Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Throughout this book, in chapter after chapter, it has been shown that the earliest surviving evidence for a widely practiced Judean way of life governed by the Torah never predates the second century BCE. The aim of the present chapter has been to go beyond the data surveyed and analyzed throughout the book and to assess the likelihood that Judaism may have first emerged during one or another specific historical period of time. Our analysis in the present chapter has led us to conclude that the Judean way of life during the Persian period was more likely governed by cultural norms and traditions inherited from the Iron Age than by anything resembling some kind of Torah law. A central element of what it meant to be a Judean at this time was veneration of YHWH and participation in the cultic worship of this deity, although it remains unclear to what degree this might have excluded the possibility of veneration and worship of other deities. It does not seem unlikely that at least some of the practices that came to be legislated in the Pentateuch were part of Judean culture already in the Persian period, possibly including a taboo against eating the “hip sinew” and perhaps also circumcision. The origins of practices such as these may reach back to extraordinarily early epochs, possibly to before the emergence of any kind of distinct “Israelite” identity. The evidence from Elephantine that points to a Judean practice of some form of “Passover” ritual, as well as of a seven-day period probably coinciding in time with what we know of as the Festival of Unleavened Bread, may also reflect very early practices whose origins remain opaque. In all these cases, however, there is little reason to interpret the evidence as reflecting practices that were somehow legally mandated by anything akin to a Mosaic law. A conjectural Persian-period Judean way of life thus reconstructed, bereft of any sort of Torah as its regulating principle, can hardly be said to resemble Judaism in any meaningful way. The roughly two centuries between the conquests of Alexander the Great circa 332 BCE and the founding of an independent Hasmonean polity in the middle of the second century BCE remain a far more conducive epoch in which to seek the origins of Judaism. Various hypotheses may be proffered to explain how and why something recognizable as Judaism may have first emerged during this particular historical era. Here I have explored the possibilities that the Pentateuch came to be adopted as authoritative Torah by Judeans either during the Early Hellenistic period, when Judea found itself under foreign domination by the two great Hellenistic kingdoms, or during the Late Hellenistic period, after the Judeans had gained autonomy under the leadership of the priestly Hasmonean family. Both hypotheses identify the emergence of Judaism at a time when practically all Judeans—both in their homeland and throughout their diaspora—were deeply embedded in a world dominated by Hellenistic culture. In either case, it would not be wrong to view Judaism as having emerged out of the crucible of Hellenism, which dominated the cultural landscape of the time. In a poetic way, it seems only fitting that our English word “Judaism” itself is the result of a Hebrew/Greek hybrid, rooted etymologically in the Greek rendering of the Hebrew “yəhûdāh” merged with the Greek suffix “-ismós.” With this, we have come to the end of our journey. Stepping backward to gain perspective, we appreciate that this is by no means the final chapter in the story of Judaism—it is only its preface and introduction. From its earliest origins, Judaism emerged and developed in manifold directions. Rabbinic Judaism was one pathway by which Judaism continued to thrive and expand, but the centuries have witnessed the emergence of other, parallel and no-less-influential byways. Indeed, the roots of both Christianity and Islam are well sought in the Judaism whose origins we have explored throughout these pages. Viewed in this way, the emergence of Judaism was the catalyst for setting the course of much of world history over the past two thousand years—and probably also for centuries if not for millennia to come.

Adler, Yonatan. The Origins of Judaism (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) (pp. 330-331). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.