for failure to do good than for the committing of bad. For example, there were the priest and the Levite who went on the other side of the street and left the victim of robbers helpless, the goatlike ones who refrained from doing good to the King’s brothers, and the rich man who did nothing for Lazarus the beggar. Jesus warned his disciples against the wrong way, but he emphasized God’s way. He left the pattern for Christian teachers to follow.—Matt. 7:17, 18, 21.

21. What was the effect of his sermon on his hearers, and what will add illumination to Bible incidents involving him?

²¹ “Now when Jesus finished these sayings, the effect was that the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching; for he was teaching them as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.” How were the scribes teaching? Who were they? What other religious groups functioned in Palestine when Jesus taught there? Knowing something about the religious situation in Palestine at the time of Jesus’ preaching will help us better to understand many incidents recorded in the Bible. (Matt. 7:28, 29) We shall also appreciate more why the listening crowds were astounded at the difference in the Master Jesus’ manner of teaching.

Religious Attitudes When the Master Preached

1. What did the Essenes believe and practice?

APART from the zealous activity of John the Baptist, there were a number of Jewish groups that were molding religious attitudes in Palestine when Jesus began his ministry. One of these groups was the Essenes, who are not mentioned in the inspired writings of Jesus’ apostles and disciples. They believed that godliness required them to punish the body, to fast and to live austerely, so they looked down on anything that was a pleasure to the flesh. They isolated themselves in little communities. The Essenes were not a major religious group confronting Jesus in his preaching, although they have recently been brought into prominence because of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls of books of the Bible.

2. What were the Zealots interested in, and on what occasion does their influence seem apparent?

² Then there was the group of Zealots or Nationalists. They wanted a Jew to arise to lead them in a revolt against Rome and break the yoke of Rome from off their necks. Galilee was a hotbed of seditions, and that was where Jesus had grown up. One of Jesus’ disciples was called “the zealous one” or “the Zealot,” and may have been a member of the Zealot party. However, he did not stir up the nationalistic or home-rule spirit immediately after Jesus had miraculously fed five thousand men. “Hence when the men saw the signs he performed they began to say: This is for a certainty the prophet that was to come into the world.’ Therefore Jesus, realizing they were about to come and seize him to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain all alone.” These nationalistic ones wanted to set him up as king, consequently in opposition to the rule by Rome. They wanted to draft Jesus, with his miraculous powers, for their own selfish purposes. But Jesus steadfastly refused to be sidetracked from the work that his heavenly Father had sent him to do. As he testified before Pilate: “For this purpose I have been born and for this purpose I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.”—John 6:14, 15; 18:37; Luke 6:15, margin; Acts 1:13.

3. Who were the Sadducees, and how did they view Rome, the Hebrew Scriptures and tradition?

³ A third group were the Sadducees, who included scribes and members of the Sanhedrin and even the two chief priests among their number. (John 11:47; Acts 5:17; 22:30; 23:6) They were not concerned about the coming of a Messiah but were interested in maintaining the status quo. They had a working agreement with Rome. They were to handle the affairs of the temple, the priestly services, the collection of the tithes, the contributions made at the temple, the sale of sacrificial animals in the Court of the Gentiles, and the money-changing business operated there. The Sadducees did not accept either all the inspired Hebrew Scriptures or the traditions of the Pharisees; in fact, they believed only in the Law of Moses.

4. How did Jesus answer the Sadducees on resurrection, and why?

⁴ Hence it was the Sadducees that came to Jesus to object about the resurrection, because they thought the Law of Moses gave no basis for such a teaching. Jesus met them on their own ground, quoting from the writings of Moses: “Concerning the dead, that they are raised up, did you not read in the book of Moses, in the account about the thornbush, how God said to him: ‘I am the God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob’? He is a God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are much mistaken.” (Mark 12:18-27) This meant that those men who were dead would live again by resurrection. Just as some who were living alienated from God were spoken of as dead from God’s standpoint, so these dead approved ones were considered to be living from his standpoint.—Eph. 2:1; 1 Tim. 5:6; Luke 20:38.

