The Jericho Conquest lie?

The Jericho Conquest lie?

11,000 – 3,400 Years Ago – Tell es-Sultan “Jericho” (Israel), found a site in the West Bank 864 feet below sea level with layers upon layers of ruins built over the ruins of the previous layers of older ruins. Jericho lies deep in this Jordan Rift Valley. The valley was formed by a fault, or crack, along the boundary between the African and Arabian tectonic plates. Because of the fault between these two plates, the land dropped 3,000 feet. Reliable water supply was a critical factor in Jericho’s development. Jericho had natural defenses and a favorable location. But its most significant environmental advantage was its access to reliable water supplies. Water was essential for survival in the harsh desert. Access to water explains the city’s origin and long history. Jericho is located in an oasis. It is supplied by an amazingly dependable underground water supply known as the Ain es-Sultan. In the Bible it’s known as Elisha’s spring. The biblical story tells of the prophet Elisha healing these waters. This natural spring has apparently never dried up during the 14,000 years humans have lived there. More than 1,000 gallons of fresh water bubble up from the source every minute.

Early farmers quickly took advantage of it. They worked out a system of irrigation canals to send this precious resource to the surrounding fertile farmland. This “Jericho” site’s name originally referred to “City of the Moon” seemingly related to the Semitic word yerah, meaning moon. There is a possibility that the moon connection goes what back in time and one possibility could reference how some of the earliest cultures in the area worshipped a moon goddess that could have connected to menstruation, the seasons and fertility. Alternatively, we find a gender change has happened at some point as in the early Canaanite religion, where the male moon-deity was now a male god of the moon, “yerach,” later changed to baal. Pre-Jericho is believed to have been connected to or developed from a nearby site called Ein es-Sultan Spring also known as Ain Sultan Camp or Tell es-Sultan. By around 12,000 years ago, foragers had migrated to most parts of this region. In some areas, there was simply not enough room for them all to settle. Each group had to survive on smaller and smaller pieces of land. These communities found themselves in what has been called the “trap of sedentism.”

Moreover, around 12,000 years ago at Ein es-Sultan Spring Natufian nomadic hunter-gatherer groups started to use the spring as a common camp site which was later turned into a more permanent occupation around 11,500 years ago and Tell es-Sultan became settled around 9,800 years ago. But we need to remember that the Natufian peoples began living in the western Fertile Crescent (present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria) just over 14,000 years ago so its culture had a long time to develop its religious expressions and beliefs. Between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago, a new transition to agriculture ways of life and technologies began to appear through farming a new access to more food and energy, thus began to multiply more rapidly and live in larger communities. One of the most significant steps in the early stages of that process was the emergence of large settlements like Jericho.

To understand the history of Jericho, we must examine the role of climate change in encouraging humans to transition to farming. Natural reasons allowed some villages to continue to grow until they became towns and cities. There are many examples of villages that grew quite large. The reasons why are not always clear. Some may have been important religious centers. Others had access to a critical resource, such as a reliable water supply. Still, others became important trade centers. Jericho has been sustainable because it benefited from several of these advantages. Most importantly, it has a very favorable environment. These nomadic Natufian groups would, of course, be carrying, spreading and transferring religious/ritualistic thinking, behaving, as well as related artifacts. Around 10,500 years ago, the people at Jericho, like others in the region, shift from foraging to farming Jericho and grew rapidly. Between around 10,350 to 9,350 years ago, the village of Jericho evolved into a town that was home to about 3,000 farmers living without any obvious evidence of town planning. While the sites earliest remains date back to the Natufian period but was not associated with a great stone wall dubbed the Wall of Jericho” which was a part of a relatively fortified town that was also supported by a massive round tower until around 10,000 years ago.

