Is JUDAISM the Religion of Moses?

People assume that Judaism is the religion of Moses -- that Yeshua brought a message opposed to the Old Testament -- that he came to nullify the teaching of Moses. It is taken for granted that the New Testament presents a Gentile religion and that the Old Testament teaches Judaism!

Yet all these assumptions ARE ABSOLUTELY FALSE! Shocking though it may seem, history proves that Judaism is NOT the religion of the Old Testament Scriptures. Judaism is plainly and simply the religion of the Jews -- a religion manufactured by their own ingenuity. The Jews of Roman times had appropriated the name of Moses as the author of their religion -- but in actuality, they had rejected Moses. Yeshua said: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me ... but ye believe not his writings" (John 5:46, 47). The Jews used the name of Moses, but they didn't practice what he commanded.

Just as today, there are hundreds of denominations and sects in what is commonly called Christianity, all appropriating the name of the Messiah -- saying they are Christian -- but contradicting each other and failing to practice what he taught! And history proves that the Jews had misappropriated the name of Moses.

In effect, Judaism was a man-made religion! Yeshua said that they were "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mark 7:7).

It is time we looked into the records of history. It is time we learned how the Jews departed from the religion of Moses. We will be dumbfounded to discover that Yeshua, in reality, re-emphasized the message that Moses brought -- in its true spiritual INTENTION. And, instead of nullifying Moses' teaching, he magnified it, having in view the true spiritual purpose originally intended.

The time has come to get our eyes open to the facts! Judaism was not, and is not, the religion of Moses!

IT IS obvious to the most superficial reader of the New Testament that a fundamental difference existed between the teaching of Yeshua and the Judaism of his day.

The answer is surprising!

History shows -- and the Jews themselves admit -- that their religion had drifted far away from the simple doctrines of Scripture -- commonly called the "Old Testament." The Jews had modified YEHOVAH God's law and even instituted laws and commandments of their own which were, in many instances, diametrically opposite to the precepts of Moses.

It is time we realize that the Messiah came to a people who had, through their human laws and traditions, rejected the religion of the Old Testament which YEHOVAH God had given to their forefathers.

These are the plain facts of history. It is important that we understand this if we are to comprehend the significance of events in the New Testament period. The Messiah, in effect, came to retrieve the Jews from their apostasy -- from their rejection of the laws of YEHOVAH God. And, he came to reveal to them the Gospel -- the New Testament revelation -- to COMPLETE the promises that YEHOVAH gave to Moses, not to do away with them!

Many people have erroneously assumed that the Judaism in the time of the Messiah was a religion united in a common bond -- every Jew believing about the same thing -- all united into one major Jewish denomination.

This is the first illusion that history reveals.

Judaism was divided into MANY SECTS in Yeshua's day. Each had its peculiar beliefs. One of the most authoritative Jewish writers on Judaism, Dr. Herford, tells us: "If it were possible to analyze the Judaism of the New Testament period into all its component elements, the results of the process would be to show HOW COMPLEX A VARIETY is summed up under that name, and HOW FAR FROM THE TRUTH it is to speak of the Jews collectively as if they were all alike, in respect to their Judaism" (Judaism in the New Testament Period, pp. 41, 42).

Judaism was not one unified organization. Actually, there were many religious sects comprising it. And, even within some of these major sects there were many "splinter" groups which had their own ideas and beliefs. In many respects, the Judaism of the Messiah's time was not unlike our own world. We have many competitive sects representing "Christianity." So likewise, the Jews had their divisions, differing sects representing "Judaism."

Some of these sects will be familiar to readers of the New Testament. There were the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, Zealots and Herodians. However, there were many more divisions of which we have a good deal of history. Some of these were the Essenes, the Qumran sects (who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls of which so much has been written lately), and others who are called, by contemporary religious historians, Apocalyptics.

There were other divisions among the Jews who lived in the surrounding areas, such as Egypt, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Greece, etc. There certainly was not just one single Jewish sect -- Judaism was split into many fragments.

But history reveals another shocking and little-understood fact. It will eradicate the fiction from many people's minds that the Jews, as a whole, were deeply interested in religion at this time in history.

The records show that FAR LESS THAN 5% OF THE TOTAL JEWISH POPULATION OF PALESTINE BELONGED DIRECTLY TO ANY OF THE RELIGIOUS GROUPS MENTIONED ABOVE!

Unbelievable as it sounds it is true! Over 95% of the total Palestine population were neither Pharisee, Scribe, Zealot, Herodian, Essene, Qumran, or Apolcalyptic. These people -- the overwhelming majority in Palestine -- had no direct membership in these religious denominations of Judaism and in most cases were not particularly religious at all.

The Pharisees referred to the mass of the people as the "Am ha-aretz." This word is Hebrew and signifies "The People of the Land," or simply, "The Common People."

These people were the multitudes who lived in the cities, towns, and country. They were, in many respects, like many non-church members today -- some went to the synagogues frequently, many only occasionally, and many never attended at all.

The scholar Herford has this to say about these people: "It is clear that the "Am ha-aretz" (the Common People) were not all of one type, either in respect of their religion or socially and economically. Just as they included rich and poor, capitalist and labourer, the merchant, the farmer, the artisan, the tax-gatherer (publican) and the tradesman, so, on the religious side, they included those who were just not Pharisees, and those who paid little or no heed to religion at all, with every shade of piety and indifference in between" (ibid. p. 72).

We can demonstrate quite easily that far less than 5% of the population in Palestine belonged to the Jewish religious sects in New Testament times. By comparing the number of members within the Jewish religious sects with the sum of the total Palestine population, we will arrive at some surprising answers. The figures should be interesting.

The Encyclopedia Biblica records that the population of Palestine must have been somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 million inhabitants at this time (Column 3550). This is the figure that most scholars represent as the total population of Palestine.

There is a full discussion on the Palestine population question in Salo Baron's, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. i. pp. 370-372. This Jewish historian has summed up the opinions of the experts in this matter. He quotes as his conclusion to the whole question, the findings of Dr. J. Klausner, a contemporary Jewish scholar:

This figure should not be far from right. There were nearly 3,000,000 Jews living in Palestine in the days of the Messiah.

The most prominent sect in Judaism at this time was the Pharisees. This was the group the Messiah had more to say against than any other. One of the reasons for this is because the Pharisees were the most influential group and had more members than any of the other sects. They also had direct control over the majority of synagogues and schools, and in this respect, were the most popular with the people. But yet, even though the Pharisees were the most influential and the most prominent religious group among the Jews in the time of the Messiah, it is astounding and dumbfounding to realize that out of 3,000,000 Jews in Palestine ONLY A MERE 6,000 WERE PHARISEES. The Jewish historian, Josephus, who was a contemporary of the Apostle Paul, and a Pharisee himself, informs us of this fact in his history Antiquities of the Jews, xvii, 2, 4.

But just imagine what this means! Here were the Pharisees, the MAJOR RELIGIOUS SECT AMONG THE JEWS, representing nothing more than an insignificant .2% of all the Jews in Palestine. These facts will have to change the convictions of many people who have had the erroneous idea that most of the Jews in the Messiah's time were Pharisees.

Most readers of the New Testament have never thought it necessary to ascertain the religious condition of the Jews in Roman times. And because of this, most people have been making erroneous assumptions based on our own contemporary conditions.

All other sects within Judaism WERE OF LESS SIGNIFICANCE than the Pharisees. The Sadducees, for example, were a sect that the Messiah came into contact with frequently, but they were less prominent than the Pharisees. There is no question about the fact that they had fewer members (Antiquities of the Jews, xviii, 1, 4 and Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, p. 322). If we number the Sadducees at less than 3,000 members we will not be far from the truth.

Another sect among the Jews at this time, but not mentioned in the Bible, were the Essenes. Josephus informs us that there were ONLY ABOUT 4,000 OF THEM (Antiquities of the Jews, xviii, 1, 5). A group known as the Qumran, associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls just recently found, were a part of this Essene sect and represented part of the 4,000 members.

The rest of the sects in Palestine were of minor importance and definitely had fewer members than the Pharisees, Sadducees or Essenes (e.g., Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, pp. 127, 128).

These figures represent the startling truth that the overwhelming majority of Jews DID NOT belong to the religious sects.

With the facts staring us directly in the face, it should not be difficult to understand why it can be stated with absolute assurance that FAR LESS than 5% of the 3,000,000 Jews of Palestine belonged to these religious sects.

The majority of people, known as the "Am ha-aretz," the Common People, who were not members of the religious sects, represented all classes and varying degrees of feeling in regard to religion. It is definitely known that some of these Common People were not totally irreligious. Some of them did hold to a form of religion, even though they did not belong to the accepted religious sects.

Since there were synagogues scattered throughout Palestine, it is altogether obvious that those Jews who did attend had some form of religious conviction. Because the "ministers" in charge of most of the synagogues were Pharisees, it is likely that much of the Pharisaical teaching influenced them. However, these Common People WERE NOT PHARISEES! Most of the people had no desire to practice the strict and disciplinary rules of the Pharisees. Nevertheless, some of the people did attend the Pharisaic synagogues to hear the Scriptures expounded on the Sabbath or on other occasions.

The Common People who did attend the synagogue services, however, were not required to hold to the teachings of the Pharisees. The Pharisees exercised little real authority over the religious life of the people. If a person desired to attend the synagogue, he could; if he obliged himself to stay away, that was his prerogative. There was no coercion to attend Sabbath services, for THERE WAS LITTLE EXERCISE OF ANY CENTRAL RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY WITHIN JUDAISM AT THIS TIME. "PHARISAISM HAD NO MEANS OF COMPELLING THOSE WHO WERE NOT IN THEIR FELLOWSHIP TO CONFORM TO THEIR REQUIREMENTS" (ibid., p. 137).

It was only over the lives of the "pious" that the Pharisees saddled a harsh religion of "do's" and don't's."

Even though the synagogues ruled by the Pharisees were open to all the Jews and they could attend them on the Sabbaths, this does not mean that all the Jews attended. In fact, from the available evidence, it appears quite strongly that only very few Jews, relatively speaking, attended the synagogues regularly. At least, if the size and number of synagogues, of which records exist, are any guide, and they obviously do represent a guide, then we can safely say that very few of the Common People attended the synagogues with regularity.

Take as an example the Capernaum Synagogue.

It is a matter of history, recorded in the New Testament, that there was only ONE synagogue in the city of Capernaum in Galilee and even that was built by a Gentile (Luke 7:1-5). That ONLY ONE synagogue existed in such a large city SURPRISES even Edersheim (one of the foremost Jewish writers on early Judaism), because Capernaum was very significant in New Testament times and had a considerable Jewish population. See Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, pp. 365, 432, 433.

The ruins of this synagogue shows that it would have probably seated around 500 people at the very most. This was certainly not large for the city of Capernaum.

