25. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots (Jewish History Lab)
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2020
- Brief overview of some of the main political-religious movements active in 1st century Israel. This lecture is also part of the course entitled Biblical Jewish History: From Abraham to Bar Kochba. Course information and registration here: henryabramson.com/course/bibl...
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I'm here because I am a Christian who keeps the Sabbath, and I've been called a Pharisee in a derogatory way many times for doing so. So, I figured I'd learn a little bit about them from you. Thanks for delivering your teachings with kindness. I pray you have a blessed shabbat, and many more to come.
A Christian going on a Jewish channel saying "I keep the Sabbath" 😆 OH boy, you neo Protestants! So, eager to relate to Jews yet you know so little about them.
As an atheist and fellow Canadian, I love listening to Dr Abramson’s lectures, even his lame dad jokes. He really brings to life the tumultuous first century, a period which is endlessly fascinating.
Many thanks for another superb lecture.
Many years ago in a CCD lecture on some New Testament reading the teacher explained to us just how to remember the difference between a Sadducee and a Pharisee. The Sadducee gets up in the morning, goes into the bathroom, looks into the mirror and says, “I don’t believe in the resurrection, I’m sad you see.” The Pharisee, like most people, Hellenized or not, completes the same morning ritual but declares instead, “I believe in the resurrection, I’m fair you see.” I have no reliable information on how the Zealots got their name but I can hazard a slightly educated guess that it is due to their uncanny ability to find an authentic Chinese restaurant in any neighbourhood
Dr Abramson is my favorite living historian, he should have a show on CBC, he's Canadian EH, from Thunder Bay.
Thank you! A little north of Thunder Bay, but close enough, eh?
@@HenryAbramsonPhD hi I am from thunder bay and studying orthodox Judaism online. Could I speak with you ?
Yes he should! He explains it better than my history teacher in Israel!I am so glad i found this channel. I watched 24 videos in the past 1 day :D very nicely done and chronological
Thank you again Dr Abramson. I'm inspired by your intellectual honesty - genuine yiras shamayaim.
Much appreciated, albeit undeserved.
So happy to listen to you. Thank you for your teaching and the kindness and knowledge you share
You are so welcome
Great conference of these 3 groups.Keep on the good work.
Fascinating. So happy to have discovered your channel. Thank you so much.
Wonderful video, as always. Thank you.
Thank you too!
Dr. Abramson has the best lectures on Jewish history EVER! Given in small chunks so its easily absorbed, understood and remembered!! So appreciated!
Thank you!
as it was, so it is. One of my favourite lectures. Thanks.
Glad to hear that!
great vid Henry, Got a great personality!
It's all an act.
Excellent! Thank you for your work.
My pleasure!
Nice outline! Thankyou!!
Thank you too!
Wow. This is so good. Easy to listen to.
I'll be using it in Australia with my year 10 biblical studies class.
Cheers.
Another great video once again, thank u very much for your insight
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you, always wonder how these groups fit into the story.
More in the next lecture, too.
Thank you for the clear explanation here
Sir, may I thank you so much for this. I am a Dutch historian who is writing a piece for the son of my best friend. He is 25 years old and wants to read the bible for the first time. When I try to find information about jewish religion in the first century CE, I get many christian videos who are totally biased. Jesus good, Jews bad....(sigh). Rather depressing stuff. So your video is like a breath of fresh air! My compliments. Shalom from Holland to you all.
Can't wait for the lecture on Karaite Judaism !! And Jewish Kalam as well - i hope! Great videos 👍
I used to think in Steve Winwoods song Back in the High Life Again, that he was saying you know we'll be a sadducee back in the High Life Again
Excellent lecture. Thank you.
You are welcome!
Thank u so much for this. I’ve been scouring YT trying to find a non-Christian analysis of these groups 😊🙏🏻👍
Thank you! 🖖💕☮
Thanks!
Thank you for supporting the research!
Awesome.
The Essenes had a small presence in Jerusalem, however their center was in Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were stored (*until the time of the end). John the Baptist was characteristic of the Essenes, whose Messianic theology matched Yeshua as Mashiach.
