, p. 3.

[8] Judaisms and their Messiahs at the turn of the Christian Era (Cambridge: University Press, 1987)

[9] Richard Bauckham, ‘The Parting of the Ways: What happened and why?’ Studia Theologica 47 (1993) p. 139.

[10] C T R Hayward, The Jewish Temple: a non-biblical sourcebook London: Routledge, 1995, p. 1. This Rabbinic saying is all the most interesting given the time gap between the composition of the Mishnah and the destruction of the Temple in 70CE.

[11] C Rowland, Christian Origins (London: SPCK, 1985), p. 49.

[12] Grabbe, p. 43

[13] J Dunn, The Partings of the Ways London: SCM, 1991), p. 21-23

[14] New Testament and the People of God London: SPCK, 1993

[15] Rowland, p. 29

[16] Grabbe, p. 52.

[17] ‘meanly’ should be taken as ‘frugally’ or ‘simply’.

[18] Sanders, p. 14.

[19] Vanderkam, p. 54.