- Theology and Identity
- Season 2
- Episode 1
- Airdate: 22 November 2024
- Please note this is a script, and not a transcript. There may be slight differences between this text and the actual broadcast.
- All Bible quotations taken from the English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016)
Audio Links:
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Season 2_1
Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the transformation of Judaism
Jerusalem was surrounded, and the food was running out. Thousands of pilgrims had recently arrived to celebrate Passover in that fateful spring of 70 AD, perhaps unaware that the Roman siege was about to begin. Now they were trapped. As days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, the desperation intensified. Bandits ransacked family homes demanding that any food be turned over on pain of death. Families resorted to eating hay, leather, cloth—anything they could chew.
Rumors of cannibalism circulated throughout the city. In the evenings some dared to venture outside the walls under the cover of darkness to scavenge along the perimeter for leaves and herbs.
When caught, they were tortured and crucified near the walls so that all of the inhabitants could see their fate. Each night, more starving scavengers were captured, and soon the Romans had no more space to plant their crosses.
The Roman general Titus pleaded with the Jewish leaders to surrender. He insisted that he had no intention of destroying their city. But they refused, and the siege wore on. As the battering rams finally breached the first wall, the Roman soldiers poured in. They plunged through one line of defense after another, pushing the Jews deeper into the city. A valiant stand was made at the seemingly impenetrable Antonia Fortress, but once again, the Judean defenses succumbed. The
battle now raged within the outer courts of the temple itself. Titus had warned his soldiers not to harm the temple itself. But the six-month siege had left its mark on his men. When they finally broke
down the inner gates, their fury was insatiable. The temple was soon in flames. Man-to-man combat spread throughout the inner court. Jewish soldiers mounted the altar itself to fend off the onslaught, but to no avail. Soon, the monument upon which the sacrifices of Israel had been offered for centuries was shrouded in corpses. An eyewitness would report, “Now round about the altar lay the dead bodies heaped one upon the another, as at the steps going up to it ran a great quantity of
their blood, where also the dead bodies that were slain above (on the altar) fell down.”
As the temple was finally taken, the last Jewish fighters scattered throughout the city. Romans soldiers scoured the streets, breaking through household doors only to find piles of emaciated corpses—men, women, and children long dead from starvation. The last fighters had retreated to the tunnels and caverns underground. There remained no option for the Romans but to torch the city. As the smoke of Jerusalem ascended, the soldiers lifted their standards upon its remaining towers.
Among the ashes of the Holy Place, Titus made an offering to his gods. Jerusalem was now desecrated and destroyed. For the people of first century Israel, the temple that fell to the ground on that day was more than just an important religious building. It was the one place, and the
only place, where they could fulfill their commitment to offer worship to YHWH.
When we consider all that the temple stood for in the eyes of the Jewish people, it would be natural to think that when Titus and his soldiers entered the precinct, tore down the altar, and desecrated the Holy Place, the end should have come. Judaism should have collapsed, or at least entered into significant decline. And yet, in spite of all that this building represented, its demise did not result in the end of Judaism.
How can we explain this? How can it be that a religious system which had existed for over 1000 years lose the focal point of its worship, and yet survive?
In the Midrash text known as Tanhuma, Way-yislah find an interesting clue.
In the wake of the Temple’s destruction Rabbi Issac would declare, ‘At this time we have neither prophet nor priest, neither sacrifice, nor Temple, nor altar — what is it that can make atonement for us, even though the Temple is destroyed? The only thing that we have left is prayer!’
The only thing we have left is prayer. And little did Rabbi Isaac understand just how prophetic his words would be. Prayer saved Judaism. But in order to understand exactly how this happened, we need to go a bit further back in history. And what we’ll discover in this journey is that long before the Roman attack in 70 CE, a monumental shift had been taking place in Jewish faith and practice. For hundreds of years, Jews had already been discovering how to worship and encounter the presence of God independently of the temple and its sacrifices.
During the era of the 2nd Temple, it certainly would have appeared that the building in Jerusalem was the indispensable heart of Judaism. But the reality was actually something quite different. The real soul of Jewish faith was not to be found in the Temple. In was to be found in the home, and in a new community institution called the synagogue. In these places, prayer was becoming the spiritual equivalent of animal sacrifice.
So let’s look at the story.