This is fascinating stuff, Doctor. I’m not Jewish, but so much of what we broadly consider to be “Western culture” obviously derives from an evolved offshoot of a heretical Jewish faction; and I don’t think any complete picture of that can be derived without some knowledge of the antecedent history and tradition it was born from and broke away from. Thanks
To me, Saducees arrive with an arrogance of such pent up dissatisfaction that almost nothing can ail them. That feeling of powerlessness is frightening however when a saducee tries to convert me I remind them of who I serve and move on. Jesus Christ is King forever.
I learned quit a bit about jewish culture and religious organization on CZcams videos by Israeli scholars on the Dead Sea scrolls and analysis..... amazing.
Great!
Dr A is the best IMHO!!
Sir, Do you have a lecture on "sanhedrin?"
Right now, only on the French Sanhedrin of the 19th century. See David Sinzheim.
What is the Pharisees traditions concerning the circumcising of Gentiles?
orthodox does not mean "one belief". it means "correct view or belief"
"Ignorami" - very cute coinage!...kinda Hellenistic, though...
Heh heh heh
Salam Dr Abramson,
Wonderful lecture...learned so much.
Three questions please:
1. Was Herod and his family Sadducces?
2. In New testament, Sadducces and Pharisees are mentioned multiple times along with a 3rd distinctive group Scribes? A separate group?
Who were these Scribes in first century Judea?
3. Zealots or highway robbers were a common motif of resistance in historical times for example the Sikh movement of India which eventually evolved into a new religion. Were these zeolots of similar types robbers/freedom fighters group?
Utmost regards,
I hope to address most of these questions in the upcoming lectures.
The Scribes were pharisees
Thank you! Did the Pharisees and Sadducees make up the bulk of the Sanhedrin?
That's a great question, much debated.
It was almost always completely pharasaic although the pharasaic order was a very wide spectrum
I was always taught that the Sadducees were the ones who didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead (Sad-U-see). Also, in present day language a person is thought of a Pharisee if he is not open to new ideas.
The resurrection? Now there's an idea! What do you mean THE dead? ALL the dead?!?
I should have included the Sad-u-see bit. Aargh.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD I got it from Rabbi Scovik of Jews for Judaism.
@@alg11297 I got it from Chuck Missler!
I always associated the name, "Prushim with "parsing" or HAIRSPLITTING, because they were involved in weeding out what was permitted and what was forbidden, from the great sea of human activity.
Interesting
How about Pharisees, Sadducees, Esseens? Oh, so we get an extra video. Nice!
Yup.
"Ignorami"! I like it! Actually, "ignoramus" wasn't a noun in Latin, but it's based on a Latin verb form. The verb "ignoramus" means "we do not know," so it's already plural! :-) Then, when it came into English in the 1600s, it got used as a singular noun.
Ah! Fascinating.
So was it like Cohen versus Rabbi towards the end of the temple period? What became of the Levites?
Not so simple.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD that's a whole video huh lolol
I don't get what this talk is about the "rise" of the rabbis. The sanhedrin portrayed in Devarim 17, Numbers 11 and Exodus 18 always existed to teach normative practice of the statutes, ordinances, and charges to the masses and to adjudicate matters of the Torah Law (also see 2 Chronicles 19:8). Maybe after the sanhedrin was ended the intellectual descendents of the original judges, the students, and the students of their students began clarifying and elaborating on the intricacies of preexisting rulings, but the rulings are grounded and they were taught by the members of the court (tannas) themselves who were authoritative.
Rise is a relative term.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD Agreed. Didn't mean to sound confrontational. I just dislike how certain Kairite like groups tend to use that term and was primarily addressing them. Be well
The more things change, the more they stay the same., you say and your father related this to you., although you translate it from French language and understating the words, l understand the meaning and appreciate the opportunity to look further to your utube videos in my search for the ability to communicate with my children and their children to obtain their understanding and without frightening them too much.
Wise.
From your explanation, it seems that Seducces were Reform-Jews of that time and Pharisees were underdog Orthodox-Jews like in our times. Nothing have changed after all for 2000-2500 years.
Eisenman has suggested that in fact the Sicari carried their knives to carry out circumcisions. What is your opinion of this, Prof ?
Sounds unlikely to me, would have to read why he said so.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD With over 80 references to the Sicari in his book The New Testament Code (Eisenman really does his research), on sicari & circumcision there are a 1/2 dozen references: top of pg. 252; 255; 387 - 388; 951 - 953. And there is an important discussion starting on pg. 956.
Thanks for your great lectures. They really pique my interests.
