Sanders Ed P. Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah

SCM Press, Trinity Press International, 1990. — 418 p.Three of the studies collected here were written on the way to completing what I hope will be a fairly short book on Jewish practice and belief - with the emphasis on practice - in the early Roman period (63 BCK to 0 ; 66). Some topics - pharisaic oral traditions (ch. II), pharisaic purity laws (ch. Ill), and various aspects of Diaspora praxis (ch. IV) - required extended presentation of the primary evidence, since my views diverge rather sharply from those which currently prevail. I argue that the special pharisaic traditions did not have the same status as the written law, that the Pharisees did not eat ordinary food in priestly purity, and that in the Diaspora Jews went their own way with regard to food, purity and donations to the temple, rather than basing their behaviour on Palestinian rules. Their food laws were their own, their purity practices were distinctive, and their gifts to the temple were determined by their own reading of the scriptures in Greek.