politics

Being People of the Word: Essenes, Zealots and Pharisees

Last week, I noted I’ve been listening to the Bema Podcast with Marty Solomon. Once again, this week’s material borrows heavily from his podcast, specifically episodes 73-81, which can be found at bemadiscipleship.com.

We started to look at what happened to the Jewish people before the arrival of Jesus, when they had returned from exile and splintered into 5 groups, all of which had reached different conclusions about how best to live as people of God in Greek/Roman culture. Jesus had a plan to build a group of disciples – that will become the church – from a potentially volatile mixture with representatives from all approaches. If we can learn from all of them, perhaps we will find a way forward during divisive political times that reflects the teaching and life of Jesus.

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LAST WEEK

The Sadducees, the priests in the Temple, became corroborators with Hellenism, enablers who believed Alexander the Great’s euangelion: “Good news!  The Kingdom of Greece had arrived!” They loved the focus on self, wealth, power, and comfort. When their insider privilege was threatened by Roman advance, they invited the wealthiest man they knew (Herod) to keep Rome happy with his money and them happy with their continuing status quo by naming him the King of the Jews. They turned into corrupt bullies who were wiped out when the Temple fell. The encouragement: embrace the priestly role God has given to all of us. The caution: not like the Sadducees, whose love of the Empire corrupted their leadership in the Kingdom.

The Herodians were more the cultural version of the Sadducees. They liked the goodies of the self-centered Hellenism, and what had been a community of generosity for the poor and powerless became a community focused on all the pleasures this world had to offer. We said the good thing they brought was that they knew the culture. They were perfectly situated to have a Kingdom impact in Greek and Roman culture. However, they fell in love with the very worldview that conquered them and lived not only in the world, but as the world.[1]

This brings us to the Essenes, Zealots and Pharisees.  

Essenes

They thought the corrupt system of the Sadducees was inviting God’s judgment, so they went to the desert to spend what time they had left preparing. Well, most of them did. Priests like Zachariah, who likely had Essene connections,[2] stayed in the system and did his duty. Maybe this is a Group #6: those who believed the temple system was completely corrupt but felt like they couldn’t give up on the call that God gave to priests. Let’s call them the Zachariahns.

The Essenes liked Jeremiah 6:16: “Stand at the crossroads, ask for the ancient past, ask where the good way is, and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls.” The Essenes wanted to be ready for the day when God’s people would again ask about the good way. They went out to the desert to know the path and to walk the path by devoting themselves to knowing, writing, and living the text.

They were serious. Writing the text was a four-person job. One person recited the word from a scroll while another person stood behind that person make sure they got it right. The scribe writing the word had a person looking over his shoulder to make sure he wrote the right word in the right way. Every time they got to the name of God, they all would take a break for a ritual bath in a mikvah before they wrote what they were allowed to write for the name of God just to be sure they were clean enough to do so.[3]

The mikvah was done in a baptistry filled with ‘living water’, water that came from God and moved of its own accord, which meant from either an underground spring or rain. The minute they carried it in a bucket, it was no longer living water. So, they channeled rainwater from the local wadi (a dry streambed that would flood during rainy season) through a plastered canal that ran to the village. They needed to be clean. They were serious about responding to God properly (as they understood it). They were all in.  They also liked Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem…tell her that her sin has been paid for… A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every mountain brought down and every valley raised up. The rough places made smooth and the rugged places a plain and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.’”[4]

So, what is the upside of the Essenes? They were all in when it came to knowing and walking the path. They would not put up with corruption in the Temple. They were preparing themselves to stand at the crossroads and speak tenderly to the people when they arrived so the glory of the Lord would be revealed, and they could help people find rest for their souls.

What’s the downside? They’re not talking to anybody. They wanted to stand at the crossroads, but they were not at the crossroads. They were in the middle of the desert waiting for the crossroads to come to them.

ZEALOTS

Remember, the Zealots are part of the Hasidim, the pious ones, who headed to Galilee with the Pharisees as they rejected the compromise of the Sadducees and dedicated themselves to a righteous, uncompromising life. To the Zealot, it was going to take bloody violence to solve their problems and pave the way for the Messiah as God saw how committed they were and responded to their zeal.[5]

They were zealous not only against the Romans but also against the corrupt temple leadership. At one point, a Zealot went into the Temple courts and stabbed a sitting High Priest to death in the Temple courts.

They became insurgents who often used the tactics of terrorists. #sicarri They attacked Hasmonean dynasty (both the priestly class and the Greeks) for an entire century. Jesus will warn his disciples prone to violence that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. The way the Zealot movement ended will prove his point.

A Zealot named Hezekiah led a revolt in 43 BC. Rome came after them. At first, they were just looking for the Zealots fighters, but those Zealots would just hide. So, Rome went after the women and children. In response, the Zealots hid their families in the Caves of Arbel.

