Jewish Sects of The First Century (Part Two)

In a previous post, we went over who the Pharisees and the Sadducees were. There were several other Jewish sects, or schools of thought, during Jesus' earthly life that didn't wield quite as much power in the first century.

Essenes

The Essenes were a monastic sect of Jews who lived communally and claimed no personal possessions. They took no part in the political hierarchy of Israel, and settled in many towns of Judea, particularly near the Dead Sea. Essenes spent their time doing benevolent works outside their monasteries, and in prayer and study inside. They kept themselves from everyday pleasures, dressed plainly and spoke little, and did not marry, although they would adopt children to educate them. They had a large compound at Qumran, and are believed to have been the keepers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. During the First Jewish–Roman War, which brought the destruction of the temple in the year 70, the Essene monastery at Qumran was destroyed, and little was heard from them afterward.

Zealots

The group we refer to as Zealots were called Biryonim in the first century, which means wild, ruffian, or boorish, or could also be translated as extremist. The word "zealot" came from the Greek language. The Zealots interpreted the scripture along the same lines as the Pharisees, but they were Jewish nationalists dedicated to overthrowing Roman rule by any means necessary, and the establishment of Israel as a purely Jewish theocracy. The group became established when opposing the Roman-ordered census of 6 AD.

The Sicarii were a smaller rival faction that may have split off from the Zealots who held the same goals. They are not mentioned in the Bible, and the historian Josephus is the only source of their existence. While Zealots mainly attacked Romans and Greeks, the Sicarii were said to be assassins who also attacked Jews who were seen as collaborators or not abiding by the law of the Torah. The two groups increasingly incited revolt against Rome with terrorist attacks that ultimately led to the First Jewish–Roman War, in which the temple and all of Jerusalem was destroyed. After the temple destruction, the Zealots (or the Sicarii, or both; sources vary) withdrew to the mountain fortress of Masada. When the Romans finally breached the fortress in the year 73, they found that around a thousand people inside had committed suicide rather than succumb to the Romans.

The only Zealot identified by name in the Bible was the apostle Simon the Zealot, who was given a second name to distinguished him from Simon Peter. He is called Zealot in Luke and Acts, and Simon Kananaios or Kananites in Matthew and Mark. Those words derive from the Hebrew for "zealous," but some scholars think it may have meant Canaanite, which cannot be right since Simon was a Jew, or possibly that he came from the city of Cana.

There are a few scholars who think Judas Iscariot may have been a Zealot because the name Iscariot could have been related to Sicarii, the violent assassin faction. This would explain his hope for Jesus to lead an uprising against the Romans. But most theologians accept the name Iscariot as meaning "the man from Kerioth." Indeed, John 6: 71 calls him the "the son of Simon Iscariot" which would indicate a true surname.

Samaritans

The Samaritans split from other Israelites hundreds of years earlier than the other schools of thought, and kept to the region around Mount Gerizim called Samaria. They hold the mountain as the original holy place of Israel where Abraham took his son Isaac to be sacrificed, instead of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Over time, they intermarried with Gentiles and came to be seen as a separate ethnic group, and Samaritanism became a separate Abrahamic religion that limits holy scripture to the five books of Moses. There are about 900 Samaritans living near Mount Gerizim today.

Christians

Early Christianity was also considered a sect of Judaism for some time, although they were often viewed as heretics by the religious leaders in power. They stood apart as followers of Jesus Christ as the long-awaited Messiah. The practical separation of Christianity from Judaism was gradual and took several hundred years as more and more Gentiles joined the church. While Rabbinic Judaism kept to ethnic roots, Christianity emphasizes evangelic outreach, and grew in numbers that dwarfed Judaism.