Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Problem of Evil
The problem of evil has vexed the human race since the dawn of our collective memory. Many different solutions to this problem have been proposed throughout the ages.
Why does evil exist? This question likely crossed Adam and Eve's minds as they exited the garden, and the problem still bothers the human race. Yet, sometimes, we fail to consider how ancient traditions would deal with this issue. Below, I attempt, with strong emphasis on attempt, to summarize three pre-Christian Jewish traditions on the issue, accounting for some other views as well. Let’s set the stage: It is Eastern Mediterranean, Judaism is split up into three major schools, polytheism still dominates the cultural landscape, and many different traditions engage in spirited debates on theology. How do they all address evil?
Polytheism has a simple answer to the problem of evil: competing gods. In a worldview where no supreme, omnipotent being is the undisputed suzerain of all realms, there is room for many gods with varying degrees of importance and powers. Therefore, Polytheistic religions devised a system where there were gods that showed favor to a particular place or group and, therefore, assisted them in their endeavors – while at the same time, there were competing gods that sought to sow destruction and chaos amongst humanity. Then, there were neutral gods who needed to be satisfied for them to withhold their wrath, but as long as they were satisfied, bad things would not befall the people who made those sacrifices, but others who were not so protected would suffer. Although this view of the world is reasonably sound from a philosophical perspective, it is not from a practical standpoint, meaning that it was demonstrably and verifiably false. Even though a particular group would make a bountiful sacrifice to the god of water, it did not always rain; just because proper sacrifices were offered to the god of war did not mean battles were won; it was clear that the various gods were not being bought off but were acting however they wanted, regardless of the actions of the humans on the ground. This brought forth the question: were they real? In the Near East, the polytheistic system began to melt away in favor of a monotheistic worldview, which invited more mysticism and alternative ways of interacting with the seemingly capricious world. A single God was a more natural fit.
Judaism was one of these monotheistic religions that arose to replace the polytheistic order. Although there is some dubious evidence that Jews began as polytheistic or henotheistic, it is undoubtedly that their supreme praise and loyalty were primarily dedicated to Elohim (a substitute for the tetragrammaton). Too much ink has been spilled over the veracity of the claims of the Old Testament and the impact that should have on the way we consider these ideas today; this is not something that this essay intends to explore. This essay recognizes the legitimacy of those claims and how they deal with the problem of evil; there are those smarter than I who have strenuously defended this position and have never been thrown back from it.
The first and one of the oldest traditions that the Jews have to deal with the problem of evil comes from the Torah of Moses (the five books given at Mt. Sinai/Horeb) and is therefore known as the Mosaic Tradition. The Mosaic tradition believes that there is evil in this world – that evil is caused by free will. Free will is the ability of both men and angels to follow or transgress against the Lord’s will. By working following the Lord’s will (which one could discern through faithful study and submission to the laws of the Torah), one was obeying the covenant and could thus be “Blameless in the eyes of the Lord” (a statement, or variant thereof that is frequently used to describe the righteous in the Pentateuch). Evil comes from disobedience to the Lord; free will can be used to obey or disobey the Lord, and following the covenant is the way to live a righteous life. This tradition says that the Lord will reward adherence to the covenant with material success, large estates, many sons, and many cattle; earthly success is equated with divine favor.
The second of these traditions is known as the Wisdom Tradition, and it tries to deal with the idea of righteous suffering. Why do good things happen to bad people? This is a question that this tradition attempts to tackle. It does so in the Book of Job, one of the primary Wisdom Tradition texts. This tradition postulates that there is no evil – everything happens following the Lord’s perfect plan; everything that happens, no matter how it seems to humans, is ultimately good because it comes from the authority of the Lord. This was, by a professor of mine, referred to as the “Lion King” understanding of the universe – that there is an unbroken circle of life that all living things are bound by – there is a divine order of the cosmos that we are bound to follow, and it is all for the best.
