The Hebrews

How did the Hebrews create an enduring written religious tradition?

The legacy of another people who took advantage of Egypt’s collapse to found an independent state may have been even more far-reaching than that of the Phoenicians. For a period of several centuries, the Hebrews controlled first one and then two small states on the western end of the Fertile Crescent. Politically unimportant when compared with the Egyptians or Babylonians, the Hebrews created a new form of religious belief, a monotheism based on the worship of an all-powerful god they called Yahweh (YAH-way). Beginning in the late seventh century B.C.E. the Hebrews began to write down their religious ideas, traditions, laws, advice literature, prayers, hymns, history, and prophecies in a series of books. These were gathered together centuries later to form the Hebrew Bible, which Christians later adopted and termed the “Old Testament” to parallel specific Christian writings in the “New Testament.” These writings later became the core of the Hebrews’ religion, Judaism, named after Judah, the southern of the two Hebrew kingdoms. Jews today revere these texts, as do many Christians, and Muslims respect them, all of which gives them particular importance.