The oldest occupation at Jericho involved sedentary hunter-gatherers and the first walls and tower were built around 10,000 years ago. (the first wall date to around 10,000 years ago was at least 4 m (13 feet) high, 1.8 m (6 feet) thick at the base, built of stacked stones later, a large ditch or moat was cut into the rock outside the wall, 9 m (30 feet) wide. The Wall and the Tower of Jericho seem to be more that the first assumed creation for fortification and/or defensive reasons, even possibly indicating that violence and conflict. But was there rilly such violence and conflict that it needed massive walls and a monumental tower? It seems that even if safety was an important use for the tower it also has to have had a ritualistic use as well. Of note is the sheer collective effort for the tower alone which must have taken 11,000 working days to erect it to the 28-ft. stone structure in a conical in shape that it became, which shows it was indeed important at some of the earliest times of Jericho’s history. To reference this seeming ritualistic use of the Tower, one only has to look at how the Tower of Jericho is seemingly aligned with the summer solstice as well as perhaps had a ritual or religious use, even if only for part-time ceremonial use and maybe even could have been a social symbol of communal or regional power, possibly all of the above.

There does seem to be good evidence of their and presumably religious transfer with this wide spread trade maybe even somewhat established trade networks with friendly Nabors with obsidian, from as far away as Ciftlik, in eastern Turkey and green obsidian from unknown source. It seems that skull worship in Jericho goes back still farther, into the around 10,000 years ago. Around 9,220 to 7,850 years ago a new burial custom developed the presumably religious/ritual plastering of human skull and attaching this behavior as part of the skull cult found across the Near East, such as at Ain Ghazal in northwest Jordan, Beisamoun in northern Israel, Jericho in the West Bank Israel, Kfar Hahoresh in northern Israel, Tell Aswad in southern Syria, and Tell Ramad in southwest Syria. It appears that even some of the presumably best remodeled plastered skulls are not too realistic, almost to where one would wonder if they are truly meant to fully represent individual darning life. and may have rather been meant to show the person’s body after wards darning their death, like a death mask.

In fact, we can presume that because the remodeled plastered skulls utilized a red brown coloring with the aims of likely represented a religious ritual reason I presume it could reference the transformation from life to the current stage of physical death and believed spirits transfer to the afterlife or it could be an attempt to add the color of life, as if a totem to the beloved ancestor, seemingly very like, the same concept as in Ancient Egypt, possibly from similar motivational sources. Some skulls from a group of skulls had evidence of an artificial skull deformation, where found in the defensive tower of Jericho. An interesting factor is evident in how a majority of the skulls at Jericho seem to be of a type similar to a robust Mediterranean type with some Alpine features. The plastered skulls dated to between around 10,000 to 8,000 years ago differs from earlier periods, where now sedentary people had agriculture and the idea of gods likely spread thereafter as well as the obvious religious transfer and blending during this period began to depend more heavily upon domesticated plants and animals thus gods as well believe to add in such new survival tactics.

These new sedentary ways somewhat improved the assurance of ready food when times were good but just as often this life added new limits unfamiliar to people that lived before because before when times when got bad in an area they simply moved on but not for land fixed the trials and troubles could not be escaped. Therefore, these early sedentary peoples presumably believed that the only way they had to control their situation was worshiping some great spirit (i.e. seemingly goddesses then gods) that could assist them from their being land locked to one place or space, thus heightened resource vulnerability. Thus, resource vulnerability (adds fear motivation in the gods creation), so the sedentary people more than their hunter gathers counter parts would tend to feel more trapped to the whims of the spirits and ancestors to guide them and one can see that if one did rituals and times went good they would presumably believe it was this being worshiped that they believed played a part in the good fortune.

Such as how belief in say a thunderstorm god/goddess which is thought to bring rains for thinks like grains for bread and grasses for livestock, thus the fear of survival probably motivated the conception of gods which were likely born from the animistic idea of spirits (gods are a kind of super spirit), a totemistic belief in guardian spirits (gods are often quite similar to believed guardian spirits and more strongly personified the shamanistic guardian spirits to gods keeping intact the belief a special religious person believed to have access to, and influence in, the believed otherworld of benevolent and malevolent spirits now accompanied with specific deities. While some pagans may have been monotheistic or henotheistic (worship of a single goddess/god yet not denying a possible existence of other deities) most pagan religions express elements that are or could be preserved as in boding a seeming worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, shamanistic, totemistic and/or animistic.