I theorized their name came from the Parsees of the Zoroastrian faith. After all didn’t the belief in the resurrection of the dead come from the Zoroastrians when Cyrus liberated the Jews? Is this an acceptable and possible theory and if not, why not?
Interesting, but I'm not convinced there's a direct connection. Don't forget that this is only a term that Josephus uses in the 1st century; not a term used by the Rabbis themselves. But cool thought, anyway.
That is assuming the resurrection idea came from the Persians, and was not traditionally part of the Jewish or Judahite religion. Pharisaic (or Rabbinic) Judaism does not agree with that position, and insists that belief in the resurrection is goes back to Moses.
Could you address literacy in this period and place? The common idea, and also the scholarly consensus that I’ve found, is that the vast majority of Jews at the time were illiterate, perhaps 90% or more. However, if Pharisees came from lower to middle class homes, they had to have an education. (And what about bar mitzvah training - did this exist, and, if so, to what extent?) There is also archaeological evidence that synagogues were plentiful throughout the land, even in apparently small villages, which means Torah was read every Shabbat. What is your understanding of literacy in this context? Thank you!
You might find this article useful: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200910110828.htm. Bar Mitzvah rituals really didn't develop until the early modern period.
If there was an Assassin’s creed game based off of this period, you would play a Sicarri.
I am surprised at the etymology of Tzedokim being traced to a (high) priest by that name, of the Persian period. Isn't the group traditionally traced to a student of Antigonus of Socho, who lived in the early Hellenic period?
(Assumption based on a Greek name, and as a student of Shimon Hatzadik, who dealt with Alexander the Great.)
I believe that's the etymology they presented for themselves.
Are there any writings by self identifying Sadducees? Josephus identifies as a Pharisee, as do several other writers. It seems like the Sadducees are described from the outside by their rivals only. Is Philo of Alexandria related to any of these groups in a definite way? I've read a few of his essays and always wonder if he fits into a definite Jewish community who emphasized allegorical interpretation, or whether he was just an idiosyncratic beneficiary of the intellectual freedom in Alexandria.
Josephus was not a real Pharisee despite his claims
@@proudpharisee5303 I've heard people assert this, but I'm not sure what the evidence is. He certainly betrayed Judea for Rome and it's difficult to see him as a good or a loyal Pharisee at that point.
@@danielpalmer643 you’d have to read his writings and understand the Pharisees to see this. I have spent my life studying the Pharisees and so I know of what I speak. Not that I care for them, but academics have also recently come to realize this. A Google about it would bring many papers up.
People make the mistake of seeing things in the binary. There were millions of people in the land and people weren’t so easily defined. Josephus seems to be from a priestly family who had the classical childhood Pharisee education but seems disgruntled with the fact that the priests were not in the same leadership role as they were prior to hellenist and Sadducee ideas penetrating them. He often speaks Ill of them and even an outsider should be able to tell that he doesn’t really identify as a Pharisee. If you actually know about Pharisees that is simple.
The Pharisees were beloved by the masses and were the primary teachers and probably 95% of the Jews followed the Pharisees. A pharisee means a student of the rabbis, a full time student who is so for life, who spends his life at his teachers side until he becomes a teacher himself. It is like an “order”. Some of them would serve on the Sanhedrin, some would be priests, some scribes, and many roles in between. Josephus lists 6000 Pharisees which means the size of the order, not the size of the people who held to their beliefs. Every child had a Pharisee education unless you were in a hellenist family or a Sadducee family. Or you were with any one of the small groups of Jews like the essenes in the caves. Ergo, Josephus is in reality saying that he had a pharisee education as a child and that he to some extent subscribes to their beliefs, but that doesn’t make him a pharisee. He wasn’t part of the order and resented their leadership. People don’t appreciate this distinction.
Most Jews then were all shades of observant but the law they were all shades of observant in was the pharisee version and when they did go to synagogue it was a pharisee one and when they did hear a lecture it would be along the lines of the pharisee teachings.
@@proudpharisee5303 I didn't mean to imply that I am unshakably committed to Josephus' self description as a Pharisee as also being necessarily true. I would not characterize myself as a student of the Pharisees. I haven't studied the Talmud at all and am a Catholic. I just meant to admit my ignorance on the matter.
