Corpus-Paul

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

> From: Lewis Reich
>
> Liz Fried wrote:
>
> > There was a great deal of religious ferment at this time among Jewish
> > groups. Except for Paul, none of these groups believed the law was moot.
> > The Gospels portray various Jewish groups arguing over the
> minutia of the
> > law. You see the Qumran community arguing with ...(whom?) over points of
> > law.  The ferment was real, but it was not over whether the law
> was valid,
> > whether the temple was appropriate.
>
> Somewhat ambiguous;  I'd suggest that all Jews thought that
> *some* Temple was
> appropriate, but clearly the Qumran sectarisn thought the Temple
> should be somewhat
> different than it was, and the priests of the Leontopolis temple
> rejected the
> leadership of the Jerusalem priesthood.
OK. I'll take this as a friendly amendment.

>
> > You ask how one is to be righteoused without the temple.  I
> have tried to
> > stress in other posts on this list that being righteous was not
> paramount,
> > it is really not a Jewish issue.
>
> Hmmm.  I'd say that salvation wasn't a paramount Jewish concern, but that
> righteousness, meaning following the law, was important.
Righteousness as a way toward salvation wasn't a Jewish issue.  Following
the law was important, but not as the route toward salvation.

>
>
> > The Jew had a place in the world to come,
> > in God's covenant, regardless of the degree of his righteousness.
>
> As long as s/he was righteous in some measure.  The Talmud
> indicates that some Jew had
> no portion in the world to come.
But that wasn't a function of their righteousness. These were polemical
statements against certain groups whose beliefs the rabbis disagreed with.
>
>
>
>
> > In any
> > case, the temple was not necessary to be righteous.  The Jew
> who desired to
> > be righteous obeyed the law to the best of his ability. Jews
> living in the
> > diaspora who desired to be righteous did not worry about temple
> sacrifice. A
> > woman did not hasten to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem every
> time she had a
> > baby. The purpose of the temple sacrifice was not to be
> righteous anyway, it
> > was to atone for the altar. With the temple destroyed, the issue of
> > sacrifice is moot, there is no altar to atone for.
>
> To atone *for* the altar or to atone *through* the altar?
This is very important. One atones *for* the altar. For the sin that accrues
to the altar from a person sinning. As Milgrom puts it.  The altar is the
Mirror in the Story of Dorian Grey. The people don't change, but the altar
gets uglier and uglier, if not atoned for. Soon, the god can't stand living
there any more and leaves. At that point the temple is destroyed.  This is
what is meant by the temple being destroyed from our sins.  It is not the
people who are atoned for, it is the altar. That is why there are all sorts
of things that must be atoned for which aren't "sins" per se. Blood and
semen defile the altar, and must be atoned for.  It is the *altar* that
becomes defiled by sin, by blood, semen, etc. and it is the altar that is
"kippered".

With the destruction of the temple the worst possible thing that could
happen, happened. YHWH left the temple. The question of sacrifice is moot
because there is no longer an altar to atone for. There is no longer a god
who lives there to be fed, etc. This view was not unique to Israel, but was
common among at Ugarit, among the Hittites, etc.  (This is based on
Milgrom's work, which I think is right on the mark.)


>
>
> > The issue of being
> > righteous was not moot however. Thus we see Jews still concerned about
> > following the law. As I explained, even the 'am ha'aretx followed torah
> > laws, they just didn't follow the rabbinic laws.
>
> I'd suggest that they didn't follow *some* of the rabbinic laws.
> Much of the rabbinic
> effort, it seems to me, was a codification and systematization of
> the different
> traditions of observing the law that were common among the 'am ha'aretz.

I think we have different views of the rabbis.
Read the article on Oral Law in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

Best,
Liz
> --
>
> Lewis Reich
> LBR AT sprynet.com
>
>
>
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