Modern and ancient Jewish apocalypticism

Journal of Religion

Volumn 76, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 1-26

  Marcus, Joel ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61249211657     PISSN: 00224189     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/489733     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. For representative surveys, see R. Lang, Anthropological Approaches to the Old Testament (Philadelphia and London: Fortress/SPCK, 1985);
2. J. Elliott, What Is Social Science Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990);
3. and B. Holmberg, Sociology and the New Testament: An Appraisal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
4. The one well-known exception is W. D. Davies's comparison between the Sabbataian messianic movement of the seventeenth century, which was so richly documented by G. Scholem, and the messianic movement that grew up around Jesus: "From Schweitzer to Scholem: Reflections on Sabbatai Svi," Journal of Biblical Literature 95 (1976): 529-58.
5. "Exile in the Holy Land: The Dilemma of Haredi Jewry," in Israel: State and Society, 1948-1988, ed. P. Y. Medding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 89-125,
6. and "The Contemporary Lubavitch Hassidic Movement: Between Conservatism and Messianism," in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, ed. M. Marty and R. S. Appleby, Fundamentalism Project, vol. 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 303-27.
7. J. J. Collins, ed., Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre, Semeia 14 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1979);
8. On the relations and distinctions between these groups, see S. C. Heilman and M. Friedman, "Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Jews: The Case of the Haredim," in Fundamentalisms Observed, ed. M. E. Marty and R. S. Appleby, Fundamentalism Project, vol. 1 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 197-264.
9. Ravitzky, Revealed End, p. 174. This is a characterization of a particular statement by R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, the elder R. Kook's son, but it could be applied more generally to most of the passages Ravitzky quotes in his book.
10. On the importance of understanding the contingencies addressed by ancient apocalyptic writers such as Paul, see J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), pp. 11-12 and passim.
11. see J. J. Collins, "Was the Dead Sea Sect an Apocalyptic Movement?" in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Supplement Series 8; JSOT/ASOR Monographs 2 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), pp. 25-52.
12. F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qiimran and Modern Biblical Studies (1958; rev. ed., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980), pp. 82-83;
13. and Collins, "Was the Dead Sea Sect," p. 39.
14. J. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 99-108.
15. for references, see R. A. Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), p. 226.
16. On the Dead Sea Sect as the faithful remnant, cf. W. S. Lasor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1972), pp. 45-46, 156.
17. Already J. Liebes, in "The Haredi Community in Jerusalem and the Sect of the Judean Desert," Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 3 (1972): 137-52 (Hebrew), compared the Dead Sea Scrolls with the thought of a radical anti-Zionist, R. Yeshayahu Asher Zelig Margolis, a spokesman for the zealous Hasidim in Jerusalem in the 1920s and 1930s.
18. Similarly, some of the Essenes seem not to have adopted the extreme segregationist stance of the Qumran group; see Vermes, Qumran, pp. 97-98;
19. and VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 91, 99.
20. On the Qumran group's awareness of its sectarian nature, see E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 255.
21. On the sect's participation in the revolt, see Y. Yadin, The Message of the Scrolls(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), p. 64;
22. J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wildererness of Judaea, Studies m Biblical Theology, no. 26 (London: SCM Press, 1959) pp. 96-97;
23. Ravitzky, Revaled End, pp. 104-5. The dissonance experienced by the anti-Zionists is clear from R. Hayim Katznellbogen's retrospective glance in 1979: "Who can fortret the darkness of the six days in [1967], when . . . the Zionists arose, surveyed the earth, and declared war. And in the end they conquered all of Eretz Israel from the Arabs reaching the place of our glorious Temple. And the thing led to confusion and uncertainty which grew apace. Dunng the first week after the conquest, the sages forgot their wisdom he trial of successes and the [ostensible] miracles, as well as [their own] blindness ed them to dance around the [Golden] Calf. Perfectly pious Jews looked catastrophe in the face and could not cope with it" (translation from Ravitzky "Forcing the End" [n. 4 above] p.56). The "catastrophe" here is the success of the Israeli military, especially the recovery of the Old City of Jerusalem and the site of thhe Temple; the dangerous temptation these sites posed for anti-Zionists is shown by the fact that R. Teitelbalm immediately forbade his fo lowers to go to the newly liberated Western Wall and quickly published a warning tract called On Redemption and Its [Illegitimate] Substitutes.
24. On these victories and their galvanizing effect, see M. Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod until 70 A.D. (1961; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989), pp. 284-85.
25. Recent studies have rightly pointed out the social dimension of the revolt (e.g., R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus, New Voices in Biblical Studies [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985];
26. M. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66-70 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987]). But Hengel's central insight that the revolt was strongly catalyzed by the religious beliefs of the revolutionaries should not be abandoned, especially when Josephus tells us, against his own general tendency, that the revolutionaries were "more than all else" motivated by messianic belief.
27. H. E. Shapira, Minhat El'azar.
28. On the Sicarii, see L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 2:500-501.
29. See J. Marcus, "The Jewish War and the Sitz im Leben of Mark,"Journal of Biblical Literature 111 (1992): 457-59.
30. see C. Tuckett, The Messianic Secret, Issues in Religion and Theology, 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981).
31. see M. Smith, "What Is Implied by the Variety of Messianic Figures," Journal of Biblical Literature 78 (1959): 66-72;
32. On this "mystery of the kingdom of God," see J. Marcus, The Mystery of the Kingdom of God, Society of Biblical Literature, Dissertation Series, no. 90 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), pp. 43-47.
33. and J. L. Martyn, "Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul's Letter to the Galatians," New Testament Studies 31 (1985): 410-24.
34. See G. Scholem, "Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism," in his The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (1959; London: Allen & Unwin, 1971), pp. 19-22. The antinomian tendencies in Kookist apocalypticism contrast with the way in which Habad messianism calls for joyful but exact observance of the Torah. For Habad, even the epiphany of the Messiah will bring no change in the Law; the laws of the redemption will be identical with the present laws of the Torah (see Ravitzky, Revealed End, p. 272). The Lubavitcher position, then, is rather similar to that of some groups of first-century Jews who accepted Jesus' messiahship but remained "zealous for the Law" (Acts 21:20). Such Christian Jews may have believed, like the author of the later Epistle of Peter to James 2.5, that "the Law of God . . . was made known by Moses and was confirmed by our Lord in its everlasting continuance" (cited inj. L. Martyn, "A Law-Observant Mission to Gentiles: The Background of Galatians," Scottish Journal of Theology 38 [1985]: 311).
35. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), chap. 6.
36. See J. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul's Ethics in Galatians, Studies of the New Testament and Its World (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988).
37. On Jewish hopes (and actions) for conversion of Gentiles, see L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).