Palestine at the Time of Jesus' Birth
Author: Andrew Cort

During their years of exile in Babylonia and Persia, the
Jewish people had absorbed the idea that life is a
battlefield between Good and Evil. Later on, back in
Roman-occupied Judea, the line between Good and Evil seemed
to have been clearly drawn between the Jews and the Romans.
This divisiveness was further fueled by several conflicts
that had been brewing for a very long time:

First, there was the growing anger and cynicism caused by
the corruption and violence of their own rulers as well as
their occupiers. Various new groups and 'movements' -
particularly the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes
- were shaped and motivated by these sentiments.

The Sadducees were mostly members of the wealthy
conservative elite. They had opened their hearts to the
secular world of Greek culture and commerce, while
insisting that the only worthy form of Judaism was to be
found in a rather spiritless, fundamentalist, "pure
letter-of-the-law" reading of the Torah. Philosophically,
they denied such concepts as resurrection, personal
immortality, or other ideas that were only found in the
oral tradition. Politically, they contented themselves with
the way things were and resisted change, preferring instead
to promote cordial relations with the Romans. Although they
often held influential positions in society, they were
unpopular with the masses who generally opposed all foreign
influences.

The Pharisees, the largest group, were mostly middle-class
Jews who emphasized the exact keeping of the law as it had
been interpreted by sages, elders, and rabbis. Politically,
they were ardent anti-Hellenists and anti-Romans. The
Pharisees were admired by the majority of Jews, but they
were never a very large group since most people had neither
the education nor the time to join the party and follow all
their stringent rules regarding prayer, fasting, festival
observance, tithing, etc. Pharisees were greatly influenced
by Persian ideas of Good and Evil, and they adhered to the
growing belief in the resurrection of the body with an
afterlife of rewards and punishments. Over time, many of
the finer impulses of Pharisaism would weaken into an empty
religious formalism (as is ever the case), focusing on
outward actions rather than the inward experience of the
soul. Although the group had initially been exceedingly
tolerant, this began to devolve into a feeling of contempt
toward those Jews who did not meet their standards of
behavior.

From among the more politically radical of the Pharisees
there came a new group called the Zealots, meaning 'men of
action'. These were revolutionary patriots, who sought to
overthrow the Roman regime by whatever means necessary.
They were strongest in Galilee. As the Romans committed one
atrocity after another, the ranks of the Zealots grew. (By
66 CE their ranks would be swollen, and they would lead the
charge against the Roman oppressors, initiating a long,
costly, and bitter war, that finally ended with the
inevitable Roman victory and the destruction of the Second
Temple in 70 CE).

At the other extreme were the Essenes. These were religious
Jews who, in contrast with the Sadducees, now rejected the
Temple and the Priesthood believing these had been defiled
by corruption and murder. They also scorned what they felt
was the spiritually empty and overly 'comfortable' life of
the Pharisees. And unlike the Zealots, they had no taste
for politics or violence. They chose, instead, to withdraw
from secular activities and devote themselves entirely to
spiritual purification and contemplation within austere
religious communities. The Essenes are not mentioned in the
New Testament, but Flavius Josephus, Philo, Pliny, and
various others speak of them in their writings. According
to the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were
discovered in 1947, and the additional scrolls that were
later excavated from a Jewish monastery in Qumran, the
Essene communities worked and worshipped according to their
own customs, studied and copied religious literature,
practiced baptism and a communion meal, and lived an
ascetic life devoted to spiritual growth and the perfection
of the soul.

Another source of seething hostility in Palestine was a
peculiar new experience of the times, the phenomenon called
'religious persecution'. People had often wondered why God
allowed good people to suffer despite their being good. But
now, as the Jews found themselves being persecuted simply
because of their religious practices, they began to wonder
why it was that God would allow people to suffer BECAUSE
they were good! Such persecution seemed the very essence of
evil.

Fortunately, the belief in a cosmic struggle between Good
and Evil carried with it a growing conviction that Good
would ultimately triumph. Therefore, the experience of
religious persecution, according to Julie Galambush in "The
Reluctant Parting", "proved to be the catalyst for a
developing belief that those who died for their faith in
this world would be rewarded in another world - life after
death through resurrection." Rather than being seen as
unfortunate wretches who had been unaccountably forgotten
by God, such people began to be seen as martyrs - religious
heroes whom God would reward in the afterlife for their
goodness and their faithfulness. The philosophical belief
that God - and Good—would ultimately triumph over
Evil, coupled with rising political tension with Rome and
the anticipation of inevitable war, led to an increasingly
'apocalyptic' view of the world: in other words, many Jews
in Palestine began to believe that the end of the world (at
least as we know it) was rapidly approaching. God was about
to triumph over Evil, He would judge the wicked, He would
reward the just, and a New Order would dawn.

To lead God's legions to victory against hopelessly adverse
political conditions, and to establish a new kingdom of
God, a leader with divine power would be necessary. And
thus, a messianic hope was kindled in the heart of Judaism.
God had promised Samuel that an anointed son of David would
rule over the Israelites forever. Where was he? Now, after
centuries of Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and
Roman oppression, faith in God and hope for the future
combined into the belief that God was finally going to send
Moshiach, "the anointed one", the Messiah, to rescue Israel
and lead them to a new world. As Galambush writes:
"Messianic expectations, cosmic dualism, martyrdom, and
resurrection - an entire constellation of beliefs absent
from ancient Israelite religion - suddenly took center
stage. In some respects Jewish life continued as it had
done for centuries: the rituals in the Jerusalem temple
followed forms set down in Leviticus, and the rhythm of
Sabbath and the festivals went on as always. But in the
final centuries before the Common Era, Jewish popular
imagination had come to occupy a far more colorful
religious landscape, one in which history was fast
approaching its end." It was into this colorful,
dangerous, and hopeful world that a child called Jesus, of
the Tribe of Judah and the House of David, was born in
Bethlehem.


About the Author:

Are you interested in knowing more about Bible History and
Biblical Symbols? Read "Return to Meaning: The American
Psyche in Search of its Soul", and "From Joshua to Jesus"
(the above article is an excerpt) by Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C.,
J.D. To place an order, read Free Excerpts, and find out
about Talks and Seminars, click here now
http://www.andrewcort.com . Dr. Cort lives in the
Berkshires in western Massachusetts.