BibleProject - The Jewish Exile: How It Made The Bible

Episode Date: January 31, 2018

The Exile. It’s one of the biggest, but least discussed themes in the Bible. And it’s the subject of our new podcast series and a theme video that will be coming out later this year (2018). The exile is a foreign concept to many modern people. Tim and Jon break down what and how the Jewish exile impacted our modern Bible. In the first part of the episode (0-20:00) Tim shares a background story of John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace. Newton’s own personal story is one of exile and return from exile and led him to write Amazing Grace. Tim explains he thinks this is a good example of how trying experiences shape and color someone’s worldview. In the second part (20:00-25:50), Tim explains that our modern Bible was shaped by the Jewish people who were exiled from their homeland in 586 BC by the Babylonian Empire. The cultural trauma of that event influenced the writings that Christians hold dear today. The 586 exile colors all of the Bible, start to finish. In the third part (25:50-37:50), Tim does an overview of the whole Bible outlining Abraham’s nomadic roots, how his family originally immigrated from Babylon, how they lack a true home but Abraham has a promise from God that he will have a “promised land.” Tim quickly explains the divide of the nation of Israel into two smaller kingdoms after the death of Solomon. And how eventually both of those kingdoms were conquered by foreign invaders. Many of the Old Testament books like Ezekial are written in exile. Tim explains the Persian Empire coming to power and allowing the Jews to begin to return to their homeland, Jerusalem, but it was nothing like it had been before. Instead of returning independent, Israel was now living in their homeland but subject to a foreign ruler. In the final part (37:50-end), the guys discuss how the Hebrew authors who wrote the Bible used the exile experience to prophecy of a new king, a king who would deliver them from their occupiers. Show Resources: The Murashu Family (archeology documents): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murashu_family More info on our website: thebibleproject.com Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music Amazing Grace Guitar Solo: Rick Graham. (Fair Use) Miss Emile: General Vibe Mellow Relaxed Background Music: Jonathan Dennill Show Produced by: Dan Gummel and Jon Collins Thank you to all our supporters!

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. Today, we're starting a new discussion on a theme, one of the biggest themes in the Bible. In fact, and one most of us have never really thought about the exile. Yep, the exile. This is the unsung theme. In 586 BC, the Babylonian Empire came in and overthrew the nation of Israel, captured the Israelite people and forced them to relocate and live in Babylon as exiles. And this event was so severe that the problem of exile became the most important idea in the shaping of the Hebrew Bible.

So the Bible doesn't come from the powerful elite that ruled Jerusalem in the days of David. There are historical sources and materials that go way back to those periods, but the people who shaped the Bible began to shape it into the form that you and I know it. Those people are those who went through the exile to Babylon and lived through generations of slavery and suffering. And even when they came back to the Jerusalem, they were under oppressive military occupiers for centuries.

All that and more today on the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Okay, we're starting a new podcast series. New podcast series. And a new video. For me, a theme video. For the theme video. It's about the exile.

The exile of the Judeans to Babylon and 586 BC. It's what all of us woke up thinking about this one. The whole theme video is just about that specific exile. No, nope, nope. It's a theme video. Which means that this is an idea that runs throughout the whole story of the Bible from cover to cover, unifies it, and that Jesus provides a key turning point in how this theme develops and illuminates who he is. Yep, the exile.

This is the unsung theme in the Bible. In terms of like the popular imagination when people think of the Bible and what Christians believe, one of the first things I think of is, oh yeah, what's there's really important they're always talking about is the exile to Babylon. Well, I think the where the exile does come up and this might be a good starting point before your starting point. Yeah. Which is, in my face tradition, it was acknowledged that we are sojourners and exiles. Yes, that idea. And it really was connected to, this is not our home.

That's right, this world is you and I know it. Or just the physical world. Well, the physical world, on two levels. One, this is not my home, heaven's my home. And then secondly, this world is full of so many problems and that's not right. And so we're waiting for a new reality where all these problems are fixed.

And so to that degree, we're citizens of heaven, we're in mixes us exiles. And we didn't use the word exile. Yeah, we would use the word like, yeah. But it's the idea that this world isn't my home. Right. I live here, but my real home is a different place. And in my tradition, that was this fuzzy idea

of a different reality called heaven. But under more biblical way of thinking about it is, maybe the earth is my home, but it needs to be recreated. And so while awaiting that new creation, I am not at home. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so yeah, you can tune it in light of our discussions and videos about heaven and earth and new creation.

