Of the wisdom literature composed in Hebrew, the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus (c. 180–175 bce), modeled on the book of Proverbs, identified Wisdom with the observance of the Torah. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, probably written in the latter half of the 2nd century bce, patterned on Jacob’s blessings to his sons, is thought to belong to eschatological literature related to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The identification of Wisdom and Torah is stressed in the Mishnaic tract Pirqe Avot (“Sayings of the Fathers”), which, though edited about 200 ce, contains the aphorisms of rabbis dating back to 300 bce.
Books such as the Testament of Job, Genesis Apocryphon, the Book of Jubilees (now known to have been composed in Hebrew, as seen by its appearance among the Dead Sea Scrolls), and Biblical Antiquities (falsely attributed to Philo; originally written in Hebrew, then translated into Greek, but now extant only in Latin), as well as the first half of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, often show affinities with rabbinic Midrashim (interpretive works) in their legendary accretions of biblical details. Sometimes, as in Jubilees and in the Pseudo-Philo work, these accretions are intended to answer the questions of heretics, but often, particularly in the case of Josephus, they are apologetic in presenting biblical heroes in a guise that would appeal to a Hellenized audience.
Apocalyptic trends, given considerable impetus by the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, were not (as was formerly thought) restricted to Pharisaic circles. They were (as is clear from the Dead Sea Scrolls) found in other groups as well and are of particular importance for their influence on both Jewish mysticism and early Christianity. These books, which have a close connection with the biblical Book of Daniel, stress the impossibility of a rational solution to the problem of theodicy. They also stress the imminence of the day of salvation, which is to be preceded by terrible hardships, and presumably reflected the current historical setting. In the First Book of Enoch there is stress on the terrible punishment inflicted upon sinners in the Last Judgment, the imminent coming of the messiah and his kingdom, and the role of angels.
The sole Palestinian Jewish author writing in Greek whose works are preserved is Josephus. His account of the war against the Romans in his Life—and, to a lesser degree, in the Jewish War—is largely a defense of his own questionable behaviour as the commander of Jewish forces in Galilee. But these works, especially Against Apion and Jewish Antiquities, are also defenses of Judaism against anti-Semitic attacks. The Jewish War often quite deliberately parallels the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (c. 460–c. 404 bce); and the Jewish Antiquities quite deliberately parallels the Roman Antiquities by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 20 bce), a work that dates from earlier in the same century. The Roman period (63 bce–135 ce) New parties and sects
Under Roman rule a number of new groups, largely political, emerged in Palestine. Their common aim was to seek an independent Jewish state. They were also zealous for, and strict in their observance of, the Torah.
Palestine during the time of Herod the Great and his sons.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
After the death of King Herod, a political group known as the Herodians, who apparently regarded Herod as the messiah, sought to reestablish the rule of Herod’s descendants over an independent Palestine as a prerequisite for Jewish preservation. Unlike the Zealots, however, they did not refuse to pay taxes to the Romans.
The Zealots, whose appearance was traditionally dated to 6 ce, were one of five groups that emerged at the outset of the first Jewish war against Rome (66–73 ce), which began when the Jews expelled the Romans from Jerusalem, the client king Agrippa II fled the city, and a revolutionary government was established. The Zealots were a mixture of bandits, insurgents from Jerusalem, and priests, who advocated egalitarianism and independence from Rome. In 68 they overthrew the government established by the original leaders of the revolt and took control of the Temple during the civil war that followed; many of them perished in the sack of Jerusalem by the Roman general (and later emperor) Titus (reigned 79–81) or in fighting after the city’s fall. The Sicarii (Assassins), so-called because of the daggers (sica) they carried, arose about 54 ce, according to Josephus, as a group of bandits who kidnapped or murdered those who had found a modus vivendi with the Romans. It was they who made a stand at the fortress of Masada, near the Dead Sea, committing suicide rather than allowing themselves to be captured by the Romans (73).
Roman soldiers carrying the menorah from the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 ce; detail of a relief on the Arch of Titus, Rome, 81 ce.Alinari/Art Resource, New York
A number of other parties—various types of Essenes, Damascus covenanters, and the Qumrān–Dead Sea groups—were distinguished by their pursuit of an ascetic monastic life, disdain for material goods and sensual gratification, sharing of material possessions, concern for eschatology, strong apocalyptic views in anticipation of the coming of the messiah, practice of ablutions to attain greater sexual and ritual purity, prayer, contemplation, and study. The Essenes differed from the Therapeutae, a Jewish religious group that had flourished in Egypt two centuries earlier, in that the latter actively sought “wisdom” whereas the former were anti-intellectual. Only some of the Essenes were celibate. The Essenes have been termed “gnosticizing Pharisees” because of their belief, shared with the gnostics, that the world of matter is evil.
The Damascus sect (New Covenanters) was a group of Pharisees who went beyond the letter of the Pharisaic Halakha. Like the Essenes and the Dead Sea sects, they adopted a monastic lifestyle and opposed the way in which sacrifices were offered in the Temple.
The discoveries of scrolls in the caves of Qumrān, near the Dead Sea, beginning in 1947, focused attention on the groups that had lived there. On the basis of paleography, carbon-14 testing, and the coins discovered in the caves, most scholars accept a 1st-century date for them. A theoretical relationship of the communities with John the Baptist and the nascent Christian groups remains in dispute, however. The sectaries have been identified variously as Zealots, an unnamed anti-Roman group, and especially Essenes. That the groups had secret, presumably apocalyptic teachings is clear from the fact that some of the scrolls are in cryptographic script and reversed writing; yet, despite the sectaries’ extreme piety and legalistic conservatism, they apparently were not unaware of Hellenism, to judge from the presence of Greek books at Qumrān.
It has long been debated whether gnosticism originated in the apocalyptic strains of Judaism that were prevalent when the Temple was destroyed in 70. Although it is doubtful that there is any direct Jewish source of gnosticism, some characteristic gnostic doctrines are found in certain groups of particularly apocalyptic 1st-century Jews—the dichotomy of body and soul and a disdain for the material world, a notion of esoteric knowledge, and an intense interest in angels and in problems of creation. Origin of Christianity: the early Christians and the Jewish community