Jew Oughta Know Jason Harris

Season Finale. What does it mean to be an Israelite? A Jew? A Hebrew?

Who wrote the Hebrew Bible, when, and how? Boiling a huge topic down to the basics: a thousand-year long literary tradition built by authors across the centuries, compiling story after story to arrive at what we have today.

Amidst weeping and rejoicing, the priest-scribe Ezra reads from the Scroll of Teaching before all the people gathered in Jerusalem. The governor Nehemiah records the moment that Judaism burst onto the scene, as the glory of Jerusalem was restored in 445 BCE.

King Cyrus the Great of Persia sacks Babylon and frees the Jews from their captivity. Now what? Some exiles return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple, but find that it isn't quite so easy to reintegrate with their fellow Israelites. Who, now, is a Jew?

The exile in Babylon upended the essential pillars of Israelite religion: king, god, temple, and land. The Israelites responded with immense theological creativity, reimagining these core tenets to preserve their ethnic identity. Prophets, priests, and scribes wrote new ideas and rituals that pointed to a new theology: monotheism. What we today call Judaism.

The People of Israel began the Babylonian exile as Israelites and emerged as Jews. How? By responding to the greatest crisis in their history with an explosion of religious creativity and innovation that morphed into monotheism. Today we’re delving into how Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, the destruction of the Temple, and the end of the House of David. It all left the Israelites wondering: now what?