These early paganistic believers being fairly new polytheistic believers where most likely utilizing trances, singing and dances as accompanying ritual practices thought honor and appease these guardian spirit gods. Also, quite interestingly some skulls are thought to not be indigenous to Jericho, which had a population that likely ranged from 200 to 3,000 people. However, according to answersingenesis.org, the upper city population would have been about 1,200 with a further unspecified amount of people also proposed to have been living on the embankment between the upper and lower city walls. Moreover, there is also skull evidence that sees somewhat out of range of the other specimens appearing somewhat unexpected for the time and region.

Some skulls at Jericho are not local and instead appear to possibly be related to Catal Hoyuk in Turkey, which could demonstrate deep cultural ties and likewise a possible strong religious transfer as well. More evidence of religious practices having some variation such as how there seems to be some deformation of skulls in two cases in two different places. First there was one of the plastered skulls at Tell Ramad that was slightly deformed and the second one at Beisamoun, which is very much enlarged in transversal direction. The 9,500-year-old Jericho Skull of a 40-something man with a broken nose with a cranieum packed with soil and covered with plaster to replicate individual facial features. Sea shells are used to represent the deceased’s eyes. The Jericho Skull is one of seven plastered and ornamented Neolithic skulls excavated by archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon in 1953 at the site of Tell es-Sultan more than 50 such ornamented skulls have been discovered in Neolithic sites from the Middle East to central Turkey.

While researchers generally agree that the objects represent an early form of ancestor worship, very little is known about who was chosen to be immortalized in plaster thousands of years ago, and why. Therefore, it is evident that cultural, sacred, and social ties between sites may be inferred from the resemblance in their funerary practices characterized by an overall similar material culture, although specific localized variations can be identified. 9,220 to 7,850 years ago cult involving the preservation of human skulls, with facial features reconstructed from plaster and eyes set with shells in some cases. Later there was a further development of religious expression with the totemistic preserving human skulls and placing shells in their eye sockets. Later farming communities became more socially complex and better organized. The exhibition of religious/ritualistic thinking, behaving at Jericho could possibly be expressed in the ritual figurines and seeming sacred statues, bodies buried beneath houses and plastered and painted skulls seemingly to resemble a face which could be evidence of ancestor worship around 9,000 years ago. Furthermore, it is possible that some skulls seem to likely have been utilized in the homes on something like an altar, along with presumable evidence of what could be religious shrines, seeming sacred statues, and circles of skulls facing inwards.

All of this is seemingly obvious exhibition of religious/ritualistic thinking, behaving likely some kind of evolving shamanism/paganism and certainly part of the skull cult. Moreover, there appears to be other artificially deformed skulls, such as flattening was found in the defensive tower of Jericho. Plastered masks parts of the face were replaced by a plaster mask generally consisting of two principal layers an inner one, using a red ochre color and an outer one, originally finished with a more brownish color. The position of the skulls seems to suggested that they could have originally at times been placed in someone’s home or some other presumed sacred place. Furthermore, there seems to be possible skull cult evidence could be a skull painted with red ochre from Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria, and a skull decorated with red and black from Ain Ghazal. Moreover, these remodeled plastered skulls seem to have been somewhat of a unique cultural tradition occurring within a relatively limited period of time directly but also may have lived on or inspired some other forms of ancestor worship with the human head acting like a sacred totem.

The other finds possible skull cult evidence, from Tell Ramad and Beisamoun seem to be chronological furthering the idea of religious transfer. Incidentally, Jericho was reoccupied several centuries later, but by a different culture, after 9,000 to 8,000 years ago culturally different from earlier. Rectangular houses, rather than round, with plastered floors, and many other differences similar to houses at Jarmo and ‘Ain Ghazal. But they continued the apparent veneration of ancestor’s bodies buried headless in floors of houses skulls were decorated with plastered faces and buried in caches. 8,800 years ago, perhaps represents the work of an invading people who absorbed the original inhabitants into their dominant culture. Artifacts dating from this period include ten plastered human skulls, painted so as to reconstitute the individuals’ features. and it is thought that they were kept in people’s homes while the bodies were buried. interpreted one building as a shrine. It contained a niche in the wall. A chipped pillar of volcanic stone that was found nearby might have fit into this niche. The dead were buried under the floors or in the rubble fill of abandoned buildings.

