If a history of the Jewish polity from about 167 BCE to 70 CE is part of what you are looking for here, you will need to look elsewhere. The text is comprised of an introduction and six stand alone essays. This material concerns the socio-religious development of the proto-Judaism of 539 BCE into the Rabbinic Judaism of 600 CE with a concentration on the period from 167 BCE to 200 CE, hence the title, "From the Maccabees to the Mishnah." In an era where government and religion were co-joined to each other, this omission of political history creates an unusual attenuation of the historical record. Of course in the period beyond 70 CE, there was no Jewish polity. However, the political developments that swirled around the diaspora and Bar Kokhba revolts are but minimally covered by the author. The presentation of the military history bearing on this period and locale is scant at best in these pages. And, war and violence were constant and significant factors in this era of Judean history. I would suggest that a prior substantial knowledge of these areas of missing history would greatly enhance any reader's appreciation of the materials presented in this work.

This book is aimed at a specialist audience in my opinion. But, any literate adult with a rudimentary knowledge of the history of the period in question will be rewarded by reading this book. Almost all readers should gain an enhanced knowledge of the evolution of the Jewish religion. It is a tribute to Cohen that he could leave so much out and yet accomplish so much. The author writes with clarity and develops his arguments meticulously. In his opening chapter on "Jews and Gentiles," Cohen finds a combination of accommodation and tension among the peoples as well as between Judea and the Hellenistic and Roman Empires. The development of Jewish religion is then considered. From being a local ethnically exclusive monotheism prior to the exile, Judaism was transitioning into being a monotheistic religion with a universal God. From a closed and relatively inaccessible Temple cult, Judaism was democratizing into a religion of all the people of Judea and the Jewish diaspora and even Gentile converts. From a religion of prophecy and sacrifice, it was becoming a religion of "the book," doing Torah, and prayer. Four more essays follow on the community and its institutions, normative Judaism and Jewish sectarian groups including the Christians, the canonization of the Old Testament, and lastly one on the development of Rabbinic Judaism.

Each essay is rich in information and incisive interpretation. The author is a penetrating thinker who is considered to be one of the greatest living scholars on the subjects covered. Few footnotes are provided. The author in drawing his conclusions rarely references other scholarship. Expect no alternative interpretations. However, the opinions and conclusions Cohen draws always seem mindful of all the extant evidence and current and historic scholarly thought. This is well substantiated by a remarkably useful and extensive chapter by chapter "suggested reading list" at the end of this volume. Whether you agree with the author in all instances or not, he presents his material persuasively. And, be forewarned, there is much in these pages that may strike some as quite controversial. For example, the author sees much of the Old Testament written and concretized in the Persian and Hellenistic period. This is a very stimulating book that will make you think and rethink your own positions. However, how much you get out of this book may well depend on the knowledge of the subject you bring to the task.

If a history of the Jewish polity from about 167 BCE to 70 CE is part of what you are looking for here, you will need to look elsewhere. In this volume, we are presented with an introduction and six stand alone essays regarding the socio-religious development of the proto-Judaism of 539 BCE into the Rabbinic Judaism of 600 CE. In an era where government and religion were co-joined to each other, this omission of political history creates an unusual attenuation of the historical record. Certainly, in the period beyond 70 CE, there was no Jewish polity, however, the political developments that swirled around the diaspora and Bar Kokhba revolts are minimally covered by the author. Military history bearing on this period and local is scant at best in these pages. And war and violence were constant and significant factors in this era of Judean history. I would suggest that a prior substantial knowledge of this missing history would greatly enhance any reader's appreciation of the materials presented in this work.

This book is aimed at a specialist audience in my opinion. But, any literate adult with a rudimentary historical knowledge of the period in question will be rewarded by reading this book. Almost all readers should gain an enhanced knowledge of the evolution of the Jewish religion during the time period considered. It is a tribute to Cohen that he could leave so much out and yet accomplish so much. The author writes with clarity and develops his arguments meticulously. In his opening chapter on "Jews and Gentiles," Cohen finds a combination of accommodation and tension among the peoples as well as between Judea and the Hellenistic and Roman Empires. The development of Judaism is then considered. From being a henotheistic ethnic religion with a local God who was paramount, Judaism was transitioning into being a monotheistic religion with a universal God. From a closed and relatively inaccessible Temple cult, Judaism was democratizing into a religion of all the Jewish people of Judea and the diaspora and even Gentile converts. From a religion of prophecy and sacrifice, it was becoming a religion of "the book," doing Torah, and prayer. Four more essays follow on the community and its institutions, normative Judaism and Jewish sectarian groups including Christianity, the canonization of the Old Testament, and lastly one on the development of Rabbinic Judaism.