Josephus tells us that there was no city or village (township) in all of Galilee that had less than 15,000 inhabitants (Wars of the Jews, iii, 3, 3). There is no reason to doubt Josephus' statement regarding this, for he should have known. He was governor of the province of Galilee under the Romans and was well aware of the number of his constituents, especially since he was responsible for collecting taxes from them. So, from Josephus, we can be certain that Capernaum had at least 15,000 inhabitants, but from other evidence which shows its political importance in Galilee, there must have been considerable more inhabitants.

Most of the people in Galilee were Jews (Mathews, History of New Testament Times in Palestine, p. 149). And of this Galilean population it is said that "no region was more punctual in observance of the Sabbaths and feasts" (ibid., p. 150). And yet there was only one synagogue in Capernaum -- one of the chief cities of Galilee.

The importance of Capernaum in New Testament times has been recognized by our contemporary historians (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. i, p. 566). It is known that the city was the residence of a high officer of the king (John 4:46) and significant enough to have a customs station (Matt. 9:9 and 17:24).

Nonetheless, even being one of the chief cities of Galilee and having a considerable Jewish population it had ONLY ONE synagogue. (In the New Testament the definite Greek article is used, which indicates only one synagogue). It would have been virtually impossible to get even 10% of the Jewish population into this synagogue for Sabbath services. This serves to indicate that only a small minority of the Jews attended.

It is known that the great bulk of the synagogues of Galilee were quite small in size even though there were a considerable number of Jews living in every city. (Mathews, History of New Testament Times in Palestine, p. 149). In Nazareth, where Yeshua was brought up, there was ONE synagogue. This, in itself, is not surprising, for Nazareth was not of the same prominence as Capernaum. Yet, Nazareth, with its immediate environs, to again cite Josephus, had at least 15,000 inhabitants. It was certainly no mean city, even though it was smaller than Capernaum.

Edersheim informs us that Nazareth was a religious center for certain of the priests who ministered in the temple (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, p. 147). Also, Nazareth was one of the major cities located on the great caravan route from the Mediterranean Sea to Damascus (ibid.). This location gave it a particular importance.

But even with these advantages, the ruins of the synagogue at Nazareth show that it was so small that it could hardly seat more than 75 souls. This size shows how insignificant was the synagogue compared to the population of the township of Nazareth, which numbered over 15,000 inhabitants. This again serves to indicate that the synagogues were not attended regularly except by the most pious of the Common People. The rest of them were not particularly interested in religion. Undoubtedly many of them did attend the annual festivals which were held in the synagogues and at the Temple in Jerusalem. To the Jews the annual festivals were like national holidays. But the evidence is clearly against the masses attending the synagogues REGULARLY every Sabbath.

It has been conjectured by some that the Nazareth synagogue may have been built later than the time of the Messiah because it was not situated in the highest part of the city, as they supposedly think it should have been. However, Edersheim shows that this is not a proper criterion and rejects the supposition. (ibid., vol. i, p. 433). There is every reason to believe that this small synagogue was the one Yeshua attended.

This religious condition in Palestine nearly 2,000 years ago should not surprise us much. Today it is common for many of the people who profess Christianity to attend church only on the two pagan holidays that almost all churches celebrate today -- Easter and Christmas. The rest of the year finds the majority not attending church with any regularity. The Jews, in the's day, can be compared in like manner with the common tendency today.

It is not known exactly how many synagogues there were throughout Palestine in the Messiah's time. However, there are some hints as to the number. Herford tells us that almost every area which had a considerable Jewish population had at least one synagogue in each of its cities. (Judaism in the New Testament Period, pp. 27, 133). It must be remembered that Capernaum, as large as it was, had one synagogue. There can be little question about the fact that there was at least one synagogue in almost every town of any size. This seems to be a foregone conclusion of all the writers on the subject.

We happen to know, again from Josephus, that there were 240 cities and villages in all of Galilee (Life of Josephus, p. 45). Galilee was much more prosperous than Judea in the south, and in fact, Galilee was far and above the province of Judea in material blessings. Edersheim says the cost of living in Judea, for example, was five times that of Galilee because of Judea's relative scarcity of good soil and crops (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, pp. 224, 225). However, if we allow Judea to also have had about 240 cities and villages as did Galilee (although there were probably less), then we arrive at about 500 cities and villages in all of Palestine that could have had a synagogue. This would represent about 500 synagogues. But, if we allow some of the cities to have had two or more synagogues, the number could be raised to about 1,000 synagogues. That is, if every city and village did have a synagogue.

If there were, being extremely liberal, about 1,000 synagogues scattered throughout Palestine out of a population of 3,000,000 people, this would mean one synagogue for every 3,000 people. The sizes of the synagogues were from the very small, held in the home (ibid., vol. i, p. 433), to the size of the Capernaum synagogue with as many as 500. There were certainly none which could hold 3,000, nor even a third of that amount. And the majority were small synagogues not much bigger than the one in Nazareth.

That there could hardly be more than 2,000 synagogues throughout Palestine is obvious in another respect, too, when we consider that there were only 6,000 Pharisees to minister in these synagogues. THE PHARISEES WERE THE SYNAGOGUE RULERS (Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, p. 134). However, not all Pharisees were religious leaders in the synagogues. For example, Josephus, the Jewish historian, was a Pharisee but was not a ruler or synagogue official. In fact, a good percentage of Pharisees were not a part of the synagogue government.

And besides this, there were several offices to be filled in each synagogue (ISBE, vol. v, pp. 2878, 2879). The limited number of Pharisees available could hardly have filled the necessary posts for more than 1,000 separate synagogues.

With about 3,000 Jews for each synagogue in Palestine, and the synagogues ranging in size from around 75 members (even 10 if held in a home, as was sometimes allowed) to around 500 people, it can easily be seen that a good number of the Common People DID NOT ATTEND.

The religious condition of the Jews during the days of the Messiah can be compared with our own society. Today, there are about 750 million people who claim to be Christians, but how many of these are fervent in their beliefs? How many are consistent church goers? How many are zealously interested in their church? How many put their church above anything else in their lives? How many really know YEHOVAH God?

Even the major Protestant and Catholic leaders are appalled at the seeming lack of real interest expressed by so many of their members. It is a known fact that the majority of people today just aren't interested in real, heart-felt religion at all -- even though most claim to be Christians.

Should we then be amazed that over 95% of the Jews of the Messiah's time were no more religious than our own people? Of course not! People were the same then as they are today.

The false notion that the Jews of the Messiah's day were intensely interested in religion -- the religion of Moses -- must be eradicated from our minds. Such deception must be replaced by the cold facts! The Jews were no more fervent about the religion of Moses than the majority of Christians are today about the religion of the Messiah!

Yet when they heard the Messiah's message it began to awaken them to their senses.

There are "pentecostal" sects that cater to those of certain emotional tendencies. Others appeal to the educated and the intellectual. There are puritan and fundamentalist denominations and at the other extreme, cold, formal and modernistic ones. On the other hand, we find certain denominations having a strong central government and in others the congregations rule. There are those with pomp and ritual, and those having no religious adornment. And yet, the irony of the whole thing is the fact that all these opposing and irreconcilable denominations claim to be the Church that the Messiah founded while they preach conflicting and contradictory "gospels." It certainly is obvious that they are not preaching the ONE Gospel of the Messiah (I Cor. 1:10-13).

Our people -- claiming to be Christians -- have gotten themselves into a chaotic state of confusion in regard to religion. They have abandoned the Gospel of the Messiah -- which is clearly and plainly revealed in the Word of YEHOVAH God -- and substituted for it their various opinions and beliefs resulting in our modern denominationalism.

It should therefore not be surprising to us today, who are so used to the splits and schisms based on the opinions of men, to find that the Jews in the New Testament times were ALSO SPLIT UP INTO MANY DIFFERING AND OPPOSING SECTS.

It is a common law of human nature that when mankind uses human reasoning to arrive at the truth of a religious subject, there are going to be many differences of opinion. The Jews in the New Testament period were not one unified denomination preaching one message. They were far from common agreement with one another in many basic points of religion.

Judaism had its sectarian divisions as we have ours. How did they originate -- and why? Let the Jews themselves answer.

Here are the candid admissions of Hereford:

The fact that there were all types of conflicting and opposing sects in Judaism is important to recognize if an adequate understanding of the New Testament Period, and especially Paul's writings, is to be gained. These various sects, TO WHICH ONLY A VERY SMALL PART OF THE POPULATION BELONGED, disagreed among themselves on many religious doctrines. Even within the sects, many individuals or groupings were at variance with one another.

This condition of religious discord among the various sects, with the independent and differing views of many even within the sects, undoubtedly was a prime factor in causing the Common People of the land to dissuade themselves from joining the sects of Judaism. When there is not unanimity of belief in religious teaching, there is a natural repulsion on the part of most people to religion itself -- or at least in taking a serious interest in it. This is the condition existing in our contemporary world, and it was the very condition that existed among the Jews of Palestine during the days of the Messiah. The overwhelming majority of the Jews did not directly belong to the religious sects, and the sects, themselves, were in a state of confusion as to religious belief.

Let us look at some of these divided sects of Judaism in order to help us better understand the New Testament period.

The major sect among the divisions of Judaism was that or the Pharisees. This was the most influential group at the time and can be called the leading division.

Even though their membership was only 6,000 out of a population near 3,000,000, they had greater religious influence over the people than any other group. The main reason for this is because the individuals in charge of the majority of synagogues were Pharisees. Being in charge of the synagogues gave them a certain amount of sway over the Common People who attended the synagogue services. We must remember, however, that the evidence shows that only a minority of the Common People attended the synagogues with regularity. The Pharisees had no direct control over the bulk of the people at all.

The Pharisees were not exactly like a church as we know it. They were, instead, a group of men, and even some women, representing many different walks of life -- teachers, ministers, businessmen, politicians, etc. These men had voluntarily bound themselves together in a covenant to live a particular manner of life. Instead of calling them a church, they can best be described as a RELIGIOUS FRATERNITY or ASSOCIATION (Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, p. 311). These were Jews who bound themselves together into an exclusive fraternity to perform certain religious customs and traditions that the Common People did not wish to keep, or did not wish to keep with the strictness of the Pharisees.

Edersheim continues:

AT NO TIME WAS IT REQUIRED OF ALL PHARISEES TO BELIEVE ALIKE. This fact is very important! By understanding this, we can come to a clear comprehension of the true activity of the Pharisees during the time of the Messiah.

It can be plainly shown that the Pharisees exercised little central authority among themselves at all. In fact, other than their uniformity in their desire to keep the laws of purity and the other religious dues, the Pharisees represented a group of men WITH UNLIMITED DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. They were not one unified group in the matter of religious doctrines. One Pharisee would teach his opinion on a religious question and another would teach another opinion, in many instances, often totally different or diametrically opposite. Each Pharisee could teach whatever he pleased concerning the Scripture and STILL BE A PHARISEE so long as he kept bound to the Pharisaical rule of life.