You could say the world as you and I experience it isn't our true home where we don't live as if the story is finished here and now that this world has some fundamental change to have to go to become our true home and what it was intended to be. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not completely an unsung theme. No, it's just about where and what is my true home. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Is it this place transformed and redeemed and healed? Or is it some other world that is non-physical or disembodied and this one gets scrapped? But I think I'm going to be surprised at how embedded this theme is through the entire story. Yeah. It's really, it's one of these things where I didn't understand the significance of the exile, like a new Christian, right, reading the Bible in my 20s. And this didn't jump out to me probably for a couple of years after reading the Bible. And then of course, a number of great classes that I took in college and then that exposed me to

different theologians and authors who showed me this and now it's like it's one of the things you can't unsee it once you see it like those 3D pictures pictures I had one of those in my room growing up. Did you? Yeah, those are popular in the 90s. Yeah, the 90s. And I remember they were in the mall all the time. The mall. And our era of growing up, going to the mall. Yes. Which was the 90s.

The 90s, mall era. Yeah. That was just that. Remember, and yet everybody would crowd around them and you had to like relax your eyes. You had to just look through it. Yeah, you just had to like figure out how to look at it. Yes.

And then all of a sudden an image. And it pops. And then it's hard to unsee it. It's hard, now you look at it and it's just like, oh, no. So I had this one, it was like blue and white, fuzz, just shapes and just randomness. And then it was a skier, sking down a mountain. And it was like the only one I could see.

I had a hard time seeing them. And so I was so proud of myself. I hung it up and went, it was great. Yeah. So yeah, the Bible's like that. Totally. It's like that. You think you've splunked to the deepest change. Are you right? And then you look harder and longer and some seasons of life go by and then some things strike you and then you're like, oh my gosh, how did I never see this? And the exile, the idea of exile is like that. It pervades letters from the first book to the last book and everywhere in between.

So before to get at it, there's two ways I think we could get at it. One is just for you and I talking, I think this was a helpful example to me, just a cool story about a guy named John Newton. He was the British inventor of the Newton Fix. Claire Jiveman, who lived in around London in the 1800s, ring any bells? John Newton? Well, now I'm thinking of your notes. He wrote a really famous song that has been sung

in American public like ceremonies for centuries. Yeah. Yeah. He's the author of Amazing Grace. The hymn, Amazing Grace. Okay, here's a story. You can totally nerd out on this story. He has a fascinating life story

that involves a period of exile and slavery. Okay, John Newton. He's born in London in 1725. His dad's like a ship captain. He sails ships around the Mediterranean, transporting part of it. This is like the gold age of navigation. Yes, British Empire said it's tight, right? 1700s, rules the known world, that kind of thing.

And, yeah, so the economy on the Mediterranean is at the backbone of the Empire, because it's shipping all the goods from Egypt and Greece, Palestine and Morocco, all that. So his dad grows up as a ship captain and before growing up, he actually sailed the Mediterranean on six different voyages with his dad. Can you imagine that? As a child? Yes. Wow. You imagine? No. Sailing the Mediterranean as a boy. That'd be great. That'd be incredible. Yeah. Although probably not in the 1700s, probably people are dying of scurvy.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm sure it's not like that awesome. Yeah, it probably wasn't. Okay, anyway, so he joins a royal navy when he becomes of age. And after a couple years in the royal Navy, he hates it so much. He tries to, they're in port and he tries to desert the ship, tries to run away. And he gets arrested. And in front of his crew of 350 sailors, he is tied to the railing, stripped bear and flogged with a whip. 96 times. Wow.

Which was the standard blashing. Mm-hmm. Then he was forced to do forced labor on this ship. The ship ended up in port. This is on the Atlantic. And he ends up in port in what it is today, the country of Sierra Leone. And the ship captain hates him so much, he just dumps him.

Wow. Like to die. That port. He ends up getting arrested. He hates him so much he just dumps him. Wow. Like to die. Oh, wow. That port. He ends up getting arrested. He hates him because he deserted. Yeah. Yeah. He's just like this guy's worthless.

So he just dumps him at the port. And so he's got nothing in nobody. Yeah. He's in a strange land. He's in a strange land. So he, um, he gets arrested and he ends up becoming like a slave in the home of, I mean, he's a white European, so he's privileged in that he has that going for him. So he ends up... Because there's other... There's other white European...