The Roman army went to Arbel, set up scaffolding on the cliff face, then lit fires and blew the smoke into the cave so that everybody hiding inside had to come out. They grabbed them with pitchforks and threw them off the scaffolding to their death.

To give you an idea how this story arc ends, let’s skip to AD 66. Rome decided to put statues of Caesar in the Sadducee-led Temple. A bunch of Pharisees met the ships as they sailed into Caesarea and lay in the road to stop this from happening. Tensions were high. Eventually, a revolt that began outside of Caesarea ended up with 20,000 Jews executed in the countryside.

This started a revolution. At one point, several Roman legions found themselves trapped by the Zealots in a fortress in Jerusalem, so they negotiated a settlement to march out of the city to safety if they laid down their arms. As soon as they laid down their arms, the Zealots slaughtered every Roman soldier in the Fortress.

Eventually, Rome pushed them back to a city/fortress called Gamla. A Zealot fighter named Joseph told the residents how to fortify the city before going out to fight Vespasian. He got captured in Galilee[6] and apparently told them how to take Gamla. 4,000 Jews died in the fighting; 5,000 Jews jumped to their own death rather than be conquered.

Masada will be their last stand around AD 70, where close to 1,000 Jewish people led by the remaining Sicarri killed themselves rather than be taken alive. That will be the end of the Zealots.

So, what’s the upside for a Zealot? Zeal. Fire. They care enough about the cause of the Kingdom to give their lives. If God’s people were always committed to give their lives for the cause of Christ, our lives would serve as a powerful witness to the glorious truth for which we live.[7]

What’s the downside? They are fighting for the King the wrong way. There are killing people to expand and/or protect the Kingdom of God, and that’s not the way of the kingdom. The Messiah’s way happens when crooked paths are made straight, not when they are paved in blood. Zealots need to channel their zeal into holiness not expressed in ways that destroys the people who need to hear the message of the Kingdom.

PHARISEES

The Pharisees were Hasidim who decided to respond to the corruption of the priests by enticing the Messiah to come and cleanse the Temple thanks to their absolute devotion to the way of God. They were full of zeal for obedience, not attacking Rome. They were committed to the text, but they did not retreat from society. They lived in the culture, but did not think Hellenism was a euangelion. They were focused around the Galilee Triangle, which I only point out because it will come up later.

The Pharisees believed God would deal with Rome when God was good and ready. They had the entire Old Testament as proof. When God decided it was time to judge or reward a nation, God would make it happen. Meanwhile, they focused on absolute obedience to His commandments. They would develop the Mishnah, thousands of laws that acted like a fence around the 613 laws of the Torah. Surely, that much fencing would keep them safe from breaking the Torah’s laws! I found a PDF online. It was 780 pages long.

This is why the Pharisees were so hard on those who broke even the most minor law. If they could all just be obedient enough, God would save them. If they weren’t, He wouldn’t.

We see this once again in the architecture. Remember Zippori, the Herodian town with mosaic sidewalks and floors? Not so in the towns of the Galilee Triangle (Chorazin, Capernaum, and Bethsaida). Their synagogues have big, roughly cut stones. You won’t find mosaics on their floors or in their courtyards. They were not there to enjoy the luxury of Hellenism.

In the Herodian Quarter, we saw the outline of a Sadducee house with 17 bedrooms. The Pharisees, in contrast, lived in insulas, multifamily dwellings of up to 10 families. They weren’t trying to have their own house, or courtyard, or their own stuff. That was the siren call of Hellenism. The Pharisees believed God called them to share if they were committed to each other as a community. Insula living is a practical example of this.[8]

Jesus critiques the Pharisees, and rightly so. Yet they are his ministry focus for three years.He generally avoided the Sadducees.[9]He called and worked with Herodians, Essenes and Zealots. However, he only pronounced woes on the Pharisees. “Those whom the Lord loves, He chastens.” (Hebrews 12:6) He’s purifying one segment of Judaism: the Pharisees. As odd as this may sound, they have gleaned the best from the other groups. They are, however, missing two crucial things that really, really matter. Here, he addresses the Galilee Triangle to highlight what they still need.

Then He began to denounce the cities where most of His mighty works had been done because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon and than for you. And for Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? Will you be brought down to Hades? For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day, but I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment in the land of Sodom than for you.” (Matthew 11:20–24)

 The Tyre and Sidon reference goes back to a passage about arrogance in the book of Isaiah.[10]The Sodom and Gomorrah reference has to do with a failure of compassion and hospitality.[11] Two groups of people epically condemned for their pride and hostility are going to judge the Pharisees, the Hasidim, the “pious ones.”

