Chapters 5-7

Chapter 5, "Exile and Return," is an important chapter in understanding Judaism as a faith. I am not very familiar with the details of Judaism, I only know the surface of the religion. But from this chapter I learned that the destruction of the First Temple in 586 is one of the most important events in Jewish history. The Temple was the center of the Jewish faith, and once it was gone and Jerusalem was sacked, the followers felt disillusioned and lost. Later the Second Temple was built to replace the first and to reestablish the faith. As a first reaction, many Jews continued to mourn the loss of the First Temple, and had to gradually accept the Second as its replacement.

Like I mentioned before, I am not extremely knowledgable of Judaism, so if someone could further explain it to me, please do. But from my understanding, Jews continue to worship the First Temple, even though it no longer exists. This is extremely interesting that a site that is no more is still considered a sacred place. It is as if the memory is what is worshipped, in my opinion of course. So in this place, something sacred does not even have to be tangible, a memory can also be worshipped. Details like this are what amazes me about religions. An event that happened so long ago is just as important in today's faiths as it was then.

Ch. 6 "Antioch in Judea" gave a lot of historical information, rather than religious. I thought it was a nice change of pace to learn about the Hellenistic era and its effects on Jerusalem and Judaism. At first, there was not reason for the Greeks to interfere with Jerusalem, because geographically it had nothing to offer, and it was not active in international politics at the time. But the gradual influence Hellenism had on Jerusalem is extremely important for the progression of the state and the religion. I enjoyed how Armstrong compared the two cultures: Jewish culture being quite conservative, while the Greek culture was very secular for the time period. The Greek culture had such an influence on society that it seemed to help Jerusalem progress and become an important state.