Becoming a Religion of the Book: Scripture Before the Bible

this is a nice introduction to Judaism in first millennium BC for lay people but it has odd biases and chooses framinings that stretch the truth at times to fit a broader cultural narrative.

Yes, in the time of Jesus the Torah was stored as scrolls not a single book - the compilation of the Torah into a book is post Christian Era. This surprised exactly no one.

That Judaism is a cultic religion with ritual elements and pslams being sung during processions and temple services is an utterly unfascinating and banal observation that anyone who is undergrad level familiar with biblical studies would know. Or even someone who just reads some of the OT as an adult.

I see this a lot with the 'ashera as a consort of yaweh' hay making efforts so many engage in - this is all spelled out in the Bible if you bother to read it. Yes, many people in Palestine and broader Israel practiced synthetic versions of Yaweism or whatever you want to call it.

Why do we always approach the Bible from a post WW2 western low church ('billy graham') perspective?

I'm not sure I understand the distinction this article is trying to make. The law was clearly important well before 70 AD; Jesus had frequent arguments with Pharisees who, from what I understand, were sticklers to a very detailed interpretation of the law/Thora. Although I suppose it's possible they were ahead of the curve and their approach to Judaism didn't become universal until after 70 AD.

I'm also not sure why a passage from Nehemia describing Ezra, who both lived in the 5th century BC, has to be from the 2nd or 3rd century BC.

And I'm not even sure about the dichotomy of a religion of the book and a cult of sacrifice; many of those sacrifices are described in the book, after all.

“Judaism only became a “religion of the book”—that is, one whose core entailed the study of sacred texts—following the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70.”

So the Torah itself could be seen as the Third Temple, or the true First Temple rebuilt, manifested in a form that could never be torn down, stone by stone, ever again? A form that could ever be with the Jews in their trials and travels over the Centuries, carried and copied and taught. A poetic thought…