Yeah, there's lots of the bridge around and so on. And so for three years, he ends up in this indentured servant position on the estate of one of the royal princesses, I forget her name. But he ends up essentially as like a high status slave exiled from his homeland for three years. And what he oversees is slaves on the estate. So he eventually gets freed from that. He somehow gains his freedom. I'm the stories. I'm highly abbreviating him. Sure. So he eventually attains his freedom and he gets on a ship back to London. And of course, major storm off the coast of Ireland.

So it only took him three years from like, I got nothing dumped on a continent. To, I'm back on a boat. To now like, I'm ready to go back. Yes. Three years. Well, three years. I know. That's a long time, like I'm ready to go back. Yes. Three years. Well, three years. I know. That's a long time. But like, that's pretty, that's pretty impressive.

I mean, he could have just given up and just, uh, or just been a slave for this family the rest of his life. It probably wasn't the worst gig in the world. No. But as an indentured servant, like he had to, you know, wouldn't be easy to just all of a sudden be like, okay, now I'm going to leave and have enough money to take a ship back to London. Yeah.

Good on him. Good on him for trying to get back home. He's the next aisle trying to get back home. He was motivated. You could see the motivation to get back home there. That's right. So as the store goes, the ship off the coast of Ireland hits a major storm and it just gets shredded. The ship is shredded. And this is the famous part of his diaries because it's

his conversion moment. Okay. He starts praying and crying out to God. He's below deck. And there's a big hole in the hole of the ship, a hole in the hole. And there's all this water gushing in. And as he tells the story, he cried out to God in prayer, save us, save me. And then the ship like lurches because of a big wave and a huge stack of cargo, tips over and plugs perfectly the hole.

A-h-h-h-h. Enough, not perfectly, but plugs it enough that it stops water flow for the ship to drift into onto the ground and beach. And so the whole, like the ship survived. In Ireland. Off the coast of Ireland. Okay. So anyway, so he sees this as like a sign.

Yeah. A miracle. Yeah, a miracle. It doesn't. He marks that as a significant moment But after getting back to London He does the only thing he knows what to do as is the life on the seas So he gets a job actually as a first mate on a slave trading ship in British West on the Atlantic slave trade

Yeah, and he does this for six years. Oh well, in his diaries, he talks about how he's deeply conflicted. Because he knows that God saved him. And at least that's what he believes. And he's beginning to read his Bible and so on. But he's engaging in the purchasing, kidnapping purchasing and transporting of slaves in horrific conditions on these ships. He does it for six years until he suffers a stroke, which he sees as another sign of

judgment from God. How old is he at this point? Well, he's born in 1725 and I think that was 1754. Well, that happened. So he's 29. He's like, got a stroke in his 20s. Yeah. Living hard.

Yeah. Dude, talk about a hard life. Yeah. He's not even 30 yet. He's not even 30. And he's that poor life experience then like. So now I'm really truncated. And Keith married, but in the late 50s, so in his early 30s he renounces slave trade.

It's very familiar with it, he thinks it's horrible. So he fully converts whole life conversion to Jesus and he goes to seminary. In 1755 his new job was being appointed as a tax collector in the port of Liverpool and in his spare time he studied Greek and Hebrew, was ordained as a minister, a priest in the port of Liverpool. And in his spare time, he studied Greek and Hebrew, was ordained as a minister of priest in the Church of England. He became a local church. What's the Church of England? Is that the Anglican Church? The Anglican Church. Yeah. He becomes a pastor.

Yeah. And so here we get into the story of how he meets William Wilberforce. And he's a part of founding this incredibly influential group of networked Christian businessmen and politicians. He becomes a part of the abolition movement, led by William Wilberforce. And he was actually Wilberforce's, one of Key Wilberforce's mentors and key inspirations. Newton lived to see the passage of the slave trade act, 1807, which is crucial in the abolition of slavery. So anyway, he went on to live this really incredible life. But his own calling was just

to a local parish like serving the poor and preaching sermons in the name of Jesus. So here's what's remarkable. I remember, I knew about amazing grace, like most Americans do, like this song. But I remember when I was first told about his story, and that it was this super hard life of just his own horrible choices that led to a long period of exile from his homeland, and then dangerous life-threatening return. And then all of a sudden, and then what he gave his life to after that experience of exile,

and then I remember going back and looking at the lyrics of the song. And they just, they completely, completely changes their meaning to think of this man writing these words. What, what, what part of his life did he write? Oh yes, I did write that down. He wrote it in, He wrote it in his years in ministry. He wrote a number of, actually he loved this kind of the credible brain. He wrote a lot of different poems and hymns. 1779 was when he published a volume of hymns, and amazing grace was in that collection. So he's now 54. 17, 79.

