Ever try to wrap your head around the Torah's description of Creation? The Creation narrative asks us to imagine what existed before there was existence! What sort of frameworks can we use to penetrate this conundrum? The text tells us that God created humans and desires to have a relationship with them. But what is God? Who is God?
The concept of a messiah coalesced during the period of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (about 500 BCE to 70 CE). We will look at what this concept was at that time and meet some messianic figures who appeared then, including Jesus of Nazareth.
Not only has the history of Israel showed much change over many decades, but the state’s founding ideology, namely Zionism, has also seen significant development since its earliest incarnations.