When we started, it was a slight bit foggy. It was beautiful over the Michtash Rammon.
We spent time near the Dead Sea. There were many different
people and groups that came out to the desert to run away from people or things
that were happening in the North.
The first place
that we visited was Masada. After watching a couple of the guys race up the
siege ramp we talked about David running away from Saul. In 1 Samuel 22 we are
told that David sends his parents to Moab for safety and then takes up refugee
at a stronghold in the desert. In Hebrew ‘Masada’ is ‘stronghold’, so maybe
David came to a place like this where he can easily hide and defend himself if
Saul comes by.
We picked up this story again at En Gedi, here in 1 Samuel 23 we
are told that David is hiding in a cave when Saul comes in to do his business.
Instead of seizing the opportunity David only cuts off the corner of Saul’s
robe and shortly after has an exchange with Saul in which he says that he would
not lift his hand against God’s anointed. In all things, even when so many men
are out searching for him to kill him, David still fears the Lord and does not
take matters into his own hands.
At Masada we started to talk about the different groups of Jews in and around the time of 1st century AD. In particular we looked at the idea of how they responded to Rome. In those times politics and political situations were not separate from religion, so the question of, “What we do we do with the Romans?”
The Jews mostly believed in all the same things. On all the major points they tended to agree. It was on other points that there were issues. We see this today too. All the Christian denominations believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. All the Christian churches believe in the details that were laid out in Apostles’ Creed, but there are other points on which denominations have split and argue over. Is it right to baptize infants or adults? Predestination? Total depravity? What will the end times look like? And the list could go on for a long time. The different ways that the Jews responded to the Romans ruling over them created clear splits between the different groups.
The Sadducees were the first group we talked about. They were
the group that worked with the Romans. They were the ruling class in Israel and
had control of the temple and were the priesthood. Their cooperation with the
Romans made them wealthy as well. But it was also known that the Sadducees did
not have the highest morals. Remains in their houses have been found that they
frequently consumed large quantities of un-kosher wine. So much so that because
of the frequent bingeing the wooden table legs had to be replaced with metal
feet because they were rotting off.
The next group
we talked about was the Zealots. These people were passionate. They followed
Torah and did what they could to get other people to follow it too. They were a
more militant group and did everything they could stand up against the Romans,
and the Jews who weren’t Jewish enough. They even resorted to killing. This group
was one of the last groups standing during the great revolt in 63AD. A group of
about 900 had held themselves against Rome, up at Masada, a fortress that Herod
the great had built and stocked. The Romans laid siege to the fortress and for
much time, methodically built a siege ramp to reach the top of the wall. The
siege ramp is impressive. It is quite a feat that they were able to build
something so large. The Romans finally broke through the walls but the Zealots
had decided that it was better that they die in their own hand than to be taken
as slaves for the Romans. So almost everybody in the city was dead by the time
the Romans entered the city the next morning. The same pattern happens in
another city in the Galilee. The Zealots though it better to kill their own and
die than to serve the Romans and were willing to act upon that.
The third group that we talked about was the Essenes. This group
was a group that believed that they should separate themselves from the Romans
and focus on living right and prepare for the Messiah to come. We looked at the
community that was found at Qumran. Although it doesn’t say for sure that this
group was Essene, they definitely were some sort of Essene-like community. They
had a large emphasis on the scriptures and had many copies of almost all of the
books of the Jewish Bible (all except Esther). They also have documents about
how they should live and their community rules. The discovery of the scrolls
that were found was important in understanding the different influences and
traditions that were present during the 1st century AD.
We touched
briefly on the Pharisees, they were a group that was more varied and tended to
fit more in between the extremes.
The talk about
these four different groups of people got me to thinking, what do we do with
the difference of opinion between the different groups that we see today? Is
there a healthy balance of trying to avoid or trying to accept and work with those
who are influencing us? Is there a place for zealous passion? Is there a place
for pulling away from it all and hiding out in the desert?
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