I have read Josephus. I read his complete works once and 'Antiquities of the Jews' twice all the way through. I also use it as a reference text. I'm a big fan of ancient Greek and Roman histories beyond Josephus as well. They're not always true. Josephus is particularly amusing at times because almost nobody writes with such earnest self regard as he sometimes does, even in ancient times, but certainly not now. He also wears his biases on his sleeve. He is personally committed to the empire and is writing to encourage the Jewish people to remain loyal to Rome. He offers a very rosy view of Greek and Roman occupation, which is what we might now recognize as propagandistic.
I think you answered my question at the top of this conversation. If your estimate that 95% of non-Hellenist Jewish families raised their children along Pharisaic lines, then approximately 95% of the writings would have had that background as well. I doubt there's a way to get an exact number like that, but I don't doubt that Pharisees were the overwhelming majority of non-Hellenists. Therefore, very few writings might have survived from the Sadducees. Anyway, it's at least plausible that no writings by Sadducees survived to the present. It also occurs to me that Sadducees were mostly administering the Temple, so many of their writings would have been more ritual in character. It seems possible that they wrote prayers and rituals, but avoided writing histories or biographies.
@@danielpalmer643 I don’t think there is evidence that they were administering the temple. The laws of the temple are very much pharasaic in that the same pharasaic world of law is present or even more so present when it came to temple ritual. The actual order of service in the temple was done through a cycle of families from across the country. If I remember correctly this was a practice instituted by king David. Anyways. The high priest in the second temple was a power political position in the secular political settings, with the position being auctioned off to the highest bidder. The high priest was often not knowledgeable about the law, but he only needed to show his face and perform once a year, on Yom Kippur. The Pharisees recorded how they would train the high priest (they didn’t have the option of removing him as they had to follow the govt). Otherwise the temple mostly ran under the orders of the “sgan” or the assistant high priest. This was a lifelong position held by a Pharisee elder.
My point is that the temple was not in Sadducee hands. Most priests were Pharisees. The Sadducee priests were some priestly families in Jerusalem, along with other aristocratic families, who had the same beliefs. But the temple operating according to pharisee law and most of the priests were Pharisee followers
with Turkish subtitles please,thkz
I think Pharisees or perushim actually means the ones who interpret or explain … not separate , that would’ve been mafridim .
I wonder if the public "holy showing of following the Torah" was a reflection of the Prophets public style. Making a point "I'm tithing" contrasting the Prophets you better get with the program.
Not really for me to say.
Question: Was Gamaliel a Sadducee or a Pharisee? Is there any historical proof either way? Maybe he followed his father or grand father, which of course is Hillel the Elder.
Hmm.
Based on the way he is treated in the Talmud, Rabban Gamliel the Elder was Chief Rabbi of the Pharisees.
Menachem Salomon Thank you, I appreciate that.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD when I was thinking about Gamaliel I was thinking about Hamlet. Hamlet was a prince. So he was a soldier but also very educated. A soldier is someone who needs to react quickly when called upon to do so, basically to do and not think about the reason. While the educated person has gained wisdom and is less inclined to have the reaction or response of the soldier. This is the conflict In Hamlets conscience. So looking at Gamaliel, I can see he was been wise when he said to let the Christians go rather than to have the quick reaction of those around him.
The other thing was someone had said Gamaliel was a Sadducee and because Paul was Gamaliel’s student how could Paul claim to be a Pharisee? But if Gamaliel was a Pharisee then that makes more sense.
@@rossanderson5243 Paul might have also just been lying about his credentials. It's not as though the "New Testament" presents a particularly accurate, or flattering, picture of the Tanakh and the Jews.
Most Christians don’t think so. I’ve tried to explain who the Pharisees were. They think they’re hypocrites who rigidly followed the law.
Hillel: No we're not!
Shammai: Yes we are!
Striking to me as a Christian how the one who betrayed Jesus was a Sicarii, while the one entrusted to take the good news to Non-Jews was a Pharisee. And while Jesus seemed to been keen on purifying pharisaic thought, he seemed to totally dismiss the Sadducees.
Interesting observations.
When you say "the one entrusted to take the good news to Non-Jews was a Pharisee," who are your referring to, St. Paul?
@@josephpalazzolo9939 Paul of Tarsus was said to be a pharisee I believe.
