David accepts Zadok as the high priest, 2 Samuel 8:17 & I Kings 2:27 (c. 1000 BC).  Under Zadok, an influential priestly class arose.  They become the Zadokite priesthood.  Known in David’s time as the Sons of Zadok, their firm establishment is given in Ezekiel (593-571 BC, his time of writing): (44.10) “And the Levites who went far from Me, when Israel went astray… after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity.” (15) “But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of My sanctuary (Jerusalem) when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood,” says the Lord God.”  In verse 24, their authority within the Assembly, later known as the Sanhedrin, is also established: “In controversy, they shall stand as judges, and judge it according to my judgments. They shall keep My laws and My statutes in all My appointed meetings, and they shall Hallow My Sabbaths.”

Ezra is highly regarded for
reconsecrating Jewish purity
relative to the law, establishing
the 2nd Temple, & reviving
social order.

Ezra assembles the Torah.

E Z R A   R E- E S T A B L I S H E S   J U D A I S M

King Cyrus II of Persia ends the Jewish exile and funds the rebuilding of the Second Temple.  In 536 BC, Zerubbabel begins the rebuild.  Later, Artaxerxes of Persia ascends the throne in 465 BC, and acquiescing to a Jewish request, commissions Ezra to re-establish the religion of Judaism and Jewish law (458 BC).  Over 40,000 people accompany Ezra from Babylon.  Under Ezra the reintroduction of strict adherence to Torah law is initiated, and most would say even needed, for those who had preceded Ezra to Jerusalem had fallen away and entered into intermarriage with pagans, with all the problems that might then ensue.

Ezra is noted by the scripture “according to the law of thy God which is in thine hand” (Ezra 7:14).  He is descended from Zadok (Ezra 7:1–6).  “Ezra the priest and teacher” (7:11) wrote his history with some later editing by others.  Ezra wrote a complete Torah, which was used as a master copy, providing Judaism with consistency within the law.  The scribes and lawyers, later referred to as the Scribal Authority, began to ascend under Ezra’s influence and leadership.  With this legal emphasis, a growing class of scribes emerged, with many scribes holding civil positions as part of their duties.  During the remaking of Jerusalem society, the scribes became increasingly powerful.  Throughout the new testimony, Jesus will often confront them.

The synagogue facilitated intellectual development within Judaism and provided congregation for the people.  During the time of Ezra, the Great Assembly (later the Sanhedrin) was established.  The Assembly served as the ruling body within the religion, made up of the most learned men of Ezra’s company.  Under Ezra, priests, religious and civil scribes, and lawyers of Mosaic law united the religion and the Jewish state.  However, the Persians would not allow the continuance of the Davidic line of kingship.  This gap in leadership began to be filled with a coalition of monied or otherwise entitled families who began to exert financial and religious authority.  Without a king, the balance of power moved more and more into the Temple, and specifically toward the Temple priests.  By forming the Sanhedrine, this earlier group gave themselves much more influence related to the Law and interpreting the law.

By reinitiating a Torah practice that emphasizes a stronger position for law, it is thought by many scholars that Ezra the Scribe, priest of Aaron and ‘most knowledgeable of the law,’ limited the mystical vision of the Hebrew Bible—there were no prophets in the II Temple period.  Was God silent for a reason?  Centuries later, and under the authority and ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus, the mystic heritage of Judaism would reemerge.  This heritage would deal with heart-teaching as opposed to only knowing the function of things, which would include the law as well as sacrificial ritual.  It will be a teaching of communion with God overseeing the heart and mind.

C O M E T H  the  G R E E K S

With Alexander the Great’s invasion (332 BC), Judaism begins to change inalterably.  Once the Greek Seleucid empire was established (312 BC), many of the Zadokite priesthood (Greek=Sadouks; later, Sadducees) slowly fell into an unhealthy Grecian influence, politically, religiously, and socially.  Within the Temple, politics began to overshadow religious purity.

