Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

vealed to them, was timeless truth, part of that great, static corpus of

knowledge; it could never be displaced by later insights (nor would anyone

want it to be).

Israel’s ancient writings had no doubt long enjoyed a similar cachet.

But added to this were several more specific things that heightened the role

of Scripture in the early postexilic period. The first was the fact of the Bab-

ylonian Exile itself. Though it lasted scarcely more than half a century, it

profoundly disrupted things for the exiled Jews. Institutions like the royal

court, the Jerusalem Temple, and other formerly crucial centers were no

more; soon, the traditions and ways of thought associated with them be-

gan to fade. Instead, the exiles’ heads were now filled with foreign institu-

tions, a foreign language, and a way of thinking that hardly bothered to

take account of the tiny nation from which they had come. Under such cir-

cumstances, Israel’s ancient writings offered an island of refuge. Here, the

royal court and the Jerusalem Temple still lived in their full glory; here the

God of Israel still reigned supreme, and His people and their history occu-

pied center stage; and here was the exiles’ old language, the Judean idiom,

written down in the classical cadences of its greatest prophets and sages. It

seems altogether likely that, during those years in Babylon, such writings

as had accompanied the Judeans into exile only grew in importance — if

not for all, then at least for some significant segment of the population.

And once the exile was over, these same ancient texts continued in this

role: they were the history of the nation and its pride, a national literature

and more than that, a statement about the ongoing importance of the

remnants of that kingdom, for its God, and for the world.

The Mode of Restoration

When the Babylonian Empire collapsed and its conqueror, the Persian

king Cyrus, issued his famous decree (538b.c.e.) allowing the exiled

Judeans to return to their homeland, the ancient writings took on an addi-

tional, and still more central, role. After all, not all the exiles took up

Cyrus’s offer. Some had settled into life in Babylon, whatever its hardships,

and were loath to make the long trek back to an uncertain future in their

ancestral home. The returnees were thus a self-selected group. All of them

had, in one way or another, resolved to go back to the place of an earlier ex-

istence. No doubt their motives varied, but thismode of restoration,of go-

ing back to what had been before, was common to all.

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james l. kugel

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:03:59 PM