Amazing Hebrews | Ryan Ranch

Course Description:

Perhaps the most amazing story in the history of all the world’s great religions is that of the Hebrews. At one time or another, they were slaves; they were later conquered, and their leaders were taken away as captives. But the Hebrews not only survived, they lived on to write the foundational religious work of Western Civilization. To understand this story, we will look at related historical records and try to put together a narrative of the period from the time the Hebrew people left Mesopotamia and came to Palestine, down to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. We will consider two guiding questions. First, how did this very small group of people, surrounded by much more powerful neighbors, not only survive but develop a religion that fathered modern Judaism as well as Christianity and Islam? Second, how and why did the Hebrews develop the books that came to constitute the Old Testament? It is a story of faith unlike any other.