Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.5 The Historical Context
ism, for the simple reason that it was non-controversial and so could be taken for
granted — an important reminder that the fundamental character of an item of belief
and practice is not to be measured by the amount of verbiage it engenders, and
that what belongs to the foundation may often be hidden from sight. But those who
explained Judaism to the outsider found it necessary, as did Josephus, to point out
that the acknowledgment of 'God as one is common to all the Hebrews' {Ant.
5.112). 146 And the abhorrence of idolatry was a common feature in all Judaism. 147
Within first-century Israel itself we need only recall Josephus' reports of the violent
reaction from the people at large to misguided attempts by Pilate to bring standards
perceived as idolatrous into Jerusalem (Ant. 18.55-59) and to the attempt of
Caligula to have his own statue set up within the Temple (Ant. 18.261-72). 148
Here again the issue of how Jesus, and subsequently the early Christians,
regarded this fundamental affirmation of Jewish faith will inevitably be important
for our own understanding of the emergence of Christianity from within its
Jewish matrix (§§14.1-2).
c. Election
Equally fundamental was Israel's self-understanding of itself as the people of
God specially chosen from among all the nations of the world to be his own. This
conviction was already there in the pre-exilic period in such passages as Deut.
7.6-8 and 32.8-9. But it became a central category of self-definition in the postexilic
period from Ezra onwards (Ezra 9-10); it was the undergirding motivation
behind the resistance to Hellenistic syncretism in the Maccabean crisis, and it
constantly came to expression in the compulsive desire to maintain distinct and
separate identity from the other nations (Gentiles). 149 The attitude is expressed in
extreme form in Mb. 15.30-32 and 22.16. But it lies behind the everyday preoccupation
with purity, which was so prominent in most of the Judaisms reviewed
above and is attested also by the large numbers of ritual baths (miqwaoth) now
uncovered by archaeology. 150 And it is closely related to the maintenance of
146. Similarly Ep. Arist. 132; Philo, Decal. 65.
147. Isa. 44.9-20; Wisd. Sol. 11-15; Ep. Jer.; Sib. Or. 3.8-45; 1 Corinthans 8-10; 1 John
5.21; m. 'Abodah Zarah. The theological rationale is nicely expressed by Josephus, Ap. 2.167,
190-91.
148. Further discussion in Sanders, Judaism 242-47; see also below §9.6a.
149. The prophecy of Balaam in Num. 23.9 was particularly significant for Jewish selfunderstanding
— 'a people dwelling alone, and not reckoning itself among the nations'.
'Exclusivism was part and parcel of Judaism' (Sanders, Judaism 266).
150. See Sanders, Jewish Law 214-27; R. Reich, 'Ritual Baths', OEANE 4.430-1. More
than three hundred ritual baths from the Roman period have been uncovered in Judea, Galilee,
289