The Ancient Samaritans

208 The Festivals and Sacred Days of Yahweh

religious formulas of the Pharisees with regard to the observance of Phasekh and other sacred days.91

After the destruction of the Temple of Yahweh in 70 C.E., the Sadducees as a political and religious party ceased, leaving the innovative Pharisees in command.92 Pharisaic ability to adapt to new situations enabled them to survive the devastation of their country and centuries of persecution. Today, “Almost all forms of modern Judaism trace their lineage through the Pharisees.”93 The survival of the sect of the Pharisees as the dominant religious party is the reason why all Orthodox Judaism today practices the System B Phasekh. Unfortunately, this fact has also led to the false assumption, held by many today, that System B was the only arrangement for the Festival of Phasekh and Unleavened Bread.

Conclusion

The evidence so far demonstrates two fundamentally different approaches to the doctrinal issues of Scriptures. The Sadducees represented the conservative priests and their allies who saw it in their interest to abide by the letter of the Torah of Moses. Without a literal interpretation of the written Torah their very status as an aristocracy was jeopardized.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, being the liberals, represented the scholars who were from the layman and scribe classes. It was in their interest to remain in favor with the Jewish masses. Their authority rested upon their claim that there existed an oral law handed down by the traditions of their fathers. This oral law permitted them to interpret the Torah of Moses in light of ever-changing circumstances and, at the same time, offer the people a structured way to piety. In the eyes of the Pharisees, the interpreters were not the arrogant and self-serving Zadok priests but their own pious rabbinical scholars. Toward the end of this struggle, the Sadducees fell under the control of the Pharisees and then into insignificance.

91 For this reason, during the time of the messiah, the national Jewish Phasekh practices were those of the Pharisees. 92 See above n. 24. 93 EBD, p. 824.

Since the first century C.E., the most prevalent and popular view for the observance of Phasekh and the seven days of unleavened bread has been System B—an interpretation first expressed by the ancient Hasidim. Our questions must be: • What is the ancient evidence of this interpretation? Also, just how and on what days did they keep the Festival of Phasekh and Unleavened Bread? • When did this Hasidic view of Phasekh and the seven days of unleavened bread first appear? • What issues created their interpretation and how did they derive their understanding of br[b (be-arab; in the mixing of light and dark [twilight]) and its cognate term μybr[h ˆyb (byn ha-arabim; between/among the mixings of light and dark [twilight])?

Hasidic Roots

There is little doubt that the group who originated System B, the most enduring interpretation for Phasekh and of the expression “byn ha-arabim (between the mixings of light and dark [evenings]),” was the μydysj (Khasidim; Hasidim) of the early second century B.C.E., from whom the Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, and other Jewish groups, including the later Rabbinists and Talmudists, are spiritual descendants.

The System B view, for example, is clearly manifested in the Hasidic work entitled the book of Jubilees, 1 the earliest known Hebrew fragments of this text coming from the period around 100 B.C.E.2 Internal evidence dates the origin of Jubilees to “between 161–140 B.C.E.”3 It was at this time, in the 150th Jewish Seleucid year (162/161 B.C.E.), that Judaean independence was recognized by the Greek Syrian king, Antiochus V. 4 The Hasidim are again mentioned in the 151st Seleucid year (161/160 B.C.E.), when some of them tried to make peace with Demetrius II, the Greek king of Syria, but were betrayed and murdered by him.5

The Hasidim, therefore, appear in Jewish history at a time of tremendous conflict and turmoil in Judaea. It was a period when the Greeks exerted heavy

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1 Jub., 49:1–23. 2 OTP, 2, p. 43; DSST, pp. 238–245. 3 OTP, 2, pp. 43–45; THS, p. 283. 4 1 Macc., 6:20–63; Jos., Antiq., 12:9:3–7. 5 1 Macc., 7:1–18.