okay good morning so um let us do an overview of the history of the ancient Israelites okay um from about 1010 the year 1010 BC until uh 586 um this is what what is referred to as the first temple uh period so remember the nation of Israel is created by King David and it's a coalition of different tribes different cultures different religions and what makes this nation possible are two things the first thing is the Charisma of David the second is the tremendous literary power and Genius of the yahs uh the individual who wrote the first stories of the Bible Adam and Eve the Patriarchs Moses okay um and what centers or unifies this nation is the first temple in Jerusalem remember uh to create centralized Authority David and Solomon his son Solomon they build a temple where everyone has to come in order to make sacrifices to Yahweh okay so the first temple is the house of Yahweh all right and at this point we can there are certain characteristics about this new religion or this new nation okay and again um I will have to oversimplify for the sake of clarity okay so the first thing I would say about this new religion is um it's polytheistic okay it aspires to a monotheism but it's only aspirational because the reality is it's a multi it's a multicultural Coalition and people are going to believe what their fathers and their grandfathers believe okay um they may and so people at this point have multiple faiths and so the religion that we refer to say as uh Judaism is only shared by an El the elite people okay King David his family and the priest and maybe other uh people in the elite okay um second thing is it is a monarchy okay and the third thing is this religion is an open tolerant and optimistic religion because remember the Bible it's really the story of two people Yahweh and David forming an everlasting friendship that becomes the basis for the nation of Israel also remember that in um the yahweh's understanding of Yahweh Yahweh is a poet God he's fallible he's sensitive but he means good he's willing to grow and help the the Israelites grow as well and in this religion to show Faith to Yahweh to um show your Devotion to Yahweh you must argue with him you must learn and go grow with him as well okay so this is a very open confident generous and optimistic uh religion by the time we reach a second second temple period okay from 539 to 70 uh CE okay 539 BC to 7 uh CE this is called the second temple period why because in 586 their Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians okay but by the time we reach this period the Israelites are no longer referred to as Israelites they're referred to as Jews and the Jewish people and the Israelites they share the Bible but in terms of culture and values um they're very different so at this point the Jewish people have become what we call hindo theistic Nea of H theism is you believe there are Gods but your God is the best okay your God Yahweh is superior to all gods and all the gods are false Idols they are de second thing about the second second second temple period is it's very anti- monar monarchy okay and so it focus on the priesthood and the idea of ritual religious ritual so by the second sing Temple period the focus of power has shifted from the monarchy the priesthood and in a minute I'll explain why there was this change okay the but and the last thing for our purposes to understand about the culture is it's become extremely focused on Purity okay you can also say it is focus on fanaticism it's a very closed and conservative culture now they believe their culture is the best and they believe it's important not to inter to mix with other cultures so for example Jewish women are explicit explicitly forbidden to marry foreign men okay and then from about 100 CE onwards there's another transition to the religion the reason why is remember in the second temple period religious worship is centered around the second temple but in 70 CE the Romans destroy the temple and banish the Jews from Jerusalem um and so this makes massive changes to the religion after about 100 CE that carries um it to the present day the first thing is it becomes fully monistic they only believe there's only one God and that's second is because there's no more Temple and you cannot no no longer make any sacrifices to Yahweh the center of authority in this religion called Judaism are the rabbis and rabbis means teachers okay so the word for this period is called rabacal uh Judaism okay in other words the Bible becomes the center of religious worship in Judaism before it was a temple now it's the Bible it's the rabbis who interpret for you what the Bible means the last thing about this is the idea of diaspora dasor just means they are now spread out all around the world they are no longer in Jerusalem they're spread out all around the world and as such um you will have multiple strands of Judaism because their religion now has to interface with local culture and local Customs okay so this is a very broad overview about over a thousand years of the history of the de development of Judaism as you can see um there are these massive cultural changes about every 500 years the reason why is the historical circumstance of the Israelites and the Jewish people change over time remember the Israel the state the nation of Israel was founded as a historical accident it was because of the Bron AG collapse historically the lant was controlled by a superpower either in Anatolia or in Egypt or Mesopotamia but because of