You can imagine what confusion this would bring among the Pharisees!

JUST A FEW YEARS BEFORE THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH, and also during his lifetime, we have record of many divisions within the Pharisaical group. These divisions resulted from differences of opinion among the Pharisees. Some Pharisees, who might believe one particular set of doctrines, would tend to associate themselves together into their own societies. Some of the prominent of these societies would also form themselves into schools where any differences of opinion on religious questions among themselves could be discussed and then accepted or rejected by the whole of the school.

Two of the most distinguished schools at this time, representing the two major divisions of the Pharisees, were the School of Hillel and the School of Shammai. These two schools were the rivals of one another. The points over which they disagreed were practically innumerable (Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, by McClintock and Strong, vol. ix, p. 472). There was hardly a point of religious doctrine that these two schools completely agreed on. Edersheim says that at one time there was such violent disagreement between these two schools that blood was shed between them (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. ii, p. 13).

These two schools were NOT THE ONLY DIVISIONS of the Pharisees, however. There were many more! Dr. George H. Box, of the University of London, informs us: "The Pharisees at this time WERE SHARPLY DIVIDED INTO VARIOUS SECTIONS which were NOT exhausted by the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai" (Abbington Bible Commentary, p. 841). There were many other splinter groups existing even among the Pharisees, almost all teaching different doctrines.

It is readily understandable why the rulers of the synagogues were adherents to the code of the Pharisees. It was a mark of religious piety to keep the Levitical laws of purity and to be scrupulous in keeping the laws of tithing, etc. So, the majority of the rulers or the synagogues (ministers) were Pharisees.

This does not mean that these synagogue rulers taught a unified creed. The ruler of the synagogue, in most cases, would teach what he, himself, thought was proper. Some of these Pharisees would conform as near as possible to the Hillel School of interpretation. Others would lean towards the Shammai School. Many would teach a combination of the two schools' doctrines infused with their own peculiar beliefs. No creed existed in the synagogues ruled by the Pharisees. This is the reason why almost every opinion was tolerated in the synagogues. THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES NEVER TAUGHT WITH AUTHORITY as did Yeshua! (Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, p. 170).

Now we can understand why it was not difficult for the Messiah and the Apostles to speak in most of the synagogues without molestation. Each ruler of the synagogue could teach what he pleased and he allowed those of the congregation to express their opinion if they wished. There was little government of YEHOVAH God -- and there was little truth.

The Apostle Paul spoke many times in the Jews' synagogues about the TRUTH of Christianity (Acts 13:15; 14:1; 17:1-2). Sometimes Paul met with approval and other times with opposition. Yeshua also preached the true gospel in many of the synagogues throughout Judea and Galilee without being prohibited (John 18:20).

Because the majority of the synagogues were under the control of individuals who were Pharisees, it is safe to conclude that the Common People who attended endeavored to keep some form of the Pharisaical teaching. In this sense, it would be proper to say that those who attended the synagogues were following a type of NOMINAL Pharisaism -- even though they were not Pharisees themselves.

And because the Pharisees did control the synagogues, and had greater influence over the Common People who attended, they assumed the position of being the major sect of Judaism. They by no means represent the only religious group, however. There were many more!

Along with the Pharisees it is necessary to mention the Scribes. They adhered to the Pharisaical rules of piety and, in fact, represented a particular group within the Pharisees. They were the SCHOLARLY PHARISEES -- sometimes called "doctors of the law" (Lake 5:17).

In other words, they were the ones most learned in the Law. Both Hillel and Shammai, who founded the two prominent Pharisaic Schools, were Scribes, or Doctors of the Law. Not all Pharisees were Scribes, but ALL SCRIBES WERE PHARISEES (ibid., p. 158). To them was committed the copying of the Hebrew Bible.

Another major group within Judaism at this time were the Sadducees. Even though the members in this sect were fewer than the Pharisees, they could command attention because they were in influential political positions in Jerusalem. Actually, MANY OF THE SADDUCEES WERE PRIESTS who ministered in the Temple in Jerusalem. Performing these functions was about the ONLY religious service that the priests were doing at this time.

In the distant past, it had been the job of the priests, along with the Levites, to be the religious leaders in Israel. But, by the time of the Messiah, the Pharisees, who were not priests, had been allowed by Queen Alexandra (79 B.C.) to take this leadership to themselves, while the priests were relegated to the place of performing only the rituals at the Temple. Yeshua recognized the Pharisees' authority, however (Mat. 23:2-3).

Because the Pharisees had deprived the priests of their rightful position as teachers of the people, we can see one reason why the priests did not favor the Pharisees nor what they taught. This is why the majority of priests were Sadducees! They had a spite for the Pharisees, so they joined themselves to the sect which disapproved of the Pharisees the most.

The Sadducees had no set religious creed EXCEPT that they ALL DISBELIEVED in the resurrection from the dead, in angels, and spirits (Acts 23:8). They claimed to believe explicitly in the Scriptures, but even in their fundamental doctrines just quoted, it is clearly obvious that they rejected much of the Scripture, for the Word of YEHOVAH God plainly teaches the resurrection, the existence of angels and spirits (Job 14:14; Eze. 37:1-14; Dan. 12:1-3; Ex. 14:19; Dan. 6:22; I Sam. 18:10). Probably they rejected such essential and basic doctrines because the Pharisees held all of these as indispensable doctrines of the Scriptures. Perhaps it was out of spite that the Sadducees rejected them. They certainly had no Scripture proof for doing so. It is known that the Sadducees detested the Pharisees so much that they would counter almost every belief the Pharisees would teach.

These doctrines of the Sadducees were not popular with the people. Very few of the Common People ever joined with them. And, the Sadducees made no attempt to proselyte. They also had no synagogues in which to worship (Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, p. 122). Nor did they have any real centralized authority among themselves. The individual members of this group could believe whatever he pleased, and there was "A CONSIDERABLE VARIETY OF TYPE AMONG THE SADDUCEES," declares Herford.

Their real prominence was mainly POLITICAL. During the time of the Messiah, the Sadducees were in control of the civil Supreme Court of the Jews (the Sanhedrin). Because of their being majority leaders in this powerful judicial organization, they had recognizable respect from the people. The Sanhedrin was the high civil court, allowed under the Romans to try legal disputes which would arise between Jews. It even had power, in some instances, to give capital punishment. And, by the Sadducees having the majority vote in this court (called "the council" in the New Testament -- Luke 22:66), they could command certain political esteem from the people -- even at times from the Pharisees. Religiously speaking, however, very few of the Jews were Sadducees. Their materialistic concept of Scripture and the fact that they were mainly priests plus some rich and influential men, caused this sect not to be in any way popular. "The priestly and aristocratic Sadducees were rigidly exclusive, and insignificant in numbers" (The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, p. 134).

The last MAJOR group of Judaisers to be considered as representing Judaism, and having about 4,000 members, were the Essenes. This sect is not mentioned in the New Testament, although they were in existence at the time.

Because Yeshua never directly by name condemned this group, as he did the Pharisees and Sadducees, some modern scholars have been led to assume that perhaps Yeshua was a member of this sect! Nothing could be further from the truth!

Members of this group were ascetics who lived in the desert near the Dead Sea. They were anti-social in the extreme, withdrawing from society altogether, having no social intercourse with any except members of their own sect. They practiced celibacy (repudiating marriage entirely), drank no wine, did not attend Temple services, nor did they sacrifice (Cyclo. Bib., Thes. & Ecc. Lit., vol. iii, p. 302). Their order was similar to the practices in monasteries and nunneries of the Catholic Church with which we are familiar (Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, p. 63). They even had their own synagogues in which to practice their ascetic customs.

The Messiah practiced none of their basic tenets! Simple reference to the New Testament shows us that he was certainly not an ascetic. HE CAME EATING AND DRINKING WINE (Matt. 11:19). He went out into the highways (Matt. 22:9) and even ate with the Common People of the land, called SINNERS by the Pharisees (Matt. 9:11). He attended the annual Holy Days ordained of YEHOVAH God (John 2:23; 5:1; 7:14). ALL these things the Essenes WOULD NOT DO!

The Apostle Paul CONDEMNS asceticism as a way of life (Col. 2:21-23), while the Essenes believed in it as a fundamental doctrine. Neither Paul nor the Messiah was in any way connected with this sect of the Jews nor did they propound any of this sect's peculiar doctrines. Even the most skeptical of scholars must admit this fact (Abington Bib. Com., p. 842). Most of the doctrines adhered to by the Essenes actually came from heathen influences, not from the Bible.

Another sect -- or perhaps sects -- connected directly with the Essenes, were the Qumran group. Before 1947, no one knew that this sect existed in Palestine. In that year, however, some scrolls were found by an Arab in a cave near the Dead Sea. It was found that these scrolls were hidden by this sect now known as the Qumran.

Subsequent archeological discoveries revealed that this group were like the Essenes in many ways. They preferred a life of asceticism and lived in monastery-like institutions (Thompson, Archaeology and the Pre-Christian Centuries, p. 107). However, a study of their writings indicated that they may have been a splinter group of the Essenes. Their own writings tell us that there were differences of opinions among themselves and that there were different sections within the group (ibid., p. 115).

That Yeshua had nothing to do with them is apparent! Professor Thompson says that the teaching of these Qumran sects differed from that of the Messiah in a thousand ways (ibid., p. 118).

The Zealots were a religious group (Herford, Judaism in the New Testament Period, p. 66), who had as their basic philosophy -- the defense of the Law of Moses. At least, this was their supposition. In their religious beliefs they sided with the Sadducees IN ONE RESPECT: they rejected the authority of the Pharisaic teachings (ibid., p. 68). But they were not Sadducees! They held that the Law of Moses was sufficient to guide the religious life, and that it did not need the extra teachings of the Pharisees or any other group to make it clear. It is not known just how fervent they really were in adhering to this religious conception.

Their main point of doctrine, and the one which gave them their name, was their ZEALOUSNESS for the Law. They were supposedly willing to fight or even to die for the Law if necessary. However, we find that this seemingly good quality was actually a tool by which they could get the Common People to come to their aid in order to accomplish their own nationalistic desires of driving all foreigners from the land of Palestine. It was the overthrow of the Roman yoke more than anything else that gave them impetus for zealousness.

We often meet with this sect in the New Testament only because one of the Apostles WAS ONCE a member of it before becoming a Christian (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13).

Their importance was not overly great during the time of the Messiah, but their influence grew, after the crucifixion, to the extent that much of the blame for the rebellion against Rome, that caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D., is to be accorded directly to them. Their fundamental doctrine of rebellion against all foreign domination (using the pretext of fighting for the Law of YEHOVAH God) brought much of the misery the Jews suffered during the destruction of Jerusalem nearly 40 years after the crucifixion. This sect was extinguished from Judaism after that destruction.

