Strengthening Faith

 Chapter 5 of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong covers the Babylonian conquest of Judah, the Jewish exile, and the Jewish return to Jerusalem under the reign of Darius the Great. Jerusalem stood as a sacred holy land for the Jewish people. The destruction of Jerusalem and forced exodus of the Jewish people tore them away from their God–their protector–and threw them into the world of the profane and chaotic.

I believe it is during hard times when many people establish an even closer relationship with religion, and I think the result of the Babylonian conquest of Judah epitomizes this. There are universal stories of people either becoming more religious or adopting religion for the first time in their life during times of economic or personal struggle. For example, 24% of Americans felt like their faith had strengthened during the covid pandemic–the biggest crisis of the decade (Pew, 2020). 

As a result of the Babylonian conquest and Jewish exile from Jerusalem, Armstrong made the case that the Jewish people more firmly established and differentiated their religion from the other religions of the time. When they returned to Jerusalem during Darius the Great’s reign, they established new customs to prove to God that they were deserving of his protection and strengthen their connection with God. It was during this time that the worship of minor gods was scorned and the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur–the holiest day of the year in Judaism–was established (Armstrong, 96 & 102).

The Babylonian exiles, when they returned to Jerusalem, separated the Temple even further from the profane world by surrounding the Temple with two walled courts (Armstrong, 85). The goal was to, by protecting God more from the profane and differentiating him from humans, establish him as a “towering mystery that was overwhelming to humanity” (Armstrong, 85). 

Additionally, in order to establish a closer relationship with the holy, the returning Jews worked to make Jerusalem a new Heaven on Earth. Not only did they begin adding elements into their life to mimic the divine creation story, they also used the mitzvoth (commandments) to try and restore the intimacy humans had with God during the years of Adam and Eve (Armstrong, 87). All of these new practices allowed the Babylonian exiles to strengthen their faith.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/30/few-americans-say-their-house-of-worship-is-open-but-a-quarter-say-their-religious-faith-has-grown-amid-pandemic/ft_2020-04-30_covidworship_01/