[CS-FSLUG] TH The kingdom of Heaven

[Ed Hurst]

Robert W. wrote:

> What is "the Alexandrian schoold of Pharisaism"?  What kind of beliefs  
> did they hold?  I wasn't able to find anything searching the Web.  Or  
> more to the point, I wasn't able to find anything I understood  :)

Since you also mentioned not understanding it, perhaps I can summarize.

During the Exile, the synagogue system rose to high prominence as the 
center of Jewish religious life. While the priests were supposed to be 
the teachers of the Law, there was nothing preventing a non-priestly 
scholar doing it. Some were particularly knowledgeable, and naturally a 
system of academies arose. By the time of the Restoration, these were 
deeply entrenched. Most of the best scholars stayed in Babylon. For a 
time, there was a trend of thought that Babylon was more holy than Zion.

This was a bit insulting for Jews involved in the western world, for 
Palestine was soon heavily influenced by Greece (ala Alexander). The 
lure of Western Greek scholarship, and a rather different system of 
logic, and the massive draw of Alexandria Egypt, combined to bring a lot 
of rabbis to that city. Their teaching become somewhat corrupted to the 
point they decided that the oral traditions were higher than the Law of 
Moses, more binding. A lot of other wacky ideas came from Alexandria, 
with may pagan elements. Because of money, influence and geography, 
theirs became the dominant school of thought in Jerusalem in Jesus' day.

Several of Jesus' lessons recorded in the Gospels are directly aimed, or 
at least partially aimed, at certain Alexandrian ideas.

-- 
Ed Hurst
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