the Bron collaps um the he ties and the ipans have to retreat from the Levant which gives space for a localized Empire to emerge and that's Israel but over time because the lvon was so strategically important Empire started to take over the lavant as a staging post for an invasion of Egypt okay so um what would happen over time is um the Assyrians and the Babylonians would come and Conquer uh Israel also because the nation of Israel was Multicultural and multi lingual it was only held together by the personal Charisma of David So when he died it was very hard to hold the nation together and when his son Solon died in 931 BCE the nation of Israel was about into two kingdoms something called the Northern Kingdom of Israel and then Judah the problem with this is the nation of Israel is centered around the religion and the religion is centered around religious rituals in the temple so and the temple was found in Jerusalem in Judah so the people in northern kingdom had to make changes to religion basically change uh the sites of religious worship okay um in five 86 the Babylonians came and destroyed um Judah and they burned the SEC the first temple and the policy of the Babylonians was to uh capture the elite and hold them hostage in Babylonia and then um send in a foreign delegation to control the territory okay and this this is what is called The Babylon captivity and while the uh Israelites are there they're trying to hold on to the memory of who they are okay there are two memories that sustain them in this period the first is the memory of the greatness of King David how they were once a United monarchy under the leadership of David okay so that's they're very proud of that that's what sustains them the other thing that sustains them is the Bible the stories of the of the Yahweh okay Adam and Eve the Patriarchs and because they are so focused on these memories and because these memories are written down um they specialize the Israelites specialize in intellectual activities okay so in Babylon and then elsewhere they become very successful they become administrators they become teachers they become intellectuals okay and they over this time will also produce their own literature as a diaspora people to sustain them and to unify them okay also at this time what's important to understand is the identity as Israelite people becomes much more concrete and much more locked in before when they were back in Judea in the lavant their identity was very fluid it was very open it was very Dynamic but now that they are part of the diaspora they have left Jerusalem their identity becomes much more concrete and the analogy would be here in China we use simplifi Chinese but guess what when you go to overseas Chinese communities that diaspora right in Southeast Asia um they all use traditional Chinese characters they hold on to CH Chinese culture um much more fanatically than in China does that make sense Okay so a very concrete um identity emerges during the Babylon captivity also what's important is they need to if they are to survive as a people they need to explain why this is happening to them during the day theic Kingdom okay um they were at the height of their power and the Bible was written at at the time and they believe that from now on this Kingdom of David would last forever and that's what God promised so why is it that the northern kingdom and Judah split and why were they conquered by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians and why have they lost their land that God promised to them and the answer is because they broke their Covenant with Yahweh right there's something called a covenant a contract if you the Israelite people are loyal to me meaning you only worship me then I yah will protect you as my chosen people so if Yahweh has abandoned us it's because of three reasons okay the first reason is because um we start to worship foreign Gods okay that's the first reason second reason is because say we start to have Kings and our religion does not allow Kings because the authority of Kings um contradicts the authority of Yahweh okay and the third reason is because we broke the 10 commandments because we continue to sin as a people and the people who argue this are call the prophets okay so after the first temple period being the second temple period uh the Jewish people adopt a prophetic tradition the belief that Jewish people must remain peer to their love of God if they are to survive as a people okay okay so um they are in Babylon captivity for um almost 70 years and then the Persians conquer the Babylonians and the Persian Empire is really the first multinational Empire in human history and their ruler cus the great he is known for being an extremely open tolerant and generous ruler so he releases the Jews from Babylon and have them return to judism where they will rebuild their Temple called the second temple and this starts the beginning of the second temple period and the Jews are so grateful that s the great is called the mesiah in their Bible okay Messiah means the anointed one the one chosen by God to save the Jewish people and sarit is the only Foreigner who is called mesiah in the Bible s great sponsors both the building of the second temple as well as encourage the Jews to start the project that we now refer to as the Bible okay and this was led by a priest uh named erra who was part um who was in at Babylon but he returned J Jerusalem to uh rejuvenate their religion and to start the Bible okay so that's