Jewish Identity and Sectarianism

The limited evidence for Jews in the Second Temple period suggests that Jews at this time adopted practices that connected them with other Jews throughout the Greco-Roman world. Jews and Greeks alike considered these practices, which included the observance of dietary laws, circumcision, and the Sabbath, to be the primary markers of Jewish identity. By the end of the first century CE, most Jews were living in communities whose cultural and religious life included the synagogue. It was there that Jews regularly gathered to read their scriptures and where the reading and interpreting of these sacred materials was the primary expression of religious devotion. The synagogue became the main site of communal gathering and scriptural recitation well before it was established as a place of communal prayer. 

And yet, by the first century CE, certain groups of Judeans had distinguished themselves politically or ideologically from other Jews. Josephus names three of these groups—Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes—and describes each of them as representing a different philosophical school of thought. In some passages, Josephus refers to these groups as haireses, a word that is often translated today as “sects.” However, the modern connotation of “sect”—the implication that a group is closed off from outside society and centered on a messianic figure who has promised them salvation—does not apply to all these schools of thought. An alternative translation of haireses as “parties” hints at the social and political roles that these groups might have played.

In addition to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, ancient sources also describe the Boethusians, likely a subgroup of Sadducees; the Therapeutae, an Essene-like group located primarily in Egypt; and the early followers of Jesus, Jews who were likely considered sectarians both by other Jews and by Romans. (A complete “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity would occur gradually.) The Essenes and early Christians, arguably among the smaller of the groups in antiquity, are well-represented in the Posen collection because of the wealth of material about them available from the Dead Sea Scrolls and from the New Testament, respectively.

[h2]Literary Evidence for Judean Sects[/h2]  

Our primary sources of evidence for the Jewish sects of Judea come from the writings of Josephus (ca. 37–ca. 100 CE); 1 Maccabees, which was likely written in Hebrew sometime after 136 BCE; 2 Maccabees, a five-volume work written in Greek and condensed into a single volume at the end of the second century BCE; the cache of documents found at Qumran known as the Dead Sea Scrolls (second century BCE to first century CE); and early Christian sources. Of these, Josephus provides us with the most material, but his descriptions of how these groups lived and their key points of difference—what distinguished each from the others—are not entirely consistent. He first mentions them in the second book of The Jewish War, which he wrote shortly after the end of the First Jewish Revolt, in 73 CE. In this book, Josephus describes a tax revolt against Rome led by a Galilean Jew named Judas, and he notes that while Judas was a sectarian, he was not a member of any of the three main sects prevalent at the time in Judea. Josephus goes on to provide a lengthy parenthetical description of the sects and then focuses on the Essenes, describing the extent of their piety, their communal lifestyle, and their internal organization. He closes by briefly noting that the Pharisees and Sadducees differed from one another and from the Essenes in their approach to the matters of free will and resurrection. His emphasis on the Essenes in this passage may be due to a perception that they were less well known to his audience than the Pharisees and Sadducees, since these latter groups both held administrative positions in Jerusalem and at times interacted with Roman authorities. Or perhaps the practices of the Essenes were exotic enough to be of particular interest to readers.

Josephus mentions these groups again in books 13 and 18 of his Jewish Antiquities, completed about twenty years after The Jewish War. In book 13, Josephus writes that the difference between them hinges on their attitude toward fate versus free will, with the Sadducees rejecting fate, the Essenes rejecting free will, and the Pharisees taking a moderate middle ground. Based on the placement of this passage—which hardly relates to its context but does set the stage for a conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees during the reign of John Hyrcanus I (134–104 BCE)—Josephus implies that these sects were already established by the time Jonathan the Hasmonean ruled Judea (152–143 BCE). 

In book 18 of Jewish Antiquities, Josephus describes the activities of a fourth sect, the Zealots, who resisted Roman occupation and led the Jews into a rebellion against Rome in 66 CE. Elsewhere in Jewish Antiquities and The Jewish War, Josephus mentions the Sicarii, who were perhaps an extreme subgroup of the Zealots and who Josephus explains were named for the short, curved daggers with which they conducted targeted assassinations of Jews who were loyal to Rome. 

The scrolls discovered in the caves of Qumran also provide a wealth of information regarding Judean sectarian life. These scrolls were stored sometime in the first century BCE or the first century CE by a small community of Jewish sectarians who had established a settlement near the northwestern corner of the Dead Sea. The scrolls provide evidence about this sect, whose members withdrew from Jerusalem during the period of Hasmonean rule. They rejected Hasmonean interference with the office of the high priesthood and thus did not acknowledge the authority of the Temple administrators. Most scholars identify the community to which the scrolls belonged as an extreme subset of the Essenes.

Earlier evidence suggests the presence of another group within Judea at this time: the Hasideans. In 1 Maccabees, this group is massacred by the Syrian Greeks when they refuse to pick up arms on the Sabbath, in their belief that doing so was a violation of their ancestral law . Second Maccabees, a more stylized and less historically reliable account of the Hasmonean rebellion, describes a Hellenized Jew named Alcimus accusing the Hasideans of being warriors “whose leader is Judah Maccabee” and who are responsible for the Hasmonean rebellion.

Finally, a group called the Boethusians appears occasionally in rabbinic literature and seems to have been closely connected to the Sadducees. The Boethusians may have been descended from the high priestly family of Simeon bar Boethus, mentioned in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities.