The Sunday Mail
The Roman province of Judea was created in 6 BCE and it incorporated the geographical regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Under the Romans, this area was a scene of conflicts and nationalist revolts against Roman rule by Hebrews.
By Shingai Rukwata Ndoro
Even though Hebrews and many other people were under the Roman rule, they were minimally allowed to keep their linguistic, cultural, religious and political systems.
The Roman Empire required them to swear an oath of allegiance.
Any sedition or treasonous acts against Roman authority warranted intervention of the Roman political and legal systems by way of execution.
While Hebrews also had their own systems, they existed as a province under a Roman governor although they did not become automatic citizens of the Roman Empire, founded in 27 BCE by Augustus Caesar.
While subject people had their own culture, language, legal and religious systems, the Roman Empire did not aid them in their way of life. This means an alleged offense under the people would not be a concern of the Romans or arrested under the Roman penal code.
Unless the perpetrator was considered to have violated and contravened the Roman law or posed a threat to the empire. Subject people conducted their own affairs under their own system with little interference and involvement of the Roman Empire except that the Judean monarchy was not allowed to be restored in 538 BCE by the Persian Cyrus the Great.
Politically, the classical Roman period (200 BCE-455 CE) is also referred to as the “Principate,” that is when an emperor had absolute power to govern Rome. Within this classical Roman period, was the Hebraic Second Temple Period (516 BCE-70 CE) under whose religious and political authority was the priestly class.
The Nazarenes were an offshoot of the Essenes and Yahoshua was a product of his time, geography and religious culture. Some of the details about the life of Yahoshua the Nazarene are variedly narrated in the Gospels (whose earliest was written around 70CE) of the Greek Scriptures.
The generally accepted narrative about him are named “Greek Scriptures” because the people who first wrote them used Greek while under the political and military authority of the Roman Empire.
Greek was retained as a language and culture even after the Romans conquered Judea in 63 BCE.
It also remained the language of commerce and learning in the Roman and Byzantine Empires until 529 CE, while making Judaism more influenced and shaped by religious Hellenism (Greek solar mythology).
The Essenes were the most prominent of the early Hebraic sects.
It was an order of pious men and women who lived lives of asceticism, spending their days in simple labour and their evenings in prayer.
The Essenes were the direct descendants of the 24 Zadokite hereditary priesthood (ma’madot) who took turns in serving in the Temple of Jerusalem (Read www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15147-zadok).
The oppressive Greek Seleucid King, Antiochus IV, deposed the last true Zadokite high priest in 175 BCE and the last appointment of non-Zadokite high priests was by the Maccabaeus (Hasmonean).
The hereditary high priestly families, who claimed descent from a 10th century BCE high priest in the time of David and Solomon, Zadok (Ezekiel 44:15-16,23), withdrew from the Temple in a body and formed their own community in the wilderness near Qumran in the Dead Sea area, east of Jerusalem.
They based their form of worship on strict rules of purity and observation of the Torah under the leadership of a man whom they called the Teacher of Righteousness, who was also known as “ish-Zaddik” or the Righteous and Just Man. The Righteous and Just One, as Ezekiel puts it will not suffer for someone’s transgressions. And he will not die (Ezekiel 18:17-21).
The Zadokites abandoned Jerusalem as they were against the way the Temple was being run and against the Roman rule. They withdrew to the desert to prepare the Way for the Righteous and Just One who was to come to save them from moral degeneration rising out of the traumatic Roman influence.
Since Yahoshua is said to have been a Nazarene, his family was most likely to have been one of these twenty-fourma’madot. The men and women around Yahoshua the Nazarene were strictly devout and nationalist Hebrews calling and anticipating for the restoration of Davidic rule and the destruction of the Roman Empire leading to uprisings against the Romans between 66-135 CE.
According to Professor L Michael White, writing on PBS’s Frontline programme, the Roman rule caused apocalyptic sentiment, which was an expression of hope and despair. Hope was in the eternal power of the divine for a new world and despair over the present evil conditions of the world.
The teachings of Yahoshua the Nazarene could not have caused any breach of traditional Judaism. Conflicts between Yahoshua,the Pharisees and Sadducees were the perceived threat of priestly political privilege and authority protected by the colonialists, the Romans.
Sourced from the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” a 1996 translation by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg and Jr Edward Cook, especially “The Community Rule”.
Email feedback on [email protected]. A gallery of previous articles www.sundaymail.co.zw////?author=266. He also writes on different issues,www.shingaindoro.blogspot.com