During the time of the Messiah there was another minor group represented in Judaism called the Herodians. They are mentioned twice in the New Testament (Matt. 22:16, Mark 12:13), and are in both cases aligned with the Pharisees against the Messiah. Little is known of them except that they had independent doctrines of their own. It has been CONJECTURED by some that they were endeavoring to proclaim Herod the Great as the King and Messiah. The Jews were well aware that the Messiah was to come at about this time because of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27. It is possible -- say some scholars -- that the Herodians were proclaiming Herod as their coming King. However, this is entirely conjecture.

It is not known how many members were in this MINOR group, nor is it really known what they taught.

Other than the sects and divisions already mentioned, THERE WERE MANY OTHER MINOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN JUDAISM. That these sects existed is readily recognized because they wrote many erroneous and fantastic apocryphal books which show that they were people who believed doctrines totally different from the common sects. These books express different opinions among themselves as well, and in every case endeavor to teach what the Bible clearly does not teach.

The name that has been applied to many of these small and independent groups, or perhaps they represent nothing more than a few individuals, is Apocalyptists. The word means "the revealing-ones" or those who purport to give SECRET doctrines or prophecies never heard before.

Many of the writers of these books claimed the names of famous Old Testament personalities, such as Enoch and Moses, as the supposed authors of their books. However, it is well known that these books were written about one to two hundred years before the Messiah. See R. H. Charles', Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Oxford University Press, page 123, for the evidence of this.

Instead of revealing many hidden truths, these books reveal only the errors that some of the Jews had foolishly come to believe. The important point to realize is the fact that these false books are at variance with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures. THEY DO NOT BELONG IN THE BIBLE! They were all rejected by the Jews of Palestine. In a future chapter we will see just what books really belong in the Old Testament and who had the authority to decide it. It is important to know!

Let us summarize the religious condition of the Jews during the time of the Messiah.

Out of a total population of about 3,000,000 Jews in Palestine, there were only about 6,000 Pharisees, about 3,000 Sadducees, 4,000 Essenes, and a few thousand representing the other sects of Judaism. Those belonging to the religious sects represented only a mere fragment of the population -- less than 5% of the total population.

The evidence shows that, relatively speaking, very few of the Jews attended the synagogues each Sabbath. The synagogues were just too small or there were not enough of them to allow all to attend.

Of the sects themselves, the Pharisees, the major group, WERE DIVIDED into many opposing divisions. Nor were the Sadducees a unified group, for there WERE MANY VARIETIES OF BELIEFS AMONG THEM. The Essenes and Qumran, by their own writings, were not a uniform group, BUT WERE DIVIDED INTO VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF BELIEF. The rest of the sects were minor in importance. Even the writings of the Apocalyptics show a variety of opinions. They certainly did not agree with one another -- and especially they did not agree with the Bible.

Among all these differing sects we find some keeping the traditions of the elders. Some believed in asceticism; others repudiated it. There was disagreement over the rituals, marriage, the Sacred Calendar, the correct observance of the Holy Days, etc. In fact, the points of disagreement were virtually INNUMERABLE.

About the only things held in common by them all were some kind of observance of the Sabbath, the rite of circumcision, the calling of Israel "a chosen people" and the expectancy of the Messiah. However, even in these fundamental doctrines there were countless shades of interpretations.

The condition of the Jews in New Testament times can best be described by the statement in the Bible: "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

There is no question but that the religion of the Jews, as taught by the differing sects, was not the religion that YEHOVAH God gave Moses. In truth, the message that the Messiah brought re-emphasized the religion of Moses IN ITS TRUE SPIRITUAL INTENT, and to give it to a people who had forgotten the true spiritual application of the Law!

THE religious condition of the Jews during the time of the Messiah had not evolved in just a few years. It took over 200 years for Judaism to firmly implant itself in Palestine.

If we are to adequately understand the full development of Judaism, we will have to go back in history over 500 years before the Messiah. In these centuries history shows why and how "Judaism" replaced the Law of Moses as the religion of the Jews!

The proper place to begin a study of the development of Judaism is with the Babylonian captivity of the Jews.

Between the years of 604 B.C. and 585 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians, made war with the Kingdom of Judah. The Jews were not successful in any or the skirmishes with the Babylonians. In the first years of this war, Nebuchadnezzar carried away the majority of the Jews from Judah to Babylon. At the end of the war, in 585 B.C., ALL THE JEWS, except those under Gedaliah, were finally carried to Babylon. And even those under Gedaliah finally fled Palestine. This was a complete captivity.

The Babylonian captivity came to an end with the downfall of the Babylonian Empire in October 539 B.C. Isaiah had prophesied, about 200 years before, that Cyrus, the king of Persia, would be responsible for the overthrow of Babylon and for making it possible for the Jews to return to Palestine (Isa. 45:1-4). Thus, Cyrus and his armies captured the capital of the Empire and Babylon was absorbed into the Persian Empire.

Cyrus was so betook over the exact prophecy by Isaiah concerning himself, that he determined to honor the God who had granted him victory over the Babylonians. He issued an edict that the Jews who had been carried captive by the Babylonians could return to Palestine and rebuild the Temple of YEHOVAH God (II Chron. 36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1,2).

The issuance of this decree resulted in about 50,000 Jews later returning to Palestine. These Jews were under the leadership of two men. Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, and Joshua, the High Priest. The reason for the Jews' return was to rebuild the Temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, and to again establish the true worship of YEHOVAH God. The books of Haggai and Zechariah were written during the period when these Jews were returning to Palestine and during the building of the Temple. These books describe the condition of the Jews at this time.

It must be remembered, however, that the majority of the Jews did NOT return to Palestine. Most of them elected to remain in the Babylonian area. Under the benevolent rulership of Cyrus, many of the Jews had their own homes, substantial properties and not a few were wealthy and influential. They did not want to give all of this up in order to go back to the wasted land of their forefathers. Even Cyrus did not want all of them to leave the Babylonian area since the bulk of the population in some provinces was principally Jewish. Depopulation would have been a serious setback to the ECONOMY of the area (Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i, p. 8).

The majority of the Jews were content with the situation in Babylon. They had no desire to return, and in consequence, they built permanent schools, colleges, and synagogues. They were settling down to stay. And, even though there were several migrations from Babylon back to Palestine, the bulk of the Jews remained in the Mesopotamian area. Even as late as the New Testament times, there were still more Jews in Babylon than there were in Palestine (ibid., vol. i, pp. 7-9). THIS EXPLAINS WHY THE APOSTLE PETER WAS IN BABYLON IN THE LATER YEARS OF HIS LIFE. He wrote his two epistles from near Babylon on the Euphrates (I Pet. 5:13). Since the Apostle Peter was the apostle to the Circumcision scattered abroad -- the Jews in the Diaspora (Gal. 2:7), it is not difficult to see why he went to Babylon, where many of the Jews lived.

After the deaths of Zerubbabel and Joshua, who led the first wave of returning Jews to Palestine, the people began to take a lackadaisical attitude concerning the services in the Temple and religion in general. Even though the Temple had been completed in the early months of 515 B.C., the people of Palestine took no interest in rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. It still remained in ruins! The people had also begun to intermarry freely with the idolatrous Gentile people round about. The religious life of the people in general was becoming corrupt. This condition was prompted because the people in general did not have any real spiritual leaders after the death of Zerubbabel and Joshua. As the years rolled by, the condition became worse and worse.

Finally, Ezra came to Palestine to rectify the situation that was beginning to get out of hand (Ezra 7:7-8).

Ezra was a priest of no mean standing. He was a direct descendant of Aaron and some of his forefathers had been former High Priests in Israel. His grandfather was the High Priest who returned with Zerubbabel and Joshua to Jerusalem in the first migration back to Palestine (Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. iii, p. 435). Ezra, himself, was a "scribe," a "ready scribe of the law of Moses," "a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord and of His statutes to Israel," "a scribe of the law of the God of heaven" (Ezra 7:11, 12). He was considered by Josephus, the Jewish historian of the apostles' days, to have been, in a sense, the "High Priest" of the Jews who were still living in Babylon (Antiquities of the Jews, xi, 5,1).

The Scriptures say that Ezra "had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments" (Ezra 7:10). From these Scripture references alone, we can say confidently that Ezra was determined to live by the laws of YEHOVAH God and to teach them to the people. So profound an influence had Ezra over the Jews, and so righteous was his character, that a later Jewish writer said he would have been the lawgiver to Israel had not Moses preceded him (The Talmud, Sanhedrin, c.ii).

Ezra knew the laws of YEHOVAH God -- he was well trained in them. And YEHOVAH directed that he go to Jerusalem to beautify the Temple, establish its services in proper order, to teach the people the laws of YEHOVAH God, and to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

He went to Palestine with authority from the Persian government to carry out these reforms. About 2,000 people went with Ezra to Palestine. These were notably priests, Levites and servants of the Temple. The object of Ezra and these other important dignitaries in going to Jerusalem, was to restore the worship of YEHOVAH God that was fast becoming defiled.

When Ezra and his retinue went to Jerusalem from Babylon, they went with a royal decree from the king of Persia -- Ezra had the power he needed to carry out the reform. The decree gave him authority not only to establish the true religion in its purity, but also he had governmental orders to "appoint magistrates and judges which may judge all the people that are beyond the river (in Palestine), all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye him that knoweth them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God and the LAW OF THE KING, let judgment be executed upon him with all diligence, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment" (Ezra 7:25, 26). In other words Ezra was going to Jerusalem not only as a priest of YEHOVAH God to reestablish the religious worship, but also to establish law and order by rebuilding Jerusalem as a Jewish capital city.

Why was the king of Persia so interested in the Jews' religion and why did he want Jerusalem to be rebuilt and inhabited? The answer is plain.

The Bible records how Esther, a Jewish girl from the tribe of Benjamin, became Queen of Persia, and Mordecai, her uncle, became Prime Minister of the kingdom (Esther 2:17; 10:3). Esther was married to King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) who ruled according to Persian reckoning, from 485 to 465 B.C. The king under whom Ezra was appointed to rebuild Jerusalem was also Xerxes. Esther was still, undoubtedly, the Queen, when Ezra left for Jerusalem in 457 B.C. Thus we see that there was considerable Jewish influence in the king's palace at this time. No wonder Ezra was given such responsibility by the Persian king. He had power from the king to perform the needed restoration. Ezra's personality and authority had a tremendous effect on the people.

The real intent of Ezra was to establish the Law of Moses as the constitutional law throughout Judea (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 33) -- to make Judea a model state within the Persian Empire -- one adhering to the law of Moses. The laws of the king were to be few, dealing mainly with taxation. Herford, the Jewish scholar, continues, "The Persian rulers, living far from Judea, seldom interfered with the internal affairs of their Jewish subjects, and were content to leave their public business in the hands of the governor of the province. If the royal taxes were paid, and order maintained, the Jews might organize their own life as a community in the way that seemed best to them" (ibid. p. 45). This was the policy of the Persian rulers for the two centuries they governed Palestine. This gave the Jews ample opportunity to settle down firmly in Palestine and to practice their religion without undue molestation.