The Pharisees had the Text; they had devotion; they had at least a stated commitment to obedience; they had zeal for the way of God and longed for the Messiah to arrive. What they didn’t have was humility/repentance and compassion.

  • When we won’t eat with sinners like Jesus did; when we lack a life-orienting compassion for the poor, the outcast, the sick, the immigrant, the tax collectors and Samaritans in our midst, we are Pharisees who need to learn mercy and compassion.

  • If we claim the name of Jesus and insist the 10 Commandments be posted so that American can learn Judeo/Christian morals, and we break those commandments consistently and even boldly, we are hypocritical Pharisees need to learn repentance and humility.[12]

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So, disciples of Jesus, “What do we do with the United States?” How do we learn from and value each other in the midst of the different responses represented in this room? Is there a way to find unity in our diversity? Jesus thought so; we should too. Let’s focus on what was of value from the different approaches. Perhaps in piecing them all together we can find wisdom.

We need zeal, but it needs to be zeal for the written word of God and Word made Flesh, not a zeal for civil war and violence of any kind.  We don’t want that holy, zealous fire to go out, but we don’t want it to flare up such that it burns others. Zealotry requires observation, supervision, self-reflection. It requires us to see if we are scorching those around us. It’s probably going to take a community that cares about each other to help us figure out how to keep the embers from going cold and from starting a destructive wildfire.

We need to be committed to the Word, both written and made human in Jesus. We need Essenes whose love of the Word written and incarnate inspire all of us to love the Word as well.[13] If we all valued what God had to say as much as they did, and if we all let it order our lives like they did, that in itself would be huge. It’s probably going to take a community that cares about each other to make this a labor of love and not legalism, a community where we see the exciting Christ-like transformation that the Word brings to our lives.

We need to know the culture. The early church did not isolate. They boldly redeemed culture Hellenistic images.

The first Christians didn’t move out of the neighborhood once they became disciples of Christ. They saw a broken and dying world often odds with their new citizenship – and it broke their hearts. They stayed there and sought to bring the reality of new life in the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. How do we do this without becoming Herodians? It’s probably going to take a communitywhere a lot of thoughtful conversation, prayer and study help to keep us in the world but not of it.

We must understand the effectual power of obedience.[14] The Pharisees were wrong to believe that they had to earn God’s return by being good enough. They were not wrong about the importance of a consistent, obedient walk in the path of God. When faithful obedience becomes the consistent rhythm of our life, we are free from the controlling power and the terrible harvest of sinful choices; we will increasingly understand why Jesus said God’s path brings life; and we will impact others in life-giving ways.[15] But…obedience can be hard, both knowing what to do in hard/confusing situations and acting on what we know. It might take a community of accountability, truth and grace with which to link arms so we can find the path and walk in it.

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It turns out we need each other to mature and grow into the kind of church community that looks like a “new humanity” Jesus talked about in Ephesians 5. We are united in Jesus and filled with His Spirit so that this ‘body’ with many parts works together as God intended (1 Corinthians 12).

  • We want Essenes with the Herodians to remind them to stay true to the Word; we want Herodians with the Essenes to get them out of their ineffective isolation.

  • We need the Zacharians and the Essenes to be in communication: “You might need to get out of that corrupt system of politics and religious institutions.” “You might need to stay in it.”

  • We want Pharisees with the Zealots to remind them to be zealous for obedience, mercy and holiness, not violence, antagonism, and revenge.

  • We want the Zealots and Pharisees with the Sadducess to remind them that the Empire is not the Kingdom, and that the urge to compromise must be resisted.

 We need Jesus to remind us all that a lifestyle of repentance, humility and mercy must go with love of the word and The Word, so that we will be able to stand in the crossroads of the world with truth, grace, and integrity, preparing the way so that the glory of the Lord will be revealed.

We can do this. We have the text (Bible), the Word (Jesus), the Holy Spirit. We are equipped to be a new kind of humanity whose Jesus-centered community displays the loving power of God by demonstrating the miraculous power of a transforming Savior, who breaks down barriers and reconciles us to Christ and


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[1]We have to watch out for what Michael Gorman calls a set of myths that we can begin to believe about the empires in which we live. A “myth of righteousness” sets values of the Empire on par with the values of the Kingdom (in which both are seen as part of the euangelion, the good news of God’s plan for the world). A “myth of greatness” becomes defined by the standards of Babylon and Rome: financial, political, and/or military strength as the markers of success. A “myth of innocence” sees the power, prosperity, and peace of the (apparently) righteous and great Empire as achieved by and sustained by thoroughly righteous means and people. A “myth of worthiness” demands an appreciation of and allegiance to the state as a profoundly moral responsibility for Christians. (from Reading Revelation Responsibly)

[2] If his son, John the Baptist was trained by Essenes, Zechariah would have been the one to make that happen. “Everything about John the Baptist smacks and rings of Essene theology and worldview, except for the way that he engages the populist…The Essenes separated themselves and wanted culture to come to them when the end times came.” (Marty Solomon, bemadiscipleship.com)

[3] They had an error rate over a large amount of time of 2%. It’s remarkable.