There are several collective burials. Not all the skeletons are completely articulated, which may point to a time of exposure before burial. A skull cache contained seven skulls. The jaws were removed and the faces covered with plaster; cowries were used as eyes. A total of ten skulls were found. Modelled skulls were found in Tell Ramad and Beisamoun as well. Around 8,000 years ago there appears to have been a severe general decline in population throughout the Levant at this time due to a drier climate change. Only about 7,000 years ago did Jericho show the influences of developments that had been taking place in the north, where an ever-increasing number of villages had appeared, still Neolithic but marked by the use of pottery. Around 6,000 years ago it is believed volcanic eruptions likely happened in Yemen as well as why this region and not the well-known Anatolian obsidian sources are a very likely the source of an abundance of obsidian artefacts found as from Egypt, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia both confirming long-distance Afro-Arabian obsidian trade. A demonstration of this trade and transfer is how there was found obsidian from Anatolia and from Jericho we find cowrie shells at Catal Hoyuk in Turkey, green stones from Jordan, turquoise from Sinai, shells from Red Sea, and since Jericho is near Dead Sea sources and resources could also have been a likely trade as well.

The largest constructed in 4,600 years ago. A succession of settlements followed from 4500 years ago onward. Jericho was continually occupied into the Middle Bronze Age; it was destroyed in the Late Bronze, after which it no longer served as an urban centre. The city was surrounded by extensive defensive walls strengthened with rectangular towers, and possessed an extensive cemetery with vertical shaft-tombs and underground burial chambers; the elaborate funeral offerings in some of these may reflect the emergence of local kings. From around 4,000 years ago salt trading routes appeared connecting salt-rich provinces to salt-starved ones and as always there is the likelihood of idea transition as well as religious transfer, which would presumably have been a common traded product moving back and forth from distant places. Moreover, do to how far off shells and other minerals or artifacts from distant sources being found at Jericho as well as moving out from there makes it possible Jericho may have itself sent out its items destined for trade to other places. By around 4,000 years ago organized caravan trad carrying goods across a large distance and mostly likely spreading religious transfer as well as likely gathering religious ideas along the way. Jericho was a small prominent city of the Canaan region, reaching its greatest extent in the period from around 3,700 to 3,550 years ago.

It seems to have reflected the greater urbanization in the area at that time, and has been linked to the rise of the Maryannu, a class of chariot-using aristocrats linked to the rise of the Mitannite state to the north. Bronze-Age Jericho fell in the around 3,600 years ago at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the calibrated carbon remains from its City-IV destruction dates to around to 3,617–3,530 years ago. Notably this carbon dating c. 3,573 years ago confirmed the accuracy of the stratigraphical dating around 3,550 years ago by Kenyon. Beginning around 3,500 to 2,000 years ago developing societies in Western Asia, the Mediterranean, China and the Indian subcontinent develop major long-distance trade routes. At Jericho around 3,400 years ago here was evidence of an only small settlement with erosion and destruction. The oldest Jericho inhabitants where sedentary hunter-gatherers but were not as isolated as one may assume. it is evident that there had to be some kind and to some amount or another sociocultural and religious ties between sites may be inferred from the resemblance in their funerary practices characterized by an overall similar material culture, although specific localized variations can be identified.

Almost 10 feet deep burials show considerable variability in richness some have no grave goods, others have stone bowls and dentalium shells suggesting some social ranking some of the rich burials are of children suggesting that social rank may have been acquired by birth, rather than achieved. if the wall and tower imply a new degree of leadership and concentration of surplus, why do the burials look more egalitarian than before? Some hints of religious ritual and complex ideas about the dead greenstone amulets (or charms, or votive offerings, or ??) special treatment of heads of some dead bodies buried in pits below the floors of houses sometimes with the head removed skulls were collected and left in carefully arranged groups placed in holes in walls, buried below house floors, or buried below structures that might be storage bins one example has several skulls in a circle, all looking inward another has three groups of three, all looking in the same direction below one possible storage bin was the burial of a complete infant, plus several infant skulls with the neck vertebrae this indicates that the heads were removed while there was still soft tissue on the body, rather than being taken from old burials where the bones would not be attached to each other.

