Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.3
such, but in regard to one or another (or more) of the groups or aspects of late
Second Temple Judaism. 118
d. Common Judaism
When all is said and done, however, the most relevant of the groups and tendencies
so far mentioned represent a very small minority within the population of the
land of Israel in the first century. Josephus indicates that the Pharisees were more
than 6,000 strong (at the time of Herod the Great), 119 the Essenes more than
4,000, and the Sadducees a small wealthy elite (Ant. 17.42; 18.20; 13.298). We
have no sure way of knowing how many or who the various apocryphal or
pseudepigraphal writings spoke for, but that they represented distinctive groups of
any significant number must be considered doubtful in view of Josephus' silence
regarding them. The number of 'Hellenists' was no doubt a substantial minority of
the population within the Hellenistic or Hellenized cities, but impossible to quantify,
and they could not be said to have formed a coherent party. The Samaritans,
on the other hand, were a significant political entity, but should probably be
placed beyond the spectrum of what may properly be called 'Judaism' from a
spectator perspective. All in all, then, the Judaisms so far described, about which
we can speak with any confidence and whose distinctiveness gives at least a prima
facie case for describing them as different 'Judaisms', probably constituted a relatively
small minority of the Jews living in the land of first-century Israel.
It is at this point that Sanders' reminder is important, that in speaking of
first-century Judaism we need to speak first and foremost of the practices and beliefs
of the great mass of the people, what he calls 'common Judaism'. 120 For
these other forms of Judaism are simply luxuriant or exotic growths which, from
a spectator's perspective, mark them out from what in comparison may seem the
more commonplace but is in fact the much more extensive flower bed or garden.
It is this common 'bedding' in the Judaism of the people at large which gives
these diverse forms of Judaism their common denominator as 'Judaism'. 121 Or to
118. A more detailed study would have to consider also baptismal sects, not to mention
groups of bandits! (see Grabbe, Judaism 501-502, 507-509 and 511-14). And the status of proselytes
and 'God-fearers' in relation to Judaism will call for attention in vol. 2.
119. Hengel and Deines point out that Ant. 17.42 refers to over 6,000 Pharisees whorefused
to swear allegiance to Herod — implying that there may have been many more ('Sanders'
Judaism' 33 n. 85).
120. Sanders, Judaism Part II.
121. Hengel's and Deines's criticism of the term 'common Judaism' ('Sanders' Judaism'
53) is not quite to the point (they suggest that 'complex Judaism' would be better), since it is
the common identifying features of 'Judaism' which are in view at this point.
280