|
THE BIBLE UNEARTHED: THE MAKING OF A RELIGION -- ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY & SCREENCAP GALLERY |
|
[According to THE BIBLE], The last king of the house of David, Zedekiah, was also exiled, his sons slaughtered.
[According to THE BIBLE], THE ELITE of the cities, the priests and the scribes
were banished to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.
The Book of Psalms laments that: "By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept!"
[Thomas Romer, University of Lausanne] The situation of exile is in fact a situation of huge crisis, because all the pillars on which the identity of THE PEOPLE were based no longer existed. There was no more temple, there was no more king, there was no more country, there was no more territorial unity. So in order to survive, it was necessary to find other means of constructing an identity. It was IN FACT those who were exiled -- the scribes, the priests -- who CONSTRUCTED THAT IDENTITY, taking up a certain number of earlier traditions, but opening those traditions out. That is, Josiah's reform would become THE SYMBOL of the temple which was TRANSFORMED into a synagogue. Little by little, Moses would replace the king, and the torah would replace the country. THROUGH THIS WORK OF WRITING and re-writing, JUDAISM WOULD BE INVENTED IN THE CONCRETE FORM that it took during the Persian era, notably under Ezra the priest.
[Narrator] Biblical scholars [?] have therefore suggested that the scribe Ezra GAVE THE FINAL TOUCHES to the torah, the pentateuch.
University of Lausanne, Switzerland. We are approaching our conclusion. What have we learned from the evidence provided by the mounds, the broken vases, and the ancient inscriptions?
We're at the theology department of the university of Lausanne. Israel Finkelstein is going to meet with Thomas Romer.
|
