Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

Esther

Many of the psalms

Ecclesiastes

Daniel

Third Isaiah (Isaiah 56–66)

Joel

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

Perhaps there are other books or parts of books in the Hebrew Bible stem-

ming from the years after the initial return from exile.

It is generally agreed that there was no canon of Scripture until per-

haps the very end of the Second Temple period, but it is evident that there

were ancient writings that exercised considerable influence and were ac-

knowledged to contain God’s words. Those books would have included

Genesis through Deuteronomy and the prophetic works and Psalms and

probably more, but it is not possible, given the evidence at hand, to decide

exactly which books were considered authoritative and by whom.

In the later centuries of the period, Jews continued to write, and many

of their compositions have survived to the present. One difficulty is that it

is not always clear which books were written in Israel and which in the Di-

aspora. A possible indicator of location is language (if we happen to know

the original language of the work): a book written in Hebrew or Aramaic is

more likely to have been written in Judea (or Babylon) than in Egypt, while

a work in Greek has a better chance of coming from Egypt or some other

part of the Hellenistic world. But one should not exclude the possibility

that a Greek work comes from Israel. One other note should precede the

survey of Jewish literature from Israel: in a sense Josephus, a prolific au-

thor whose works are invaluable for understanding early Judaism, is a

writer from Israel. He spent the first thirty years or so of his life in Judea,

where he was a prominent priest and occupied important positions. But

the Judean Jew Josephus actually wrote his historiesWa randAntiquities

and hisLifeandAgainst Apionwhile he was living in Rome after the end of

the Jewish revolt in 70c.e.In that sense he is a Diaspora writer. He seems

to have composedWa rin a Semitic language, but only the Greek version

exists today.

It is convenient to divide the books and other works that were proba-

bly written in Israel into different, rather general literary categories.

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Judaism in the Land of Israel

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:03:54 PM