a very brief overview of the history uh of the first thousand years of Judaism any questions so far are you guys clear about this okay so what I will do now is I'm going to focus specifically on this period okay when Cyrus conquered Babylon and released the Jews to return to um Jerusalem because this marks a fundamental shift in the religion at this point what will happen is the merger of the Persian religion with the Israelite religion which creates a new religion okay now the religion of the Persians is called zorm all right and the merge of these two religions will become the basis of a new religion that will come to dominate the world called Christianity all right okay so to understand this history I will have to first talk about the history of Mesopotamia okay so as we discussed in class the history of motan is one of violent struggle because there are many violent uh people in this area and this area is the center of the world basically it's where all the trade goes through it's very wealthy it's very multiethnic and Multinational so conflict and violence arises all the time okay so um you have over here a place called Arabia Arabia are Nomad nomadic people okay and over here you have something called the zagal mountains up up here is Anatolia which is also very wealthy and over here are the two rivers okay the Euphrates and the Tigers and the city states are built along the uh two rivers the PE the do domic people in the desert of Arabia and the mountains of Zagros are o opportunistic okay they will trade with you but they also will raid you and steal from you okay they'll possibly be raiding and trading with the city states what keeps them in check is these C city states have walls okay as well these city states will fight each other for dominance okay because in mesia the the religion is people must fight for the honor and Glory of their Patron God what keeps the city states from destroying each other is they believe that each City State uh in each city city state in a temple lives a great God so you can destroy the enemy's Army in the battlefield but you can't go and ransack the city and the temple because that will incur the Wrath of the God okay so there are these religious that keep the system in check and so for centuries they've been fighting each other and struggling against each other and in this process of struggle they will create many tremendous innovations that will uh forever change human history for example they create writing they they create um many uh forms of knowledge like mathematics and astronomy okay so this is considered the cradle of civilization this system broke down when a king named uh luga zazi okay of a city state called Uma okay and Uma is always at is always in with a c State called leash and look at zazi he is so ambitious that he's willing to defy the gods he decides this is stupid I keep on attacking my enemy but after Retreat after I win because I'm afraid of offending their god well I'm going to test their God I'm going to go into lagash destroy the temple steal all their wealth so I can fund other military um adventures and see if their God will seek revenge okay so he's bringing bringing the taboo he's basically it's basically like the equivalent of using a nuclear weapon today okay so he goes to the G and destroys the gash burns down the temple steals all their wealth and nothing happens in fact he becomes even more successful and he goes around and starts slowly and slowly conquering um the city states of mesop pania of Sumer and he's about to unite all the entire region and now the city states are unified in their hatred of this person he has defiled their temples he has has mocked their gods okay this C an opportunity for another warlord named Saron of akad and S of aad is to determined to destroy luga zazi and restore the honor and glory of the gods of Mesopotamia why is he doing this because he himself has a legitimacy problem okay he was a Merc AR and he was part of the city state of Kish okay so so he was supposed to be loyal to the king of Kish but he was an extremely ambitious and charismatic Soldier so he did what David did and he usurped the throne and so now this creates a legitimacy problem because remember in this religion um kings are descended from the gods so now you by us the throne have offended the Gods so Sargon uh his his name means legitimate King by the way okay legitimate King which tells us no one thought he was legitimate okay he decides that he will create legitimacy by destroying luga zazi and he does that okay he destroys LCA zazi he captures him parades him around and then kills him to show that he is favored by the Gods and by doing this Saron of aad unifies all of Mesopotamia and he creates the first world Empire called a Caden Empire okay but also by doing this okay by creting the first Empire Saron Arad will now unleash a cycle of violence okay and so over time everyone will have will be forced to become more violent in order to maintain balance it becomes an arms raise of fear Terror and violence and Empires rise and fall all the time okay again the problem with this area is you have extremely aggressive Nations and there are no natural boundaries to protect you so it's so even though it's very easy for you to build an Empire it's also very easy for you to lose the Empire okay okay by 600 uh BCE there are three major powers in this region okay over here in Anatolia are people call the the uh lydian the lydians okay the lydians over here in mesia