The first thing Ezra found upon his arrival in Palestine was that most of the people possessed only a nominal religion. The Temple services were not being conducted properly and a great number of the people had intermarried with foreign women. Ezra, in no uncertain terms, warned the people that these very acts were violations of the Law that caused their forefathers to be carried into captivity (Ezra 9:5-7). Upon hearing this, many of the people covenanted before YEHOVAH God to disentangle themselves from their foreign wives (Ezra 10:2-5). However, we find that not all of the people were so willing to do this. Some became quite obstinate. It took about 13 years to get all the people to forsake their own ways and be obedient to the Laws of YEHOVAH God.

The reason that the Law had commanded the Jews not to marry with the heathen is that the natural tendency of a person is to lean towards the religion of the wife or husband. Solomon even set up heathen idols in Jerusalem and throughout Israel to please his pagan wives (I Kings 11:4). And because the Law specifically commanded the Israelites not to marry heathen women or men (Exodus 34:15, 16), Ezra commanded the Jews to repent of their erroneous ways and to begin keeping the Law. (See also Deut. 7:3.)

A paramount issue in the mind of Ezra was the establishment in Palestine of the civil Law as given by Moses. In other words, he was determined to see that the Jews obeyed the commandments of YEHOVAH God as revealed in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Within these four books are found the basic spiritual commandments of YEHOVAH, plus many basic laws and statutes of a civil nature for the governing of the physical nation of Israel. Also within these books are the ritualistic and ceremonial laws of purity and the sacrificial ordinances that formed such a distinctive part of the Law of Moses that by New Testament times the term "Law of Moses" often became a special and exclusive term for the sacrificial ceremonies and physical rituals (Acts 13:39; 15:5). Ezra was commissioned by YEHOVAH God to teach the people ALL these laws -- from obedience to the spiritual laws to the observance of physical rituals.

Ezra was fully qualified in education, political power and divine favor to accomplish the job of establishing the Law of Moses as the law of the land.

"To place the Torah (the Scriptures) in the position of supreme authority in Judaism, and to win the people to that recognition and acceptance of that supreme authority was what Ezra set out to do" (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 37). And, we find that Ezra succeeded in transforming the Jews from a nominal Mosaic religion to the real thing. It took, however, the help of Nehemiah to finally and fully implant the Law of Moses as the law of the land.

Nehemiah was a Jew who was a high government official in the Persian kingdom (Neh. 2:1-8). After learning of the plight of the Jews in Palestine and the difficult time Ezra was having getting the Jews to obey the laws of Moses, he resolved to do something about the situation. Being in close communication with the king of Persia and in good favor with him, he petitioned for the right to become governor of the province of Judea, directly under the king himself. The petition was granted!

Ezra, who had also gone to Palestine in an official capacity, was not the governor of the province. He acted more as a civil servant of the king. But Nehemiah came with much more power. He went to Jerusalem as governor of the whole province of Judea.

Upon the arrival of Nehemiah in Xerxes' twentieth year, Ezra's position was greatly strengthened. Nehemiah was as much inclined toward getting the people back to YEHOVAH God as was Ezra. Nehemiah and Ezra both worked together in harmony towards accomplishing their goal. And accomplish it they did! They established the Law of Moses as the law of the land, they set up the Temple service in proper order and they made the people put away their foreign wives. They established meeting places where the law was preached and expounded. The ordained priests were judges, teachers, and administers of the government. This was a phenomenal task to accomplish among thousands of Jews who were not always in favor of the law. But it was done.

Ezra and Nehemiah brought all of the leaders of the people, the priests, Levites, and all the principal men, and had them sign a covenant that they would henceforth obey the laws of YEHOVAH God. In the covenant they signed, they all agreed to perform seven things. These articles of the covenant were mandatory: 1) They were to keep all the laws, statutes, judgments and commandments of YEHOVAH God; 2) not to intermarry with the heathen; 3) to keep the Sabbath holy; 4) to observe the Sabbatical year; 5) to pay the annual third of a shekel for the upkeep of the Temple; 6) to supply wood for the altar in the Temple; 7) to pay all the tithes that were commanded in the Law (Nehemiah 10:28-39).

The leaders signed the covenant on behalf of all the people. Consequently, all the Jews who lived in Palestine, solemnly entered into this covenant. They all pledged to carry out its requirements.

Before this time, the people were content with a nominal form of religion, but after the surge of spiritual zeal and determination of Ezra and Nehemiah, with the Persian monarch backing them up, the people took on a new outlook towards the truth of YEHOVAH God. There arose a new kind of constitutional government -- a government which had as its laws the Law of Moses. It was a kind of Church and State government, under the authority of the Persian kingdom, but with its own schools, colleges, synagogues, court houses and Supreme Court. With this kind of central government established in Judea, the result was a religious unity not known since the days of Joshua. No wonder that Ezra, the principal figure of the time, was called the "second Moses." This was a new beginning in the history of the Jews.

The convening of these Jewish elders was of great importance. This assemblage was actually a religious and political body of priests which was, under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, empowered by YEHOVAH God to maintain the obedience of the people to the Law of Moses for that and future generations.

This organization was known as "The Great Assembly." It was an assembly comprised of Ezra and Nehemiah, two of YEHOVAH's chosen ministers, along with all the principal priests of the Jews. This assembly was the ruling institution to guide the religious life of the Jews. It was the religious supreme court. It was the center of authority in regard to education and regulating the priests and Levites in teaching the people the Law of Moses. In effect, the Great Assembly was the governing body of the Jewish people in Palestine.

This assembly initiated by Ezra and Nehemiah has often been called by the Greek name "The Great Synagogue." The word "synagogue" in Greek means ASSEMBLY. This is the name most modern writers use when referring to this authoritative body of priests. But whether the name Great Synagogue or Great Assembly is used, it represents the same institution.

This assembly actually represented the executive, judicial and legislative congress of the Jews. It was convened to insure the observance of the Law of Moses. From history we know that it accomplished its task. It brought the people back to the Law of Moses, and established that Law as the constitutional law of the land.

Some of the decisions of this Great Assembly have had far-reaching effects -- even unto our present age. It is necessary that we learn about this organization established by YEHOVAH God under the supervision of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The Jewish historians are united in telling us that there were 120 members in the original Great Assembly (Berakoth, ii, 4; "Megillah," 17b). All of these members WERE PRIESTS (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 59). There were no laymen in this authoritative assembly.

The president or ruler was the High Priest. According to rank, this should always be the case. However, when the Great Assembly was organized by Ezra and Nehemiah, the High Priest, Eliashib, did not meet with the Assembly. He did not entirely agree with the covenant that the Great Assembly made binding. See Nehemiah 13:4-7.

He did not agree with the specific part of the covenant which commanded all Jews to give up their Gentile wives. His grandson, Manasseh, was married to a very important Gentile woman, of which more will be said later, and Eliashib did not necessarily want this particular union to be broken. Because of this attitude, he was rejected from having a part in the Great Assembly. Later on, however, the High Priests did assume their proper place as head of the Assembly.

The rest of the Great Assembly were priests of varying rank occupying different positions within the institution. Their jobs were to carry out the actual work of the Assembly while the High Priest would supervise and oversee.

These priests were the leaders of the Jewish nation at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, about 440 years before the Messiah. They and their immediate successors were responsible for many weighty and authoritative decisions that affected the whole mode of Jewish life, and, in reality, settled a very important question, the effects of which reach unto our own day.

The firm reestablishment of the religious and political government in Palestine was accomplished by Ezra and Nehemiah. They convened the Jewish elders for the purpose of signing and officially sealing a covenant to keep YEHOVAH's commandments. It brought about the inauguration of a constitutional government in Palestine. THE CONSTITUTION WAS THE LAW OF MOSES!

Both Ezra and Nehemiah were at this covenant -- signing, with the leaders of the Jews, to acknowledge THE WRITTEN LAW OF MOSES as the law of the land -- as their constitution. All the Jewish leaders, except a very small minority, happily covenanted to perform the requirements of the Law. In consequence of this, the people put away their foreign wives, started tithing, established proper Temple services and began to keep YEHOVAH's Sabbath!

This is the real beginning of the religion of Moses after the Babylonian captivity. And it was the true religion of Moses, no additions or subtractions!

Eliashib, the High Priest at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, did not countenance the decision of the Great Assembly in regard to the putting away of foreign wives. One of his older grandsons was involved in such an illegal marriage. This grandson, Manasseh, was married to one of the daughters of Sanballat the Horonite -- a Gentile.

Had Manasseh been married to an ordinary woman of no repute, it probably would not have made a great deal of difference. But he was married to the daughter of Sanballat who was governor of the northern province of Samaria. Sanballat was an influential government official of the Kingdom of Persia.

The grandson of the High Priest of the Jews being married to the daughter of the governor of Samaria offered a type of alliance between the two peoples. This presented a delicate political situation. If Manasseh repudiated his wife, in order to keep the Law, this friendly relationship would undoubtedly have ceased.

There were a few other Jews along with Eliashib and Manasseh who felt that this marriage should not be terminated even if the Law of Moses and the decision of the Great Assembly commanded it. So, Manasseh openly rebelled against YEHOVAH's Government -- the constitutional law -- defying Ezra and Nehemiah and the Great Assembly.

When Manasseh refused to adhere to the Law, Nehemiah, who was governor of Judea, excommunicated him from the Jewish society and banished him from the country (Neh. 13:23-31).

Manasseh was exceedingly indignant over the excommunication. He especially was angered because he would have become High Priest of the Jews upon his father's death, had he remained faithful to the Law and had not been excommunicated. In lieu of this, he, and some of his Jewish sympathizers, even some of the priests, left Judaea and went northward to Samaria.

The Samaritans, who nominally adhered to some points of the Law of Moses, only as it suited their fancy, readily accepted these renegade Jews. The Samaritans had no scruples over marrying Gentile wives, for they themselves were Gentiles who had been placed in central Palestine about 250 years before by the Assyrians.

With the arrival of Manasseh in Samaria, Sanballat, his father-in-law, sympathized with him because he had been deprived of the opportunity to be High Priest among the Jews. But Sanballat had cunningly devised plans to honor his son-in-law for his rebellion against Nehemiah and the Great Assembly.

Since the Samaritans had no temple in which to worship, SANBALLAT PETITIONED THE PERSIAN GOVERNMENT DO GRANT HIM PERMISSION TO BUILD A TEMPLE FOR THE SAMARITAN PEOPLE. Because it was the general policy of the Persians to allow their captive nations to worship their own gods, this permission was granted.

It was the design of Sanballat to build this temple and install Manasseh, the son of the Jewish High Priest, as the High Priest of the Samaritans. This plan was carried out.

