Conference taveng::bagels

Re: .0

957.74 probably clarifies most of your questions. Let us know if it
doesn't.

Jem

The Karaites were a Jewish sect that believed in a strict interpretation
of the Hebrew bible and rejected the interpretations in the Talmud. There
may even be a congregation of Karaites somewhere in the world today.
Sorry, I don't know when they split off from mainstream Judaism.

After the death of Solomon, Israel was split into 2 kingdoms. The northern
kingdom was Samaria and the southern kingdom was Judea. Each kingdom fostered
its own religious sect. Judea had the temple in Jerusalem and mount Zion.
Samaria had its own rival temple and mount Gerizim (sp??). Eventually
Babylonia (Syria? I forgot which) conquerred the northern kingdom and
scattered the population. It appears that the original Samaritans were so
thoroughly assimilated that no one really knows where they went -- these are
the 10 lost tribes.

Other (Caananite?) peoples came to live in the now-deserted territory and
called themselves Samaritans. These people eventually came to know and adopt
the Jewish religion but were never accepted by the people of Judea. This
rejection had "interesting" historical consequences. There is a
Samaritan community living in Israel. An early note in this conference
describes how they still sacrifice a lamb for the Passover celebration.

Dave

In my readings I have finally come to the origin of the Karaites.
This sect was founded in the late 8th century by Anan ben David.
Anan was heir to the title of 'exilarch' or political chief of
the Jews of Babylonia (Iraq today). The title went his younger
brother due to political manoeuvering on the part of the heads of
the two Jewish academies of Babylon (where the Talmud was written).

The movement came about as a reaction to the Christians and the
Moslems both trying to tell the Jews how to interpret the bible.
Anan rejected Christian, Moslem, and Talmudic interpretations
and decided to go back to the original sources. Some of the
changes he made were: he made Sabbath observance stricter by forbidding
heated food and even the use of candles after dark. He rejected the
calendar based on the 19-year cycle and went to the original rules
of basing the months on observation of the moon and leap year on
observation of crops. He also changed the date for Shavuot, making it
the 50th day after the Shabbat that follows Passover. This is not
a complete list.

As has been observed in this conference, the Torah does not give complete
instructions for observing its rules and the Karaites were justly accused
of substituting their own Talmud for the traditional one. The movement
caused a split in Judaism about as severe as the split between the Sadducees
and the Pharisees. However, some good came out of this movement. Contemporary
Jewish scholarship concentrated on study of the Talmud and almost totally
ignored Scripture. Both sides of the split were forced to return to
the study of the original sources (the Talmudists as a matter of self
defense).

The Karaites also advanced the study of Hebrew grammar which had been
neglected. The Karaites great interest in the Tanach (Jewish bible)
led them to check the texts for accuracy. They discovered serious
differences between the texts used in Bablyonia and those used in Judea.
The copy of the Torah that had been kept in the 2nd Temple had been
carried away to Rome and was lost with the fall of Rome. The copyists of
the preceeding era had not been very careful and I have no idea how they
went about reconstructing the original material.

Dave

There are still Karaites in Russia; the late mathematician Bessicovitch was one.
He told me that the government does not pick on them the way it did on Jews;
I don't know how they are treated, for instance whether their identity cards
describe them as Karaites, or whether they are allowed to practise their
religion.

(To be more precise, this semi-information is dated, since he died 20 years ago
and he left the Soviet Union long before then.)