[4] They believed that if they would stay true to their call, God would show up. Interestingly, the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea less than three miles away. That’s where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Hmmm.

[5] This inspired them to buy into what some have called the ‘myth of redemptive violence,’ the belief that that evil can only be defeated by good people violently wielding power “Redemptive violence gives way to violence as an end in itself. It is no longer a religion that uses violence in the pursuit of order and salvation, but one in which violence has become an aphrodisiac, sheer titillation, an addictive high, a substitute for relationships. Violence is no longer the means to a higher good, namely order; violence becomes the end.” (Walter Wink, “The Myth Of Redemptive Violence.”)

[6] Vespasian adopted Joseph as a son, changing his name to Josephus Flavius, famed Jewish historian.

[7] The early church is going to be full of this kind of zeal. The blood of the martyrs, not the blood spilled by Zealots, will be seed of the early church.[7]

[8] Peter and Andrew, James, John, and possibly Philip were from Bethsaida.

[9] Generally. He cleanses the Temple at the beginning and end of his ministry.

[10] Isaiah 23-24

[11] “Ancient stories give hints about the evil in Sodom. Travelers who came into the city would be robbed, stripped, and held captive within the city. They would wander the streets slowly starving to death, to the great amusement of the citizenry. One account relates that visitors to Sodom were offered a bed according to the Middle Eastern laws of hospitality, but it was a bed of torture. Short people were stretched. Tall people had their legs cut off. If a traveler had no money, he would be given bricks of gold and silver with his name on them! But nobody would sell him bread and water, even for all that gold and silver, so the traveler slowly died of starvation. The Sodomites gathered around the corpse and took back the gold and silver.” http://www.susancanthony.com/res/dennis/canaan.html

[12] Another example is the (proper) denunciation of sexual abuse, grooming, human trafficking, etc. So… In a nine-week  period ending in April of 2023, attorney Kristen Browde kept track of all people arrested in the US for charges of child sexual abuse. Out of 308 cases…39% were in Christian ministry positions. In 2022, the SBC released a list of 700 pastors accused of sexual abuse. Over 7,000 claims of sexual abuse by church staff, congregation members, volunteers, or the clergy were made to just three insurance companies over a 20-year period (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2007). Add to it what happened in the Catholic church. Woe to those who call out the sexualization of our culture and the grooming of children in others when they do the same. It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for those in Sodom and Tyre.

[13] 45%  of people who claim to be Christian in the US read their Bible at least once a week? 45%. Everyone else is once a month or less. 35% say they seldom or never read it.

[14] We also need to value the role we have as priests. We talked about this last week, so I’m going to refer you back to those notes J

[15] Add to that the idea that our life, not just our words, becomes a witness. When we say, “Good news! The Kingdom of God is here!” people will look at how our lives have been impacted to reach some conclusions about whether it’s good news or not. 

Being People of the Word: Sadducees and Herodians

Some of you have been asking if there is some way to talk about Christians and politics in preparation for what is sure to be another volatile election. A podcast I have been listening to covered some ground this week that I hope can lead us into introspection and discussion.

This involves what happened to the Jewish people before the arrival of Jesus, when they had returned from exile and splintered into 5 groups, all of which had reached different conclusions about how best to live as people of God in Greek and then Roman culture. I don’t usually do history, but this particular window of time seems relevant to where we are now.

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 In 586 BC, the Jewish people headed into Babylonian captivity. While in exile – lacking a temple - the synagogue took root.[2] Synagogue was about an entire lifestyle centered around Torah symbolized by the very architecture of the synagogue. Yes, they had it before exile, but this is different. They assumed their exile was because they didn’t obey the Torah. This would not happen again. So text-centered synagogues developed in exile and continued when they returned to their land in 538 BC to rebuild, as recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah.

In 332 BC, approximately 200 years later, Alexander the Great began to conquer the West as a warrior/evangelist with a euangelion, the Greek word for gospel or “good news.”  This euangelionwas Hellenism, a worldview that is all about me. Previously, every worldview centered around the gods: what made the gods happy, or angry; what were the gods were doing? Hellenism changed all that. Pythagoras said, “Man is the measure of all things.” People are the new rulers; the gods bear their image, not the other way around. It’s no longer about what the gods  want; it’s about what I want. Ask not what you can do for the gods; ask what the gods can do for you.

Alexander’s “good news” was not always at the point of the sword. There were easier ways to conquer a culture. He asked for four things.

