Discoveries about the birth of Judaism | The art of compromise to unify a people

The birth of Judaism was more complex than previously believed, according to archaeological discoveries and new analyzes of ancient texts. To summarize simply, it would be a story of families who did not see the world in the same way and who put water in their wine to arrive at a common story.

“In recent years there has been a reassessment of the importance of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel in 722 BC,” says Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University. The researcher published the books The Age of Empires et The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem on the beginnings of Judaism. “The beginning of modern Judaism is traditionally placed during the exile in Babylon [entre 587 et 539 av. J.-C.]. We realize that there was a mixing of the religious traditions of the kingdoms of Israel and Judea over many centuries. »

There were initially two Jewish kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judea in the south. Israel was more prosperous, but also more cosmopolitan, with worship of several deities. Judea, which stopped just north of Jerusalem, was more conservative.

“Israel was much more prosperous, populous and cosmopolitan,” says Michael Pytlik, an Oakland University archaeologist who excavated Lachish, a Judean city destroyed by the Assyrians in 701 B.C. “There were many temples in the north, worshiping many deities, including Baal and Ashera, while in Judea Jerusalem was the truly dominant temple. »

Gods other than Yahweh were also worshiped in Judea, notes Jill Middlemas, a theologian at the University of Copenhagen and a specialist in early Judaism. “There was probably a statue of Ashera, sometimes considered Yahweh's wife, in the Jerusalem temple, but Yahweh was more central. After the fall of Israel, the priests of Jerusalem explained this catastrophe by the worship of other divinities, the story of the golden calf. »

Refugees

When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 BC. BC, they dispersed its inhabitants to the four corners of their empire. These exiles are now called the “lost tribes” of Judaism. But some of the inhabitants of Israel found refuge in Jerusalem and a mixture of the two Judaisms began to take place.

“The return from Egypt, for example, with Moses, the 40 days in the desert and the manna, was a tradition rather from the North, from Israel,” explains M.^me Middlemas. Joseph was from a northern tribe. »

Mr. Lipschits believes there have been few refugees from Israel, but he also believes that Jerusalem priests incorporated stories from Israel in an effort to unite the Jewish people. “I would say that before the return from exile, we speak of Judeans rather than Jews, but it is certain that the Judeans posed themselves as heirs of the common Judean and Israelite tradition. »

Éric Bellavance, biblical scholar at the University of Montreal, confirms that in many of the founding texts of Judaism, “there are clearly two sources.” “After the Assyrian conquest, there remained in Israel a small Jewish community, the Samaritans, which was suspect in the eyes of the priests of Jerusalem. Jesus, moreover, comes from the North, from Nazareth. And he talks about the good Samaritan. He was born in Bethlehem, in the South. »

This birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, of a couple from Nazareth, would be another echo of the unification of the different families of Judaism.

Exile

A little over a century later, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and brought its priests and royal family into exile. The Jews who remained in Judea under Babylonian rule created a Judaism without priests. When Babylon was conquered by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, the Jewish priests there were able to return to Jerusalem and had to deal with the new habits of those who remained in Judea.

“There is a myth that all the Jews returned together from Babylon, as soon as Cyrus allowed it,” says Mr. Bellavance. But in fact, many Jews had settled in and around Babylon and were comfortable there. We have traces in Assyrian and Babylonian texts of Jewish neighborhoods or villages, with their own temples. »

Once again, the large Jewish family had to make compromises. “The prophet Jeremiah, for example, remained in Judea after the conquest by Babylon,” says Mr. Lipschits. He was one of the few who warned the Judeans that God would not necessarily protect Jerusalem from invasion. »

This idea that Jerusalem was protected by God was one of his priests' explanations for the fall of Israel. “The fall of Israel was explained by the presence of Jerusalem in Judea,” says Mr. Lipschits. Then, in 701 BC. B.C., when the Assyrians devastated Judea, but spared Jerusalem, the idea that Jerusalem was protected by God was reinforced. »

About 10% of Judeans were deported to Babylon, according to Mr. Lipschits and M.^me Middlemas. “Those who remained continued to practice their faith, but without the priests of Jerusalem,” she said. There are mentions in texts of pilgrimages to the ruins of the First Temple, but there was probably another temple, perhaps in an administrative capital founded by the Babylonians, which we have not yet found. »

When they returned from exile, the priests called their co-religionists who had remained in Judea “people of the country”. M^me Middlemas, who devoted his career to these “remnant populations” of Judea, believes this was a way of characterizing them as foreigners. Mr. Lipschits rather thinks that it was an insult relating to their lack of culture.

“Those who wrote history ended up winning,” summarizes Mr. Lipschits. They had to include the traditions of the “people of the country”. But ultimately Judaism was that of the priests of the First Temple who went into exile in Babylon. »

As in all families, even in a reconciliation, there are those who are more dominant than the rest of the siblings.