Do you think he just loved to, was there a lot of singing on sailboats, do you think? Oh, that's a great question. I've not yet. Like sailing, sailing to this. My boys are in a pirate phase. I owe. Right now.

I owe. Hard now. I owe. Hardy, Har. That's how they greet me in the morning. Hardy, Har. Dad. Hardy, Har. Hardy, Har, Har. Where would be the treasure?

And they sing Pirates on. Yeah. Yeah, I have no idea. It must be. It must be. Yeah. So, okay. So, I just want to read the words of the poem.

And think about a man who's been shipwrecked. Yeah, exiled. Who's been exiled, and functioned as a slave, functioned as a taskmaster of slave, a transporter of slaves, heart attack or a stroke, you know, like just a gnarly life on the seas.

Gritty sailor. Okay. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear? The hour I first believed, and just remember, the moment he identified as the beginning of his conversion was in the belly of the ship.

Watching a piece of cargo tip over and plug the whole. The whole of his sinking ship. That's so gnarly. That's the hour he first believed. Through many dangers, Toils and snares I have already come. His grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures.

He will my shield and portion be as long as life and doers. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil a life of joy and peace. And maybe I'm just learning out, I don't know what I'm doing, sharing. For me, this was a deeply meaningful experience when after I learned about his story, This song just became so profound to me. It's one of the things where you think you know something, and then you realize the life experience that shaped a human that could ride a poem like that, and then you'll never read the poem the same way. So there's something about his experience of exile and slavery and physical hardship that makes you sympathetic to these words in a way.

Like think if you never knew this story and all you know about this song is like you grow up with strict religious grandparents and you go to church for them twice a year and they force you to sing this song. Then all of a sudden, the same poem can feel like... Staggy. ...oppressive religiosity and that kind of thing. But once you realize that it comes from someone who suffered in exile, you're sympathetic to it and there's an openness to it. I think it's just the same principle when somebody who has suffered deeply starts talking. People usually are quiet and start listening.

Yeah. You know what? So here's why I think this is a helpful example is that the Bible, as you in the form, the literary shape that you and I know it, is the product of a people group that underwent centuries of slavery and exile. The Bible is, we've used this phrase before, a minority report. So the Bible doesn't come from the powerful elite, the rule Jerusalem in the days of David.

So there are historical sources and materials that go way back to those periods, but the people who shaped the Bible began to shape it into the form that you and I know it. Those people are those who went through the exile to Babylon and lived through generations of slavery and suffering. And even when they came back to the Jerusalem, they were under oppressive military occupiers for centuries up to Jesus' own day and the Jesus movement for the first centuries All the New Testament documents come from the period when the Jesus movement was persecuted Religious minority. Yeah, so the Bible speaks to us from the same type of posture as John Newton. Yeah

Yeah, I've just this rough life. Yeah. But for the biblical authors, it's generations of people rough. Yeah, not just one lifetime. Yeah. Like generations. So.

Yeah, it's good to think about that. It's good to think about how gnarly it would be to be taken from your home. I mean, it's gnarly that John Newton was abandoned because of his continent. Yeah, that's right. But you know, part of me is kind of like, he deserved that a lot.

Ah, well, yeah, I mean, he's a kid that grew up on the sea and he doesn't have a family and you know, like it's almost kind of this like cool adventure story. Even though it was rough. But imagine like you're just living in your community and some empire comes in. Yeah, invading army comes. Invading army with just military power you can't deal with

and they just take over and they ship you all out to some foreign land. Imagine just that scene of like marching in file. Yeah, with your family, extended family, people, you have no idea just the fear and the bag on your back. Yeah. We're on your pack donkey. Yeah.

And you're walking away. Yeah. Yeah. And you're walking away. Yeah. Never to go, never to return. And I'm sure people are dying and people are being abused. Because you're not treated as the same level of human by another civilization. And then you find a way in this new world for generations. And that's the setting where this biblical narrative

is shaped. Yes. And that was one key event that happened in 586 BC to Jerusalem. And that event, because that event happened to... And that was the Babylonians. Babylonian exile, the Babylonians. Babylonian exile. The Babylonians and then Babylonian exile. And that event happened to the people who carried with them the stories and poems and the materials from earlier in Israel's history, but the people who took all that into exile and began to shape it into the text that we know as the books of the Old Testament. That experience of exile as they shaped the Bible, as God used them, inspired them to shape the Bible, that experience of exile left its mark on how they told the whole story, how they framed their whole history. And now, all of a sudden, just like John Newton, when he thinks of trying to tell his life

story or write a poem, his whole life gets told through the lens of those few key events of the shipwreck and the exile. And so it's very similar that these events that happen late in Israel's history shaped how they retold their entire history, going all the way back to the beginning, and then going all the way forward so that when Jesus lives half of millennia after these events, and he's still using imagery and language connected to exile, and we're still living in exile

and we're still waiting for the true homecoming, even though they're back in the land. So this event completely has left its mark. It's again like the 3-D drawing. Once you see it, you see like, oh my gosh, the Bible is a Bible for exiles. It's produced by people who were in exile and it's produced by a whole culture that was shaped by that experience even after they returned to the land. That's exactly what the Bible is. It's totally what it is. It's a assemblage of literature by people going into exile. But not only that, it's the literature that they have which came from a minority

that's right. ...position within Israel. Within Israel. Yeah, that's right. Position. Within Israel. Within Israel. Yeah, that's right. I guess I'm still assuming that everybody just knows when the exile happened in relationship to all the other. Yeah, let's set the stage. Recap, probably. Okay, so we got Abraham.

Abraham. Abraham. Abraham came from. Came from. His family came from the region of ancient Babylon. Yeah, which would have been in the Mesopotamian. Yep. Yeah, where the Tigris and you basically

buy the Persian Gulf in modern day rock. So he's, yeah, so he's just a dude who he gets some religious experience from, he hears from God. This family emigrated North up into, actually, I gave you a map on this skipping ahead, but it's on page five. So his family emigrated from the region of Babylon all the way up into ancient Haran, which I think.

And that was after God he had the God experience as before. Yep, that's his dad. Oh, his dad moves up there. His dad moves up there. And then So that's where he's before. Yep, that's his dad. Oh, his dad moves up there. His dad moves up there. And then, that's where he's living. In the narrative, that's where his family he's living up there.

Oh, that's where he is. Okay. He's already born. We don't know where he's living. No, no details given. There's like two sentences. But he was born. His family, he's from Mesopotamia, Babylon.

His family immigrates up to Haran. Haran, which is probably some small. So, there's sojourners and immigrants in Haran, and then it's from Haran that he journeys. And this is probably just it's a small village on the Euphrates. I mean, what do we know about Haran? Haran. Oh, it's an ancient city. It's not a village, it's a city. Ancient city on the, yeah. On these frades.

Yep. On a river that flows into the Euphrates. So, so is Abraham, all right? So, he, Israel's origins comes from a wandering, tribal family, the emigrated multiple times. Yeah. And so, that's important, even though that's not technically exile, he wasn't forcibly multiple times. Yeah. And so that's important. Even though that's not technically exile, he wasn't forcibly removed there.

Yeah, the whole of his story is of a people who don't have a true home from the very beginning. And so Abraham goes into the land of Israel Palestine. He wanders, he buys some land, but he wanders. His family ends up actually emigrating down to Egypt then the famous their story of Pharaoh. They become enslaved Moses. Abraham's family. Abraham's family's three, four generations after him. You're skipping. I'm skipping forward now. Yeah, I'm trying to get a big picture. We're just trying to get a framework for the actual. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, sorry, I might be going too slow. But Abraham, in Haran, gets called by God to go where?

Does he get called to go somewhere else? To go to the land of Canaan. To land of Canaan? Yep, that's right. We'll get here later. I just thought we skipped to Joseph Allison. I'm just doing the big picture story real quick to situate. Oh, real big picture.

Yeah, totally. Real big big picture because then we'll dive in and walk through the story a little more slowly. So then we have the Exodus Moses, they come out of Egypt into the Promised Land. Joshua, period of judges man we don't have a king, tribes, you know duken it out. Finally they get a king, Saul doesn't work out and then David, hooray! Solomon, he puts Israel on the map of the international scene, and then after him, the kingdom, the tribe split.

