After AD 70

We follow Judaism’s story after Jerusalem’s fall in AD 70, looking at the development of Rabbinic Judaism and what that means today for believers.

As discussed in the last article, the Romans tore apart the Temple and burned it to the ground. Their attack culminated in the conquest of Masada and crushed the spirit of the Jewish people. But then what happened after that? Oftentimes, when our community considers AD 70, we discuss the scattering of the Jews after the destruction of the Temple, and we often don’t pick up the story again until the formation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Nevertheless, the impact of AD 70 on Judaism in the first and second centuries and the experience of Judaism in the land in those centuries sheds further light on how God was working and what He was doing with His people. This article will thus follow Judaism’s story after Jerusalem’s fall in AD 70, looking primarily at the development of Rabbinic Judaism and what that means today for believers.

Rabbinic Judaism

If you’ve ever spent time in an active synagogue today or discussed religion with a religious Jew, you’ve likely had an experience with Rabbinic Judaism. For the most part, Rabbinic Judaism is the Judaism that exists in today’s world. But where did it come from?

First, “Rabbi” simply means “teacher.” Thus, throughout the gospels, many referred to Jesus as “Rabbi” (Matthew 26:25; Mark 9:5; John 1:38). Rabbinic Judaism centers around these rabbis, but it developed later than the title itself.

To understand its origins, consider the distinctions between the Pharisees and Sadducees. For years, the Pharisees sought the principles behind the Torah, and thus, their understanding of the commandments was more flexible than that of the Sadducees. For the Pharisees, the loss of the Temple was a major hit, but it didn’t entirely ruin their system of worship. On the other hand, the Sadducees, as the priestly class, were wholly bound up in the Temple. When the Romans burned the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had a way to worship or even a role in worship. What do priests do without a Temple?

The Essenes, as the third major Jewish group, appear to have simply died out—in many cases, they practiced celibacy. They, therefore, couldn’t increase their numbers through children, so this result isn’t all that surprising.

Essentially, of the three major Jewish groups in the first century, the Pharisees were the only ones that survived long past the Roman-Jewish war. Over time, the Pharisaic movement became Rabbinic Judaism. But how did this happen? Even with their flexible approach to the Torah, how did the Pharisees survive such cataclysmic destruction as the Romans brought on Jerusalem?

The Talmud, a sacred Jewish text that dates to the first few centuries after Christ, records the story in a somewhat dramatic fashion. Pharisaic Judaism centered in Jerusalem, and so when the Roman siege began, the well-known Pharisaic minds found themselves captured. One of those leaders was Yohanan ben Zakkai. Intending to preserve Judaism, Rabbi Zakkai devised a plan for his escape out of the city—not just to pass through the Roman battle line, but also to pass through the warring Jewish factions. Eventually, he and his followers decided he would feign death, wrap himself in rotting materials so that it would appear as though he were decaying, and then travel through the various checkpoints out of the city with the rest of the dead. The Talmud reports:

When they arrived at the entrance of the city on the inside, the guards, who were of the faction of the zealots [one of the Jewish factions], wanted to pierce him with their swords in order to ascertain that he was actually dead, as was the common practice. Abba Sikkara [one of Rabbi Zakkai’s followers] said to them: The Romans will say that they pierce even their teacher. The guards then wanted at least to push him to see whether he was still alive, in which case he would cry out on account of the pushing. Abba Sikkara said to them: They will say that they push even their teacher. The guards then opened the gate and he was taken out.¹

When Rabbi Zakkai arrived at the Roman camp, he approached Vespasian, the Roman general in charge of the siege. Jewish tradition claims that Rabbi Zakkai prophesied that Vespasian would become the next Roman emperor. (While Vespasian did eventually become Roman emperor, he was not the next.) Nevertheless, Vespasian was pleased with this “prophecy” and offered Rabbi Zakkai his choice of a reward. Rabbi Zakkai responded: “Give me Yavneh and its sages.” In other words, he requested that Vespasian give him the town of Yavneh (in the north of Israel) and allow him to set up a seminary there. This seminary was the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism.

The fall of Jerusalem and the Temple forced a significant change within Judaism. Along with some of its major movements, it could have perished. Nevertheless, with Rabbi Zakkai’s escape, Judaism continued—and that meant that the specific branch of Judaism that continued to exist was strongly connected to Pharisaic Judaism.