are people call the Babylonians and over here okay are the the medians and the are these are three superpowers that check and balance each other out they're powerful but they're not powerful enough to destroy each other okay around this time will emerge a new power center called the Persians they are led by a great king named Cyrus the Great okay um here is considered to be the greatest ruler in human history a the great saw him as a role model when a the great um invaded Persia and he saw that the two M the great had been uh desecrated or uh abandoned he was Furious and he stopped his campaign to make sure the tomb was renovated and returned to its former glory if you go to Iran today you can still visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great because throughout history everyone had a high opinion of him okay even the Greeks thought he was fabulous his own people of course loved him so for the longest time before alexand great Julius Caesar he was considered the greatest ruler in human history okay so but the problem is because we don't have access to writing the writing we have AB we know very little about him okay here's what we do know about him he was in charge he was king of a local people called the Persians who of course are descended from theiah okay so they use horse archers in their Warfare over time he's able to conquer the medians King Kroes of the lydians saw this as an opportunity to conquer the medians as well so he attacks but cus the great defeats him okay so now cus the great is in charge of two empires what he does next is revolutionary in Mesopotamia instead of parading them around like the the cter kings around and executing them like s Saron of aad C great decides to make them advisors to his court he shows Mercy he shows clemency he shows forgiveness and this shocks and alls the people of Mesopotamia it shows cus the great is confident is powerful and is favored by the gods because he is willing to show Mercy to his enemies but not only that what happens next is really interesting The Babylon Empire is the last empire in Mesopotamia okay if such the great wants to unify Mesopotamia he has to conquer the Babylonians at this time the Babylonians have an eternal conflict the king and the nobility aren't getting along the king wants to change the official God of Babylon for Monarch to sin because the king wants to establish his own religious Authority so this creat trous conflict eternally in Babylon and normally they would go to Civil War and normally when they hear that such the great has conquered the medians and the lydians then they would think they have to unify in order to defeat s the great but they hear that s the great he's merciful and he's generous and he's wise so what they do is the nobility strikes the deal with s the great and cus the great Conquest Babylonia without doing anything and in the official history of s grade he claims that the Congress of Babylonia was the greatest Conquest was his greatest Conquest because he did it through his generosity and his Mercy as opposed to killing lots and lots of people okay and at this time what starts the Great and the Persians realize is if you really want to control people you have to use a policy called divide and Rule and the idea is this before these Empires the acadians ass syrians the Babylonians they believe that to use violence and fear to control people but when you do that all you do is you anger People Unite them and force them to rebel against you okay but if you Rec ize that in each Society there are these natural factions who are in conf with each other and you're able to balance these factions then they're relying on you for stability okay does that make sense okay this what we call divide and Rule so the Persians created not an Empire but what we call a federation in other words a federation is the idea that people choose to be part of this Federation because it benefits them okay why does it benefit them because first of all it brings peace if there's a conflict you don't fight each other you go to the Persians for a conflict resolution okay so it brings peace second of all it brings Prosperity through trade okay so the persons create all these roads that enable trade Within than the Empire and so you're better off actually trading than you are fighting okay and third of all um you're able to access new knowledge and culture through this process so the persons were the first to create a national Imperial postal system it was very very clever so all they did was they set up um checkpoints throughout the Empire and these these checkpoints they were like hotels for postmen they had food they had new clothing they had a place to sleep these postmen would on their horses carry mail throughout the Empire and stop at at these checkpoints to rest okay so the Persians showed that by participating in this Empire you could benefit a lot more more than if you didn't participate and therefore you should participate and so it's an amazing achievement because remember these nations were at war with each other throughout their history and these are very aggressive people with lots of religious differences and S the great and his U descendants were able to create a system that allowed them to work together and prosper together and that's why he is remembered today s great is remembered today as the the greatest ruler of all time okay in human history no one comes second and also why the Jews refer to him as Messiah the God God's chosen