5. What knowledge about the Sadducees would identify them as the ones who would cry out, “We have no king but Caesar”?

⁵ Because of the working agreement that they had with Rome, the Sadducees did not want anyone stirring up trouble that might bring in Roman legions to impose restrictions. They wanted to get rid of Jesus. Pilate himself knew that, and said to Jesus: “Your own nation and the chief priests [Sadducees] delivered you up to me.” Very logically they would be the ones to make his case an issue of loyalty to Caesar: “If you release this man, you are not a friend of Caesar. Every man making himself a king speaks against Caesar.” And when Pilate asked whether he should impale their king, it was the chief priests, or Sadducees, that shouted: “We have no king but Caesar.”—John 18:35; 19:12-16.

SCRIBES AND PHARISEES

6. Who were the scribes?

⁶ Some of the scribes were Sadducees, but most of them were Pharisees, and that is no doubt why Jesus spoke of scribes and Pharisees together so frequently in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew. The priestly scribes read, copied, taught and interpreted the law. They showed how it was to be applied in daily living.—Matt. 23:2, 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29.

7. What did the Pharisees believe?

⁷ The Pharisees, who were the religious traditionalists, thought salvation was only through keeping the traditions or so-called oral law. They looked forward to the coming of the Messiah in their own way. They accepted all the Hebrew Scriptures, but to these they added oral traditions. They wanted to stay separate from the Romans because they thought it was a contamination to have anything to do with them. It was also contaminating in their mind to have anything to do with the common people who did not keep the oral traditions.

8. Why were the Pharisees the ones that complained about Jesus’ disciples’ not washing their hands before they ate?

⁸ Since the Pharisees were tradition-lovers, we are not surprised that they were the ones who complained to Jesus about his disciples: “They do not wash their hands when about to eat a meal.” The complaint was not lodged on sanitary grounds, but in defense of the traditions, which Jesus said “made the word of God invalid.” (Matt. 15:1-6; Mark 7:1-8) The tradition of hand-washing developed with time. First it was a ritual washing before meals. Then the washing took place before and after meals, and later the more rigorous worshipers washed between the courses of the meal. For some food hands had to be immersed completely, and for other types the hands were to have special water poured over them, running down over the wrists. This water was now considered to be dirty, so if any ran back onto the hands, they had to be washed again to take off the dirty water. The Talmud sets out the penalty for failure: “He who lightly esteems hand-washing will perish from the earth.” They were busy washing their hands, but they never got around to cleansing their heart!

9. Why did the Pharisees complain about Jesus’ disciples’ plucking grain on the sabbath, and what were some of their sabbath regulations?

⁹ Who would complain about plucking grain and eating it on the sabbath? Matthew 12:2 answers: “At seeing this the Pharisees said to him: ‘Look! your disciples are doing what it is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’” It was their sabbath traditions that moved them to object. The sabbath was a touchy subject, and in the Talmud there are two large volumes on sabbath regulations. For example, you could not bite your fingernails on the sabbath. A woman could not look into a mirror, as she might see a gray hair and pull it out, and that would be work. You could not wear false teeth, because they might fall out, and to pick them up would be bearing a burden on the sabbath. A plaster might be worn on a wound if it only prevented it from getting worse; if it improved the wound, that would be unlawful work. A fractured bone could not be treated on the sabbath, unless the person’s very life was at stake. You could not eat the egg a hen laid on the sabbath. The exception was if the hen was not being kept as a layer, but was being fattened up to eat, then her egg could be eaten, for it was to be viewed merely as a piece of the hen that had fallen off!

THE “PEOPLE OF THE EARTH”

10. Who were the am ha-arets, and how were they viewed by religious Jews?

¹⁰ The Hebrew expression am ha-arets means “people of the earth [or, land].” (Jer. 1:18, marginal footnote) These people were treated like dirt under the feet of the Pharisees, and, of course, the Sadducees had nothing to do with them, because they looked down on everyone. The am ha-arets were poor laborers who did not know the Law or the traditions or did not keep them. They did not recite the formal prayers, have ritual fringes on their garments or wear phylacteries at devotions, nor did they train their sons in the traditions as did the scrupulous Jews. They were hated and outlawed from the community by the rabbis. One rabbi