There evidence in the Hebrew Bible that for many Jews, animal sacrifice in-and-of-itself was not considered sufficient to make atonement for sin. The prophet Samuel had said to Israel’s first king Saul, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.’ (1 Sam 15:22) Saul’s successor David would pray, ‘For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.’ (Ps 51:16) The prophet Hosea had declared, ‘For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.’ (Hos 6:6) And Isaiah denounced the people and the priests saying,
‘What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?’ says the Lord; ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings.’ (Is 1:11‒13a)
Throughout the era of Second Temple Judaism, when a Jewish community, for whatever reason, found itself disillusioned, distanced or disconnected from the Jerusalem Temple, these principles would come back into play. There would be increasing emphasis on the notion that the animals offered on the Jerusalem altar did not stand as the sole means of reconciliation with YHWH. Animal sacrifices represented His desire for repentance, obedience, and the honoring of covenant relationship. But - if a community for some reason was not able to participate in the literal sacrifices of the Jerusalem Temple, there were alternative ways by which they could still participate in a ‘spiritual sacrifice.’ And the way they did this was through prayer.
Little by little, prayer was taking over the main expression of Judaic worship. The research that I’ve conducted on 2nd Temple Judaism has led me to the conclusion that in the 2 centuries before the time of Christ, Judaism was in fact experiencing a prayer revival.
As with many revival movements, this one had no particular founder or leader. It included a broad spectrum of Jews, including Pharisees, synagogue communities, and the members of the Qumran community whom we now associate with the DSS.
What the participants in this movement had in common was a sense of isolation from the Jerusalem Temple. Their reasons varied: some were in active protest due to ideological differences; others were isolated by distance; others participated in the rituals even as they felt a bit disillusioned. To varying degrees, each of these groups used prayer as a way to retrieve and replicate the symbolic significance which the Temple had originally been intended to convey. Jewish scholar Lawrence Schiffman notes that
throughout the Second Commonwealth period, cult was on the wane, and prayer and liturgy were on the rise. . . Those distant from the Temple turned increasingly to prayer … Pharisaism, in translating Temple purity to the home and table, had helped to free the later sages from the inexorability of cult … the Qumran sect had long ago demonstrated how to live a Jewish life without a Temple. They had … developed both a liturgy and an ideology to accommodate their absence from the Temple.[1]
The notion that communion with YHWH could be experienced through prayer, apart from the sacrifices of the Jerusalem Temple, as I’ve noted above - was nothing new. But the widespread adaptation of this idea across a broad spectrum of communities seems to indicate that Judaism was approaching a tipping point. Momentum and influence were shifting away from the priestly hierarchy, and toward smaller communities of ordinary Jews who were reinterpreting the role of the Temple in their daily lives.
One of the best places to observe how this transformation was taking would have been the local synagogues of Palestine and the Jewish diaspora.
So let’s talk for a bit about the synagogue.
The first question to answer is: Where did the idea of the synagogue come from? The Old Testament gives no instructions about anything like this. But by the time we arrive in the Gospels, it seems that synagogues are everywhere.
Let’s look at the history.
Interestingly, at the beginning of Luke’s gospel, we find evidence of the historical tradition that gave birth to the synagogue.
Luke begins his Gospel by telling the story of a priest from a small town in Judah who had been chosen by lot to offer incense in the Jerusalem temple. To be selected for such a task was an honor not only for Zechariah but for his entire village as well. A group of men accompanied him to Jerusalem so that at the very moment he was inside the sanctuary, they could stand outside and pray. Simultaneously, those men of the village who were not able to make the journey paused from their workday at the hour of incense so that they could pray as well. Zechariah’s presence in the Holy Place was a significant event for everyone. This was their opportunity, even if vicariously, to stand in the presence of YHWH.
This tradition of a village prayer gathering had actually been occurring for centuries before Luke wrote his gospel. This prayer meeting was known as the maamad, and it played a central role in the historical development of the Palestinian synagogue. Jakob Petuchowski describes how it functioned:
In the early Second Temple era, local Palestinian synagogues were formed with the purpose that they would operate in conjunction with the Temple rituals. Representatives from Palestinian localities were regularly sent to Jerusalem to ‘stand by’ while the sacrificial cult took place in the Temple. While these town representatives were witnessing the Temple sacrifice, members of the population would gather at the same times for Scripture reading and prayer.[2]
Thus, the function of the maamad was to tether the local community to the Temple. As some village members were physically present in Jerusalem, others would be spiritually present through their prayers.