As to the nation, friction between the Jewish people and Greek rulership began as sporadic local confrontations.  These confrontations were born out of Greek interference in Judaic practices.  In 167 BC Judas Maccabeus and his four brothers lead an insurrection against the Greek Selucids.*

*”Seleucid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes launched a massive campaign of repression against the Jewish religion in 168 BCE. The reason he did so is not entirely clear, but it seems to have been related to the King mistaking an internal conflict among the Jewish priesthood as a full-scale rebellion. Jewish practices were banned, Jerusalem was placed under direct Seleucid control, and the Second Temple in Jerusalem was made the site of a syncretic Pagan-Jewish cult. This repression triggered the revolt that Antiochus IV had feared, with a group of Jewish fighters led by Judas Maccabeus (Judah Maccabee) and his family rebelling in 167 BCE and seeking independence. The rebels as a whole would come to be known as the Maccabees, and their actions would be chronicled later in the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees.

The rebellion started as a guerrilla movement in the Judean countryside, raiding towns and terrorizing Greek officials far from direct Seleucid control, but it eventually developed a proper army capable of attacking the fortified Seleucid cities. In 164 BCE, the Maccabees captured Jerusalem, a significant early victory. The subsequent cleansing of the temple and rededication of the altar on 25 Kislev is the source of the festival of Hanukkah. The Seleucids eventually relented and unbanned Judaism, but the more radical Maccabees, not content with merely reestablishing Jewish practices under Seleucid rule, continued to fight, pushing for a more direct break with the Seleucids” (from Wikipedia).

The conflict becomes organized, and by 164 BC Jerusalem is taken.  Pursuent to that, the Temple is cleansed, Judaism is allowed its freedom by the Greeks.  However, the Greeks still held power in lands nearby Judea.  Even though fighting continues, the Selucid King Balas is later attempting to assume the Syrian throne, and offers Jonathan Maccabeus the position of high priest (152 BC), should the Maccabees support him.  This deal is done.  The Maccabees have made this alliance to secure Greek governmental support.  With the power of the high priesthood, the Maccabees initiate a new era in Judaism.

For the Zadokite priesthood, the major problem becomes the Maccabean lineage.  They were not in the lineage of Zadok, and thus had no right to the position of high priest, regardless of whose authority initiated it.  This was considered a sacriledge by the Zadokites, the Hasadim, the righteous.  Many of these Hasadim would later become known as the Essene.

As the Maccabean War winds down, the various powers have taken sides.  Jewish aristocrats, those wealthier or with hereditary connections, sided with or allowed for this corrupt Maccabean priesthood.  A number of other families began to dominate the Jewish state as well.  The family of Annus would be most prominate.  Not only Annus himself would later serve as High Priest (AD 6-15), but five of his sons also served that office, including Caiaphus.  Appointing Simon (son of Boethus of Alexandria), Herod the Great solidified his Roman alliance, for example.  In all of this, and over decades, as the nation became more corrupted the position of high priest became fluid, and this from a position which previously had been a life-time appointment for purposes of stability.

Under the Harmoneans (the name taken by the Maccabean family), the Sadducees became true religious elitists.  Their power base is now secured with the appointment of Jonathan Maccabeus.  This new lineage of high priests have two main objectives: stay in power, which for now meant Greek alliance, and secondly, collect more money, for the office of high priest was held as much by bribes as for any other reason.  Therein, we see no personage such as Samuel amongst this group.  The otherwise wealthy clans moved with the political wind to maintain holdings, from them there were few objections to Sadducaic authority.

 By 150 BC, and not making any headway in removing the Maccabees, a group of Zadokites instead retreated from Jerusalem, and relocated in Qumran.  The righteous of the Zadokites led a ‘reasoned’ law reform movement, or the return to prophetic tradition, before the formation of the Second Temple.  Such prophets as Isaiah, Elijah, Samuel, and those lesser known, had been absent.   They were also intent upon the coming of the messiah.

Those who relocated became known in Jesus’ day as the Qumran (Ossaean) Essene, or the scribes and lawyers mentioned in the New Testament.  They tended to be older.  They considered themselves the true Temple authority, and within their group made sure that all purity rituals were observed.  They are usually denotated as radical purists.  Being the former Zadokites, the Ossaeans (Essenes) became separatists.  They continued with their priesthood and priesthood training at the Qumran location.  Their rigor is in part ascribed to priestly training, a good deal of which the common person would not be involved.

