Jews in the time of Jesus.(Judaism in Transition 175 BCE to 150 CE: Christian and Jewish Perspectives)(Book review)

Judaism in Transition 175 BCE to 150 CE: Christian and Jewish Perspectives, edited by James S. McLaren; The Council of Christians and Jews (Victoria), 2008, $14.95.

THIS LITTLE BOOK touches only briefly on Jesus, to history and posterity the most important figure in the period it covers, but it provides a good picture of the fertile soil from which Christianity grew 2000 years ago.

Jewish society of the time was diverse, lively, literate and reasonably well recorded by ancient standards. There were many itinerant preachers and healers like the Jesus of the gospels, ascetic sects like the Essenes of the Dead Sea, various politically active Jewish extremists, an aristocratic high priestly caste, the hypocrisy-prone pharisees who were the middle managers of Judaism, other groupings, much intellectual discussion, debate and development. Messiahs, as forecast in the Old Testament, were often claimed.

The Jesus of the gospels (which contain 90 per cent or more of the material we have on his life) seems, excluding the difficult questions of miracles and resurrection, a credible figure of this society, and Christianity as it developed seems a very likely outcome.

The belief in "end times", the end of this world and believers being born again into a new, more perfect world, a "kingdom of God", was common. It was a key part of Jesus' teaching--the usual explanation today is that he had a compelling sense of mission, but interpreted in the way of the time, not as the start of a new religion. It is not clear how far these ancients believed in the destruction of the physical world and how far something more spiritual, given the common allegorical style of the day.

This book covers the period from the substantial completion of the Old Testament as we know it, to the zealot revolts against the Roman overlords in 68-70 AD and again in the next century. In the first of these, Roman forces destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish worship, and many militants were deported. In the second, a series of struggles in the middle of the second century brought more destruction, expulsion and exile. With further emigration and conversion to Christianity, Jews gradually became a small minority in the homeland until recent times.

The revolts were usually complicated in background, not just "freedom fights". Often one side or another had crossed a "line in the sand". Sometimes internal rebel tensions were involved.