status men and women were forced out of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar II. These Judeans journeyed long, and suffered, before finally finding a place to rest in the ancient city of Nippur. But they never forgot their beloved home. In exile, the Judeans determined to keep alive the customs of their people: their moral laws, their rituals, their language, their ways of living, eating and being. In order to do this it was essential that they preserved their stories. Because most of these stories only existed orally, Judean scribes began writing them down on a series of scrolls. As they did,
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