As we close upon the times of Jesus, the Pharisees also developed purity rituals.  They applied these rituals to demonstrate their own version of sanctity.  They focused on individual performance, but with little thought except to repeat the prayer that went with the ritual.   These various oblations were in essence a legal or formative way to go about sanctification.  They did not address the man but only his formulaic actions (the purity rituals themselves), and of this Jesus would have none.  Pharisaic rituals had by then infiltrated the common population as well.

Even though his work is highly regarded, Ezra represents the transition from the time of the prophets to the time of the law.  This transition into a much more legal view of Judaism contributed to a lack of prophetic leadership from 435 BC until the advent of John and Jesus (see Mt. 23.29-32).  It becomes clear that the lawyered structure of thinking, as well as the rituals to support them, had taken over Judaism.

One last but very important point: after their return to Jerusalem, the Jewish people remained under the lunisolar calendar.  This calendar required adjustments.  The Essene had embraced the basic solar calendar of 364 days (52 weeks).  The Essene believed that the Jewish people were conducting their celebrations on the wrong days.  This would be observed by the Essene as a serious breach concerning two most important attributes: the one is proper worship, which entails sacred days, and the other is obedience, that is, they had brought back with them a pagan calendar.  As you can read in Seth and Enosh, worship and obedience were the cornerstone teachings of the ‘Cult of Yahweh.’  The Essene observed both current priesthoods, Pharisees and Sadducees, as totally corrupt.

Money, Money

The Greeks assigned tax-collecting duties to the Tobiad family.*  The Tobiads favored Hellenistic Judaism, and thus they aligned themselves with the Sadducees.  It should be noticed that religious groups and families are forming an interconnected hierarchy that leverages more and more power.  Wealth from the Temple tax, and other funds due to Tobiad and Greek relationships, flowed into the Sadducee priesthood.  In the nature of things, one power base begins to feed the next, and concentrations of wealth and income soon follow after these  associations.  The Sadducee priests were wealthy enough to maintain ‘summer homes’ in the Greek region of Pella (Decopolis), for instance, even after the Maccabees defeated the Greeks in Judea.  These became the corrupted Sadducees referred to in Jesus’ era.

*”According to this narrative, Joseph was granted the rights to farm taxes from Syria, Phoenicia and Samaria instead of his uncle Onias, by King Ptolemy, due to the former’s refusal to pay tribute to the latter, and did so for twenty-two years.” (Wikipedia)

Almost all Jews considered Hellenization a usurpation of Judaism, and on a societal level becomes a cause for great conflict.  Priestly groups such as the Pharisees and the Assideans* began to take sides.  As mentioned earlier, the outrageous affronts by Epiphanes eventually led to the Maccabean revolt in 167 BC.

*Assideans do not strictly refer to the Essene, although they seem to have the same root.  Essenes formed after the Maccabean revolt, and shared the same dedication to the Torah and the sabbath as the previous Assidean group: Assideans (175-150ish BC; Essenes (150ish BC-70 CE).

About a century into the Greek occupation, and during these chaotic transitions, Sadducaic authority begins to receive closer scrutiny.  Until the rise of the Pharisees (c. 200 BC), the Sadducees had no real competition except within their own priesthood.*   The Pharisees themselves were formed from everyday people, and included the middle class and Levitical priests.   They did not favor this new Hellenized-Zadokite influence.  Antiochus Epiphanes (174-167 BC) sold the position of high priest to the highest bidder, just to give one obnoxious example.  The Pharisees viewed this as a different kind of profanity, this time issued from a foreign power.  The previous order of Temple authority was becoming torn apart, just as Antiochus had hoped.  The Sadducees would now have to be considered a much more political and governmental sect, rather than religious.

*These competitors are noted as the Hasadim, the righteous, who later separate and become known as the Essene.

