Introduction: Was 70 CE a Watershed in Jewish History? Three Stages of Modern Scholarship, and a Renewed Effort

Abstract

This is the introductory chapter of the book, which addresses the overarching issue of whether 70 CE should be considered a watershed in Jewish history. The issue has been the object of discussion for more than a century and a half, but the results are still far from unambiguous. The book address three stages in the modern understanding of the relationship between priestly Judaism and rabbinic Judaism in antiquity - for the authors point of departure is Abraham Geiger's discovery, and popularization in his Urschrift (1857), of the fundamental distinction in ancient Judaism between priestly Judaism and Pharisaic/rabbinic Judaism, a distinction which has proven itself to be quite basic and meaningful, a fruitful key to the understanding of much of what we can see in the Jewish world of the Second Temple period. Keywords:Jewish history; rabbinic Judaism; Second Temple period