Forgotten Shavuot History: The 4 B.C.E Rebellion and the Therapeutae

The Shavuot rebellion and consequent burning of the Temples’ porticoes during the time of Augustus Caesar made no impression on subsequent Jewish historiography, despite the later humiliating defeat of the rebellion’s suppressor, Varus, in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Another lost memory of Shavuot is the all-night vegetarian feast, prayer, and Torah study of the Therapeutae, an egalitarian ascetic Jewish community in Egypt.

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"Forgotten Shavuot History: The 4 B.C.E Rebellion and the Therapeutae" (n.d.). TheTorah.com. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://www.thetorah.com/article/forgotten-shavuot-history-the-4-bce-rebellion-and-the-therapeutae

Prof. Martin Goodman
Forgotten Shavuot History: The 4 B.C.E Rebellion and the Therapeutae

Hymn of the Pythagoreans to the Rising Sun, Fyodor Bronnikov 1877. Wikimedia

Published May 19, 2023

  1. Technically, the pilgrimage festival is that of the seven-day festival of Matzot, starting on the fifteenth of Nissan, which the Bible distinguishes from the sacrificial rite of the paschal lamb on the day before. Nevertheless, the two have been merged in Jewish consciousness for millennia, and Pesach (=Passover) is often the umbrella term for both, so I use it here. Editor’s note: For discussion of this, see Michael L. Satlow, “Passover and the Festival of Matzot: Synthesizing Two Holidays,” TheTorah (2014); Malka Z. Simkovich, “Passover Becomes about Matzah when the Paschal Lamb Becomes Associated with Jesus,” TheTorah (2014).

  2. Editor’s note: For some discussion of the Mishnah’s presentation of this ritual, see Dalia Marx, “A Torah-Prescribed Liturgy: The Declaration of the First Fruits,” TheTorah (2018).

  3. Editor’s note: For a basic discussion of the ambiguity of the date in the Torah, and the varied options that have developed as for when to celebrate the festival, see Marvin A. Sweeney and Zev Farber, “When Does Counting the Omer Begin?” TheTorah (2018).

  4. דברים טז:ט שִׁבְעָה שָׁבֻעֹת תִּסְפָּר לָךְ מֵהָחֵל חֶרְמֵשׁ בַּקָּמָה תָּחֵל לִסְפֹּר שִׁבְעָה שָׁבֻעוֹת. טז:י וְעָשִׂיתָ חַג שָׁבֻעוֹת לַי־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ…
    Deut 16:9 You shall count off seven weeks; start to count the seven weeks when the sickle is first put to the standing grain. 16:10 Then you shall observe the Feast of Shavuot (Weeks) for YHWH your God…

  5. ויקרא כג:יא וְהֵנִיף אֶת הָעֹמֶר לִפְנֵי יְ־הוָה לִרְצֹנְכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת יְנִיפֶנּוּ הַכֹּהֵן. כג:טו וּסְפַרְתֶּם לָכֶם מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת מִיּוֹם הֲבִיאֲכֶם אֶת עֹמֶר הַתְּנוּפָה שֶׁבַע שַׁבָּתוֹת תְּמִימֹת תִּהְיֶינָה. כג:טז עַד מִמָּחֳרַת הַשַּׁבָּת הַשְּׁבִיעִת תִּסְפְּרוּ חֲמִשִּׁים יוֹם וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם מִנְחָה חֲדָשָׁה לַי־הוָה.
    Lev 23:11 He shall elevate the sheaf before YHWH for acceptance in your behalf; the priest shall elevate it on the day after the shabbat. 23:15 And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath — you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: 23:16 you must count until the day after the seventh Shabbat—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to YHWH.

  6. The Mishnah does not clarify which Shabbat the Boethesians counted from, whether the Shabbat during Pesach or the Shabbat after Pesach. Jubilees and Qumran celebrated Shavuot on the 15th of the month. Editor’s note: For a discussion of Shavuot in this tradition, see Michael Segal, “Shavuot: The Festival of Covenants,” TheTorah (2014).

  7. The story in b. Sukkot 48b about a Sadducee being pelted with etrogim when he poured the water libation on his feet instead of the altar may reflect the same incident.

  8. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 15.50-56.

  9. Josephus, Jewish War 6. 422-5.

  10. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.250-68, 286-95; K. Czajkowski and B. Eckhardt, Herod in History: Nicolaus of Damascus and the Augustan Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

  11. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.200-18

  12. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.219-49, 299-323

  13. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.265-85

  14. Varus was a patrician senator who rose to prominence through the favour of the emperor and married into the imperial family.

  15. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.286-94, 298; Josephus, Against Apion 1.34

  16. R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 310-20.

  17. The episode was recalled triumphantly from a German perspective in more recent times by German nationalists, for whom Arminius (known as Hermann) was a hero. The Varian campaign is described by the contemporary historian Velleius Paterculus (2.118-19); the later growth of traditions about Arminius is traced in M.M. Winkler, Arminius Liberator: myth and ideology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) and H.W. Benario, “Arminius into Hermann: history into legend,” Greece and Rome 51 (2004), 83-94.

  18. Philo, On the Contemplative Life 88

  19. Because they only drank water.

  20. We know from the discovery of scrolls by the Dead Sea that self-regulating communities of religious Jews with distinctive interpretations of the Torah flourished in the late Second Temple period.

Prof. Martin Goodman is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, and Supernumerary Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He holds M.A., D.Phil. and D.Litt.… Read More
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