Chapter 8: Exile and Restoration
What Does It Mean to Be Righteous?
The exile caused a dispersion of Jews across the Mediterranean. When the exile ended many chose to not return having put down roots in their new lands. This caused a complete rethinking of what it meant to be Jewish. In that long time of the second temple, the world itself was going through a huge change.
The Canonization of Scripture
It was during the second temple period that what we know as the OT was codified and studied.
The History of the Second Temple Era
An era of great empires rising and falling. Each empire had its impact on Jewish thought, but especially the Alexander the Great and the Greeks.
Elite Individuals and Formative Groups of the First Century CE
The Jews were scattered in various places and the communities had to decide how to live in a non-Jewish world.
Elite Individuals: Fitting in but remaining Faithful. Philo and Josephus are two examples of different ways of surviving in the dominant culture.
Elite Individuals: The Rabbinic Roots. Two major schools of thought—Hillel and Shammai. The disagreements between them play out in the Mishnah,
Groups: Seeking Faithfulness to Torah
When Ezra “published” the Torah, the power of the priesthood was challenged.
Scribes and Pharisees. Christians are closest to the Pharisees in the varieties of Judaism.
Priests and Sadducees.
Essenes and Zealots.