Running the Temple allowed for overseeing the temple tax.  This tax is accrued under Mosaic law and is intended to maintain the Temple.  The Sadducees’ misuse of tax funds will enable them to maintain personal wealth and power.  One disparity between the Nazarenes, and Jesus in particular, stemmed from a continuation of this monied influence.  The Temple exchange rate for pure coinage was a high spread, especially during passover, and within the Temple only pure coins* could be submitted.  With this, reverence, which is a pillar of Judaism, had become convoluted, as the reverence obviously lay with the money.  The insertion of such greed stood in the way of the sacred meeting between God and man (Mt. 21.13).

*Due to purity laws for the Temple, only high grade silver could be used.  Tyrian shekels were most often exchanged (95%).

Interestingly, the Pharisees later made the temple tax mandatory by law and could seize property if it was not paid.  This rapacious nature insinuates the Pharisees into a monied position within Jewish society: “Woe to you blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath’” (Matt. 23:15-18).  Jesus castigates the lawyers and scribes (Temple priests, Qumran Essene, and Pharisees), but his statements are premised (v. 14) on improperly accumulated wealth.

The Sadducees had become the rich elites, somewhat removed from the people, but due to their heavy representation in the Sanhedrine, the religious supreme court, they determined the direction of Judaism.  This influence is witnessed during the trial of Jesus.  Furthemore, all high priests were Sadducees, adding to overbearing control.  Religious corrruption followed, as the Sadducees had stopped listening to the prophets as the leadership voice of Judaism, but viewed the prophets as an auxiliary commentary.  They did not disavow the prophets, but no longer considered them as the definitive religious heritage keepers.  Only the five books of Moses and the laws therein held final consideration.

With support from the Greeks as well as many other influencial Judaic families, the Sadducees maintained Temple control and remained as the Temple priests.  The same arrangements were continued with the Romans.

Sadducees applied a literalist and more limited interpretation of Mosaic law.  For example, they dismissed the need for a Messiah.  They considered the Pentateuch sufficient.  They believed there was no life after death, or at least questioned who can know such a thing, thus dismissing any sort of personal accounting.  In contrast, the Pharisees later developed the beginnings of rabbinical schools, which stands as a more practical and flexible approach to religious study.  After the Maccabean war, the religious contention between Sadducees and Pharisees would continue.  Between these two priesthoods, the splintering of Judaism begins.

J E S U S  and the  S A D D U C E E S

The Judaic priesthood now has three predominant groups: the worldly Sadducees who remain as the Temple priests and control the Jerusalem Temple; the Ossaean Essene who leave Jerusalem in protest to the Temple priests and how the Temple is administered, and who build their retreat in Qumran; the third group were the Pharisees, related to the former Levitical priesthood.  Then those later to be known as Nazarene Essene might be a fourth group.  They removed themselves from Ossaean formalism, with their keynote teaching being the ‘kingdom within.’  They abided in Galilee and northward into Damascus, also extending into the Hauran region of Arabia.

The Qumran Essene copied many manuscripts and so would have a firm grasp of the law.  Many suppose Qumran as a scriptorium and a location for priesthood training, and that is the view taken on this site.  Also, both Essene groups are now understood as keeping the same Baptism for Repentance as John the Baptist.  Further, almost all scholars accredit John as having been a member of the Ossaean Essene priesthood.  Because of John’s recognition of Jesus as Messiah, it would seem John and Jesus shared similar beliefs.  Certainly no Pharisee or Sadducee could recognize Jesus in such a manner, for they as well as the Ossaean priests were contentious toward Jesus, and all of them had problems with Jesus’ counterposed stance to legalism.

Those who became lawyers attributed the law above all else, taking the law as the religion instead of a religion that contained laws.  Many Pharisees became lawyers in their study of the Torah.  Their interpretation of Torah was also centered on purity, but within daily life, and this led to many rituals performed throughout the day: much more frequent bathing or entering into the mikvah, washing of hands inordinately, wiping the edge of the cup before and after drinking, and other similar rituals that attribute their purity before God.  Some of these rituals appear to be practiced by the priests in Qumran, emphasizing outward correctness before the Lord.  Jesus the Nazarene sees stagnation, and such attributions as useless.