The last of these great Jewish traditions is the Enochic tradition, which unsurprisingly takes the book of Enoch as its primary text. This tradition posits a much more complex answer to the problem of evil. It proposes a cosmic rebellion in the heavens; a group of angels acting according to their free will attempted to rebel against the Lord’s perfect order. They copulated with the daughters of men, creating the Nephilim and other such creatures. When the Nephilim were physically destroyed, their souls continued to dwell on earth as demons and continued to cause evil and chaos. In addition to that problem, the rebellion of the angels put a sour note in the otherwise perfect song of creation, disrupting everything from the peace of the deserts (now roamed by Azazel) to the calendar, which no longer followed four perfect 70-day periods punctuated by an extra day for the archangels. This tradition puts the onus of evil on a cosmic rebellion, leaving God out of it.
The origin of evil in each of these ideas is different – the Mosaic tradition blames humans for the birth of evil – the human’s disobedience of God’s order caused the fall. It is free will that fell to temptation. The Lord is not responsible for anything bad that happens on this earth. However, the Lord did provide a way to avoid suffering, that is, the Torah, and by following it, one will live a wealthy and prosperous life. The positive aspect of this system is that it keeps God innocent of anything wrong and shows his mercy by giving humans a way to live a prosperous life despite our disobedience to him in the garden. This system also incentivizes people to obey the laws of the Torah by promising earthly and immediate success. The negative aspects of this system are numerous as well – it does not account for righteous suffering, just the opposite; it posits that if one is suffering, they must not be righteous or good and must be bad. This system does not account for righteous suffering or the suffering of the innocent, such as infants. The remedy to evil in this solution is individual; the individual must follow the Torah to meet success. The Wisdom tradition does not avoid the problem of righteous suffering but rather tackles it head-on. The Wisdom tradition is in the Book of Job in the Old Testament. Job was blameless before the Lord but still suffers immensely due to reasons he was unaware of (that being a conversation between God and Satan). There is no evil in the wisdom tradition; everything is following God’s will. Therefore, even if something appears to be bad, it is part of the infinite plan of God. This system does not have an origin of evil – it makes humans rather inactive players in the universe, subject only to God’s will. This system has the benefit of declaring evil not to exist — clearing God of any wrongdoing just as the Mosaic tradition does; this system also encourages adherence to the Torah as that is the best way to adhere to the plan. This system believes in a circle of life in which things will happen regardless of human intervention. The drawbacks are largely the same as the Mosaic tradition. However, this system also has no beautiful afterlife (until the time of the Pharisees) and lacks human agency –making this system rather depressing for any potential human adherents. It makes humans passive actors on the stormy seas of life and does not offer any potential rewards except for simply acting according to the plan that will happen regardless. There does not need to be a remedy to evil in this system as evil is not real, only the perception of evil by humans. The Enochic tradition, on the other hand, has an entirely different way of dealing with the origin of evil. Because in this system, evil is caused by the rebellion of angels and not human will, humans play an active part in the story – humans are to follow the law to avoid temptation by the demons (fallen angels). The Angels rebelled against God, inaugurating sin into existence; the fallen angels now try to tempt humans and corrupt this world. Humans can resist this temptation via adherence to the law – which God gave to humans to avoid this temptation, but in this world, chaos reigns regardless of individual actions, although later Enochic groups like Qumranites would develop this view. The benefits of this system are numerous; it makes humans an active player in the story and accounts for righteous suffering by blaming it on the demons. It makes God all-loving, desiring humans to follow the righteous path. Despite these many benefits, making it the philosophical roots upon which Christianity would later be grafted, its drawback is that it makes God somewhat weaker than the other two systems as there is a rebellion against him. Historical determinism would later address this problem (but not until the Essenes emerged).