  • Education: He can control what people learn, think and know.

  • Healthcare: Everyone wants to be healthy, and the Empire will be their doctor.

  • Entertainment: Distraction brings complacency as they are (once again) being educated

  • Athletics: Competition and tribal identity will keep the adrenaline flowing.

Notice, none of those things are bad things. It was just that under Alexander’s Hellenism, it was easy to begin to love your conqueror, because he gave you comfort, leisure and luxury. His euangelion was simple: “Good news! The Kingdom of Greece has arrived!” and people believed it.

When he died, he handed this Greek empire over to four different rulers. Ptolemy ruled the area of Judea where the Jews had resettled. Much like Alexander, he didn’t need a big military show of force. He said, “Here’s Hellenism. I think you will like it.” They did, for the most part.

By 167 BC, the Seleucids (another of Alexander’s predecessors) had taken over Judea. Eventually they entered Jerusalem, and…..disaster. Seleucus sacrificed a pig on the temple altar. A group that will eventually be known as the Zealots were furious so they led the Maccabean Revolt (which is the story of Hanukkah).

They defeated the Seleucids in Jerusalem and got the temple back. When deciding who was going to rule now, they went back to the text (because they were people of the text) and decided God’s original plan was for priests to rule, not kings.  So, they handed the kingdom over to the priests – the Hasmoneans (167-63 BC = the Hasmonean Dynasty.)

Within 20 years, the Hasmoneans had became completely Hellenistic. They loved the power, money, luxury and entertainment. Josephus wrote that there weren’t enough priests to run temple services because the priests were at the Empire’s entertainment spectacles. This is the priestly class that will become known as the Sadducees. (The Herodians will be those who share their views to a large degree but are more of a political party.) The Sadducees are the one party that does not appear to be represented in Jesus’ disciples.

The Maccabeans did not care for this turn of events at all, and they and a lot of others headed to Galilee. These Hasidim, the ‘pious ones,’ intended to build a devoted Judaism totally committed to the way of God. Two groups emerged: Zealots and Pharisees. Both are devoted to following God, but Zealots were devoted with the sword, and Pharisees with absolute obedience.

Paul was a Pharisee, and likely Jesus and most of the disciples as well. Jesus had two followers who were Zealots: Simon the Zealot and Judas “the” Iscariot (sicarii, "dagger-men," a group of Zealots who carried a knife with them at all times and vowed that if they ever found a Roman soldier alone they would kill him.[3])

Meanwhile, the Essenes were a group of disenchanted priests who couldn’t stand the corruption. They moved to the desert and set up a places like Qumran. #deadseascrolls They were the Jewish Amish. John the Baptist was likely Essene; Jesus was baptized by him, which suggests Jesus trained at times under his teaching.

Rome eventually conquered Judea. Rome, by the way, loved Hellenism. They just added to it the “pax romana,’ the peace by the sword (an idea that the developing Zealots will embrace). Their euangelion was similar to Alexander’s: “Good news! The Kingdom of Rome is here!”

 When the Sadducees saw Rome on the horizon, they started working on a solution to stay in power because they didn’t want to lose all that stuff that the built up over the last century: buildings, luxury, power, advantage, privilege, comfort.

Enter Herod the Great, the son of the king of Idumea.  His people, the Nabataeans, owned the spice trade. The whole thing. Think of one people group owning all of the oil in our world.  Herod was by far the wealthiest man to ever walk the face of the earth.

The Sadducees knew they could never combat Rome’s power. But…Rome needed money. They went to the wealthiest man on the planet, and said, “If you’ll marry one of our daughters, you’ll be kind of Jewish? And you can be the king of the Jews.” So, Herod married into the priestly line and offered his wealth as an asset to Rome – specifically, to Julius Caesar – in exchange for being the King of the Jews. Julius liked that idea a lot. Herod’s reign lasted from 37 BC to 4 BC, approximately two years after Jesus was born.

When Herod died, he split his kingdom among his three sons: Philip got the north, Archelaus got southern Judea, and Antipas got central Judea (Galilee). Archelaus in southern Judea is a horrible ruler who almost immediately gets replaced by Rome with…. Pontius Pilate. 

That catches up the historical dynamics that led to the splintering of the Jewish community. They were all trying to grapple with, “What do we do with Rome? How do we live as people of God in this context? How will we usher in the age of the Messiah?”  Do you….

  • run from it and focus on learning in order to be faithful (Essenes)

  • ignore it and focus on obedience to entice the Messiah’s return (Pharisees)

  • become a part of it and enjoy what it has to offer while waiting for the Messiah (Sadducees and Herodians)

  • attack it and pave the Messiah’s way in blood (Zealots)

 This is the world into which Jesus is born. Galatians 4:4 says,

“ When the right time arrived, God sent His Son into this world (born of a woman, subject to the Torah) 5 to free those who, just like Him, were subject to the Torah. Ultimately He wanted us all to be adopted as sons and daughters.”