The Samaritan temple was built on Mount Gerizim in Samaria and Manasseh received his schismatic priesthood. This is the beginning of the Samaritan religion.

The first act of Manasseh after being installed as the Samaritan High Priest was to repudiate the true Temple of YEHOVAH God located on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. He did this by maintaining that the Temple should be located on Mount Gerizim and not in Jerusalem. Manasseh's rebellious motive was to strengthen his own position among the Samaritans and perhaps to gain some of the Jews in Judaea to his side.

In maintaining that the Temple should be situated on Mount Gerizim, he encountered, however, an embarrassing situation. Throughout the writings of the Old Testament prophets were the clear prophecies that the Temple of YEHOVAH God should be located only on Mount Zion in Jerusalem (Isaiah 2 and Micah 4). The prophecies concerning this fact were so conclusive, so decisive, that it was impossible for Manasseh to reconcile his temple being located on Mount Gerizim with the statements of the prophets.

Realizing that the writings of the prophets and many of the Psalms specifically taught just the opposite from what he was endeavoring to maintain, he seized upon the only alternative to seemingly justify his temple being on Mount Gerizim. His way out of the dilemma was to formally REJECT THE WRITINGS OF THE PROPHETS. To do this, he had to represent them as the uninspired opinions of men.

As a result of this, Manasseh acknowledged that the only books which were really the inspired words of YEHOVAH God were the books of Moses -- the first five books of the Old Testament. The reason he accepted this portion of the Old Testament was that in this section there was no direct mention of the necessity of having the Temple of YEHOVAH God on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. By accepting only the first five books of the Bible and none other, he put his own authority ahead of the Word of YEHOVAH God.

With Manasseh ruling as the Samaritan High Priest and finally claiming that only the books of Moses were the inspired word of YEHOVAH God, the situation called for drastic action by Ezra, Nehemiah and the Great Assembly. Here was a new temple built in Samaria, and Manasseh loudly proclaiming that all the Jews in Judaea were in error.

Something had to be done about this situation.

Ezra and Nehemiah knew it was possible that there might be an internal disruption of the Jewish society that they were developing in Judaea, unless a determinate and authoritative counter-action could be launched against the falsehoods of Manasseh and his heretical followers, especially since many of his ideas were being subversively planted in the minds of many Jews in Judaea. The people had to know who was right, Manasseh -- or Ezra and Nehemiah!

Under the divine inspiration of Almighty God, Ezra and Nehemiah with the Great Assembly convened to settle the matter. These two authoritative servants of YEHOVAH God, along with the ordained priests of YEHOVAH God, were given the responsibility of assembling the inspired books of the prophets and holy men of YEHOVAH God. Their task was not to write the books, for they were already written. They had to assemble the already acknowledged inspired books into one book in a final order.

Thus, we read: "To erect a wall of partition between the Jews and these apostates (Manasseh and his followers), and to show the people which of the ancient prophetical books were sacred ... the men of the Great Synagogue (Assembly) compiled the canon of the prophets" (Cycle. of Bib., Thee. And Ecc. Lit., vol. x, p. 83).

That Ezra, Nehemiah and the Great Assembly, under the divine inspiration of the Spirit of YEHOVAH God, compiled the books of the Old Testament is the universal acknowledgment of all early Jews and Christians (ibid., vol. ii, p. 75).

All of the Old Testament books, remember, WERE ALREADY WRITTEN. The task of the Great Assembly was merely to put them together into one book in proper order! And this they did!

It has been thought by some modern critics that Ezra and the Great Assembly may have sanctioned only the Law of Moses, the first five books. This is decidedly not the case! The very reason the canon of the Old Testament had to be defined at this time was that the renegade Jew, Manasseh, erroneously maintained that the first five books of Moses were the only inspired books. He, out of his own vanity, rejected the inspired books of the Prophets and Psalms. These books were already as much a part of YEHOVAH's Word as the Law of Moses.

It was not necessary to OFFICIALLY proclaim the Law of Moses AS BEING INSPIRED FOR IT HAD ALREADY LONG BEEN RECOGNIZED AS YEHOVAH'S WORD. See II Kings 22:8.

It was, of course, YEHOVAH's purpose that all the writings of the Prophets be transmitted to those of future eras in final and unchangeable form. The books of the Prophets, the Psalms and the other books were now officially established, properly placed in the canon and PROCLAIMED as the authoritative Word of YEHOVAH God.

We have the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish historian, that the complete Old Testament was finally settled and established in the days of Artaxerxes, king of Persia (Against Apion, I, 8). By this, Josephus meant that the Old Testament canon was completed in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, for these two men of YEHOVAH God lived in Artaxerxes' time.

Josephus also mentions that there had not been any prophet who had left any writings from the time of Artaxerxes until the New Testament Period (ibid.). Even the writer of Maccabees recognized that up to his time the inspired prophets had ceased with Malachi. "And there was great stress in Israel [in 168 B.C.], such as there had not been SINCE THE TIME WHEN THE PROPHETS CEASED TO APPEAR TO THEM" (I Macc. 9:27). Without men of YEHOVAH God in a prophetical office, it was impossible to have inspired writings. It is therefore plain that Josephus, who was one of the leading Pharisees of his day, and other prominent Jews, believed the canon of the Old Testament was completed under Ezra and Nehemiah.

When Ezra and Nehemiah compiled the Old Testament books they placed them in three general divisions. These are known as the Triparte Divisions. The first division was called THE LAW, and consisted of the first five books. The second was called THE PROPHETS. The third division was called, in the Messiah's day, THE PSALMS, because this division commenced with the book of Psalms.

Thus, the inspired Old Testament, from Genesis to II Chronicles (the Hebrew order), was divided into three divisions -- THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, and THE PSALMS. This arrangement of the books has always been reckoned by the Jews as having had its origin in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ryle, Canon of the Old Testament, p. 252; Angus, Bible Handbook, p. 568). There is no question about this fact.

There are several early references which show that the Old Testament was divided into the Triparte Divisions. One notable mention is that of Sirach's grandson -- a Jewish religious leader who lived in the second century BEFORE the Messiah. He says in his prologue to the apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, that the recognized Scriptures of official Judaism were those books found in "The Law," "The Prophecies," and "The Rest of the Books." This is a clear reference to the authoritative Triparte Divisions established by Ezra and Nehemiah.

You will perhaps notice that the grandson of Sirach did not use the name "The Psalms" for the third division. This is easily explained. This third section did not have a proper name in the time of Sirach. It became popularly called "The Psalms" by the Jews of the Messiah's time because that particular book introduced the division. This is clearly indicated by Philo, a Jew who lived a few years before the Messiah. He said that the Triparte Divisions were then being called "The Law," "The Prophets," and "The Psalms" (On the Contemplative Life, 3). Later, in the third century A.D., however, the Jews began to refer to the third division as "The Writings." This designation has been used by the Jews up to our own times.

It is important to realize that the Jews accepted only the books within the Triparte Divisions as inspired. No other books were ever recognized as being canonical. The Apocrypha were never accepted. But regardless of the beliefs of official Judaism, we have the testimony of much greater authority, telling us of what books the inspired Old Testament consisted. That witness is the Messiah himself.

After the resurrection of the Messiah, we are told in the Gospels, he began to teach his disciples many important truths from the Scriptures. On one occasion, mentioned in Luke 24:45, Christ referred to "THE SCRIPTURES" of the Old Testament and about the prophecies concerning him. What books did the Messiah mean by the expression, "the Scriptures"? What was the Old Testament to him? Notice what the Messiah himself related:

Yes, the inspired Old Testament Scriptures for the Messiah comprised those books found in "The Law, The Prophets, and The Psalms" -- the Triparte Divisions. These were the very books compiled by Ezra and Nehemiah, and the very books which have come down to us today in the King James Version. We can assuredly know that OUR OLD TESTAMENT is the complete Old Testament of YEHOVAH God. The Messiah has told us this in the plainest of words.

You will notice that the Old Testament in the King James Bible begins with the book of Genesis and ends with the book of Malachi. However, in the original authoritative arrangement of the Old Testament books by Ezra and Nehemiah, this was not so. The Jews have never approved the King James arrangement because ITS ORIGIN WAS IN EGYPT. About 250 years before the Messiah there was a Greek translation made of the Hebrew Old Testament. This has become known as the Septuagint Version. The translators of this version decided to CHANGE THE ORDER of the books. Our King James Version follows the Latin which had this erroneous Egyptian arrangement of the books in it. The Latin translations followed the Septuagint Greek translation made in Egypt. The Septuagint does not follow the original Hebrew order established by Ezra and Nehemiah.

When the Jews of official Judaism recognized the corruptions in the Septuagint Version, they completely repudiated it. Notice how the early Jews looked on this translation: "The day on which the translation of the Bible into Greek was made was regarded as a great calamity, equal to that of the golden calf" (Sopherim, i, 7). "The day on which it was accomplished ... was commemorated as a day of fasting and humiliation (ibid.).

The Septuagint Version translators did not take away or add to the books of the Old Testament, but they did disrupt the Divine order of the books and faultily translated much of the original Hebrew into Greek (Prologue to Sirach).

It will be profitable for you to know what the authoritative order of the Old Testament books really is. And notice that originally, before printing, the number of scrolls were 22 -- now subdivided in the King James Version into 39.

Notice that the first seven books are the same as in our King James version, but afterward there are considerable changes. You will notice that the so-called "Minor Prophets" -- from Hosea to Malachi -- are not really the last books of the Old Testament. These Minor Prophets really belong in the center. The last books are actually I and II Chronicles.

This authoritative arrangement of the Old Testament books is the one which the official Jewish community has always recognized as authoritative.

Let us clearly understand that the books of the Apocrypha and all other spurious books NEVER found a place in the official Triparte Divisions of the Jewish Old Testament. All these "outside" books were totally rejected by the Jews. You will recall that Josephus, the Jewish priest and historian, who represented the beliefs of official Judaism in the days of the Apostle Paul, said that the Jews NEVER accepted any other books as inspired other than those compiled in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Yes, the last prophet to write an inspired book was Malachi -- a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Another proof that the Messiah used only the Scriptures recognized by official Judaism is the fact that he never once quoted from or alluded to any of the Apocrypha or other spurious books. Had he made even the slightest indication that the sources of his doctrines were from these unrecognized books, the Jews would have vehemently countered him with all their intellectual might. They would have loudly and persistently pointed out to the people that Yeshua could not possibly be the Messiah, for he was making use of uninspired books. But the Jews NEVER had an opportunity of accusing the Messiah of such things. They railed him for going contrary to the doctrines of the Jewish denominations of his day, but they never criticized him for using uncanonical books. The silence of any Jewish censure on this point IS DEFINITE PROOF that the Messiah utilized only the inspired books in the official Jewish Old Testament as the Scriptures.

