Flourishing before the Crisis: Mapping Judaean Society in the First Century ce

Eyal Regev

Thanks to , the New Testament, and to a certain degree rabbinic lit- erature, our historical knowledge of Judaean society, especially in , in the mid-first century ce is more extensive than in any other ancient period. These sources present the various forms of Judaean . They lack, how- ever, a description of the general and social phenomena that shaped Judaean society and affected the relationship between different groups. The first part of this article aims to consider some of the social features of groups and parties – the , the , the , , and Apocalyptic Movements, and the early Christians. The second part points to several social developments and phenomena in Judaean society. Some of these phenomena, such as the competition between different groups or parties, the economic and demographic growth of Jerusalem, the presence of diaspora in the city, and the centrality of the Temple, can be recovered from Josephus, the New Testament, and perhaps early rabbinic literature. Other social developments can be traced only through the archaeological record: the spread of individualism in the Jerusalem society, non-priestly purity, the use of ossuaries, and the fragmentation of the family structure. In the last part of the article I will suggest that all these social dynamics may provide a new explanation for the social crisis of Judaean society in the Great Revolt against Rome (66–70ce), which was actually a civil war between those who were for or against the revolt, and between different zealot groups. The article does not pretend to summarize our knowledge about late Second Temple period Judaism. The scope here is limited to a survey of studies in order to give a general overview that has implications for the collapse of Judaean soci- ety in 66–70ce.1 My discussion focuses on social aspects and not on literary evidence, paying special attention to the contribution of archaeological find- ings to our understanding of social and cultural trends.

1 For surveys of sources and scholarship, see Saldarini, Pharisees; Sanders, Judaism.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi: 10.1163/9789004278479_004 flourishing before the crisis 53

Parties and Ideologies: Social Power and Religious Ethos

The Sadducees Most of the high-priestly families were Sadducees. Several well-known high may be identified as such. Ananus son of Ananus, from the high-priestly house of Hanan, was a Sadducee (Ant 20:199). So were the followers of Joseph (Acts 5:17), hence Caiaphas himself, who was of the house of Katros/ Cantheras, seems to be a Sadducee. Ishmael son of Phiabi confronted the early rabbis since he wished to follow the Sadducean halakha of burning the red heifer in a state of complete purity after sundown (tPar 3:6). The rabbis mention the interchangeably with the Sadducees and attribute Sadducean laws to them. The Boethusians probably should be identified with the high priests of the house of Boethos, first nominated by Herod and regarded as part of the Sadducean party. Hence, there is evidence that the four major high-priestly houses were Sadducees. This is also implied by many references in rabbinic sources about struggles between the Pharisees and Sadducees in matters pertaining to the Temple. I shall now turn to the halakha and religious ideas of the Sadducees. In doing so, I assume that the efforts the Sadducean high priests made to execute and perform their own halakha, while rejecting and abolishing the competing laws of the Pharisees, are also an expression of social power. The Sadducees maintained a strict approach to purity and penal laws (for the latter, see Ant 13:294; 20:199; cf War 2:166) and were committed to the literal sense of Scrip- ture. According to the Scholion to , the Sadducees demanded physical punishment for the individual who injured his fellow being’s body, literally interpreting the command of an ‘eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’.2 They debated with the Pharisees, who deduced that these verses allude to mon- etary compensation equal to the physical injury. The Sadducees argued that the red heifer should be burnt only by a high who is entirely pure at sundown (that is, immersed in a ritual bath and then waiting for sundown); the Pharisees claimed that the high priest may burn it in the incomplete state of levitical purity, tevul yom, that is, when he had just immersed and had not waited till sundown. Thus, the Sadducees demanded that the ritual of cleans- ing from corpse impurity be executed in a state of perfect purity, whereas the Pharisees seemed to claim that Scripture does not specify such a demand regarding the high priest’s status of purity. Since this ritual is not performed in

2 Scholion to Megillat Taanit, Ms. Oxford, 10 Tammuz; Noam, Megillat Taʽanit, 78f, 211f.