The Sages, Other Groups, and Nehemiah Gordon
Contents:
1. Historical Background
2. Sanhedrin
3. The Sages in both Judah and Babylon
4. The Pharisees
5. The Samaritans
6. The Sadducees
7. The Old Karaites
8. The Neo-Karaites. Nehemiah Gordon
9. Nehemiah Gordon and Paul of Tarsis. Fifth Column Good Service?
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1. Historical Background
The Sages were the ideological and physical descendants of the leaders of the Jews after they returned with Babylon.
The northern Ten Tribes had been exiled, according to conventional understanding, in ca. 730-720 BCE.
In ca. 586 the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple and completed the exile (that had begun earlier) of nearly all of Judah to Babylon.
Babylonian Captivity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_exile
#According to the Hebrew Bible, there were three deportations of Jews to Babylon: the exile of King Jeconiah, his court and many others in Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year; Jeconiah's successor Zedekiah and the rest of the people in Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year; and a later deportation in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year. These are attributed to c. 597 BCE, c. 587 BCE, and c. 582 BCE, respectively.
The forced exile ended in 538 BCE after the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who gave the Jews permission to return to Yehud province and to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. #
Zerubbabel, the grandson of King Jehoiachin from before the Exile, was made governor of the Persian Province of Judah (Haggai 1:1). In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia, Zerubbabel led 42,360 Jews who returned from the Babylonian Captivity. The date is generally thought to have been between 538 and 520 BC. Zerubbabel also laid the foundation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem soon after.
About 50 years later Ezra and Nehemiah led additional returns of Jews to Judah. They took over the organization of the Province and completed the building of the Temple, as well as building a wall around Jerusalem.
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2. Sanhedrin
A new central body was set up known as "HaKenesset HaGadolah" or Great Assembly. In English Translations the Great Assembly is sometimes called the Great Synagogue. The Great Assembly originally numbered 120 but as members died out or retired they were not replaced until the number had diminished to 70. The number was actually 71 when the President (Ha-Nasi i.e. The Prince) is included. This reflected the situation in the time of Moses when in addition to the 70 elders Moses would also participate bringing the number up to 71. These seventy elders comprised the Sanhedrin (Numbers 11:16).
The Great Assembly included amongst its members the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
We thus have an overlap between the Sanhedrin and the Prophets.
See:
Elders. Rabbinical Authority
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3. The Sages in both Judah and Babylon
The effective rulers of Judah were members of the Sanhedrin. Most (but not always all) members of the Sanhedrin came from the body of Sages in Judah. It is important to remember that throughout all this period the majority of Jews remained in Mesopotamia (Babylon) and other areas of the Diaspora. Great centers of learning and leading Sages grew up in Mesopotamia. This inter-reacted with the Scholars of Judah in the Land of Israel. There was an exchange of personnel between the two centers, ongoing consultation and dialogue as well as various degrees of rivalry.
The Sages were the leaders and religious guides of the masses of people. They derived their authority from the Bible (Deuteronomy 17: 8-13).
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4. The Pharisees
The Pharisees were a group in Judah who adopted for themselves extra stringencies and higher standards of observation. They did not expect the masses of the people to do as they did in all matters. This is somewhat analogous to the Marines in the US Army. The Marines are part of the army. They have a special purpose. Higher standards of acceptance, training, and service are applied to them. It is not expected that the rest of the US Army be like the Marines, nor is there a need for it.
Many of the Sages were also Pharisees or parallel to them but one did not have to be like a Pharisee to become a Sage. This depended on the degree of learning, intellectual levels, and piety.
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5. The Samaritans
The Samaritans were descendants of non-Israelite foreigners settled by the Assyrians in land left vacant after the Exile of the Ten Tribes. The Samaritans adopted aspects of the Hebrew Faith while retaining their former pagan beliefs and practices (2-Kings 17:24). They were conquered by the Hasmonean (Maccabee) Jews and an attempt was made to bring them closer to Judaism. They accepted parts of the written law but rejected Oral Tradition. At first their status (as Israelites or not) was uncertain but it was then discovered that a group amongst them secretly still worshipped a pagan god in the shape of a dove. Henceforth they were all classified as being on the same level as all other non-Jewish Gentiles.
At times they claimed to be descended from Israelites though they were not. They co-operated with the enemies of Jews and were antagonistic to Jews. They accepted the first five books of the Bible which they slightly modified. They also kept the book of Joshua but no other Biblical work.
See:
THE SAMARITANS.
Do traditions of British and French Kinship Reflect Ancestral Connections?
