Go to Part 8...
Both Jewish and Christian religious authorities
branded the gnostics as heretics, yet their comprehensive critiques of gnostic
teachings belie the pervasiveness of gnostic ideas within the leadership of
their own communities. Just as the 2nd-century Church Father Irenaeus must have
been familiar with Christian gnostic teachings in order to refute them in Against Heresies,
the rabbis indicated their familiarity with Jewish gnosticism in their polemics
against it. In the Talmudic tractate Hagigah, the rabbis
laid out the parameters for acceptable cosmological speculation, and in the
process shed light on the very mystical schools they set out to debunk.
…Worship
and Encountering the Divine…
Part
Seven
“But you, who do you
say that I am?”
Matthew 16:13-18 (HCSB)
13 When Jesus
came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, n o He asked
His disciples, “Who do people say that the •Son of Man is?” p
14 And they
said, “Some say John the Baptist; others, Elijah; still others, Jeremiah or one
of the prophets.” q
15 “But you,”
He asked them, “who do you say that I am?”
17 And Jesus
responded, “Simon son of Jonah, s t you are
blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in
heaven. u 18 And I also say to you that you are
Peter, v and on this
rock w I will
build My church, x and the
forces y of •Hades will
not overpower it. [1]
In our last
segment, I made the statement:
“…It begins here:
“..I am the LORD your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery..”
The
LORD is ONE…” [2]
The development of the Jewish belief of
monotheism was not a onetime thing, despite the adherence to the legends and
stories of the Jews that the oral transmission of the knowledge of one God was
handed down from Adam through the subsequent patriarchs. The truth is a bit
more complicated:
“…Robertson
Smith has summed up the matter with the statement that “what is often described
as a natural tendency of Semitic religion toward ethical monotheism is in the
main nothing more than a consequence of the alliance of religion with monarchy
” (“Rel. of Sem.” p. 74; Montefiore, “Hibbert Lectures,” p. 24; Schreiner, “Die
Jungsten Urtheile über das Judenthum,” p. 7). The Hebrews alone of all the
Semitic peoples reached the stage of pure monotheism, through the teachings of
their prophets; however, it required centuries of development before every
trace of idolatry disappeared even from among them, and before they stood forth
as a “unique people on earth,” worshipers of the one God and of Him alone.
In Hebrew
tradition the origin of the belief in the one God is connected with the
religious awakening
of the
patriarch Abraham…
…Though the
tradition contains without doubt the kernel of the truth, modern criticism
holds that the Hebrew tribes were brought to a clear realization of the difference
between their God and the gods of monotheistic
belief by the whole people was a slow process at best; how slow, many
statements in the
historical
and prophetical books of the Bible prove amply. Throughout the period of the
first commonwealth there was constant
reversion to idolatry on the part of the people (comp. Judges ii. 11–13, 17,
19; iii. 7; viii. 33; x. 6, 10, 13; I Sam. viii. 8, xii. 10; I Kings ix. 9,
xiv, 9, xvi. 31; II Kings xvii. 7, xxii. 17; Isa. ii. 8, x. 11, xxxi. 7; Jer.
i. 16; vii. 9, 18; ix. 13; xi. 10, 13, 17; xii. 16; xiii. 10; xvi. 11; xix.
4–5, 23; xxii. 9; xxii. 29, 35; xliv. 3, 5, 15; Hos. ii. 7, iii. 1, iv. 17,
viii. 4, xi. 2; Ps. cvi. 36; II Chron. vii. 22; xxiv. 18; xxviii. 2, 25;
xxxiii. 7; xxxiv. 25). Forgetful of their obligation to worship YHWH and Him
alone, the people followed after the
“ba’alim”; the “bamot” and the “asherot” dotted the land; frequently, too, the
Israelites confounded the worship of YHWH with the worship of Baal…”[3]
And the idea
of a monotheistic God (one God, one hypostasis [4])
was not without dispute among Jewish theologians and scholars also. The
substance of God was debated as to whether or not the godhead was a composite
unity or a singularity. This is seen in the differences groups had to the
approach of the study of who God is. While not yet developed as a “religion” so
to speak, the Messianic writings are full of the early believers attempts to
delve into the same problem that was infecting early Judaism as a whole –
Gnosticism. Marc A. Krell, who teaches Judaic Studies at The Dr. Miriam
and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas, NV said this:
“…In both early Judaism and Christianity, we see attempts
by the religious authorities to construct theological boundaries around a
common enemy, gnosticism. This Hellenistic school of thought was based on the
Greek word gnosis or esoteric knowledge of the cosmos
that was only available to a select group of spiritual seekers. The gnostics
sought to attribute the origins of evil in the material world to the wicked
creator god Yaldabaoth that emanated from the mother goddess Sophia when she
went against the wishes of the transcendent "Spirit."