Of all the points in human history, this was just at the right time. Perhaps one of the reasons is because of the tension within God’s people. This was the time to unite them around the Word become flesh, the Text in bodily form. Fascinatingly, Jesus seems to have called disciples who represented all four of the approaches[4] with the plan to make them a team centered around The Living Torah, the Word in the Flesh.

 That sounds like a terrible idea to me, but not to Jesus. This would be a sign of the power of the Kingdom and its King. Jesus will show them how making peace with God will lead to making peace with others, breading down every barrier and creating one new humanity (Ephesians 2).

This sounds like a message we need in today’s political and religious climate. So, we are going to look more closely at these groups, try to find ourselves in them, looking at their strengths and weaknesses, and discern how to unite around Jesus. Today we will cover two groups that had a lot in common: Sadducees and Herodians. Next week, Pharisees, Zealots, and Essenes.

SADDUCEES[5]

When the now thoroughly Hellenistic Sadducees convinced Herod to be their king, he offered the high priesthood to the highest bidder from the 7 main families. Annas won the bidding. The Chief Priesthood will not leave his family until the temple is destroyed in AD 70. When we read about Caiaphas and Jesus clashing, Caiaphas is a descendant of Annas.

These seven families became a corrupt religious mafia. Josephus talks about the priesthood gathering in tithes and offerings and then not paying the other priests, just getting and more and more financially secure while their fellow priests suffered. They had their own Temple Guard, their muscle (think of Jesus’ arrest). They were corrupt bullies who used the cover of the temple to indulge in the power, prestige and luxury Rome offers at the expense of all those they exploited.

To give you an idea of the luxury of the priests, in the Herodian Quarter in Jerusalem archaeologists discovered a priestly home with17 bedrooms and 21 mikvah baths. In another priestly home they found a wine cellar full of bottles valued (when adjusted to our dollars today) at about $5,000 to $10,000 per bottle of wine.

Meanwhile, there were two Sanhedrins (the ruling body), a formal and informal one. The formal Sanhedrin was 70 or 72 people, half Pharisees and half Sadducees, to balance the Jewish leadership. The informal one met in the high priest’s house where this Sadducee Deep State made decisions that WOULD BE RATIFIED (#wink) by the formal Sanhedrin if the voters valued their lives. There corruption was so bad that some biblical scholars wonder if the “abomination of desolation” referred to in Daniel was not, in fact, the sacrificing of a pig on the altar (as is commonly assumed), but is this time of ruling by the Sadducees in which God’s house was profaned in more serious ways than pig’s blood.

Jesus spent three years with the Pharisees, and in spite of all their conflict they tried to save his life twice. He spent one week with the Sadducees before they kill him. I wonder if the many times Jesus told people not to report being healed was to avoid getting on the radar of the High Priests of the Sadducees.

So, what should we think of this group? The wrong is obvious: They are corrupt bullies. The power and luxury of Empires are corrosive partners with leadership of the people of God. It destroys the true faith, it creates terrible cynicism and frustration in those trying to do true worship, and it ultimately fails. When Rome destroyed the temple in AD 70, that Empire they tried to partner with wiped the Sadducess and the Herodians off the face of the earth.

The Bible describes Zachariah as a “righteous” priest, adding an adjective that shouldn’t have been necessary. Unfortunately, many in the role of priest weren’t righteous. To be a priest was a good thing, but to be a corrupt priest who loved the means and methods of Empire was horrible, and it goes against everything that the priesthood is supposed to represent and stand for. When those who claim Jesus and are supposed to embody holiness, servanthood and love become morally compromised, arrogant and selfish, we have lost the plot of God’s story.

The positive is they deeply desired to be in a role that was a God-ordained role. God has a role for priests. 1 Peter 2:9 reminds us, 

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation..that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

That’s us. There is a God-ordained role that we need to serve in well. What are you doing in your life right now? You are doing it in a priestly role as part of the priesthood of all believers, and God plans to use you where you are. What do we priest have to watch out for? The allure or power, luxury, safety, and comfort, especially when the means to get it involves collusion with the Empire.   

HERODIANS

If you weren’t a priest, but your approach to Hellenism was very similar to that of a Sadducee, you were a Herodian. This was almost more of a political party that said, “I can have a little bit of Rome – maayybe a lot of Rome - and I can have a little bit of God and Hellenism, and I can put the two together quite comfortably.”

To be sure, the core things Hellenism offered (education and healthcare, entertainment, athletics) were not in and of themselves problematic. The wealth available through the Empire was not the problem. The things aren’t necessarily the problem. However, Hellenism used good or neutral things to tell the wrong story: life is ALL ABOUT YOU.