Within the formal religion, Holiness is still determined by outward actions instead of inner motives or intent.  Sacrifice itself becomes a huge bloody mess, blood flowed copiously; while the law itself, in effect, developed into a covering for individual faults or abuses, false motives, or outright deceit.  The Sadducaic law-covering usurps the function of the spiritual tabernacle, and does not mean that any man may have submitted a contrite heart, but by their perception that they have been forgiven through this animal sacrifice.  The Temple is the place of meeting with God, not the law, and whether by sacrifice or through the law, there is no renewel here.  Ezra’s Second Temple has lasted 70 x 7 years, a number Jesus will later mention to Peter concerning the subject of forgiveness.

cleaning the cup on the outside

This heavy handed insertion of the law makes religion a travesty, and by the nature of the covering itself—the laws of God as man interprets them, instead of God Himself—that the Judaic  relationship with God becomes at issue.  There is man’s interpretation of the law, and there is God in His person, who, as God, is not interpreted but must be understood.  Jesus will later teach this very mystical transition of understanding as he identifies the kingdom within.  Man will begin to move from the law unto God Himself by the revelation of the kingdom within and the revelation of the Holy Spirit.  The false narrative of the Sadducees and Pharisees would be corrected by both John the Baptist and Jesus.

Of the Ossaeans, they were primarily a group of men who practiced celibacy and took up priestly training.  Many others appear to have visited Qumran, as larger burial areas are nearby.  Celibacy meant that all new adherents had to come from outside the sect.  This is noted in the life of John the Baptist.  The Ossaeans perceived themselves as ‘Keepers of the Way,’ but their efforts degraded toward legalistic rather than a more omnibus spirituality.  Being a main body of the scribes and lawyers, Jesus often contends with them.  Scribes and lawyers (Essene or Pharisee) are almost always found together within the New Testament.

The Sadducees would limit themselves to the law only, the Pentateuch.  In doing so, they also diminished the prophets, as well as the prophetic voice (Jesus), the prophets who interpreted scripture and wove society together.  This contrast illustrates just how stiff-necked the Sadducees really were.  We know from their behavior this strict and blind approach to rules becomes an excuse not to develop conscience toward the people that they themselves oversee.  What blasphemy!  They have little regard for the poor.

The Pharisees were comprised mainly of middle-class families.  Some believe the Pharisees may have been associated with the Herodian sect.   The Herodians obviously supported Herod, and the Pharisees later sought Herod’s help in moving against Jesus.  It is later that the Pharisees accept laymen.  In Jesus’ day, one could pay for acceptance into this priesthood, and by then the Pharisees had become corrupt, and Jesus considered them so (Mt. 23.14).  During the Hasmonean Dynasty (147 BCE-37 BCE approx.), skirmishes were fought between Pharisees and Sadducees, and hangings and assassinations (sicari) were carried out.

M y s t i c   V i s i o n s

The mystical revelation of God and the continuation of traditional prophetic speaking are slowly being pushed from Jerusalem’s religious stronghold.  Those preserving the higher mystic relationship with God eventually retreat toward the farther reaches of the kingdom, north and east from the Sea of Galilee and into the land of Hauran, bordering as far north as Damascus.  These people are the Nazarenes, who also maintained a strong presence in Galilee.

The date of this retreat is approximately 150 BC.  It seems clear that this retreat, led by the Teacher of Righteousness (an unknown personage), was precipitated by strong objections to Sadducaic Temple authority.  The first groups probably migrated shortly after the beginning signs of breakdown within the Zadokite priesthood. “Consequently, in the eyes of the Jerusalem authorities, the Hauran was a refuge for malcontents and a veritable cesspool of apostasy, the home not only of the Nazarenes but also many other equally heretical groups.  It was where the exiled prophets and their families had long ago retreated,” from Mysteries of the Bridechamber, chapter four, V. LePage, Inner Traditions.