As these systems evolved, more events occurred; the Maccabean Revolt and the Babylonian captivity were two such events. The Babylonian captivity saw many Jews taken into exile by the Babylonians; there, the Prophet Daniel foresaw the raising of the resurrection of the body. Mosaic and Wisdom groups could graft this idea onto their own, as it would help solve the problem of a seemingly unjust world and the problem of righteous suffering (for the Mosaic tradition); for the Enochic tradition, more apocalyptic ideas began to develop, including the idea of a final battle between the “sons of light and sons of darkness.” The Macabean revolt opened the idea of Martyrdom; many adherents to the Mosaic tradition saw this as God’s justice against the people of Israel – with the added caveat that those who chose to remain faithful provided the example of how to live under persecution. These were primarily Mosaic ideas, as those adherents to the Enochic tradition simply said the persecutions were due to the demons' influence over the enemies of the Jewish people. The different Books of Maccabees promoted different ideas – First, Maccabees primarily states the Mosaic point of view that the people who died deserved to die, but this seems unsatisfying, and probably was, to the majority of readers. Second, Maccabees revises this view to state that the people who died did not necessarily deserve to die. At the same time, Fourth, Maccabees takes a much more Wisdom-oriented approach, stating that the seven brothers who died (it was using them as an example) stood against evil at all hazards, a behavior that deserves to be emulated. These three texts represent the latter Jewish schools. First Maccabees would be the view of the Sadducees; Second Maccabees the view of the Pharisees; and Fourth Maccabees the view of the Wisdom traditions. These books can be harmonized, and for this reason, these groups are not totally homogeneous, and there is a decent amount of crossover between them. Once, a professor of mine referred to it as “building different sets with the same blocks.”
Apocalyptic traditions, springing out of the Enochic tradition, also developed divergent and sometimes contradictory views about the problems of evil, sin, and the will of God. The Essenes emerged from the Enochic tradition after the time of the Maccabean revolt, using the Book of Jubilees as a re-writing of the Book of Genesis. The Qumranites were an offshoot of the Essenes, embracing a life of seclusion and a monastic existence, separating themselves from society and even other Essenes. The Essenes formulated a syncretic view of the Mosaic and Enochic view, while the Qumranites seemed to syncretize an Enochic and Wisdom view. Essenes embraced historical determinism, saying that God predestined all events, but not how humans would react to them (this preserves God’s sovereignty); Qumranites believed that God had preordained events, people, and beliefs. God is in full control of all things and has already destined everything. This, in a roundabout way, is similar to the Wisdom tradition's rejection of conventional evil in favor of absolute control of God over all events, meaning that everything is in accord with his divine will. The remedy for evil in the Essene tradition is following the rules and being holy; thus, one can resist the powers of temptation. The remedy for evil in the Qumranite tradition is “tough luck.” if one is a Son of Light, one will follow the will of the Lord, and if one is a Son of Darkness, he is doomed. These traditions did not respond to the developments of the Maccabean Revolt nor the development of the resurrection theology because they developed after these events, the Essene tradition specifically as a result of the Maccabean revolt, and Qumranites developing after that.
Within the realm of Jewish apocalyptic groups, particularly those influenced by Enochic traditions, the emphasis on the periodization of history and the notion of individual predestination served as pivotal theological constructs. Enochic adherents used the concept of periodization to navigate the wild and often oppressive societal landscape they encountered. This paradigm allowed them to perceive history as a series of discrete epochs, each marked by unique challenges and divine interventions (tying into their idea of Jubilee years and historical determinism). Such a perspective gave them hope that a righteous and transformative era, which could be associated with the advent of a messianic figure, but more likely, a Jubilee of Jubilees, would eventually dawn. Moreover, the stress on individual predestination within Enochic circles provided a source of solace and fortitude amidst adversity. Believers firmly believed that God determined destiny and that they would benefit as long as they stayed the course, furnishing them with a profound sense of purpose and resilience in the face of life's tribulations. These theological tenets within Enochic ideology helped sustain their faith and nurtured an unwavering optimism and hope for the future.
The Mosaic, Wisdom, and Enochic traditions—offer multifaceted approaches to address the perennial question of the origin of evil. While the Mosaic tradition attributes evil to human free will and emphasizes the importance of adherence to the covenant, the Wisdom tradition, exemplified in the Book of Job, challenges the very existence of evil, attributing all events to a divine plan. On the other hand, the Enochic tradition delves into cosmic rebellion and angelic fall as the source of malevolence, portraying humanity as active participants in a cosmic struggle against temptation and the fallen angels. These diverse theological views reveal the intricate tapestry of thought within ancient Judaism. The historical context, notably the Babylonian exile and the Maccabean revolt, further enriched these discussions, giving rise to notions of resurrection, martyrdom, and the periodization of history. In contemplating these ideas, we are confronted with the enduring human quest to make sense of the presence of evil and suffering in the world, offering valuable insights into the evolution of religious thought and the resilience of faith in the face of adversity.