Initially, these gatherings would have taken place at city gates. Then, in the Hellenistic era they moved into dedicated structures. By the time of Jesus, these synagogue buildings could be found throughout Palestine. Archeological evidence from synagogues in both the regions of the Diaspora and Palestine indicate that synagogue buildings were beginning to physically mirror the Jerusalem Temple. Notable features of many first-century structures include the presence of mikvaot for ritual bathing prior to entering, architectural designs modeled after the Temple courts, and artistic motifs that modeled the decorations of the Temple.
Another characteristic of the first-century Palestinian synagogue communities was the deliberate exclusion of the priests in the basic functions of the institution. James Burtchaell notes:
The priesthood had anciently been associated, not simply with sacrificial worship, but with the interpretation of the Torah and with judicial discipline … Yet in the villages and towns and cities, where priests in plenty dwelt and were available, a totally lay synagogue organization had long since decided it needed no legitimacy which the priests could give.[3]
Thus we see that the synagogue was taking everything that the institution of the Jerusalem temple was originally supposed to be and transferring its meaning to different people, in a different place, with a different style of worship. No priests, no robes, no incense, no altar, no sacred vessels, no sacrifices, no blood, no smoke. Just the scriptures and prayer.
This had been going on for centuries before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. And so it was that when the Romans pulled the building down – a lot of Jews, including the early followers of Jesus - really weren’t that affected. For some, I would even dare to say that it was an non event. It’s interesting that even though many of the books of the NT were written after the fall of the Temple, none of them specifically mention the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.
The truth is that many early Jewish movements – including the first followers of Jesus - had already moved on. They had found something better than the Temple institution with all of its rituals and formalities. They had found real communion with God through the practice of prayer.
That’s the historical account. To conclude, lets talk about what this all means for our broader topic of prayer and identity.
Religious institutions are important. They provide a visual symbol of the spiritual community, they serve as a focal point, and they facilitate the transmission of religious identity from generation to generation. This is what the Temple in Jerusalem had done from the time of its initial construction under Solomon, to its rebuilding after the Babylonian exile, to its expansion under Herod, to its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD. It was a visible marker of the Judaic people, a symbol of what they believed, what they valued, and how they worshipped.
But we’ve here seen that for many Jewish people, the Temple wasn’t satisfying their spiritual thirst. It wasn’t meeting their needs. So they turned to something different: small gatherings where they could meet together with their neighbours to read the Scriptures and to pray.
And so it seems that prayer can do something that no other religious ritual can accomplish. Wherever we are, whoever we are - prayer can bring into connection with God.
Over the past two millennia, many Christians have experienced the same kind of disillusionment that Jews were feeling during the era of the 2nd Temple. Simply stated, people today are losing faith in the institution of the Christian church. We have the beautiful buildings, the priests, the bishops, the musicians, the schools, the traditions. But people just aren’t coming to our churches any more. Here in England, the number people identifying themselves as Christians has declined by about 10 million over the past 25 years. The church in this country is in a state of free fall.
Most people won’t go to church. But a lot of people int this country still believe in God. And I wonder if perhaps here there is a lesson that we can learn from the Jewish people of old.
Institutions are important. Buildings, priests, rituals, hierarchies. Religions would struggle to survive from generation to generation without this kind of visible structure. But life, and communion with God are not found in the institutions. Me and my family faithfully attend church. We love our church. But at the same time we realise that communion with God is something much bigger than the church of England.
The ancient Jewish communities we’ve talked about today believed that God could be encountered away from the institution and all its formalities. They the same presence of the God whose glory had filled the temple could be encountered personally and powerfully through the act of prayer.
And so I wonder if many among the millions of people today who feel disappointed and disillusioned with our Christian institutions might make the make the same discovery.
And with that, we’ll bring this episode to a close. Just a final note. If you’d like to do more research on this topic, I will point you to my 2016 book entitled ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ published by Brepols and my 2017 book ‘On Earth as in Heaven’ published by Fortress Press. Much of what I’ve what I’ve presented today is taken from those texts.
In our next session we’re going to travel once again back to first century Israel where we look at the actual prayers of the ancient synagogue. What did their prayers say – and most importantly, how did these prayers help them express their own identity.
Thanks for listening. I’m David Clark, and I hope that you’ll join me again for Theology and Identity.
[1] Schiffman (1987), 34‒35.
[2] Petuchowski (1978b), 46. This custom is described in m. Taanit 4:2‒3.
[3] Burtachaell (1992), 254.