God's anointed a man picked by God to come to save the human people the human race so with this Federation with this Empire what's important is the idea of of administration okay Administration you need administrators who will be conscientious and loyal and good people okay because remember they are working with local Governors so each region is allow allowed local autonomy and each Governor is called satra so they're working with with the SAT traps to govern the local area and remember these stups are allowed maximum autonomy and freedom to do what they believe the everyone's allowed to practice their own religion okay so what the administration are doing is ensuring divide and Rule right that there's enough internal conflict within this region so that they're all dependent on the empire for guidance and Authority these administrators have to be have to be um they can't get into like bed with the SAT trops they can't be corupt together okay because this the system will break down so there had to be a system to keep the administrators loyal to the Empire and this system is a religion called Zionism okay zor asianism and this is the religion of the Persian people and this is the religion of the Imperial Administration if you want to be a bureaucrat within this within this system you have to believe in Zionism you have to participate in the rituals and the rights of Zionism and what made the system work is Zionism was at this time 600 BC 500 BC the best religion in the world okay so this is a New Concept for us the best religion in the world we've discussed the best military in the world right the best milit in the world has three characteristics discipline they fight a lot they have a lot of experience cohesion they like each other they get along and devotion they have a common purpose they have a great leader that they love okay it turns out religions can also be measured and there are certain religions that are better than other religions based on three criteria okay these three criteria are grandness completeness and unity okay grandness completeness and unity and this is not a hard concept so think of religion as a story and ask yourself what makes a good story what makes a story so wonderful you want to hear it and it's these three things com grandness it's a big topic Kings and gods and wars and love okay completeness there's a beginning and there's an end and unity there's a plot things are united okay so if I were to tell you a story about gilgames who's a king who fought these gods in a search for immortality and in the end he discovers immortality is impossible well that's a complete unified and Grand Story and you would want to hear that story but if I would tell you a story about a guy named Robert who wants to get a in school and so he studies all the time you don't want to hear the story okay it's not Grand it's very boring it's not complete there's no ending it's not really unified because something really happens okay does that make sense it's the same with religions the problem with most religions is the structure okay so the typical religion is uh a three Tire structure so at the center are gods and gods are the ones who participate in human Affairs they're the ones manipulating us but there's also higher tier that governs the gods as well okay these are cosmic forces like um fate and Fortune and then the highest here are these invisible laws of the universe that give it structure okay what is referred to as um the immutable and Unwritten laws of the cost okay and this is what the Greeks believed this is what the Romans believed okay and as you can see this system it's not complete it's not unified okay may it may be Grant but it's not complete or unified it's a very loose system zero aism is the first really Grand complete and unified religion okay so let's talk let's talk about um zorm so in the religion they believe um there is a Creator God okay called the aor uh master and he is the god of creation he's the God of Light he's the god of order and he creates a perfect world Perfection and within this world we humans are created okay but then there is an evil presence an evil Vil God which comes and corrupts the Perfection and uh this evil or darkness is a match for the Creator God okay so the world is a perfect balance of dark and light what tips of balance is the human race we have free will therefore we can choose to fight for goodness or to fight for Darkness to fight for the truth or to fight for the lie okay so the two main uh the the economy is truth and lie you fight for the truth you're making the world a better place but you fight for the lie you are corrupting the world okay so that's our choice eventually a savior a hero will arise to prepare for the final battle between dark and Light in this final battle light will Triumph once light triumphs a river will emerge okay River will emerge and everyone must cross this River everyone will arise from the dead and everyone has to cross the river if you have been good if you if you have fought for the truth you will cross this River and it will cleanse you you will feel purified you will become an eternal Soul who will live in Paradise forever will return to Perfection okay but if in your life you have lived the lie if you have committed evil if you have done wrong against other people then you will burn in the river and you will be condemned to hell for the rest of your life okay and this is idea what we call es eschatology esoy okay so this is a hard