Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.5
Roman period 'Jew' was as much a religious identifier as an ethnic identifier because
it focused identity in Judea, the state whose continuing distinctive existence
depended entirely on the status of Jerusalem as the location of the Temple.
It should occasion no surprise, then, that Sanders devotes nearly one hundred
pages of his description of 'common Judaism' in our period to an account of the
Temple, its personnel, its cult, and the festivals which also focused on it. 144
We saw also that the different sects highlighted the importance of the Temple
— most obviously the Sadducees, but also the Qumran Essenes, and most
likely also the Pharisees, who probably, in some measure like the Essenes, sought
to extend or at least live out the holiness required for the Temple more widely in
the holy land. 145 Here it is important to grasp the fact that the disputes and denunciations
relating to the Temple, noted in the survey of the Judaisms above (§9.4),
do not amount to a dispute regarding the fundamental importance of the Temple
itself. On the contrary, it was precisely because the Temple was so important that
disputes about its correct function were so important. It was not the Temple but its
location (the Samaritans) and abuse (Psalms of Solomon and Qumran) which were
denounced. This is particularly evident in the preoccupation with the Temple
among the Qumranites (as in 11QT and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice), even
among a group who felt themselves distanced from its present operation.
How Jesus and his followers regarded the Jerusalem Temple will obviously
be a key question for any historian of Christianity's beginnings (§§15.3; 17.3).
b. God
Belief in God as one and in God's un-image-ableness was certainly fundamental
to the first-century Jew. The Shema was probably said by most Jews on a regular
basis (Deut. 6.4, 7); Jesus was surely striking a familiar chord in the tradition attributed
to him in Mark 12.28-31. And the twin commandment to acknowledge
God alone and to make no images of God (Ex. 20.3-6; Deut. 5.7-10) was no
doubt burnt into the heart and mind of the typical first-century Jew.
Little of this actually appears upon the surface of late Second Temple Juda-
unity of Judaism. I do not know of any other ancient god who had a sanctuary as exclusive as
the Temple of Jerusalem. . . . Jerusalem was a place for pilgrims unmatched by Athens or
Rome, with all their attractions' (14).
144. Sanders, Judaism chs. 5-8 (47-145); Hengel and Deines congratulate Sanders on
producing what 'may well be the best presentation of the temple, its cult, and the priesthood
which has appeared for a long while' ('Sanders' Judaism' 55).
145. This is one of the points at which Sanders criticises Neusner, but the weight of
opinion, as represented by Vermes, Cohen, Saldarini, Segal, Stemberger, and Grabbe continues
to be more supportive of Neusner; see, e.g., Dunn, Partings 41-42, and above §9.3a.
288