It was in exile that much of Judaism came into being, though present-day Judaisms have evolved as much as, say, Christianity has developed beyond its early days. (The Judaism that we know today didn’t become stabilised until roughly AD 200.) The most important change was that, lacking a territory of their own, or a political or spiritual leader, the Jews were forced to look for a new way to preserve their identity and their unique relation with their God. The answer lay in their writings. There was no Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, as we know it, as the Jews went into exile. Instead, they had
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