word esy but I I need you guys remember it because it's a very important word eschatology means an understanding of how the world ends and Zionism is a first eschatological religion it has an ending a final battle good versus evil where everyone will be judged okay and so now we can understand why the Persian system works because if you are to be an administrator if you are to work for the Empire you and you believe in jism then you have a duty to fight for the truth okay we're here at most for 60 80 years and what we do in the 6080 years will will be will decide how we live our lives for all eternity okay we either live in Paradise or we will burn in hell depending on how we perform these 60 to 80 years so the Persians are under tremendous pressure to be a good person this is radical in the history of humanity okay so remember the mesop Mesopotamians believe you are good if you achieve right how do you know you're good because you've achieved a lot and by achieving a lot you show that Gods favor you and Egyptians believed in status and others believed and just good luck okay but the Persians believe you have to be a good person you have to show generosity compassion and mercy to others as as exemplified by the life and works and words of Cyrus the Great okay so that's Zionism and this is so powerful that it will be adopted into Judaism and eventually become the basis for Christianity okay but this is where it started Zionism any questions so far before I continue are you guys clear about what's happening okay you know that's a good question if this is the best religion what what are the worst ones okay uh you're right there's really no Bad Religion okay um but the most common religion is folklor religions right so so you live in a village and you believe in a local God okay does that make sense um and so when I say it's best what I mean is intellectually it's the best it's it's it's a religion that can attract the best and the brightest do you understand it's it's a religion where um um um if you are a very intelligent person you are attracted to this religion okay does that make sense but if you are just a normal person you're just going to believe what your father and your grandfather believed okay so think of this religion almost as the equivalent of the confusion Classics in China how do you show cultivation in China by reading the confusion classics and if you want to become a scholar official you have to memorize the confusion Classics right the same concept here where zor aism um you have to believe in this religion if you want to become an administrator and the problem with this religion that makes it hard for people to understand is it's very abstract okay that's the main failing of this religion it's very abstract it's very intellectual and that's why a lot of people don't really see this as a religion and more as a philosophy and what's also important important for us to understand is the abstraction is what makes this religion appealing right because the Persians are trying to attract the best and brightest for for for their Administration so they don't want a popular religion they're not trying to they're not they're not trying to promote their religion okay they're trying to use their religion to filter out uh the best and the brightest okay does that make sense okay so so you're right it's I can't say this is the best religion but it's the religion that is the most intellectual and which will attract uh the administrators in the Persian Empire and that's why it's effective okay great question okay any more questions yes like expain okay so of completeness is esy okay an ending because most religions don't actually have an ending they don't have they're not like okay this is when the world ends okay so for example uh um King David the Bible right it's telling us that King David is really the end of history and from now on on we will live forever in this davidic Kingdom okay this is the best we can do but it's not saying okay King David um we will eventually reach a point when the world ends and when God returns to the Earth no religion is doing that before zor rism okay does that make sense okay so think of completeness as a circle right because if you look at Zur aism they say this is a Perfection right but now there's corruption so the story ends when corruption ends and we we return to Perfection so the circle closes okay does that make sense the same with the Bible where we start out in the Garden of Eden and then we are corrupted and we are forced out of the Garden of Eden right but Noah does it say we will return to the Garden of Eden and but when we reach Christianity that's what will happen Jesus will proom will Jesus is promise of the return to the Garden of Eden okay so now the circle closes does that make sense any more questions okay um all right let's continue so we have this religion Zionism and eventually uh the Jews were adopted into their own religion okay and we have C the great who is this wise generous and merciful leader okay but he he is this way because he is strategic okay he's strategic so when he allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem he's doing so for strategic purposes okay he's not doing it because he feels sorry for the Jews he's doing it because there's a certain strategic purpose in allow them to return to Jerusalem and the reason why is Jerusalem the lant as we discussed it is very important geographically it marks access into Egypt which is what s the great eventually