Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Torah and Canon: 2nd Edition,
James A. Sanders, Cascade Books, 2005, page 32

Sanders the moves to consider the reaction in 701 BCE when Sennacherib's forces withdrew from Jerusalem. Everyone in the city shouted and danced and rejoiced together at their release and salvation.

Such an experience was bound to leave its mark on every tradition that had been poured into the city from the past. It is in such events that the reforging of tradition and the reshaping of a story take place.

When common ground and past pressure have pulled the pieces together, then a cataclymic event provide the trauma or relief to make everything unite. Sanders continues:

Thus Jerusalem, the remnant of Judah, indeed the remnant of Israel and Judah, became the mark of identity par excellence; and all that had previously gone into its essential makeup - Judahite, Israelite and old Jebusite-Canaanite - emerged in new shapes. The old traditions and strands were the same but their interrelationship took a new shape; the strands were woven anew.

Jump now, if you will, centuries forward in time and you have two massive events in Jerusalem - the crucifixion and resurrection of Yeshua and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Were these two events not bound to have the same effect of re-weaving the strands of tradition? Although currently rather unravelled, watch what will happen when the fabric becomes whole once more!