There's a near civil war, and they split into two rival kingdoms. There's a bunch of tribes up in the north. It's confusing because often in the story, this is now in the books of First and Second Kings, in the story, the Northern tribes are often called Israel. And then the Southern tribes based in Jerusalem are the Judeans, or the tribe of Judah. And the word Israel can refer to all of those together, or just the guys in the North. Or just the guys in the North. Yes, that's confusing. And the guys in the North, they're kingdom lasts 200 years after Solomon until the one of the first ancient Mesopotamian world empires comes the Assyrians and then they attack

Beseed, Samaria, take it out. And then when you say Samaria, Samaria was the capital of the northern kingdom drives. And so they don, but they don't take out Jerusalem. They don't. They try. But they don't succeed. City on a hill. City on a hill. Yeah.

So the Northern tribes and the Northern Kingdom is just destroyed. And it's the first exile of any Israelites in 722 BC. All those, well, many, we don't know how many, but it seems like a lot, or most, of those Israelites were just straight up captive, deported to all these other cities in the Acerian Empire. And then Acerians policy was to relocate other people groups and resettle them, just like mix everybody up. So then Acerian Empire falls about 100 years after that in 612 BC to the rising new power of Babylon. Yeah.

And then it's Babylon who comes knocking on Jerusalem's door. Three different times Babylon came, took captive a number of Judeans and Jerusalem, Israelites living in Jerusalem, and took them in waves of exile to Babylon. This is where Ezekiel is taken in the second wave, so it's Daniel. They started out by just taking all the executive staff team, right, all the high level leaders, important people, and then installing their own

kind of puppet leaders. And then those puppet leaders rebelled. And so in 586 BC, they just took it out. They just took out the city, destroyed it, burned the temple, took tens of thousands of people in chains away, and relocated them to places like where Ezekiel was sitting in Ezekiel chapter one by a irrigation canal in a refugee camp, somewhere in the delta of the Tigris- Euphrates, which is these massive, massive agricultural fields, and they would relocate slave populations and just live in tents

by the canals to work the fields. And that's where Ezekiel is on page one of the bookies. And so those are these exiled communities, Jewish exiles, who are now basically, are they slaves then, or how they treated? Oh, well, actually, we have very little information. We have, like Ezekiel, he gives us one window into people living in refugee camps, alongside irrigation canal.

Daniel gives us a portrait as to some of the elites who were really high potential. So they were recruited into the Babylonian government. And they addressed, talked, learned the language, dressed like Babylonians, that kind of thing. There was a whole trove of texts found, it was like name lists. I should know more about these. They're called the Mirashu documents, but it's all these lists of names like city and town name lists from ancient Babylonian time. Okay. Cities and villages from this time period. And among them are all your reading scholars, they're reading these and it's all these Babylonian names. And then they

start coming across all these names that look like Hebrew names among the Babylonian names. So they can begin to paint a portrait of after a couple generations, many Jews and Israelites had just woven themselves into the fabric of day to day life. Not unlike refugee families, maybe that come to different countries. Different countries. Different countries and the first generation is just traumatic. Just totally traumatic.

But their kids become what are called third culture. Kids, right? They have both have a sense of home with their family and their former life, but now they have a new home, which means they have no home. Third culture. Interesting. So, yeah, we don't know. And there's something really unique about the Jewish culture where the identity sticks.

It seems like a lot of immigrant populations assimilate pretty quickly into a new culture. But they are in Babylon under different places for a couple hundred years. Well, they're there. That happens in 586 when the last wave and the destruction of Jerusalem, not but 50 years later, the Babylonian Empire crumbles. It didn't even make it a century. And the Persian Empire rises to the scene. So they're from further east, the Persians. And so then they take over. So now Persians. So now the Persian is over, Persians

are over the world empire. They inherit it from Babylon. And they, who's in Jerusalem at this point? All kinds of people. There's a lot of Judeans who were still in the land who didn't get taken into exile. They can't't they can't round up everyone. Yeah, so there's lots of people still there who are Judeans There's some Strugglers from the former Northern Kingdom that are there and then there's just all the melting pot. Yeah, it's a melting pot And so when the first waves 50 years later When the first waves of Judeans start coming back to Jerusalem, that's what the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are all about,

in the Old Testament. Because the Persians let them start coming back. Persians gave permission to go back. The Persians watched a Siri and Babylon blow the world empire. Yeah, they saw two rounds of the empire. That's right. Building. Yeah, so they learned to finger two.