Now the bible famous Wall of Jericho as described in the Book of Joshua with the assumed hypothetical dated to around 3,400 years ago. “Fall of the walls of Jericho”? The biblical story refers to the town of Jericho as it was thousands of years later as Wenke says, the story might be based on an earthquake; the region is tectonically active but this ages wall and tower show no signs of earthquake damage and they were probably completely underground and long forgotten by biblical times. So lets address the biblical reference referring to the Wall of Jericho. The site of Jericho “the walls of the city fell when Joshua and his men marched around them blowing horns” Joshua 6:1-27 the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian exile. It has been subjected that composed by authors or editors. The apparent setting of Joshua would seem to references around 3,300 years ago; this was a time of widespread city-destruction, but with a few exceptions (Hazor, Lachish) the destroyed cities are not the ones the Bible associates with Joshua, and the ones it does associate with him show little or no sign of even being occupied at the time.

Almost all scholars agree that the book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and most likely reflects a much later period. Although Rabbinic tradition holds that the book was written by Joshua, it is probable that it was written by multiple authors and editors far removed from the times it depicts. The earliest parts of the book are possibly chapters 2–11, the story of the conquest; these chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 2,640–2,609 years ago), but the book was not completed until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 2,586 years ago, and possibly not until after the return from the Babylonian exile in 2,539 years ago. Joshua “carries out a systematic campaign against the civilians of Canaan — men, women and children — that amounts to genocide.” In doing this he is carrying out herem as commanded by Yahweh in Deuteronomy 20:17: “You shall not leave alive anything that breathes”. The purpose is to drive out and dispossess the Canaanites, with the implication that there are to be no treaties with the enemy, no mercy, and no intermarriage. “The extermination of the nations glorifies Yahweh as a warrior and promotes Israel’s claim to the land,” while their continued survival “explores the themes of disobedience and penalty and looks forward to the story told in Judges and Kings.”

The divine call for massacre at Jericho and elsewhere can be explained in terms of cultural norms and theology (a measure to ensure Israel’s purity as well as the fulfillment of God’s promise), but Patrick D. Miller in his commentary on Deuteronomy remarks, “there is no real way to make such reports palatable to the hearts and minds of contemporary readers and believers.” Some of the parallels with Moses can be seen in the following, and not exhaustive, list: Joshua sent spies to scout out the land near Jericho (2:1), just as Moses sent spies from the wilderness to scout out the Promised Land (Num. 13; Deut. 1:19–25). Joshua led the Israelites out of the wilderness into the Promised Land, crossing the Jordan River as if on dry ground (3:16), just as Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt through the Red Sea, which they crossed as if on dry land (Ex. 14:22). After crossing the Jordan River, the Israelites celebrated the Passover (5:10–12) just as they did immediately before the Exodus (Exodus 12). Joshua’s vision of the “commander of Yahweh’s army” (5:13–15) is reminiscent of the divine revelation to Moses in the burning bush (Ex. 3:1–6).

Joshua successfully intercedes on behalf of the Israelites when Yahweh is angry for their failure to fully observe the “ban” (herem), just as Moses frequently persuaded God not to punish the people (Ex. 32:11–14, Num. 11:2, 14:13–19). Joshua and the Israelites were able to defeat the people at Ai because Joshua followed the divine instruction to extend his sword (Josh 8:18), just as the people were able to defeat the Amalekites as long as Moses extended his hand that held “the staff of God” (Ex. 17:8–13). Joshua is “old, advanced in years (13:1) at the time when the Israelites can begin to settle on the promised land, just as Moses was old when he died having seen, but not entered, the promised land (Deuteronomy 34:7). Joshua served as the mediator of the renewed covenant between Yahweh and Israel at Shechem (8:30–35; 24), just as Moses was the mediator of Yahweh’s covenant with the people at Mount Sinai/Mount Horeb. Before his death, Joshua delivered a farewell address to the Israelites (23–24), just as Moses had delivered his farewell address (Deuteronomy 32–33). Moses lived to be 120 (Deuteronomy 34:7) and Joshua lived to be 110 (Joshua 24:29).

ref: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Israel 2,000 to 5,00 BCE

Link Israel, 2000–500 B.C.E.1. The Israelite people were nomadic herders and caravan drivers who developed a complex sedentary agricultural civilization. As they did so, their cult of a desert god evolved into an influential monotheistic religion.2. Israel’s location makes it a crossroads for trade. However, the area has few natural resources.