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6. The Sadducees
The Sadducees and the Boethians (a similar group) rejected much of the Oral Law and denied Life after Death. The Sadducees were derived mainly from the Priestly wealthy class. At one stage they had close contacts with the Samaritans. They were Hellenistic (adherents of Greek culture) and pro-Roman. Maimonides says their motivations were atheistic.
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7. The Old Karaites
The Karaites like the Samaritans and Sadducees rejected the Oral Law.
Jewish accounts say that the Karaites were founded in Babylon by Anan ben Shafat in ca. 760 CE. Others say that different Karaite sects were already in existence and Anan ben Shafat built on them. The Karaites more or less believed that anyone could interpret the Bible and how the law was to be applied as they liked. They still say this though some kind of consensus is often reached. The Karaites in the Middle East were probably mostly Jewish. Karaites in Europe were mainly non-Jews. Some of the Karaites in Europe cooperated with the Nazis in WW2. Today a few thousand descendants of Karaites from the Middle East dwell in Israel. Their status is problematic.
See:
Who's a Jew? An old religious argument once again rears its angry head
See Also: Firkovitch Forgeries. Karaite Impostors and the Ten Tribes
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8. The Neo-Karaites. Nehemiah Gordon
These are an invention of Nehemiah Gordon.
Nehemiah (also pronounced "Nechamiah") Gordon and a few friends somehow got temporary control of the Karaite Synagogue and an adjacent apartment in the Old City of Jerusalem. They also received funds from non-Jewish groups. Gordon says he is the son of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi. He is recognized by non-Jewish Christian groups as a Karaite.
Yair Davidiy in 2009 spoke in an apartment adjoining the Karaite Synagogue in Jerusalem before a group headed by Nehemiah Gordon. Gordon later informed us that most of those attending were not Karaites. The lecture was paid for with a check on an account attributed to the Karaites. Gordon was openly hostile in this meeting to the idea that the Lost Ten Tribes were to be found amongst Western Peoples. If anything, he opined, they were to be located in the East. Gordon and one other participant kept referring to Germans and attempting to present our case as saying that the Lost Ten Tribes were in Germany. This is the diametrical opposite of what we do say.
They also misrepresent Judaism in a similar manner. Gordon was an aficionado of Barry Chamish the notorious anti-Jewish Conspiracy Theory Freak. The name Chamish in Hebrew means "Fifth" and both Chamish and Gordon were Fifth Column people.
Anyway if Gordon were to represent the Kariates that would be one thing. That in the eyes of certain Ephraimites and their ilk he has become an expert on what their Old Testament requires is another.
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9. Nehemiah Gordon and Paul of Tarsis. Fifth Column Good Service?
Is Gordon inadvertently a fifth columnist deliberately distancing Ephraimite-type Christians from Jews?
We are not interested in Christian Theology. Neither do we know much about nor take sides in it. It may however be worth noting the attitude of Rabbi Jacob Emden. This authority, also known as Ya'avetz (1697-1776, Altona, Germany), "was of the opinion that Jesus' original objective, and especially Paul's, was only to convert Gentiles to the Seven Laws of Noah while allowing Jews to follow full Mosaic Law."
For the Gentiles according to Emden, Christianity could have been a good thing,
# We should consider Christians and Moslems as instruments for the fulfilment of the prophecy that the knowledge of God will one day spread throughout the earth. Whereas the nations before them worshipped idols, denied God's existence, and thus did not recognize God's power or retribution, the rise of Christianity and Islam served to spread among the nations, to the furthest ends of the earth, the knowledge that there is One God who rules the world, who rewards and punishes and reveals Himself to man. #
This quoted opinion of Emden echoes that of Maimonides.
Rabbi Emden may have been influneced by a Late Medieval (?) legend that said that Paul deliberatedly did a service for Judaism in that he caused the Christians to emphasize the differences between themselves and the Jews. Otherwise there was danger of Jews not being aware of the dangers that early Christianity posed to them.
Nehemiah Gordon likewise is helping separate the wheat from the chaff. I doubt that he intends it.
Gordon ridicules Rabbinic Beliefs and presents his own ideas in their place. Ephraimites and other Christians follow Gordon in these matters or at least sympathize with him.
Rabbinical Judaism would not be pleased to have such elements imitating them so perhaps Gordon is doing a service?
Gordon, like Chamish, also provides a pseudo-kosher excuse for such reprobates to retain their basic anti-Jewish sentiments instead of having to discard them.
Should we be angry or just say, Thank You?