melon said:
But all of this became moot with the arrival of the Persian Empire when Cyrus the Great remolded Judaism into the image of the Persian state religion, Zoroastrianism. "Yahweh" was no longer the thunder god of the Levites living on Mount Sinai, but a reflection of the all good and loving supreme god of light, "Ahura Mazda."
This makes it sound as if Cyrus arrived on the scene, and voila--out of Shaddai-worship, modern rabbinic Judaism. It's true that the God of Torah has many names and embodies the attributes of many Ancient Near Eastern gods, and many Torah passages indeed suggest ongoing worship of other deities (not to mention the archeological evidence). But the notion that God is loving and good is hardly exclusive to postexilic times: the Torah and Early Prophets also extoll God as merciful and just (as well as jealous and angry), and as willing to change his mind in response to petitions from his followers. This vision of God persists into postexilic times, rather than leading to a dualistic split, as in the Zoroastrian Spenta Mainyu/Angra Mainyu.
Actually, many theologians consider Hellenistic thought to have exerted far more influence on the nature of Jewish monotheism. In any case, these outside sources were influential only in the context of an ever-developing but distinct tradition that far predated (and far outlasted) the rise to power of either.
Also, as a footnote to Cyrus' role in Jewish history (as opposed to our theology): despite Cyrus' invitation to the Jews to return, and despite the exhortations of Deutero-Isaiah and others, most Jews never went back to Israel after the Babylonian captivity ended. The total number who actually took Cyrus up on his offer was only about 40,000. So,
demographically speaking, Palestine in Jesus' day was far from being the center of the Jewish world.
And to ensure that this refashioned "Judaism" caught on, Cyrus the Great sent a "prophet" in the form of Ezra. And, on the order of Cyrus the Great, the temple is rebuilt, but not without conflict. Judaism is thus split into three factions:
1) The majority Sadducees who reject this Zoroastrian-infused Judaism and cling to their traditional beliefs.
2) The minority Pharisees who become powerful, due to their loyalty to this new religion.
3) The dissident Essenes (writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls) who so virulently oppose the rebuilding of the Temple that they live in the desert in protest.
Actaually, it was the Sadducees who were most powerful during the Persian period, since they were the party of the wealthy Temple priests at a time when these priests held most of the local political power (Cyrus having refused to restore the monarchy). The Pharisees were a faction of scribes and sages who emphasized public teaching of the Torah, and continued the tradition of prayer houses (beit knesset, later "synagogues"--begun during the Babylonian exile and becoming increasingly important as sites of worship...eventually, of course, destined to replace the Temple altogether). The Essenes didn't emerge until several centuries later; their rejection of the Temple originated with rejection of the authority of High Priests during the Hasmonean period, rather than in an aversion to Zoroastrian teachings.
While it is true that Zoroastrian-influenced concepts like messianism and the afterlife were a part of some Pharisees' beliefs, the real "lightning-rod" conflicts between them and the Sadducees had to do with, first, whether the oral Torah (mishnah) could legitimately be used to interpret the written one or not; and second, whether the 613 Torah commandments (mitzvot) were meant to apply to all Jews, or only to priests. The Pharisees said yes to the former in both cases, and it is this aspect of their legacy that most powerfully shaped Judaism as we know it today--not their eschatology or their messianism, which lingered on in the margins (and occasionally erupted into disasters like the Bar-Kokhba rebellion) but have never become a guiding preoccupation of most observant Jews.
In any case, the terms "minority" and "majority" are very misleading here because most Jews--whether in the Persian period or in Jesus' day--were wholly nonsectarian, having nothing at all to gain from affiliation with any of these parties.
And so these three factions exist up into the time of Jesus, where the Sadducees want Jesus dead, because Messianic beliefs are Zoroastrian in nature, and the Pharisees want Jesus dead because He's not the warrior Messiah they expected.
It's most unlikely that either sect (much less the majority of Jews at the time) had a collective position on Jesus one way or the other. At any rate, it was ultimately the Roman rulers whose pespective mattered. Unless, of course, you buy into the unlikely idea that Pontius Pilate--a tyrannical crucifier of thousands who was ultimately canned by the Romans for excessive brutality--was really just a sympathetic pushover who let some random mob of Jews (a people whom he loathed, and over whom he held absolute power) "force" him to execute a man he wanted to live.
Anyway, my main point is that the Bible starts making some sense when you keep track of all the history and conflict that created it.
I agree, but sweeping reductionism is an ill-advised way to "make sense" of anything people feel strongly about. That can create unnecessary new conflicts at the expense of productive discussion, IMHO.
That said, I greatly admire your knowledge of Biblical and doctrinal history, as well as your gift for concisely summarizing very broad topics in a smart, spirited way. I wish I had that gift...unfortunately, I tend to be a nattering old windbag instead.