Periodization of Jewish History: Goodman, Greenberg, Johnson and Myers
10:06 AM Saturday.
The first thing I want to accomplish in the field of Jewish studies today is a basic periodization of Jewish history. I've been making my way slowly (too slowly!) through Martin Goodman's A History of Judaism and Paul Johnson's History of the Jews since November of 2024. Late last year, I cobbled together the first rough outline of my own chronology. Yesterday, I revisited that chronology for the first time in many months. Then this morning I woke up with the thought that I should probably add Küng's Judaism to my core set of resources in this area. I spent a few hours researching the topic on Google and Amazon and eventually decided against Küng's Judaism in favor of The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and Jewish History: A Very Short Introduction by David N. Myers.
Now that I have Goodman and Greenberg (history of Judaism) and Johnson and Myers (history of the Jews) in a dedicated "Jewish History" collection in my Kindle library, I feel more or less ready to proceed to the next step. Here is the standard academic periodization according to Google Gemini:
Greenberg proposes a tripartite periodization of Judaism: the Biblical Era, the Rabbinic Era, and the Third Era.
Johnson tells the story of Jews in seven parts:
- Israelites
- Judaism
- Cathedocracy
- Ghetto
- Emancipation
- Holocaust
- Zion
What I'd like to do at this point is map out my own working title, beginning date, ending date, and key milestones for the first major period in Jewish history. In order to do this, I need to clarify how the above four authors, Google Gemini, and Israeli society handle the issue of Anno Mundi in the Hebrew Calendar. I will tackle this in my next post.
End 12:32 PM.
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