Each essay is rich in information and incisive interpretation. The author is a penetrating thinker who is considered to be one of the greatest living scholars on the subjects covered. Few footnotes are provided. The author draws his conclusions from the facts as he knows them and sees them. Expect no alternative interpretations. The opinions and conclusions Cohen explicates are always based on a full consideration of all the extant evidence and current and historic scholarly thought. This is well substantiated by a remarkably useful and extensive chapter by chapter "suggested reading list" at the end of this volume. Whether you agree with the author in all instances or not, he presents his material persuasively. And, be forewarned, there is much in these pages that may strike some as quite controversial. For example, the author sees much of the Old Testament concretized in the Persian and Hellenistic period. This is a very stimulating book that will make you think and rethink your own positions. However, how much you get out of this book may well depend on the knowledge of the subject you bring to the task.

`From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Second Edition' by Nathan Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard, Shaye J. D. Cohen, is a type of book I always dread and revere at the same time, after having reviewed lesser books on the same subject, and after having given these lesser books relatively high scores.
Professor Cohen's book is a fine example of a scholarly (read scrupulously accurate and judicious in its opinions) book which is also relatively easy for a lay person, that is, one unfamiliar with the details of Second Temple Judaism, to read, understand, and appreciate.
For those like me who are reading this to obtain some better understanding of the background behind the advent of Christianity, let me assure you that this book is a excellent source, even though it makes no extensive reference to Christianity. The primary point of connection is the light Professor Cohen throws on the doctrines so commonly held which distinguish Paul the Hellenized urban Jew from Jesus, the Aramaic speaking rural Jew of Galilee. Even though Professor Cohen makes no mention of the prominent historian of early Christianity, E. P. Sanders, the two scholars seem to come to the very same conclusion about Judaism and Hellenic culture. While Jews in Roman Syria (Antioch), Asia Minor (Tarsus), and Egypt (Alexandria) were Greek speaking and influenced by Hellenistic culture, so were the Jews of Jerusalem, but perhaps to a lesser degree.
It is of utmost importance to someone wondering if they want to buy this book (and I strongly suggest you do, if you are interested in the subject at all) to know that the approach of the book is largely cultural, social, and `philosophical' rather than chronological and political. Much is said of Ptolemys, Seleucids, and Romans, but mostly regarding their role in Greek and Latin culture.
While Cohen does not spend much time with Christianity, he does clear up some biased labeling of Jewish eras, which dismiss post-Jesus Jewish religion as something superseded by Christianity.
If I were to complain about anything in this book, it would be the absence of a Bibliography and the constant reference to how issues would be handled in more detail in a later chapter. One of the most valuable attributes of any scholarly book is to provide an entrance to the great conversation regarding its subject. Cohen footnotes well, but gives us no good springboard to other works related to this subject.
Very minor quibbles aside, this is a brilliant book, as much for its lucid writing as for its judicious scholarship.

"But for Shaye Cohen, ..., the subject of Jewish identity from the first century B.C.E. ... is not only fascinating in itself but has many parallels with the efforts of people in our own pluralistic and secular society to preserve ethnic or religious identities." Ken Gewertz



Maccabees & the Mishnah:
The Mishnah (Hebrew: repetition), was redacted ca 200 CE by Yehudah Ha-Nasi (Judah the Prince), is the first written recording of the oral law of the Jewish people, as championed by the Pharisees, and as debated between 70-200 CE by the group of rabbinic sages. It is considered the first work of and a major source of Rabbinic Judaism's religious texts.
The Maccabees (Hebrew: Makabim) were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. The Maccabees founded the Hasmonean royal dynasty and established Jewish independence in the Land of Israel for about one hundred years, from 165 BC to 63 BC. (From Wikipedia)

Apocrypha/Deutrocanonicals:
If you read the Old Testament, to better perceive the New, you may wonder what you ought to know about the silent years of Jewish revelation, between the book of Malachi and the Gospel by Matthew, nearly four hundred years. Understanding this watershed period of history will set the stage for you to fully appreciate the events and teachings of the Apocrypha to the Mishnah, as related to core issues;
- What lay behind the violent conflict over Hellenization?
- How Jewish prophecies evolved into a Messianic hope?
- How did Israel expect the redeeming Messiah?
In my Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible, this gap is restored, as was in the Septuagint, with the Apocryphal / Deutrocanonical Books of the Old Testament. These books have been always included in all Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles, and at the turn of the Twentieth century, Anglicans would have considered a Bible incomplete without them.

