Rabbi Akiva — just about the greatest sage of them all. War between Romans and Jews set his destiny in both life and death. Compassionate, humble, and brilliant, he was martyred by the Romans for daring to teach Torah when it had been forbidden, and his wisdom set forth Jewish learning for the next 2,000 years.
Philo of Alexandria straddled both the Greek and Jewish worlds. He sought to harmonize Greek philosophy's emphasis on reason with the idea of religious revelation. In doing so, he set forth a philosophical approach to the Hebrew Bible that persisted for centuries, and heavily influenced how religious texts are interpreted.
Starting off Season 6 with one of the all-time greatest Jewish thinkers: Hillel the Elder, from the 1st century BCE. The sage who summarized the entirety of the Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel's wisdom was preserved by his greatest admirers, giving us a portrait of a man wise, humble, and inspirational.
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?
While repairing the Temple in Jerusalem, King Josiah’s high priest, Hilkiah, found a (supposedly) long lost ancient scroll of teaching. This law book, called torah, legitimized Josiah’s religious reforms. But was this book really found…or did someone close to Josiah write it? Historians are pretty sure we know which book it was, and it helps us understood who wrote the Hebrew Bible, when, and why.