This essay was submitted on December 10, 2021 as part of a final assignment for my World Religions and The Cultures They Create course.
During the Second Temple period the dynamic of Judaic culture shifted to a more democratic structure, setting the foundation of Oral Law that contributed to the development of Rabbinic Judaism. Judaism had already been undergoing structural changes from the first breakthrough; internal heterogeneity was prevalent as Jewish identity was shifting. In terms of external relations, interplay with other major civilizations created the pressure of “intercivilizational contacts and competition” (Eisenstadt 228), further compounded by the Diaspora that signified the political weakening of Ancient Israel.
A significant transformation that occurred during this time was with the idea of who had access and authority to sacredness. The monopoly of access to attributes of sacredness held by ascriptive groups, priests, kings, and prophets had been weakened (Eisenstadt 232) as a new political structure is put in place of a monarchy, and new groups of elite intellectuals, such as the Pharisees, emerge. Due to this, “participation in the central sacred sphere was opened to all members of the community,” and “a new criteria of leadership and elite-status were articulated” (ibid.). This new institutionalized mould was more democratic than prior societal structures, bringing elements of Oral Law to the forefront. Oral Law is significant in the way it was a new addition to Jewish doctrine that resulted from various communal leaders and sages over a period of time. It was created with the “increased emphasis on legal-ritual prescriptions, based on exegesis, study, and continuous elaborations of the holy texts, and/or communal prayer as the new and ultimately [...] dominant elements within the religious content of the tradition” (Eisenstadt 233). Oral Law would later crystalize to hold equal validity as Written Law. Judaism was becoming more community-based, which was crucial for its survival once the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans.
Upon the destruction of the Second Temple, Judaism became decentralized and the synagogue became the central public hub for Jewish life. “Following the Temple’s demise, surviving elites—including former Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, and scribes—organized closed communities on the basis of rules grounded in scriptural study that members hoped to prescribe for all Jews” (Cohen 43). No longer did Jews need to be in the presence of the Temple in Israel in order to practice their faith, rather Jewish communities can be established anywhere with the necessary holy texts and a rabbi to aid in interpreting scripture. Moreover, these early rabbis “legitimat[ed] new practices, such as communal prayer as a proper means for soliciting divine favor in place of the bygone priestly sacrifices” (ibid.). This emphasizes an idea central to Rabbinic Judaism: supreme religious authority was vested in the ‘Torah’ (ibid.), a manifestation of God that holds more authority than elite leaders or particular places. Still, the adherence to the events and revelations that occurred in Ancient Israel remains as an essential element of Judaism, especially the covenant between God and the Children of Israel.
Work Cited
Eisenstadt, "The Second Breakthrough in Ancient Israelite Civilization - The Second Commonwealth and Christianity," pp. 227-240.
Cohen, "Constructing Judaism and Christianity," pp. 41-57.
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