This feels like it hits close to home. America has historically liked a definition of freedom that says it’s all about me. We love rugged individualism: “don’t tread on me”; “nobody puts baby in a corner”; “It’s my life, I can do what I want.” The right to pursue my happiness how I define it is right there in key American texts. We want to be able to sing “I Did It My Way,” and sing “I will Follow You, Jesus” without there being a conflict. Let’s not look away from how close this is to us as we talk about the Herodians.

Zippori is our poster city for what happened to Herodians. Zippori was a Jewish village that led a revolt against Rome. Rome destroyed it, then one of Herod’s sons rebuilt it as a Herodian colony inhabited almost entirely by Jews, who quickly embraced the goodies of Rome.[6] For example:

  • Instead of giving their excess to the poor, they had sidewalks paved with mosaics, which would have been an unheard of distraction and waste of resources in a traditional Jewish village.

  • The Jewish homes were full of beautiful mosaics in geometrical patterns (you weren’t supposed to make images of people) which would have been seen as selfishly lavish 50 years prior.  

Once again, it’s not that art is bad. Surely one can appreciate art and have money and love God. But to the Jewish population historically, this flourishes went against the ethic found in the text on how to use money and resources with an eye for the poor and powerless. And that compromise, though small, opened the door to some more compromising rooms. Literally.

  • The geometric mosaics were in the public-facing area of the house. In the same house, in more private spaces, we see not just images (!) but images of Greek and Roman gods like Pan, the god of sexual fertility. Perhaps they were thinking, “I don’t worship that. I don’t go to the temple of Pan. I worship the God of Israel. It’s just a story.”

  • Meanwhile, in the main living area, the centerpiece on the floor is a mosaic of the Egyptian mythology of the Nile.[7] Egypt. The nation that enslaved their ancestors and whose gods Yahweh humiliated.

  • In the same town, different house, we find the Mona Lisa of the Galilee. This mosaic has 22.5 million pieces (!) in it. In the center is the lady of the house, but the spiral path around her tells the Greek mythology, with scenes of daily life connected with the rites of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgy. The story ends with Dionysus drinking Zeus under the table.

It’s in a Jewish home that’s supposed to be centered around the biblical text that is instead centered around the Roman story. What may have started as a relatively innocent compromise spirals toward serious spiritual compromise. Paul later writes to the churches about this very issue.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces (Galatians 4:8-9) 

The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? (1 Corinthians 10:19-22)

“Anthony, that reference is dated. Give us something more modern.” Can do. In the rotunda of the US Capitol building has a mural called The Apotheosis of Washington (1865). It depicts Washington as having ascended into the heavens and becoming exalted or glorified. He wears the colors of Roman emperors, with a rainbow arch at his feet, flanked by the Roman goddesses of Victory and Liberty. There are six scenes around him, 5 of which have Roman gods/goddesses:

  • Science, Minerva, surrounded by inventors.

  • Marine, Neptune, with warships in the background.

  • Commerce, Mercury, giving a bag of gold to a financier of the Revolutionary War.

  • Mechanics, Vulcan, with cannons and steam engines.

  • Agriculture, Ceres, with a mechanical reaper.

  • War, Columbia, the personification of America, aka Lady Liberty

 Can you feel the dissonance if we would ask to make sure a copy of the 10 Commandments or the Beatitudes were posted there along with a dare I say blasphemous image of Washington doing what Jesus did, surrounded by Greek gods and a freshly minted American god of war? That dissonance has not ended. We still put side-by-side thinks that don’t fit comfortably together. Methinks the Herodian urge remains alive and well.

Now, the positive. Jesus loves Greeks and Romans as much as He loved any person that’s ever been a part of this story, and He wants to redeem their story. Citizens of Herod mattered very much to God, and who knew this world better than the Herodians? They are perfectly placed for God’s mission.  

  • You wanted to redeem theater? Who better than the Herodians?

  • You wanted to use athleticism as a platform to tell God’s story? Who better placed to be an athlete than Herodians?

  • Who was better placed to impact the Herodian world for the God narrative than the educator, doctor, artist or a mosaic maker?

 They are perfectly placed to impact the world around them because they understand it, they are in the middle of it, they engage it every single day. The challenge is not falling into it and letting it consume and compromise you. The danger is idolatry, serving Mammon rather than God.

We have to watch for the subtle shift in values that tripped up the Jewish people and the first Christians. Enjoying life can become indulging in life, which can become a gluttony of pleasures (feasting every day like the Sadducee in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus), which can become exploitation. “You’re heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,” the prophet Isaiah scolded in Isaiah 5, and it’s not a compliment. It’s a timeless warning.