Between the Testaments:
Under this title, Russell wrote one in a rare category of book on this historical period, need to be read with or prior to 'M to M,' to conceive the reaction of the Jewish nation to the rise and spread of Hellenism, and the story of the Maccabees who rallied against that Hellenization to the point of revolt. How did the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essences, and Zealots relate differently to the Torah, influenced by the oral tradition, and the outside books, exposes the sects that grew up around the second Temple and Synagogues, in the post-exilic period. Their diverse reaction to the Apocryphal literature, its historical authority, and religious influence in the second temple era, is evident in early Christian writings.
The Qumran community was linked to the Apocalyptic tradition, prophecy, and its disguised identity, culminating in the Messianic hope. Without clearly explaining the traditional Davidic and Levitic Messiah in the national Jewish concept, it is hard to capture the controversy. How the Messiah was conceived in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how Jesus fitted in that role, can only be evaluated within the growth of Jewish eschatology and messianic hopes. The apocalyptic Son of Man of Daniel, II Esdras, and Enoch, influenced by the Millennium interim kingdom, that crystallizes the son of Man as Messiah, the suffering servant of Isaiah.

LXX, Jewish Scriptures in Greek:
After the time of Alexander the Great, Greek had become the general language of the Seleucid Greek empire, including Judea and the northern areas of Palestine. The Septuagint was originally translated over a considerable period of time in Alexandria, by the large Jewish community established in Egypt since a large group, including the prophet Jeremiah, fled before the onslaught of Nebuchadnezzar's second destructive invasion and evacuation of Jews from Jerusalem. Under the Ptolemaic Greek dynasty, more Jews had gathered in Alexandria, and the Jewish community had become mostly hellenized, whose primary language was Greek. It became imperative to render the Hebrew scriptures into a language the Jews could use, since Hebrew was no longer viable. There is mounting evidence in recent scholarship that, though the LXX was originally prepared for Alexandrian Greek-speaking Jews, it became common in the homeland also, and among the large Babylonian Jews, who developed basically from the Exile community. This community is known in the modern era for the Babylonian Talmud, finalized around 800 AD. In the Roman Empire, Greek use expanded across the whole Roman world. Thus more Jews in the first century BC-AD probably spoke Greek as a mother tongue than Aramaic, Hebrew was long before relegated to a formal language and the elite of Judea.

LXX and Masoretic text:
Scholars have fairly well established that the Septuagint text is in many ways older than the later medieval Masoretic text, by seven to ten centuries. Sources from the early Christian era indicate that revisions were made to the Masoretic text from the 2nd century onwards. The purpose of the edits appears, to modify or even eliminate certain passages used by early Christian writers, to defend against the Messianic claims of the Christians, by diminishing the susceptibility to Messianic interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures. This concern was one of the matters addressed in the Jamnia council of the Jews in AD 90, which closed the Jewish canon of the Old Testament.

Maccabees to the Mishnah:
`For the historian, the Tanak and the New Testament are special neither because they were revealed or inspired by God nor because they were believed to have been revealed or inspired by God, but because they enjoy special status within their faith communities. The canonical books of the Tanak possess existential value for the Jewish community. They transcend the period of their origins and respond to the community's needs by shaping its identity and endowing its existence with meaning and purpose. The books are "relevant" in a very immediate sense. They contain laws that are still binding and must be obeyed; prophecies that present eternal verities which speak, even generations after they were first delivered, to the present and the future; histories that are paradigms of reward and punishment, model lessons in God's control of human affairs; wisdom that is always salutary and ennobling and hymns and poems that bring the humanity of every generation closer to God. No ancient source gives this definition--after all, no ancient Jewish source even has a word for canon!--and not all Jews everywhere at all times maintained this attitude toward their canonical literature, but the "existential" definition does, I think, accurately reflect the meaning of "biblical" within Judaism from ancient to modern times' (S. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, p. 180).

Dr. Shaye Cohen:
Praised for his familiarity with the often confusing texts of early rabbinic Judaism, Professor Cohen is widely recognized as, "one of the leading historians of the period from the Maccabees to the Mishnah, four hundred years of Jewish history," said James Kugel, Professor of Jewish and Hebrew Literature. Cohen remarks on the parallels between our world and the world in which Jews lived before Rome's crushing defeat of the Jewish revolt, culminating in the traumatic destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., in his recent book "The Beginnings of Judaism" (U.C. Press, 1999) More recently, Cohen has been studying the place of women in Judaism, focusing this time on European Judaism in the high Middle Ages. He has written several articles on the menstrual taboo in Judaism and a book on gender differences within the religion, focusing especially on the ritual of circumcision.

