“The temporal and geographic core of Jewish ritual purity was Second Temple Jerusalem”
The temporal and geographic core of Jewish ritual purity was Second Temple Jerusalem. Like...
Tag Archives: Second Temple
“Universalist ideas were central to Jewish authors living in the Second Temple period…”
Universalist ideas were central to Jewish authors living in the Second Temple period, and...
“… in the Second Temple period, Judaism was a petri dish of ideas that nurtured a pluralism which invited all people to worship the Jewish God”
We tend to think of the consecutive developments of Greek philosophy, normative Judaism, and...
“What makes the Second Temple period so unique is that much of its literature sees no need for hard distinctions between religious communities”
Many Jews in the Second Temple period believed that Israel shares a special relationship...
“The Jewish community of the land of Israel no longer had a recognized social elite or “establishment,” and the Jews of the diaspora no longer had a center that bound them together. This was the vacuum the rabbis tried to fill”
In 70 C.E., the temple was destroyed, the high priesthood and the sanhedrin ceased...
“How did it happen that some Second Temple sources define piety as abstaining from sex on Shabbat, but that the Rabbis defined Shabbat by the embrace of this very activity?”
How did it happen that some Second Temple sources define piety as abstaining from...
“The motivations and ideology of Second Temple sectarian groups appear primarily in Rabbinic tales…, yet employing these stories for the purpose of writing history is problematical”
The motivations and ideology of Second Temple sectarian groups appear primarily in Rabbinic tales...
“…although much of Second Temple and Rabbinic literature can be read in light of the Greek and later Roman-Christian context in which they were composed…”
…although much of Second Temple and Rabbinic literature can be read in light of...
“A difficult choice faces us: are we to distinguish between Sadducees and Boethusians and assume that more than one group shared certain halakhic positions?”
What are we to make, for example, of the overlapping texts which mentioned Boethusians...
“In the first century C.E., Judaism was marked by numerous sects and groups…”
In the first century C.E., Judaism was marked by numerous sects and groups: Pharisees,...