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is used as an experiment between God and the Adversary. The Adversary claimed that if Job did not have all of God’s blessings he would turn against him. To prove Job’s devotion God takes away everything from him: Job’s children are killed, his possessions are all lost, and he is covered with festering sores from head to feet. The story is a document of Job’s faith and his discussions with his friends who try to comfort him. The story ends with Job’s great dismay, his final faith, and God’s restoration of more wealth than he had before and a new set of children.

      Among the writings of the Kethuvim is the book of Ecclesiastes. This book is one of the most unusual of these diverse writings and in many ways feels the most modern. It is laced with philosophy that ranges from fatalism, to hedonism, to nihilism, to pragmatism.

      Whatever God has brought to pass will recur evermore:

       Nothing can be added to it

       And nothing taken from it -

       and God has brought to pass that men revere Him.

       What is occurring occurred long since:

       And what is to occur occurred long since:

       and God seeks the pursued. And, indeed, I have observed under the sun:

       Alongside justice there is wickedness,

       Alongside righteousness there is wickedness. (3:14-16)

      Only this, I have found, is a real good: that one should eat and drink and get pleasure with all the gains he makes under the sun, during the numbered days that God has given him; for that is his portion. Also, whenever a man is given riches and property by God, and is also permitted by Him to enjoy them and to take his portion and get pleasure form his gains - that is a gift of God. For [such a man] will not brood much over the days of his life, because God keeps him busy enjoying himself. (5:17-19)

       How sweet is the light, what a delight for the eyes to behold the sun! Even if a man lives many years, let him enjoy himself in all of them, remembering how many days of darkness there are going to be. The only future is nothingness! (11:7-8)

       The sum of the matter, when all is said and done: Revere God and observe His commandments! For this applies to all mankind: that God will call every creature to account for everything unknown, be it good or bad. (12:13)

      The Tanakh, the “Old Testament,” tells the story of creation, the story of the chosen people of God, the Israelites. It tells of their many falls from grace but it also tells of God’s great love for them and his perseverance with them.

      The conquest of Israel by Babylonia is given the date of 586 BCE (Before the Common Era). Three generations later, at the end of the sixth century BCE, the Persians, under the leadership of Cyrus the Great, defeated the Babylonians and applied his more tolerant subjugation to the Jews in Babylon; they were allowed to return to Jerusalem if they wished. Later the Temple ceremonies were again allowed to take place, and in 450 BCE the Persians sent a Jewish governor, Nehemiah, and an administrator, Ezra, to Jerusalem and the Second Temple was constructed. The crisis of the destruction of the First Temple, the exile, and then restoration kindled in the Jews’ the sense of identity. It was in reaction to these events that the Torah was first assembled. Many of the writings existed before this time, but it was during this period that the structure of the Torah began to take shape (Neusner I, 39). It was an explanation of what happened and an ordering of Jewish life, now that some self-governing power was back in their hands.

      The Jews generally maintained basic administrative power in their communities under the empire structures of the Persians, then the Greeks, and the Romans, until 70 C.E. (Common Era). In 70 the Jews rose up against the Romans, were soundly defeated, and the Second Temple destroyed as punishment. Following what they believed to be historical guidelines three generations later the Jews tried to regain political control and restore the Temple. This uprising was also crushed by the Romans and now the Jews were banished from Jerusalem. It was a definitive end of the system of Temple worship and political structure that the Jews had known for a thousand years. It seemed to be a total and complete end of the Jewish nation. Ironically, in many ways it was only the beginning of a new and even more religiously powerful phase.

      The Jewish sages of the time, along with some of the remnants of the priest class, set about creating a new system by which the Jewish people could live without the Temple. The end result was a law code called the Mishnah, completed sometime around 200 C.E. The Mishnah was structured around six general areas: holy things, purities, agriculture, appointed times, damage concerns in civil law and government, and women’s issues concerning family, home and personal status (Neusner I, 58). It is a document carefully structured and obsessed with classification. It may be read as philosophy, but in content it doesn’t deal with abstraction or generalizations but with detailed information about immediate and many times common concerns. The Mishnah strives to create a stable, understandable design to live by, where all things and people are classified into a design of consistency and unity. The Mishnah was structured around the utopian unit of the “household,” a family agricultural unit that formed villages. It strove to form a steady-state-economy where everyone maintained in their present status - no one grew richer, no one grew poorer. The economy was not to be based on the market but on a distributive system that maintained stability and the status quo. Private property was taken for granted with a few communal aspects in the society such as wells, bathhouses, and town squares. Money was considered a functioning commodity and not the definition of wealth. The Mishnah set forth guidelines for living within the economic structure as in the following example:

       Mishnah-tractate Baba Mesia 4:10

       A. Just as a claim of fraud applies to buying and selling,

       B. so a claim of fraud applies to spoken words.

       C. One may not say to [a storekeeper], “How much is this object?” knowing that he does not want to buy it. (Neusner II, 139)

      The Mishnah created a new political structure of power designating who could control whom. It set up a system of judgment with courts of sages as the power base. The court of seventy-one was in charge of major civil matters, administering high offices of state and foreign policy. Judicial functions were primarily carried out by a court of three, with capital cases requiring a court of twenty- three.

       Mishnah-tractate Sanhedrin 1:5 A-C

       A. (1) They judge a tribe, a false prophet [Dt 18:20], and a high priest, only on the instructions of a court of seventy-one members.

      B. (2) They call [the army] to wage a war fought by choice only on the instructions of a court of seventy-one.

       C. (3) They make additions to the city [of Jerusalem] and to the courtyards [of the Temple] only on the instructions of a court of seventy- one. (Neusner II, 139)

      The Mishnah defines women’s place in the social structure and economy and always in relation to men who the give form to the economy. Women could never be considered at the head of a household and if a divorce took place it was assumed she would return to her father’s household. Marriages were to take place within the guidelines given for the caste system within society:

       Mishnah-tractate Qiddushim 4:1

       A. Ten castes came up from Babylonia: (1) priests, 2) Levites, (3) Israelites, (4) impaired priests, (5) converts, (6) freed slaves, (7) mamzers, (8) Netins, (9) “silenced ones” [unknown fathers] and (10) foundlings.

       B. Priests, Levites, and Israelites are permitted to marry among one another.

       C. Levites, Israelites, impaired priests, converts, and freed slaves are permitted to marry among one another. (Neusner II, 186)

      The Mishnah was not perceived as merely a newly composed law book for

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