In the previous part we saw, how Vespasian became emperor in 69 AD. He was a good emperor. He died in 79, and his son Titus, who had conquered Jerusalem in the year 70 succeeded him. Titus too was a good emperor, but he introduced taxes for Jews who wanted to be true to their religion. He died already after 2 years, and was succeeded by his brother Domitian. He wanted to be worshipped as a god and as the Christians did not want to do that they were persecuted. The book Relevations was written at that time.
The Jews did not have to worship him, but the tax Titus had introduced was now imposed on every Jew and sometimes collected roughly.
Important people were murdered on a large scale in his time.
In 96 he himself was murdered and succeeded by Nerva, the first of the five socalled “good emperors”. The others were Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius en Marcus Aurelius. As we will see Hadrian did not earn that name by the way he treated the Jews.
As we saw in the previous part the Romans conquered in 70 Jerusalem and destroyed both the Temple and the city. Especially the destruction of the Temple was a great shock to the Jews. How could God allow this? For the Christians it was a shock too; often they concluded that God had deserted Israel, and that instead of Israel now came the Christian church.
Many persuasions existed in Jewism, and for most of them the destruction of the Temple was the end of the Jewish faith.
Only the pharisees were capable to go on with life.
During the siege of Jerusalem the important rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai was smuggeled outside the city (in a coffin), and had after that asked the Romans whether in Jawne the school for the study of the Thora could stay open.
It was allowed, and together with a few other rabbis the school was extended.
But the theology of the Pharisees had to be reconstructed as well. E.g. many commands in the Thorah deal with the bringing of sacrifices in the Temple. What had to be done now? Some asked the question: if we cannot bring God food sacrifices, are we allowed to enjoy our food? Should we not restrict ourselves to the strictly necessary? Many did not eat meat anymore, and drank no wine.
The Pharisees thought that sacrifices in behalf of fellow-men could come instead of sacrifices in the Temple. “Charity is better than sacrifices”.
Other subjects studied in Jawne were: A decison should be made which books belonged to the Canon (as we call it). So which book belongs to the Old Testament, and which book does not (expressed in Christian terms). Song of Songs, Esther and Ecclesiastes were points of discussion. A decision was made on these questions, and the Christian church of that time has accepted this Jewish Canon without changes.
Until the destruction of the Temple only the Tanach (more or less the Protestant Old Testament was present in written form. In the old Hebrew script no vowels were present, which made reading difficult. In fact it was more an aid for someone who knew the text already. If there were no rabbis present anymore texts would be very difficult to read.
An extensive oral tradition did exist, not written on paper.
Partly because one might think that the tradition was equally important as the Tanach, partly from competion reasons: when written down everybody could read it, and teachers would not be necessay anymore.
But now it was realized that a rabbi is a very vulnerable way of storing information. Moreover the tradition grew and became confused, and some parts where contrary to others. It became important to analyze and write down the tradition. This started in this time. In case of difference of opinion a decision was taken by voting.
In the end it lasted centuries. The end-result is the Talmud.
From the talmud we derive stories about wise rabbis etc.
Apart from the Jews in Palestina the Jews in Babylon had a great influence on the development of the Jewish theology.
In these days the opinion is presented that Jesus was a Jew and therefore we should learn from present-day Jews how the people in Jesus’ time thought.
This is quite relative: Jesus lived in a time the Temple still existed, as well as 24 groups with different opinions. In His time the temple was the center of the Jewish religion. This is true for Jesus as well. About him was written: “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up” (John 2:17)
And some of his fiercest reproaches deal with Temple and altar:
Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, "Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!"
Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
And, "Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty” Matth. 23:16-18.
Clearly this were rules originating from the Sadducees.
Contemporary orthodox Jews are Pharisees; about the ideas of the Sadducees little is known, and that is more or less true for the Zealots and Essenes as well.
The ideas of Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots are not a part of contemporary Jewish thinking. The Talmud is from the time after Jesus. Contemporary Jewism differs a lot from that of Jesus’ time.
That does not mean it is not useful to go into modern Jewism. If only to think about the question how the gospel of love could lead to so much hatred for those who think otherwise.