I believe Pharisees (פרושים) are denoted to Jews who were Persian descent of Elite class who were migrants of Babylonia, Persia
Call me cynical by nature, but if I had been alive around, say 60 CE I would have bet that 2,000 years later the one group that would be left would be the Sadducees. They had the effective combination of realpolitik for the Romans and conservative religion for the masses. Apparently I would have been Wrong with a capital W.
oh okay, alright then!
❤
Thanks
I came across the issue of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in particular in a prayer that we say every day in the Shemoneh Esrey. Gamliel II had a student create a prayer that went into the Shmoneh Esrey, that asks G-d to curse and to do terrible things to the Sadducees and others. I asked my local Chabad Rabbi what could have created such animosity between these two groups? There were a number of answers, some I got from Josephus, but one, in particular, was troubling. According to this current Rabbi, all the Oral Law was given at Mt. Sinai and transmitted orally until the second century CE. The Rabbi's claim was that among other sins, the Sadducees did not believe the Oral Torah was given in it's entirety at Mt.Sinai. My question which remained unanswered was that as the Kohaniim as a group had themselves been around since Mt. Sinai, wouldn't they have known of a very large part of Jewish Law being taught generationally and used in explaining the Law? I asked wasn't the most logical approach be that the Oral Law evolved over time as the need came up? What is your feeling the origins of the Oral Law?
Also were the Sadducees heretics? Are those that don't believe the Oral Torah in it's entirety came down from Mt. Sinai, are they "wicked" and deserving of immediate destruction?
"it is perhaps a common misconception that the Jews of the first century...were somehow...more morally acute...than the Jews of the 21st century...I'll leave that to the rabbis to discuss..." Why not entrust it to the moral acuity of individual layman Jews to discuss? Or has their moral acuity degraded over the intervening centuries to such a degree that they cannot be trusted with the question? I say this in mild jest and have no opinion of my own, being a non-Jew. But is anyone else struck by the irony?
Maybe he meant to suggest that the rabbis, being involved in studying the seminal texts from that era, are in a better position to assess the moral condition of the Jews back then than your average layman of today. If that's what he meant, then one could include social historians of that era as well.
well, not exactly scholarly presentation considering many aspects of known hystory for both Sadducees and Pharisees... considering perspectives of "seekers after the smooth things" many highlighted issues as popularity are just misrepresented. but thanks
The Pharisees: Common people; The Sadducees: Priests; Essences: Teachers 🤷♀️
The Pharisees were the promoters and enforcers of the Oral Torah; the Sadducees denied their claim that the Oral Torah was given at Sinai (and a very weak claim it is). If the Sadducees had "won out" there wouldn't be any Rabbinic Judaism, no Talmud, no Yeshivas, no endless elaborations, interpretations, and permutations of the Law such as are observed by Orthodox Jews. For example, the Sadducees did not need multiple volumes of laws and regulations over what constitutes "work" on the Sabbath. The Torah's prohibition on work would be simply interpreted--don't do labor on the Sabbath. And so on.
What finished the Sadducees was their collaboration with the Romans. Judaism at this time was centered around the Temple. The Sadducee reasoning, correct as it turned out, was that Pharisees would stimulate religion-based resistance to the occupiers, leading to revolt and the destruction of the Temple. Without the Temple, the entire sacrificial system and many other laws set forth in the Written Torah would be rendered void and the people of Israel would be forced into Oral Torah observance by default--in other words, rule by the Perushim (Pharisees). Which is what Judaism became and which, at least in Orthodoxy, it is today.
I hope you found the video useful.
@@HenryAbramsonPhD An excellent survey of the topic, thank you.
But the way. I just read Pontius Pilots account of what the Pharisees and Saducis did. What an abomination
What kind of Jewish name is "Henry"?
How about "perfectly fine"?
As a non Jew, I am highly intrigued with your lectures. You have lost me with the frequent us of “Helenistic” term. Usually when a term is used over and over again one can get the gist of what is meant, but Helenistic excapes me. I’ve enjoyed your lectures though. But to be fair, I enjoy Nehemia Gordon’s also.
...I thought Orthodox was like Southpaw in boxing...
didn't know tommy lee jones was a jew
The Jews, of the first century, were black people, very Spiritual, meek, humble, and peaceful. The Israeli Jews, put themselves, in the Biblical, position, of the black Jews, who have, the True physical, identity of the zeal, Jews.
Kana'im
More on them this week.
I am here because I am a comment.