Judaism

Today our class on early church History looked at Judaism and was absolutly fascinating. It seems that Judaism was hugely influenced by the Hellenistic world (Greek) and there were two different types of Jewish world. The diaspora was split into the east and west. The East being conquered by Assyria in 722bc, who took off the elite classes leaving the Anawin(poor) behind. A very differant Judaism sprang from this as it was in exile and didnt have the temple at Jurusalem. The Diaspora in the west came under the protectorship of Egypt. Now here is the thing, Egypt was rule by the Ptolemy dynsty, of which Cleopatra was the last. So it seems Cleopatra was Greek. Now it is here that we get the Septuagint, the translation of the Jewish Bible, the old Testament as we know it, into Greek. The politics become crazy around Antiochus 4th in around 175 bc, with bribes buying the position of Jewish High priest. Corruption was rife. This in turn led to the Jewish revolts of 66-70 ad and 135 ad and the Jews never recover until 1948. In the eastern Diaspora however the policy of building Synagogues helps establish and preserve the Jewish religion and forms it into what we know today