 The
Sanhedrin was the ruling body of Judaism. It was based in Jerusalem
until about 70 A.D. Its 71 members fled to Yavneh during the Roman
siege of Jerusalem by Titus, which ended with the destruction of
the Temple. By 135 A.D., many Jews had fled Israel and were living
in distant lands. Previously, the center of the Jewish world had
been Jerusalem with its beautiful Temple. Jewish religious leaders
recognized that after the destruction of the Temple, Judaism required
a new epicenter if it was to survive. They believed this required
an instrument to hold Jewish life together and maintain a distinctive
Jewish national identity. During the Second Temple period, Beth-She'arim was a small Jewish settlement in the Lower Galilee. By the time the Bar-Kochva Revolt ended, most of Judaism’s powerful rabbi’s had left Yavneh and migrated to Beth-She’arim (house of gates). The rabbis based at Beit She’arim set out to write down the rules of Jewish daily life known to Jesus and His band of disciples as the ‘traditions of men’. These written interpretations of the actual 613 commands given to Moses on Mt. Sinai became known as the Mishnah. Its purpose was to regulate every aspect of a Jew’s life. A huge work, the Mishnah is comprised of six books covering thousands of subjects. With the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, many of the commandments of the Mosaic Law could no longer be physically observed. Unwilling to let go of the past and undaunted by the impossible task, the rabbis rationalized substitutes. Their written interpretations of the Law contained in the Mishnah are still called the "Oral Law" today referring to the way they were originally taught. In direct opposition to rabbinic Judaism, Jesus distilled the 613 specific commands of the Law down to 2 powerful commandments. His refusal to acknowledge the expansive authority of the rabbis’ oral interpretation of the Mosaic Law led to His confrontation with them. Repeatedly, the Pharisees confronted Jesus following one of His stories or lessons. Like a scratched record, their repeated question was always “who gave you the authority to teach these new interpretations of Mosaic Law?” By the time Jesus began to minister, orthodox Judaism’s rabbis had placed such importance on the Oral Law, that their interpretations had replaced what God Himself had given Moses by dictation. Jesus, as the Word made flesh, had all the authority He needed to teach as He did and to do the miracles He performed.
The
city of the dead at Beth-She’arim is an object lesson
for all who have trusted their lives to Jesus as God’s only
provision for man’s sin. Many of the ‘shepherds’
of Israel had used their interpretation of Mosaic Law as a tool
to enslave the people and enrich themselves. Jesus described the
flocks of people He met along the dusty roads of Israel as wandering
sheep without shepherds who really cared for them. This is one
of the reasons for His harsh condemnation, calling the Pharisees
and the Sadducees “whitewashed graves.” They made every
effort to look good on the outside while being totally dead on
the inside. The Bible tells us that knowledge without appropriate
action “puffs up.” The religious leaders Jesus confronted
were very proud of what they knew as truth. |
There
is a huge burial complex at Beth-She'arim known as a ‘necropolis’
(city of the dead). Jews from all over Israel and from the far-flung
Diaspora communities were buried here. The tombs of Beth-She'arim
have many inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These inscriptions
tell the stories of the people that were buried there. Teachers,
priests, bankers, goldsmiths, government officials, perfumers,
and, of course rabbis, were all interred at Beit She’arim.
Many were buried in stone coffins known as sarcophagi. The literal
meaning of sarcophagus is “meat eater”.