The Iron Fist, and trying to erase people groups wasn't the way to go. So they had this policy of actually letting all these groups exiled by the Babylonians go back home and rebuild their own identity but under Persian governors and under the Persian tax system, of course. Right. But so, yeah, the Persian government sponsored a whole bunch of groups returning. Oh, okay. And the Giudans were one of them. So Zerubbabel, Ezra, then later Nehemiah, over the course of a century, all these waves

of Giudans go back. But not everyone went back. Lots of people stayed behind. Right. Because they built their life there. Yeah. So that's even after 50 years, you're like, well, this is our new year.

Here we are. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So, I mean, just think like the, your psychology, your way of seeing the world after undergoing an experience like that, it's very different from somebody who just grew up has lived their whole life in one town. Yeah.

Your sense of stability in the world is very... I had a number of friends in college who their families had immigrated from different parts of the world. That friend whose family immigrated during a revolution in the country. And their way of seeing the world and their way of thinking about stability and money, all of it shaped by that experience. And it's traumatic to relocate as a child, right? These experiences have a deep psychological impact on people.

And again, that's the culture of the biblical authors. That's their story. And so was it then coming back during the Persian Empire that's when likely the Old Testament was shaped? Yeah, again, so the materials in the Old Testament, like a quilt, the pieces of a quilt, exist it. It can exist, go away back, but the framers of the quilt. People pulled it all together and it's final shape. We can do it, we can do a range it.

Yeah, so Ezra comes back to the land, and he's got this thing called the Torah of Moses, that he is teaching the people, and that they're reading aloud. This is kind of like our public reading of scripture and conversation. So there's some earlier form of the scriptures, and then all the prophets who warned,

yeah, they have the wrong, they've come into town and nobody listened to them. Now people are listening. Yeah, we're reading those now. Yeah, the word, the words and writings of the prophets, that everybody ignored, before the Babylonian era. Suddenly really important.

All of a sudden, these words are vindicated as. And you've got these writings from what's happened with Daniel and his crew. Yep, Daniel and his crew. You've got all kinds of poems and ancient worship songs that were sung in the temple before the exile. And so those get along with all this new poetry being produced by the community back in Jerusalem. And so yeah, they're shaping the Hebrew Bible and that's a

process that'll take place over the next 200 years up until the very final texts and books in the Hebrew Bible. And this is during the time then when they're coming back from exile, not everyone. Yeah. They're rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. Yes. They're rebuilding the temple. Rebuilding the temple, they're rebuilding their identity. Yeah, now they're trying to explain, like, who are we? Who are we? Why do we have a temple?

Yeah. Why do we have this city? Why are we rebuilding it? And why are we rebuilding it? What happened to the first one? And why did we get hauled off? Yep. Why the exile happened? Yeah, all of these questions are trying to be solidified

and answered. And what hope is there for the future? Yeah. Because we are the inheritors of these ancient covenant promises of the God of the universe, the one true God. Yeah. Who wants to bring blessing to all of the nations. Through us.

Through us. And that has just not really been happening. And the best era we had was under King David and his son. Solomon. And that was the golden era. That was the golden age. And it seems like we need a king like that again. Yep.

Yep. So when's that going to happen? When's a new David going to come? Yeah. And restore our land, free us from the foreign oppressors that keep rising. Yeah, because they're still under. Yeah, they're under Persians and then- Occupations.

And the Persians last a couple centuries till Alexander the Great. Yeah. And then Alexander the Great comes. The fourth world builder. Yep. And then he builds this thing that lives on and fractured fragmented form for a couple centuries until the Romans. Yeah.

In the mid-first century BC. And it's in the fifth world empire. Yeah. So, yeah, sequence and a lot of little many things in between, but yeah, sequence of five mega world empires, the spanning. In the span of 500 years. Spanning from 700 BC, all the way up to the time of Jesus.

So that's 700 years right there. And the Roman Empire. Last up until the 400s after Constantine. Yeah. So they really got it right. They like. Yeah, the Romans lasted the longest. Yeah, they they went a full four. They saw four other world empires. They're like, okay, yeah, you can make this happen. That's right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. We're a nonprofit, crowd-funded studio in Portland, Oregon. We believe the Bible is one unified story that leads to Jesus, and we make lots of free resources to that end.

They're on our website at thebibelproject.com, and you can also view them all on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible Project. If the Bible is new to you, we've got a great series called How to Read the Bible. So check that one out. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you