We have further evidence throughout the New Testament that the Messiah and the Apostles recognized only the books of the Jewish Version as the complete Old Testament. Notice how it is taken for granted, in so many parts of the New Testament, that the Jews had the "Scripture" (John 10:35; 19:36; II Pet. 1:20), "the Scriptures" (Matt. 22:29; Acts 18:24), "Holy Scriptures" (Rom. 1:2, II Tim. 3:15), "the Law" (John 10:34), "the Law and Prophets" (Matt. 5:17; 22:40), and the Law, Prophets and Psalms (Luke 24:44). All the New Testament writers recognized the Jews to have had the complete Old Testament.

Paul was also careful to let the Romans know that unto the Jews, "WERE COMMITTED THE ORACLES OF GOD" -- the Old Testament (Rom. 3:3; 9:4). Paul was fully aware that the oracles of the Jews were the inspired books of the Jewish canon -- the same books that are in our King James Version today.

It is very clear, from secular history, and especially from the Word of YEHOVAH God, that we have the complete Old Testament. ALL OTHER BOOKS NOT FOUND WITHIN THE BIBLE as we have it are entirely worthless for teaching true doctrines, and are to be completely rejected in this respect. The Apocrypha, and all other books, are the writings of men, not of YEHOVAH God.

With the canonization of the Old Testament Scriptures, the Jews of this time entered into a period of prosperity and happiness. They were keeping the Law and being taught by the Great Assembly. This period from about 430 B.C. to 331 B.C., until the overthrow of the Persian Empire by the Greeks, can be called a time when the Law of Moses was adhered to by the people.

We are now compelled to look to a period later than the time of Persian control for the origin of the confused and mixed-up condition of Judaism.

THE canonization of the Old Testament by the members of the Great Assembly was the real stabilizing factor in the religious life of the Jews. Ezra and Nehemiah bound upon the people the Law of Moses as the constitutional law of the land. And the Great Assembly, after the deaths of Ezra and Nehemiah, enforced THIS SAME LAW in every respect.

Even though Judea was properly a province of the Persian Empire, the Jews maintained a semi-independent community. Since the days of Ezra, the Persians had shown extraordinary consideration to the Jews. "God ... hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia" (Ezra 9:9).

"The Persian rulers," says Herford, "living far from Judea, seldom interfered with the internal affairs of their Jewish subjects, and were content to leave their public business in the hands of the governor of the province. If the royal taxes were paid, the order maintained, the Jews might organize their life as a community in the way that seemed best to them" (Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 45).

The Persians had rule over Palestine until 331 B.C. -- for about one hundred years after Ezra and Nehemiah. During this entire period, the Jews were allowed full freedom to practice their own customs and traditions. This Persian period was especially propitious to them because they were allowed to observe the Scriptures as ordained of YEHOVAH God (Kent, History of the Jewish People, p. 224). And during this period the Law of Moses was kept!

At this time, the Jews were under the direction of the High Priest, the president of the Great Assembly, and the other authoritative priests who comprised its membership. No religious splits or schisms were tolerated and all the people were kept in obedience to the laws of the Old Covenant. This peaceful condition in Palestine led to many advances in the social and religious life of the Jews.

The canonization of the Old Testament, and the establishment of the Law of Moses as the constitutional law brought about the necessity of teaching the law to the people on a grand scale.

Ezra had brought back with him from Babylon a good number of priests to add to the 4,000 who had come back from the Babylonian captivity at an earlier time (Ezra 8:17-20). These priests were brought back to Palestine in order to assume their position as religious teachers of the people, for the Bible had ordained that priests were to teach the people the laws of YEHOVAH God (Lev. 10:11; Deut. 24:8; 27:14, etc.). The book of Malachi, written immediately after the return of Ezra and Nehemiah, records what these priests were ordained to do. "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts" (Mal. 2:7).

Because the Law of Moses had become the law of the land, it became the priests' job to teach the law. These commands required meetings every Sabbath in all the villages and towns around Judea. It was these Sabbath services that finally merged into regular synagogue services.

In time, all the areas within Judea began to build their own synagogues. In some of the larger areas, a body of priests would take up residence and have charge of the synagogue. Before the Babylonian captivity, synagogues had existed throughout Israel and Judah (Psa. 74:8), but because all these previous synagogues had been completely destroyed by the invading armies of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Jews had to start afresh after their return from Babylon to build completely new synagogues. This fact has led some commentators to erroneously assume that synagogues had their first development ONLY AFTER the Babylonian captivity, and that they were not in existence before. This, however, is not true! These new synagogues which were built in Palestine, were certainly built from scratch. But there had been synagogues before.

Buildings for religious assemblies are essential in every age and dispensation. It was impossible for all the Jews throughout Judea to journey each Sabbath to Jerusalem and to the Temple in order to learn of the law and to worship YEHOVAH God in holy convocation. The people had to have instruction by the priests every Sabbath in their own communities. The proper instruction of the Law of Moses could only be accomplished by the establishment of synagogues throughout the land. And, under the benevolent rule of the Persians, with peace and safety everywhere, there is no reason to doubt that synagogues dotted the land from one end to the other (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 58).

Not only did the synagogues offer opportunity for worship of YEHOVAH God on the Sabbaths, but we are informed in a Talmudical reference that Ezra ordained the priests to hold periods of religious instruction on the regular market days of the week -- the second day of the week and the fourth day of the week (B. Kamma, 82a, b). From this evolved the custom of having instruction in the Law on those two days of the week. This custom was even carried down until the time of the Messiah.

It is plain that the people during this one hundred year period under the Persians had adequate instruction in the Laws of YEHOVAH God -- not only on the Sabbaths and Holy Days, but even on two market days during the week. The priests were kept busy in the occupation of teaching the people the Law. For their helpers the priests had the regular Levites who gave them proper assistance in teaching the people. These Levites really did much of the actual teaching, and the priests were the supervisors. It was impossible for the limited number of priests to do all the necessary duties. For that reason, a good deal of the help in teaching, judging, being dieticians and, in a limited way, being policemen, fell to the Levites.

In effect, the Levites represented the professional class among the people. They were under the authority of the priests, however, who were the responsible organization for the over-all well-being of the nation (ibid., p. 59). The real leader of the whole nation was the High Priest, who was actually the head of state being the leader of the Great Assembly.

The Great Assembly was the one organization that was the governing authority. This religious assembly, as previously pointed out, was composed of the chief priests of the land with the High Priest as official president and over-all ruler. All members of this authoritative assembly in the Persian period were priests AND PRIESTS ALONE (Lauterbach, Rabbinic Essays, p. 28).

"For the priests were the actual leaders of the community, since they alone were recognized by the Law (Deut. 17) as its official teachers and competent interpreters" (ibid., p. 28). These priests were not elected by the people to hold a high office in the Great Assembly. They assumed this position by heredity, as ordained by YEHOVAH God (Deut. 17). Actually, no one but the priests, according to the Law of YEHOVAH God, could teach or direct the people in their religious life. This is the reason why the Great Assembly was composed exclusively of the priests, with the High Priest being the recognized leader.

With the canonization of the Scripture and the establishment of synagogues throughout the land, a problem confronted the Great Assembly. In order to teach the Law of YEHOVAH God, it was necessary that the priests and Levites have copies of the Scriptures. Up to the time of the canonization, books were not made with ALL twenty-two scrolls of the Old Testament combined together.

Now that the Scripture had been authoritatively assembled, it became necessary to distribute the complete word of YEHOVAH God. The synagogues needed the Holy Scriptures as did many individual priests. So, it fell the lot of the Great Assembly to remedy this situation. They had the responsibility of seeing that many scrolls of Scripture were made and distributed to those who were in authority to teach the Word of YEHOVAH God. And, too, they had to be extremely careful and make sure that only individuals who were thoroughly qualified would undertake such a sacred task of copying the Scriptures. Such a job could not be entrusted to just anyone, lest from inexperience or carelessness the transcription was not an exact reproduction.

It became obvious that the only body or men who were qualified to do such a work were the members of the Great Assembly THEMSELVES. It was necessary that the new scrolls be perfect and that each scroll be sanctioned by these authoritative priests. This led the Great Assembly to assume the task of copying the Scriptures. They assumed this occupation sometime not long after the deaths of Ezra and Nehemiah.

From this time forward, the members of the Great Assembly became known as "Sopherim." The word "Sopherim" in Hebrew signifies "counters." "They were called 'Sopherim' because they COUNTED all the letters in the Torah [the Scriptures] and interpreted it" (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 44).

In order to have an accurate transcription of the Scriptures, the Sopherim, the members of the Great Assembly, counted each letter on each section of a scroll. They made sure that when they copied the letters onto a new scroll, that there would be EXACTLY the same number of letters on the new section as had existed on the old. To do this, they had to COUNT each of the letters on the new scroll several times to make certain that the exact number was transcribed.

This method of copying the Scriptures was followed by later Jews until the invention of the printing press. In fact, about eight hundred years AFTER the Messiah, this method was so highly developed among the Jews that they knew the middle letter of each book in the Bible, and, even the middle letter of the whole Bible. There were many nonessential features developed from this method of counting the letters of the Scriptures. For those who may be interested in some of these features, see Ginsburg's Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (this book is now out of print and would be found only in some of the larger libraries).

Once the members of the Great Assembly became the copiers of the Law (the Sopherim), we find the two names synonymously referring to the ONE group of priests. To speak of the Sopherim was to speak of the Great Assembly, and vice versa (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, pp. 44, 45). For convenience's sake, we will refer to these men by the name most used in history -- we will call them the Sopherim. The term "Sopherim" denotes that the one major job of the Great Assembly was to copy faithfully the Scriptures, and teach these Scriptures to the priests of lower rank who in turn would teach the people. Their lives were centered in the study of the Scriptures and in teaching the Law of YEHOVAH God. This was, after all, the occupation that YEHOVAH had ordained for the priests. They were also to regulate the religious life of the people. And, history shows that the members of the Great Assembly, the Sopherim of Persian times, following the examples of Ezra and Nehemiah, carried out their commission with fidelity.

We read in the Scripture that Ezra "read in the book in the law of God DISTINCTLY, and GAVE THE SENSE, and caused them [the lay people] to understand the reading" (Neh. 8:8). When Ezra taught the people, he would read from the Law of YEHOVAH God and then GIVE THE SENSE OF IT, that is, he would give the true explanation of it so the common people could understand what YEHOVAH meant from the Law.

This is what any true minister of YEHOVAH God will do. All that is necessary to understand YEHOVAH's Word is to have it properly explained by dedicated teachers who know the Scriptures thoroughly. A true minister of YEHOVAH God will allow the Scripture to interpret Scripture. This is the only way of arriving at the truth of YEHOVAH's Word. This is exactly what Ezra and his successors, the Sopherim, did! They simply expounded the Law of YEHOVAH God, the Scriptures. They did not make up their own ideas about Scripture teaching. They taught the Word of YEHOVAH God, AND IT ONLY!