There
was clearly a tension between the dualistic, polytheistic beliefs of the
gnostics and the early rabbinic and Christian mystical seekers. In the
Christian version of this myth, The Apocryphon of John, Christ is
sent down from the transcendent realm of heaven to remind people of their
heavenly origin, yet only his followers who possess this gnosis and separate
themselves from the evil material world can be saved from darkness. They can
only return to the divine light of the transcendent God by following Christ
back up through the different heavenly regions to the infinite realm. In the
rabbinic community, Jewish mystics drew upon elements of the gnostic myth to
describe divine characteristics, the ongoing revelation of God to humanity, and
the path on which humans may ascend to God, while attempting to remain within
monotheistic parameters.
Both Jewish and Christian religious authorities
branded the gnostics as heretics, yet their comprehensive critiques of gnostic
teachings belie the pervasiveness of gnostic ideas within the leadership of
their own communities. Just as the 2nd-century Church Father Irenaeus must have
been familiar with Christian gnostic teachings in order to refute them in Against Heresies,
the rabbis indicated their familiarity with Jewish gnosticism in their polemics
against it. In the Talmudic tractate Hagigah, the rabbis
laid out the parameters for acceptable cosmological speculation, and in the
process shed light on the very mystical schools they set out to debunk.
In both of these sources, the rabbis set out to
circumscribe the mystical study of Maaseh Bereshit, "The Work of
Creation" in the first chapter of Genesis, that involved speculation of
the universe. They restricted not only the subject of study but limited who may
study it by arguing that one must not study with more than two people the
heavens above, the demonic
world below, the origins of the cosmos before the world was
created, and the messianic destiny of the universe after the period of this-worldly existence
is over. Yet they went even
further when addressing the mystical study of the Maaseh Merkavah,
"The Work of the Chariot," 
based on the vision of God's chariot or
throne in Ezekiel chapter 1. Because it involved delving into the very essence
of God, the rabbis argued that one can only study it with one other person, and
that person must be a sage who is old and wise enough to understand such
mysteries…”[5]
based on the vision of God's chariot or
throne in Ezekiel chapter 1. Because it involved delving into the very essence
of God, the rabbis argued that one can only study it with one other person, and
that person must be a sage who is old and wise enough to understand such
mysteries…”[5]
He goes on:
“…Yet these polemical texts actually reveal the emergence
of divergent mystical schools of thought dating back to the Second Temple
period. Certain pharisaic circles taught Maaseh Bereshit andMaaseh Merkavah in which they referred to the living
creatures in Ezekiel's vision as a hierarchy of angels in the Celestial Court
of God. The next stage of Jewish mystical development occurred during the
period of the Mishnah with the hekhalot or throne mysticism based on Ezekiel's
vision of the divine throne and the larger realm of the "throne
world." This corresponds directly with the gnostic pleroma or
"fullness" of divine light, a sphere of divinity consisting of semi-divine
powers or archons in different aeons or heavenly realms.
This
literature, referred to as the "Hekhalot Books,"
displayed the different heavenly halls or divine palaces that the mystic, like
the gnostic visionary, passed through until he reached the seventh heaven, and
encountered the divine throne. The hekhalotliterature was attributed
to a late 1st-century circle of rabbis who were disciples of Rabban Yochanan
ben Zakkai: Eliezer ben Hyrkanus, Akiba ben Joseph, and Ishmael the "High
Priest." What makes this school of thought so countercultural is that
these texts did not consist of traditional midrashim or interpretations of biblical
passages, but a completely unique set of religious experiences not found in the
Hebrew scriptures. Ultimately, this subterranean sect of rabbinic Jews could
not share its gnosis for fear of opposing the rabbinic establishment and
widening the schism within Judaism. Jewish gnosticism would remain underground
until the end of the 13th century when the study of Kabbalah, the
secret tradition of mystical teachings, would become popularized, and the Sefer Ha-Zohar, or
"Book of Enlightenment," would become part of the canon of Jewish literature.
In
10th-century Muslim-ruled Babylonia, the Karaite sect emerged in opposition to
the rabbinic establishment by rejecting the Talmud as a human creation set up
to deceive and alienate the individual Jew from the Torah while strengthening
rabbinic power. Influenced by Greek and Arabic philosophy, the Karaites argued
that each individual must rely on one's own intelligence to understand the
Hebrew Bible and not depend upon any outside human authority. However, Rabbi
Saadiah Gaon, one of the rabbinic sages who directed the Babylonian Talmudic
academy in Sura and produced his own philosophical work, countered that while
the human intellect is the most essential foundation of faith, the Written and
Oral Torah are also necessary sources for understanding divine revelation and
must be reconciled with human knowledge…[6]”
Finishing,
Marc adds this:
Karaites
|
Rabbinic
tradition
|
reject the Talmud as human creation
only Hebrew Bible is necessary |
accept
the Talmud as authoritative
Written and Oral Torah are needed |