Book review: The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal
Long-term readers may have noted a theme running through my Judaism-related posts, which is my reading ancient texts scouring them for clues as to how much ancient practice of the Oral Torah, which rabbinical propaganda portrays as going back to Moses at Sinai, actually antedated rabbinical Judaism (which arose from Pharisaic Judaism having to reinvent itself following the destruction of the Temple in the year 70, to recentre Judaism upon the home and the synagogue).
Well, I won't be blogging about this any more: I've just read a book that has given me all the answers (along with the sources for them, of which by this point, a surprising number are already on my bookshelf): The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, by Yonatan Adler. The author's thesis is to sidestep the question of when the Torah was written, and instead look into when the literary and archaeological evidence indicates that people were actually keeping the commandments of the Torah.
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