The Implications

You may recall that Pharisaic Judaism followed the “Oral Torah,” a collection of ideas and traditions that Pharisees claimed had come from God. This belief was one of the major issues Jesus held with the Pharisees—that they focused so heavily on their traditions, essentially raising them to a status higher than the words of God (Matthew 15:1-6). As time passed after Jerusalem’s fall, these traditions took an even higher place within Rabbinic Judaism. Eventually, though they had been oral for centuries, one rabbi, Yehudah HaNasi, wrote them down in the mid-second century AD. This compilation of the oral traditions is known as the Mishnah. Essentially, the Mishnah took the commands of the Torah and elaborated on them. For instance, the Torah commanded that a rebellious son be stoned (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). The command, along with the associated ceremony, was relatively straightforward. Nevertheless, the Mishnah sought to probe deeper into the law, ostensibly attempting to understand the commandment’s principle, but largely focusing on the missing details. Thus, the Mishnah records the following about this specific command:

From when does a stubborn and rebellious son become liable to receive the death penalty imposed upon a stubborn and rebellious son? From when he grows two pubic hairs, which are a sign of puberty and from which time he is considered an adult, until he has grown a beard around. The reference here is to the lower beard surrounding his genitals, and not the upper beard, i.e., his facial hair, but the Sages spoke in euphemistic terms.
As it is stated: “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son” (Deuteronomy 21:18), which indicates that the penalty for rebelliousness is imposed upon a son, but not upon a daughter; and upon a son, but not upon a fully grown man. A minor under the age of thirteen is exempt from the penalty imposed upon a stubborn and rebellious son, because he has not yet reached the age of inclusion in mitzvot [the commands].²

The Mishnah continues drilling deeper into this commandment, working through many details. (The discussion continues for another few paragraphs.) In this way, the Mishnah takes a command and attempts to work through its angles to determine the different cases when the command applies. It’s an incredibly legal text, and considers detail after detail.

As the centuries passed, however, rabbis realized that the Mishnah didn’t mention all possible situations. Thus, the rabbis continued to debate the Torah’s application in certain situations—sometimes getting so specific that these hypotheticals seem absolutely impossible. That debate is called the Gemara, essentially a further commentary on the Mishnah. By the 500s, the Gemara was combined with the Mishnah into one text, which is known as the Talmud. Commenting on the rebellious son, the Talmud adds:

The Mishnah teaches that the boy does not become a stubborn and rebellious son unless he actually eats meat and drinks wine. The Sages taught in a baraita [an early tradition]: If he ate any other food but did not eat meat, or if he drank any other beverage but did not drink wine, he does not become a stubborn and rebellious son unless he actually eats meat and drinks wine, as it is stated: “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voices; he is a glutton and a drunkard.”³

The Mishnah and Talmud erect numerous boundaries around the commands. Whereas Deuteronomy 21 is relatively straightforward, the Mishnah qualifies the commandment to mean that it can only apply to sons, not daughters, and that the son must have already entered puberty.

The Talmud then makes the transgression very specific: the son must be rebellious over meat and wine. It goes on to explain that the food isn’t just any food, but food that belongs to his parents that he eats on someone else’s property (Talmud Sanhedrin 71a:7). For the most part, this command has now become so narrow that it wouldn’t apply to anyone.

This minutia is just an example with one commandment, yet the Mishnah and Talmud consider all of the commands, which they count at 613. All of this commentary on the Torah is a serious amount of text; thus, copies of the Talmud range from 42 to 73 volumes.

Rabbinic Judaism considers both the Mishnah and Talmud authoritative. While that doesn’t mean it unequivocally sees them as wholly inspired, it does view them as a continuation of the Torah, and therefore, largely binding. Though many religious Jews today have moved from this view, Orthodox Judaism, a subset of Rabbinic Judaism, continues to understand the Mishnah and Talmud in this way. Put another way, the Mishnah and the Talmud continue Pharisaic Judaism in many practices today.

Conclusion

Though our focus often turns from Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, learning more about Judaism’s development over the centuries illustrates the essential nature of Biblical interpretation. Our approach to the Biblical text matters. If we look for principles and then applications, we can focus on the purpose of God’s commands, His prophecies, and of the Biblical narratives. Without that understanding of the principles, however, our time around the Bible can shift—we can emphasize the commands and their details to the detriment of the purpose behind those commands. Though we could write volumes about those commands and spend our time debating and meditating over the Word of God, we could simply negate the commandment itself.

Jason Hensley,
Associate Editor

 

1. Talmud Gittin 56a:15–17.
2. Mishnah Sanhedrin 8:1.
3. Talmud Sanhedrin 71a:2.