Y’Shua grew up poor in a rural Jewish town in Galilee. Archaeology has shown that the houses were modest, made of fieldstones packed with mud and straw. The floors were beaten dirt, windows were few, the roofs were thatched reeds laid over wooden beams and covered with mud to form a flat rooftop area that was utilized year-round for sleeping, eating, and domestic chores. Houses often had underground chambers used for storage. Furniture was sparse and pottery was local and practical, almost wholly undecorated and unadorned. Absent was mosaics, imported ceramics, fine glassware, gold and silver coins, cosmetics, jewelry, and bronze vessels that were common in the urban areas. The larger houses might have a courtyard and several rooms and extended families living together; these houses often expanded into a random network of shared structures. Livestock lived in enclosures attached to the house or in dugout areas and caves, and small gardens were cultivated wherever space allowed. Staples were olives, bread, and lentils. Eggs, milk, cheese, salted fish, meat, fruits and vegetables were welcome additions. Skeletal remains show evidence of dietary deficiencies, and death from disease before age forty was not uncommon. This was the noise, the stench, the crowding, the grime and grit of daily peasant life, the feel of living under military occupation of ever watchful inspectors, agents, and tax collectors.
Stone vessels, required for required for purposes of ritual purity, are typically found, as well as plastered pools or mikvahs used for ritual immersion. The bones that turn up are from goats, sheep, chickens, and some cattle, but no pigs. Tombs were outside the living area, expanded from natural caves or cut into the bedrock. The corpse was laid out in a shaft to decompose and after a year the bones were gathered and placed in a separate niche.
The center of civic and religious life in a Jewish village was the Synagogue. Gatherings were held on the Sabbath day when the normal work activities of the whole town came to an abrupt halt from Friday at sunset until dusk on Saturday. Where is, it written that it was to be changed to Sunday? Has G-d’s Word changed? Precious handwritten copies of the Torah, or Jewish Law and the scrolls of the Prophets were read aloud and discussed. Aramaic was the spoken language but judging from the Dead Sea Scrolls the sacred scrolls were written in ancient Hebrew. The central activity was the reading and discussion of the Scriptures. How far away from this original plan have we come?
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls was a complete copy of the scroll of Isaiah that scholars have dated to 100 B.E. It had been hidden for two thousand years sealed in a clay jar in a cave near the settlement of Qumran. The Isaiah scroll has fifty-four columns of Hebrew text. It is twenty-four feet long and made of seventeen panels of goatskin, ten inches high, sewn together. It was rolled from right to left and one would need to put it on a table or podium in order to hold it steady for unrolling or reading.
Jews are the people of the Book and this is what made them different from any other people. Judaism can be summed up under four rubrics: G-d, Torah, Land, and Chosen People. As a Jew, Y’Shua would have affirmed His belief in one Creator G-d Yahweh; the divine revelation of the Torah as a blueprint for social, moral, and religious life. How often do you hear a sermon from the Torah? He affirms the holiness of the Land of Israel as a perpetual birthright to the nations; and that the people of Israel, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had been chosen by G-d to enlighten all nations. Their historic mission was to draw humanity to the one G-d and His Torah revelation. He avoided the eating certain forbidden animals or consuming blood, He celebrated the required pilgrim festivals, and He practiced ritual purity as commanded it the Torah. As a Jewish male Y’Shua wore the fringed tassels (tzitzit) on His outer garment, which indicates His strict observance of the mitzvoth or commandments of the Torah. In that sense, He was not liberal with regard to Jewish observances in any modern sense of the term. We are commanded to do as He does --- are we, or have we considered all that just for the Jewish people? Gentiles who turned from idols to the true and living G-d and observed the prohibitions against stealing, murder, and sexual immorality were considered righteous Gentiles or G-d fearers.
Josephus, our contemporary 1st century Jewish witness, tells us that there were three main sects or philosophies of Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls expected the end of the world and were awaiting the coming of Two Messiahs – a priestly figure and a Davidic King. They called themselves the people of the New Covenant, believing they were representatives of a newly purified Israel at the end of the age. The practiced communal living, initiation rites involving immersion or baptism, and sacred meals, curiously, the Essenes are never mentioned in the New Testament, whereas the Pharisees and Sadducees regularly appear in opposition to Y’Shua. Y’Shua shared some important beliefs and practices with the Essenes but judging from the Dead Sea Scrolls His open attitude towards Gentiles and women were different. Josephus tells that there were only 6,000 Pharisees and 3,000 Essenes. Philo, another 1st century Jewish writer, puts the Essenes at 4,000. Y’Shua would have grown up familiar with each of these schools.
In broad terms, Y’Shua is best identified with what might be described as the Messianic Movement of the 1st century Palestine. It had a much broader appeal to rank-and-file Jews of all persuasions, united in their hope for G-d’s deliverance. What matters are not so much the labels but a certain vision of reality – a faith that G-d would intervene to fulfill those messianic predictions.
Scientist & Archaeology have given us a glimpse into the times of past.
Whom do you want to copy, today’s idea of religion or Y’Shua’s example?
