Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T20:34:41.603Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

SECT FORMATION IN EARLY JUDAISM

from Part II - SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO SECTARIANISM IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM

Philip R. Davies
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
David J. Chalcraft
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Get access

Summary

The manuscripts from Qumran have not only revealed to us something of the “inner life” of Palestinian Judaism in the late Second Temple period, but have also provoked new ways of understanding the nature of Second Temple Judaism itself. In this essay I want to clarify, with reference to the Qumran material, the nature and origin of “Jewish sects” by posing a distinction between social segregation and heteropraxis. This distinction will in turn become useful in exploring the nature of ancient Judaism itself. The existence of a sect implies the existence of a “parent,” from which the sect obtains some of its identity but against which it matches its identity also. (This, to my mind, distinguishes a “sect” from a “movement”; in my own definition, a sect is schismatic.) What was that “parent” Judaism? Three issues in particular that arise from recent scholarship on this “Judaism” are (a) when can we first speak of “Judaism”? (b) should we more accurately speak of “Judaism” or “Judaisms”? and (c) what kind of processes best describe the development of this “Judaism” – centrifugal, centripetal or both?

While reasons for the social segregation of the Qumran sect(s) – and thus their sectarian formation in the strict sense – can in fact be plausibly reconstructed, the polemics the texts display do not reveal why, of the range of ideas and practices that Second Temple Judaism exhibits, and the variety of process of accommodation, the particular issues specified (which often amount to differences in halakhah, understanding of scriptural law, and notably calendar and purity) should have generated sects.

Type
Chapter
Information
Sectarianism in Early Judaism
Sociological Advances
, pp. 133 - 155
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×