Link Origins, Exodus, and Settlement
1. Sources for the early history of the Israelite people include the Hebrew Bible, which is based in part on oral traditions compiled in the fifth century B.C.E., and archeological excavations.2. Biblical accounts of the origins of the Israelite people include the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These stories may be a compressed account of the experiences of many generations of nomads.The story of Cain and Abel and the stories of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah reflect the tensions between the nomadic Israelite people and settled agricultural people.

Link Jerusalem at time of Solomon
Strategically located in the middle of lands occupied by the Israelite tribes and on a high plateau overlooking the central hills and the Judaean desert, Jerusalem was captured around 1000 B.C.E. by King David, who made it his capital (the City of David is at left; the citadel and palace complex at center). The next king, Solomon, built the First Temple to serve as the center of worship of the Israelite god, Yahweh. Solomon’s Temple (at upper right) was destroyed during the Neo-Babylonian sack of the city in 587 B.C.E. The modest structure soon built to take its place was replaced by the magnificent Second Temple, erected by King Herod in the last decades of the first century B.C.E. and destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. (Ritmeyer Archaeological Design)

Link 3. The Biblical account of the Egyptian captivity is not confirmed by Egyptian sources but may be linked to the rise and fall of the Hyksos rulers of Egypt.The period of Israelite slavery according to the Bible corresponds to the period of large-scale construction projects under Sethos I and Ramesses II, while the Biblical account of the exodus may reflect the memories of a migration from Egypt and nomadic life in the Sinai.4. The cult of Yahweh with its exclusive devotion to one god developed during the period of nomadism in the Sinai.

Link 5. The Biblical account of Israelite settlement in the land of Canaan says that Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan and destroyed Jericho and other Canaanite cities.The archeological evidence of what probably happened is that the nomadic Israelite tribes settled in the hills of Canaan, where they were joined by other groups and by refugees from a troubled Canaanite society.

Link 1. Wars with the Philistines brought about the need for a strong central government. Saul, the first king, established the Israelite monarchy. David, the second king, completed the transition to monarchy.2. The Israelite monarchy reached the height of its power in the reign of King Solomon, who forged alliances and sponsored trade. Solomon also expanded the bureaucracy and the army, and built the first temple in Jerusalem. The temple priesthood sacrificed to Yahweh, received a portion of the agricultural tax, and became very wealthy.3. The wealth and prestige of the temple priesthood was indicative of the increasing gap between the rural and urban, and the wealthy and the poor in Israeli society.

Link 4. Israelite people lived in extended families and practiced arranged marriage. Monogamy was the norm. Men were allowed to have extramarital relations; women were not.5. In early Israel, women enjoyed relative equality with their husbands in social life, but at the same time, they suffered certain legal disadvantages: women could not inherit property, nor could they initiate divorce. The main occupations of women were bearing and raising children, maintaining the household, and engaging in agriculture or herding. As society became more urbanized, some women began to work outside the home in a variety of occupations.6. There are some records of women exercising political influence. Examples include the story of Deborah and references to “wise women.” However, the status of women declined during the period of monarchy.

Link Fragmentation and Dispersal
1. After Solomon, Israel divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north (capital: Samaria), and Judah in the south (capital: Jerusalem). The two kingdoms were sometimes at peace with each other and sometimes fought.2. There were some significant religious developments during the period of fragmentation. The concept of monotheism was sharpened, but at the same time, some Israelites were attracted to the worship of Canaanite gods.3. Political developments during the period of fragmentation include the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom (Israel) in 721 B.C.E. and the fall of the southern kingdom (Judah) to the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar deported a large number of Jewish elites and craftspeople to Babylon. This was the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora.4. During the Diaspora, the Jewish people developed institutions to preserve Jewish religion and culture. These developments continued even after some of the Babylonian Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem. Developments of the Diaspora included a stronger commitment to monotheism, strict dietary rules, and veneration of the Sabbath. 1

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

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