That this is the danger of the Herodian. We want to talk about our worship of God while remaining comfortable in our wealth. We want privilege, influence and control while being able to think of ourselves as following in the footsteps of the one who came not to be served, but to serve. We want to feast on safety, comfort and pleasure without even thinking about what it costs to get what we want, who might be hurt in the process, and what we might be keeping for ourselves that the early church described as belonging to the poor.

Here, I think, is the bottom line dilemma for the Sadducees and the Herodians: They were gathered around the Roman mosaics rather than the biblical text. They forgot about the point of synagogue as a lifestyle, where their lives spiritually and practically centered around the text. Rome now guided their imagination and thoughts. Rome told them what the good life was like. Rome told them how to think about people, about God, and about themselves. They took their eye off the text.

One very important lesson we learn from them is that, as aliens and exiles sojourning through the life in the United States of America, the text that centers us is the Bible. It’s not the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It’s not college professors or TV talk show hosts or politicians or conference speakers.

The church community is centered around the Word - both the text and the Word become Flesh – and like-minded followers of Jesus. The answer to “What do we do with Rome/the United States?” will not be found in the texts of the Empire. It’s found in the Word. We gather and study and pray week after week after week 1) to learn the Word of God so that we can walk in the life-giving path of God, and 2) to experience the life-changing reality of the Word made flesh.  

For the disciples, their goal was to know what their rabbi (Jesus) knew, in order to do what their rabbi did, for the reasons that the rabbi did them, in order to be just like the rabbi in their walk with God. 

Nothing has changed for disciples today. The goal is to know what Jesus knows, in order to do what Jesus does, for the reasons that the Jesus does them, in order to be more and more like Jesus in our walk with God.[8]

 

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[1] I am deeply, deeply indebted to Marty Solomon at Bema for almost all of today’s information. I am borrowing heavily from his podcast and printed notes, which can be found at bemadiscipleship.com, episodes 73-81.

[2] There are seven elements commonly found in synagogues. A mikvah was a ritualistic cleansing bath. The basilica, the pillared section of the synagogue both held up the roof and allowed for high windows, because “You read God’s Light by God’s light.” The bema seat was a slightly raised platform in the center of the room to stand on when reading the text for discussion. The chief seats were benches around the outside of the synagogue reserved for the more seasoned in the community, those who knew Torah best. The Torah closet held the few scrolls in each synagogue. The Seat of Moses is where a reader sat to give an introductory read to the text. Finally, every synagogue had a study room.

[3] There is a theory “that Judas, when he betrayed Jesus, was not just giving Jesus up for the sake of the money, not because Satan made him do it, not because he was possessed by a demon, and certainly not because God made him do it. Rather…Judas was trying to initiate a confrontation between Jesus and the authorities so that the war could begin.” https://revkevnye.com/2010/04/27/the-judas-theory/

[4] The Herodians represent the Herodians/Sadducees. There were no Sadducee disciples.

[5] The Sadducees came from line of priestly families that date all the way back to the time of David and Solomon. They get their name from being in the line of Zadok whose descendents are Zadokim in Hebrew. In English, we say “Sadducee.”

[6] Zippori is three miles away from the Nazareth of Jesus. In between Nazareth and Zippori is a stone quarry. Joseph was, in the Greek, a tektōn, likely working with stone more often than anything else. It is likely that Joseph worked in a stone quarry between Nazareth and Zippori that was owned by Herod. It is likely Jesus was raised in a household for whom Herod wrote the paycheck. There’s also good chance that Jesus was raised with Herodian exposure. Jesus at one point quote Euripides from a play called Trojan Women. “Troy, Troy, how I long to gather you as a hen gathered its chicks…” He talks about hupokrites, the word for actors. If he was Jewish and attended Roman theater, there was some Herodian influence there. It’s a good reminder that the things themselves (like plays) were not the problem. It’s the story you believed about them.

[7] “Now, again, do they worship the Egyptian gods? No. I can almost guarantee you, this family doesn’t worship the Egyptian gods, but this is what they put in their dinner table. By this point, most of my group is like, “Yes, they are compromising.”  I love to just lay it on my listeners and say, “Wait a minute, is this not exactly where you and I live?”  We watch (insert name of show or movie or song list here). Our centerpiece is a little different, but I have figured out in my mind, I can appreciate and think critically about art over here and I don’t worship this. What do we do with that? Most everybody that says, “Oh yes, they’re definitely compromising here,” will immediately have to backtrack when asked, “Wait a minute, isn’t this exactly what you do when you go back home?” And the answer is, “Absolutely.” This is where we live. We are Herodians.” (Marty Solomon)

[8] Once again, I am deeply indebted to Marty Solomon at Bema Discipleship for this material.