'M to M,' Scholar's Review:
"The Jewish sources from this period are immense in quantity and very hard to make sense of, but he (Cohen) has mastered them beautifully. But, at the same time he's a first-rate classical scholar, which you need to understand the larger world in which Judaism took shape," P. Machinist

"But for Shaye Cohen, ..., the subject of Jewish identity from the first century B.C.E. ... is not only fascinating in itself but has many parallels with the efforts of people in our own pluralistic and secular society to preserve ethnic or religious identities." Ken Gewertz



Maccabees & the Mishnah:
The Mishnah (Hebrew: repetition), was redacted ca 200 CE by Yehudah Ha-Nasi (Judah the Prince), is the first written recording of the oral law of the Jewish people, as championed by the Pharisees, and as debated between 70-200 CE by the group of rabbinic sages. It is considered the first work of and a major source of Rabbinic Judaism's religious texts.
The Maccabees (Hebrew: Makabim) were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. The Maccabees founded the Hasmonean royal dynasty and established Jewish independence in the Land of Israel for about one hundred years, from 165 BC to 63 BC. (From Wikipedia)

Apocrypha/Deutrocanonicals:
If you read the Old Testament, to better perceive the New, you may wonder what you ought to know about the silent years of Jewish revelation, between the book of Malachi and the Gospel by Matthew, nearly four hundred years. Understanding this watershed period of history will set the stage for you to fully appreciate the events and teachings of the Apocrypha to the Mishnah, as related to core issues;
- What lay behind the violent conflict over Hellenization?
- How Jewish prophecies evolved into a Messianic hope?
- How did Israel expect the redeeming Messiah?
In my Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible, this gap is restored, as was in the Septuagint, with the Apocryphal / Deutrocanonical Books of the Old Testament. These books have been always included in all Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles, and at the turn of the Twentieth century, Anglicans would have considered a Bible incomplete without them.

Between the Testaments:
Under this title, Russell wrote one in a rare category of book on this historical period, need to be read with or prior to 'M to M,' to conceive the reaction of the Jewish nation to the rise and spread of Hellenism, and the story of the Maccabees who rallied against that Hellenization to the point of revolt. How did the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essences, and Zealots relate differently to the Torah, influenced by the oral tradition, and the outside books, exposes the sects that grew up around the second Temple and Synagogues, in the post-exilic period. Their diverse reaction to the Apocryphal literature, its historical authority, and religious influence in the second temple era, is evident in early Christian writings.
The Qumran community was linked to the Apocalyptic tradition, prophecy, and its disguised identity, culminating in the Messianic hope. Without clearly explaining the traditional Davidic and Levitic Messiah in the national Jewish concept, it is hard to capture the controversy. How the Messiah was conceived in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and how Jesus fitted in that role, can only be evaluated within the growth of Jewish eschatology and messianic hopes. The apocalyptic Son of Man of Daniel, II Esdras, and Enoch, influenced by the Millennium interim kingdom, that crystallizes the son of Man as Messiah, the suffering servant of Isaiah.

LXX, Jewish Scriptures in Greek:
After the time of Alexander the Great, Greek had become the general language of the Seleucid Greek empire, including Judea and the northern areas of Palestine. The Septuagint was originally translated over a considerable period of time in Alexandria, by the large Jewish community established in Egypt since a large group, including the prophet Jeremiah, fled before the onslaught of Nebuchadnezzar's second destructive invasion and evacuation of Jews from Jerusalem. Under the Ptolemaic Greek dynasty, more Jews had gathered in Alexandria, and the Jewish community had become mostly hellenized, whose primary language was Greek. It became imperative to render the Hebrew scriptures into a language the Jews could use, since Hebrew was no longer viable. There is mounting evidence in recent scholarship that, though the LXX was originally prepared for Alexandrian Greek-speaking Jews, it became common in the homeland also, and among the large Babylonian Jews, who developed basically from the Exile community. This community is known in the modern era for the Babylonian Talmud, finalized around 800 AD. In the Roman Empire, Greek use expanded across the whole Roman world. Thus more Jews in the first century BC-AD probably spoke Greek as a mother tongue than Aramaic, Hebrew was long before relegated to a formal language and the elite of Judea.