This manner of teaching the Scriptures, and which is the only proper way, is known among the Jews as the MIDRASH-FORM! The word Midrash means "to comment." And the term "Midrash-form" designates that manner of teaching which depends ONLY on the written Word of YEHOVAH God for doctrines -- letting the Bible explain itself.

The reason this type of teaching has a special designation among the Jews is because they later had DIFFERENT METHODS OF TEACHING which did not rely upon the Word of YEHOVAH God. And, it became a later custom to refer to the true type of teaching, which expounded or commented on the Scriptures, AND THE SCRIPTURES ONLY, as teaching in the MIDRASH-FORM.

This Midrash-form is the type of teaching that the Sopherim used, for they were following Ezra's example of reading in the Scriptures and then giving the sense or the meaning so the common people could understand. This is the method of teaching that began with Moses and was exclusively used from his day and throughout the period of the Sopherim. For it was, and still is, the only proper way to teach the Word of YEHOVAH God (Herford, Talmud and Apocrypha, p. 47).

The later Jews, as previously mentioned, came to the place of teaching religion in an entirely different method than "after the manner of Moses" and the Sopherim. We will see that they did not utilize the Midrash-form as the ONLY METHOD OF TEACHING. However, Ezra and the Sopherim, following the example of Moses, taught exclusively in this correct form. They never departed from teaching directly from the Word of YEHOVAH God. No other form of interpretation was used or allowed!

The Sopherim, being the successors of Ezra and Nehemiah as well as being the custodians of the Scriptures, were responsible for adding the final portions to the Old Testament. While they were in authority among the Jews, they added a few names to certain genealogical tables in order to bring them up to date. In I Chronicles 3:17-24 and Nehemiah 12:10,11, there are recorded lists of certain men. The last mentioned of these men lived just before the coming of Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.

Notice I Chronicles 3:17-24. There is mentioned a sixth generation after Zerubbabel. This last generation would have lived about the time of Alexander the Great. Nehemiah 12:10,11 refers to Jaddua the High Priest who was alive when Alexander the Great came to Palestine (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, xi, 8, 4). Thus, the names were added to the genealogical tables by the Sopherim just before the coming of the Greeks in 331 B.C.

This shows plainly that the Sopherim, who were established about 440 B.C., were in authority for a period just over one hundred years -- until 331 B.C. And also that the Old Testament, as we have it today, was made into its final form by the Sopherim with the addition of a few names to the genealogical tables, about 330 years BEFORE the birth of the Messiah!

The Sopherim had complete authority for doing this. They were the proper custodians of the Law and ordained of YEHOVAH God for this purpose.

It must be emphasized that the Sopherim were all priests -- there were no laymen among them.

This priestly authority was in accord with the Word of YEHOVAH God. The priests had been ordained to be the teachers of the people in religious matters. No layman was permitted to assume this authority. As long as the Sopherim remained as the official body among the Jews, this direction of YEHOVAH God was adhered to. And during the entire period of the Sopherim -- from the days of Ezra until the coming of Alexander the Great -- the Jews were keeping the Law of Moses. However, in 331 B.C., when Alexander came to Palestine and defeated the Persians, the whole complexion of Palestine government changed.

The Greeks, unlike the Persians, did not allow the Sopherim to hold their authoritative position among the Jews. In fact, after 331 B.C. the Sopherim disappear from history as a body of priests directing the religious life of the people. The whole organization was dismantled by the Greek conquerors.

The coming of the Greeks brought a complete change in practically every mode of life in Palestine. With the Sopherim taken away from their position of authority, the Scripture teachings ceased being enforced. A whole new way of life was forced upon the Jews.

THE ONE hundred years following Ezra and Nehemiah can properly be described as a time of peace and prosperity for the Jews (Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. i, pp. 406, 407). The Jews had established themselves firmly in Palestine -- in every section of the province of Judaea. They were observing the Law of Moses in its entirety. It was the constitutional law of the land.

The Great Assembly, established by Ezra and Nehemiah, was the head of Jewish state under the Persian governor. This great religious assembly of priests directed the people in observing the Laws of Scripture. The priests saw that the people had proper religious instruction every Sabbath in the local synagogues scattered throughout the land. The children were educated in the elementary schools that were attached to the synagogues.

As long as the Jews were under the authority of the Persian Empire, they were allowed to carry on their own religious customs without interference. The Persians seemed to care little how the Jews worshipped YEHOVAH God as long as the tax was being paid and a respectable amount of loyalty was being shown to the governor and king. The Jews were disposed to keep the good graces of the Persians by submitting to their benevolent rulership.

The extraordinary goodwill that the Persians had for the Jews came to a sudden end in 332 B.C. At that time, Palestine -- a part of the Persian Empire -- was conquered by a rising young Empire in the West -- the Empire of the Greeks!

Beyond the western frontier of the Persian Empire, while the Jews were enjoying their peaceful existence in Palestine, a young general was preparing an army for the conquest of Persia and the East. In 334 B.C., after amassing an army of considerable strength, Alexander the Great swept over the Hellespont and into Persian territory.

Moving with such rapidity, and with such remarkable successes, Alexander the Great in 10 short years conquered the Persian Empire and all of civilized Asia to the Indus River, as well as Egypt on the south. The Jews, because of this, came under the domination of the Greeks.

With the coming of the Greeks, a whole new manner of life was brought into Palestine and among the Jews. Under the Persians, the Jews had been allowed to observe the Law of Moses with the Great Assembly (the Sopherim) as their religious leaders. But this was all changed with the advent of the Greeks.

Alexander the Great was steeped in the belief that the Greek way of life was the only suitable one for mankind to follow. He was imbued with the enthusiasm of infusing the culture and society of the Greeks among all the nations he had conquered. And Palestine was no exception.

"Hellenism" is the term to describe the belief in practicing the manner of life of the Greeks -- to imitate every phase of Greek society, its politics, domestic life, philosophies, religions, etc.

The basic philosophy behind Hellenism was this: EVERY MAN HAD THE RIGHT TO THINK FOR HIMSELF ON ANY MATTER AS LONG AS THERE WAS NOT A REAL DEPARTURE FROM THE CUSTOMS THAT WERE ESSENTIALLY GREEK.

This philosophy -- freedom of thought or individualism -- which is seemingly altruistic in principle, resulted in myriads of confusing and contradictory beliefs among the Greeks in every phase of life. Every man was allowed his own ideas about the sciences, the arts, laws AND ABOUT RELIGION. So varied were the opinions among the Greek scholars in the various fields of study that individuals took pride in contending with one another over who could present the greatest "wisdom" and "knowledge" on any particular subject.

The Greeks sought wisdom in order to understand the world they lived in and the reasons for life. And their confusion of beliefs resulted from the fact that their ideas came from their own rationalizing -- their philosophies represented almost EVERY HUMAN IDEA.

Here was the beginning of the philosophy of individualism -- a product of Hellenism. When the Greeks came to Palestine they brought all their conflicting secular teachings as well as their many religious doctrines, all of which were prompted by the individual philosophies of men.

It would be unfeasible to even attempt an adequate description of the manifold religious cults among the Greeks, or of their heathenistic doctrines. Their various religions and religious beliefs were the man-made products of the philosophy of individualism. Practically every religious belief capable of being devised by the human mind was found in pagan Greece. In their religious beliefs "we find ghosts and spirits and nature gods, tribal religions, anthropomorphisms [gods in human form], the formation of a pantheon [a temple for the worship of many pagan gods], individual religion, magical rites, purifications, prayers, sacrifices [animal, vegetable and human] -- ALL ARISING FROM THE COMMON STOCK AND THE SUCCESSIVE PHASES OF RELIGIOUS HUMANITY" (Harrison, Religion of Ancient Greece, pp. 12, 13). Many of their doctrines and customs will be relevantly discussed in future pages of this thesis.

Wherever Alexander or his successors went, they carried with them an intense desire to Hellenize all nations. They took with them Greek society and imposed it upon all their captive peoples. They spread Hellenism from one end of the new Empire to the other. Palestine was as much infused with the New Greek culture as any other nation.

The Greeks considered it their right to govern in the way they deemed most suitable. In consequence of this, the Greeks disbanded the official Sopherim, the religious guardians of the Law of Moses. They would not tolerate the Jews being taught a different way of life from their own. Hellenism was established throughout the whole of Palestine.

It is not known how the Greeks dismissed the Sopherim from their official capacity as teachers of the Law. But within a score of years after the coming of the Greeks, the Sopherim disappear from history as an organized body having religious control over the Jews. It is obvious that the Greeks took away the authority of the Sopherim and forbade them to teach. Whether this was done forcibly or by peaceful methods remains a mystery. But it is definitely known that their authority was very soon taken away.

Without the religious guidance of the Sopherim, many of the Jews began to imbibe the customs and ideas of the Greeks which were inundating the land. The Greeks were establishing their whole society firmly in Palestine and all the Empire.

When the Sopherim were removed from the scene, along with the teaching of the Law of Moses, and this new culture substituted for the Law, we can comprehend why the Jews began to absorb many elements of Hellenism. The Jews had no one to guide them in understanding the Law of Moses, except a few isolated teachers here and there who had no authority as the Sopherim.

It will soon be shown that after a few years of this influence, the people literally came to a state of religious confusion. Some were endeavoring to keep a form of the Scripture teachings, but with Hellenism everywhere, it became almost impossible to keep the true form of the Law of Moses. The Greek way of life was entirely different from that promulgated by the Scriptures, and the two were not compatible.

The human opinions of the Greek poets and philosophers, as well as the doctrines of the various heathen sects of the Greeks, were propagated among the Jews. Almost everything the Greeks brought to the Jews was antagonistic to the Laws of YEHOVAH God and, without the religious guidance of the Sopherim, many of them began to tolerate these innovations and even, as time progressed, to take up many of the Greek ideas and customs themselves.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, records an interesting incident concerning Alexander the Great when he had conquered the Palestine area and was about to enter the city of Jerusalem. He was met on the outskirts of the city by Jaddua, the High Priest, with many inhabitants of Jerusalem. The High Priest was bedecked in his priestly robes and leading the procession of people who met Alexander.

Upon seeing the High Priest and the procession following him, Josephus says that Alexander recalled a dream he had had previously in which such a procession was seen with a person dressed in exactly the same attire of the High Priest leading it. Alexander reckoned that his dream was a sign to leave the inhabitants of Jerusalem alone. He entered the city peaceably with the High Priest and offered a sacrifice to YEHOVAH God. Afterward, he was shown the prophecy of Daniel 11:2-3, which revealed that a mighty king from Greece would conquer the Persian Empire. Josephus says that Alexander recognized that Daniel was writing of him. After reading this prophecy, Alexander became very glad and gave favors and gifts to many of the Jews. See Antiquities of the Jews, xi, 8, 5 & 6.