This volume asks why Jewish groups - Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and the Dead Sea Scroll sect - flourished during the Maccabean era. It argues that such a result is uncommon, requiring special explanation. In the introduction, sectarianism is defined and its varieties in Second Temple Judaism assessed. Among the causes of the known results suggested are the encounter with an outside culture that seemed to be weakening the external national perimeter, the impact of expanded literacy, the move to the city from the farm, as well as eschatological hope aroused by Maccabean victory. In proposing these conclusions, tha author has taken advantage of current research sources, such as 4Qmmt. The objective is to discover the connection between context and consequence, which should in turn explain why sectarianism was so prominent at that time.

Product Description: This book presents revised papers delivered at the 1998 and 1999 Taubes Minerva Center for Religious Anthropology conferences. The papers from the 1998 conference discuss the role of sacrifice in religious experience from a comparative perspective...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Millennial movements are characterized by their nature and perception of time, and the ways in which these groups confront inevitable disappointment and then return to normal time. This is the theme for the book Apocalyptic Time. The volume consists of revised essays based on presentations made at an international conference devoted to that theme...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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