Essenes were known as “the men of perfect holiness” to “separate from the habitation of unjust men” and to “atone for the land,” as was later written under the Community Rule for the operation of the Qumran retreat facility.  It is not that the Nazarenes would disagree with these pronouncements; however, we shall later see Jesus the Messiah give the higher interpretation of the law, a law not just limited to the legalism of the Qumran Essene, which is an approach to sanctity, but spiritual law that oversees and delivers the sanctity sought.  Jesus provides the vision of a transitioned man, whereas those consumed by the law eventually build chains that bind them.

Within the Temple complex

The Sadducees would reject the development and interpretations of the
Pharisaic rabbinic schools. Further, Qumran Essene (scribes & lawyers)
would maintain a much more legalist stance, separating them from Nazarenes.

As we near the time of Jesus, the Temple priests, the Sadducees, would no longer qualify as conservators.  As the ascendant power, they had taken on more influence from the Greeks.  Even though they were strict within the law, they no longer accepted Jewish oral tradition, as the Pharisees did, which left the Sadducean interpretation of the law brittle.  From the internecine war and civil/religious contentions involved with the Sadducees, the Pharisees later emerged (78 BC) as a new power base within Judaism.  The Sadducees, who were the Temple priests of educated and wealthy families, remained in power, but with the rise of the Pharisees, their influence among the people was severely curbed.  As Temple priests, the Sadducees maintained control within the Sanhedrin (Caiaphas), a critical factor when considering the trial of Jesus.

Pharisee & Sadducee

Accurate depiction of a Sadducee priest:
Hair well-trimmed, linen turban,
linen garments (Ez. 44.17-18).

As perceived by the Nazarene Essenes and Jesus himself, the Sadducees had created significant problems within Judaism.  The first deals with their adherence to what today is called Greek Rationalism.  Greek Rationalism (Stoicism, Epicureanism) had invaded Sadducaic thinking, and the syncretism between Greek philosophers and Judaic religion had begun.  Rationalism works well for disciplines such as mathematics, mathematical proofs, and the scientific method, lending a practical approach to personal and social development.  However, spiritual revelation or revealed knowledge might not fare so well in such an atmosphere.  Witnessing or quickening of the spirit and the need for prophetical renewal does not lend itself to intellectual figuring.

Concerning the Torah, the acceptance of Greek Rationalism meant the Sadducees maintained a more intellectual and literal interpretation of the law instead of maintaining any semblance of oral tradition.  Jesus’ ministry was replete with oral tradition, including parables and references to the prophets.

The rise of Gnosticism also occurs under the influence of Greek Rationalism* (see below).

After the Maccabean coalition defeated the Syrian Greeks, another problem erupted: the Sadducees would support the ruling Hasmonean (Jewish) kings.*  Still later, the Sadducees maintained a comfortable relationship with the Romans.  To give a most irritating example, Sadducee priests performed Temple sacrifices for the Romans twice daily, infuriating the Pharisaic order, just as it would Jesus.  This contrivance of cooperation between Sadducees and Romans would later be used as leverage to crucify Jesus.  In short, the Sadducees became the worldly rich and pandered to foreign powers.

*The Maccabees were not in the line of David.

*

By the time of Jesus’ birth, Judaism had become splintered.  The populace was beginning to believe resolution could only come through the Messiah—he who would give the final interpretation of the Law and the Prophets.  The extreme popularity of John the Baptist illustrates this hunger.  Yet, the Sadducees saw no need for the Messiah.  This lack of belief in the need for a messiah became yet another point of conflict with the Nazarenes, the Pharisees, and many common people.  The Sadducees might not grasp the uproar concerning either John or Jesus, except as a threat to their power.  

Even though the Pharisees replaced the Sadducees in 78-76 BC as the predominant sect, the Sadducees continued as the Temple priests.  Their power and influence remained primarily in Jerusalem.  Along with the Pharisees, they ruled within the religious court, the Great Sanhedrin, made up of chief priests, scribes, and elders.  They were also assisted by the chief scribe of the Qumran Essene, perhaps a more weighty figure than Caiaphus himself, for it would be this chief scribe who would give the final interpretation in all matters.  In the trial of Jesus, this chief scribe would have to be a central figure.

God Bless!