Rel 265 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes
Document Summary
We will take two weeks to study the gospel of mark. As we are engaging this gospel, remember that we are actually engaging with some- thing, but we are missing an element: the element of performance. In antiquity, peo- ple did not do what we did today, having a book and reading it quietly. The few peo- ple who could read would read out loud. There was the jewish-roman war, a de- struction of the temple site. The temple was not only a religious centre, but also a political and economic centre. People would come from all over the world to visit this great temple, and now it is destroyed by the romans. This is about the time that this text is composed, in around 70 c. e con- text is key. Even if the romans had not come in, still the sense that they would have all killed one another.