wants to conquer because Egypt is the wealthiest nation in the world at this time so he needs to bring stability to the lant and in the in the Persian worldview what creates stability is the balancing of forces within the local area Okay so he needs to create conf in the Levant at this point in the Levant um there are still Israelites living there and they are now called this um the Samaritans okay um and then you have the Jews okay the Jews is a Persian word it means people who live in the province of Judea which is a Persian Province okay so they're called Jew Jews now uh and not Israelites Israelites are now called Samaritans these come from the same people okay but the difference is this the Israelites who stay have adapted to new circumstances and so what this means is they still practice their religion but they've also intermarried with wom of different faiths so now it's common for a household to practice many different faiths whereas the Jews in Babylon they're more fanatical they believe it's important to practice only one faith so when pyus the Great sends the Jews back to the Levant this immediately creates conflict between the Samaritans who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites and the Jews who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites so this creates religious conflict in the Levant which means the Persians are able to become the Arbiter okay and this creates Divine and Rule now what's important for us to understand is the Jews who return to the Samaritans are only the most fanatical Jews okay there only minority of people the rest of the Jews are perfectly happy in Mesopotamia they have very successful careers as administrators as intellectuals as teachers they're happy where where they are okay so it's only the most religious uh extremists who return and there are a minority so Samaritans are in the majority so the perch support the Jews who've returned in trying to create Purity okay so the Jews argue for Purity uh the Samaritans argue for tolerance and so this is a power struggle a a religious power struggle in 44 3 BC around then a priest a Jewish priest named Ezra he returns to Jerusalem and he's determined to win this war okay so there are certain things he does the first thing he does that is extremely controversial is he announces if you are a Jewish man you must divorce a foreign woman if you're married to a foreign woman meaning a woman who doesn't share our faith then you must divorce her in order to maintain the purity of our people okay he also announces that from now on it is mandatory for Jewish men to observe religious rituals to go to the temple and make your sacrifice okay so he's trying to stop his Purity but his main contribution which is the most important is he wants to UNIF ify the Jewish PE people into one um faction okay so let me explain why this is important so as we discuss there are multiple Bibles out there okay and so there's at least four different schools or four different strands there is the House of David school called the yahs right the the yahs or J remember this is um this is the idea of the Yahweh that Yahweh he is a fallible good meaning well-meaning poet okay but the main point of the Yahweh the the yah is God has chosen David to be the legitimate ruler of Israel God has also ordained David to build the temple where God will reside Okay so is to legitimize the authority of David and to make people understand the central authority of this religion is the temple in Jerusalem but as we discussed eventually the northern kingdom will break away from Judah but when once you break away you can't access Jerusalem anymore so now you have to have other sites where you can practice your religious rituals okay but you do that you have to change the Yahweh manuscript and so they do that and create uh new mythologies this is what What's called the E manuscript okay for elohist elois is is just a different word for God right does that make sense so so you have two competing Bibles at the same time you have the Priestly manuals okay so remember um Judaism at this point it is a religion focus on ritual like most religions so you need uals in order to tell you why you're doing these rituals and how you should do these rituals they to be very precise they to be effective okay at the same time as the northern kingdom fell as Judah was conquered by the Babylonians as as the Jews are forced into captivity you have to explain why this is happening okay and while this is happening most people choose to not follow religion anymore okay they adopt a new religion or they move somewhere else okay but the religious Fanatics have to explain why this is happening and the explanation is because the Israelites continue to disobey God and this faction uh which is basically looking at Jewish history explaining what this is happening is call the deuteronomist okay the D School the deuteronomist okay so these are four major factions okay you understand and these are four different Bibles now wants to do is put all these four Bibles together to create the impression of a unified religion and a unified people and the way he does that which is very interesting is he basically just takes different parts from each of these books and puts them together okay and now this is the Bible and that's why if you actually read the Bible you'll find it completely unreadable okay but he also makes changes to the Bible which is very important remember before the most important person was