LXX and Masoretic text:
Scholars have fairly well established that the Septuagint text is in many ways older than the later medieval Masoretic text, by seven to ten centuries. Sources from the early Christian era indicate that revisions were made to the Masoretic text from the 2nd century onwards. The purpose of the edits appears, to modify or even eliminate certain passages used by early Christian writers, to defend against the Messianic claims of the Christians, by diminishing the susceptibility to Messianic interpretation of the Old Testament scriptures. This concern was one of the matters addressed in the Jamnia council of the Jews in AD 90, which closed the Jewish canon of the Old Testament.

Maccabees to the Mishnah:
`For the historian, the Tanak and the New Testament are special neither because they were revealed or inspired by God nor because they were believed to have been revealed or inspired by God, but because they enjoy special status within their faith communities. The canonical books of the Tanak possess existential value for the Jewish community. They transcend the period of their origins and respond to the community's needs by shaping its identity and endowing its existence with meaning and purpose. The books are "relevant" in a very immediate sense. They contain laws that are still binding and must be obeyed; prophecies that present eternal verities which speak, even generations after they were first delivered, to the present and the future; histories that are paradigms of reward and punishment, model lessons in God's control of human affairs; wisdom that is always salutary and ennobling and hymns and poems that bring the humanity of every generation closer to God. No ancient source gives this definition--after all, no ancient Jewish source even has a word for canon!--and not all Jews everywhere at all times maintained this attitude toward their canonical literature, but the "existential" definition does, I think, accurately reflect the meaning of "biblical" within Judaism from ancient to modern times' (S. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, p. 180).

Dr. Shaye Cohen:
Praised for his familiarity with the often confusing texts of early rabbinic Judaism, Professor Cohen is widely recognized as, "one of the leading historians of the period from the Maccabees to the Mishnah, four hundred years of Jewish history," said James Kugel, Professor of Jewish and Hebrew Literature. Cohen remarks on the parallels between our world and the world in which Jews lived before Rome's crushing defeat of the Jewish revolt, culminating in the traumatic destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., in his recent book "The Beginnings of Judaism" (U.C. Press, 1999) More recently, Cohen has been studying the place of women in Judaism, focusing this time on European Judaism in the high Middle Ages. He has written several articles on the menstrual taboo in Judaism and a book on gender differences within the religion, focusing especially on the ritual of circumcision.

'M to M,' Scholar's Review:
"The Jewish sources from this period are immense in quantity and very hard to make sense of, but he (Cohen) has mastered them beautifully. But, at the same time he's a first-rate classical scholar, which you need to understand the larger world in which Judaism took shape," P. Machinist

Early in his book, Shaye Cohen points out that Christianity is responsible for the use of the term "late Judaism." The term was disparaging and meant to suggest that 2nd Temple Judaism was in dire need of an infusion, i.e. Christianity. Moreover after Christianity came along, "late Judaism" suggested that Judaism could be altogether ignored despite the fact that Judaism has continued to flourish for the last couple of millenia.

So Cohen's book wraps around early Christianity in terms of time and thought. There are no set time parameters. Second Temple Judaism was a religion "of the book." No longer did Israel have political independence. Why did God let this happen? Part of the answer may be found in Jeremiah 25; Babylon acts as God's agent. Cohen says that basically Second Temple Judaism accepted its civil rulers. Second Temple Judaism opened its understanding of who could be a Jew. Pre-exilic Judaism recognized only the immutable condition of birth.

Second Temple Judaism belief and practice dealt with matters such as how to balance order in worship with spontaneity. The development of the synagogue shifted prayer and Torah away study from the sacrificial cult. The attempts to identify the core of Judaism are reminiscent to Christians to similar attempts found in the New Testament. The liturgical shema is as close to a credal statement as Judaism gets.

Cohen writes a chapter on community life in Judaism (mentioning guilds among other things) before turning to sectarianism. Various sources are considered for the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, before a few pages are written about the Samaritans, Zealots, Theraputae, and Christians as these existed within Judaism. The last two chapters are about the canonization of Scripture and the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism in the Second Temple and post-Second Temple periods.

This book is written by an eminent Jewish scholar who writes in a very readable style and who uses no footnotes to distract his readers. The book is very informative yet it was not meant to be comprehensive. The reader should bear this in mind. The reader should also bear in mind that if one disagrees with, e.g. Cohen's appraisal of the law-abiding nature of Second Period Judaism, one might want to consider that sup-porting evidence is outside of the scope of this book. In fact it has been pointed out elsewhere that there is an unusual amount of records for Second temple Judaism and, by contrast, a dirth from elsewhere.

The author has done an admirable job of introducing much to an audience which does not read this subject matter on a frequent basis.