David okay because he's really a founder of the nation of Israel he's a founder of religion now the most important person is Moses because Moses is a priest he is the one who was given the laws by Yahweh okay so there are other CH changes as well but this is the most important okay there are other changes that will come over time as Zoran aism merges into Judaism okay so there are three major changes um the first is the idea of eschatology okay meaning there will be an end point to history and the end point of history is when the entire world when all the empires of the world because they defy God converge against the nation of Israel in one final battle okay and in this battle of course Israel will win and this will create Eternal peace in the world because God has chosen Israel as his people second big idea is um good versus evil okay before the religion of Judaism was very personal good and evil was in you but now it's there is actually good and evil okay Israel stands for good these other nations these other Empires like the Babylonians the Greeks the Romans they represent evil okay and the third change and which is the most important is there will be a hero who will come to lead the nation of Israel against all its enemies and he is called the Messiah the Son of Man Okay the son of man and he will come from the House of David as written in the Bible okay and why is this important because the Christians believe the Messiah is Jesus okay so the Christians basically take all this this merger of zinis with Judaism and their claim is the Messiah is Jesus okay and this creates Christianity which we will discuss next class all right okay any questions so far are you guys clear about all this y excuse me okay yeah okay thanks thank you okay okay all right so so let let me explain what's happening okay so um remember the Babylon once the Babylonians in 586 they take over Jerusalem they burn a temple to destroy the religion of the Jews and they take the elite about a few thousand people they move them to uh Babylonia okay and but what's who's left behind are a majority the majority of Israelites okay but now they have to adopt to a new Elite and so they preserve their religion but they they also adopt the religion of the elite who are the Babylonians you also have um Israelites who go off to Egypt okay so so now you create something called a diaspora they're either in Babylon or they're in Egypt but the majority are still at home in Judea and in this time because these are just ordinary people they will adopt many faiths it's very common back then for a person to have like multiple faiths okay the faith of your father the faith of your mother the faith of your wife okay the faith of your neighbor okay because this is how people got along right if you said that my God is better than your God you will piss off your neighbor you will piss off your colleague why why would you do that so it's very common back then for people to have multiple Faith a faith you might practice at home a faith you might share with your friends a faith you might have to share with your king okay does that make sense okay so these are extremely multi- uh religious people as we discussed when the Jews are when when the Israelites are forced to go to Babylon they are forced to have a more fanatical religion in order to maintain their identity right it's like how do you separate yourself from these other people because if you don't do that what happens is you become assimilated right you lose what it means to be Israelite and quite honestly most people chose to be assimilated because that was the easiest thing to do but there's a fanatical minority mainly priests who were determined to keep alive their religion because only by keeping alive the religion could they keep alive Yahweh could they keep alive Israel okay so when these Jews were allowed to return to Judea they were horrified by the corruption and Purity they saw right they were like where were in Babylon and for 70 years we fought hard to save our religion to maintain the purity of our religion they go back and they see their people the Samaritans now adopt foreign gods and they were like this is why we fail as a people this is why Yahweh punished us because we refused to be loyal so what so they thinking is like I would rather all these people go away then have them stay around you understand we don't want to get a law we want to maintain the purity of our religion because that's the only way to save our people okay and that's why they say hey if you're want to stay you have to divorce your wife who is a foreigner if you if you don't do if you don't want to do so go away man the pran Empire is huge go somewhere else but Jerusalem is only the land of the pure okay does that make sense so U you know I know this is controversial idea but it's really only the extremists who keep the religion alive right this this is true for all religions okay does that make sense it's only people who are most willing to die for the religion uh that keeps the religion alive if everyone's willing to compromise the religion dies very quickly okay and the Jewish religion Judaism is able to um stay alive for 3,000 years because there are lots of people in the religion a minority but still a lot a lot of people who are willing to die for the religion this something we'll discuss later on this semester okay so thanks for the question any more questions okay so next class we will discuss the rise of Christianity okay Jesus basically