Theme I
When the Torah Became Law
Ezra establishes the Torah of Moses as the official ancestral law of the Jewish people. But the book we think of as the heart of Judaism arrives later than expected, and widespread observance later still.
The five centuries that shaped the world Jesus was born into.
The Bridge Between the Testaments
Close the Old Testament and open the New, and you cross a silent gap of roughly five hundred years. In that silence almost everything changed. The Judaism of Jesus’ day, its sects and scriptures, its hope for a messiah, its belief in a life beyond death, did not yet exist when the Hebrew prophets fell quiet. It had to be built.
It was built out of catastrophe. Jerusalem fell to Babylon, the Temple burned, and the people were carried into exile. What came back was not the old kingdom but something new: a people defined less by a land or a king than by a book that was only now becoming law.
Across five centuries of Persian governors, Greek kings, and Roman legions, Jews argued over how to live, who should rule, and what God had promised. Out of those arguments came the Torah as scripture, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the first visions of resurrection and final judgment, and the messianic hope one Galilean movement would soon claim for itself. This course is the story of that half-millennium, the foundation stone on which both later Judaism and Christianity were built.
Format
On-demand video
Lectures
20 sessions
Access
Lifetime, watch anytime
Instructor
John Collins
Specialty
Second Temple Judaism & the Scrolls
Six Turning Points
From the rubble of the first Temple to the revolt against Rome, these are the hinges on which five hundred years of Jewish history turned.
Ezra establishes the Torah of Moses as the official ancestral law of the Jewish people. But the book we think of as the heart of Judaism arrives later than expected, and widespread observance later still.
When Antiochus IV moves to suppress the ancestral cult, the Maccabees rise in its defense, resisting not Greek culture as such but its forced and violent imposition.
A new worldview takes shape: a revelation beyond the Torah, angelic and demonic powers at work in history, and the promise of reward or punishment after death.
The crisis sharpens observance into fierce disputes over how the law should be kept, giving rise to the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the other sects that defined Judaism in Jesus’ day.
Dormant for centuries, messianic hope revives against the non-Davidic Hasmoneans: a hope for a warrior king to restore the line of David, not a suffering servant.
From Judea to Alexandria, Jews embrace and remake Greek culture, a synthesis that culminates in Philo’s marriage of biblical revelation and Greek philosophy.
John J. Collins · 2026 Holmes Professor Emeritus of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation · Yale University
John J. Collins is Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation Emeritus at Yale University, and honorary professor at the University of Pretoria. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard (1972). His most recent books are The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul (University of California, 2017), What Are Biblical Values? (Yale, 2019) and The Rule of the Association and Related Texts (with James Nati; Oxford, 2024). He served as general editor of the Anchor Yale Bible and Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (2008 to 2025). He has been president of the Catholic Biblical Association and of the Society of Biblical Literature, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds honorary degrees from University College Dublin and the University of Zurich, and has received the Burkitt medal for biblical scholarship from the British Academy.
What This Course Offers
John J. Collins brings the Torah, the Scrolls, Enoch, Daniel, and Philo into a single sweeping story, for anyone who has ever wondered where the Judaism of Jesus’ day actually came from.
Ezra and Daniel, Ben Sira and 1 Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Philo of Alexandria, the actual texts in which Second Temple Judaism argued with itself. No middlemen.
John J. Collins is among the world’s foremost scholars of Second Temple Judaism. Expect the depth of a Yale graduate seminar, delivered so that anyone can follow.
The discovery, the community, the messiahs, and the secrets of Qumran.
Two lectures a week over ten weeks, or all twenty on demand the day you enroll. Lifetime access means you can absorb, revisit, and rewatch.
The five hundred years that explain why the first Christians read Jesus as they did, and why most Jews did not.
No prior background in Judaism or the Bible required. Whether you’re a believer, a skeptic, or simply curious, the story is built from the ground up.
Common Assumption
Judaism has always been built on keeping the Torah.
In fact
For the first century after the exile, the Torah of Moses plays almost no visible role. When it finally becomes the official law of the people, and who makes it so, is later and stranger than the familiar story suggests.
Common Assumption
Jews of this period were waiting for a coming messiah.
In fact
For centuries after the exile there is little sign of any such hope. When messianic expectation does revive, what provokes it, and what kind of figure people were actually waiting for, is not the one most readers assume.
Common Assumption
Jewish hope was always set on the promised land.
In fact
A powerful strand of this literature looks past the land entirely, to life with the angels beyond death. Where that otherworldly hope first appears, and what it would later make possible, is one of the most consequential turns in the whole period.
Common Assumption
Faithful Jews saw Greek culture as the enemy.
In fact
Many embraced it, and made something new of it. Even the Maccabees were resisting something far more specific than “Hellenism,” and missing that distinction has distorted the story for centuries.
All twenty lectures are available to watch the moment you enroll. Click any lecture to read its description.
Out of the Ashes. What the Exile actually changed: who was carried to Babylon and who returned, why rebuilding the Temple mattered so much, and who would control it. Texts: Ezra 1–6; Haggai.
Prophecy after the Exile. Once prophets criticized kings; now they try to shore up institutions, even as radical hopes for lasting change persist, before prophecy finally loses its authority. Texts: Zechariah 1–6; Isaiah 24–27; 65–66.
Ezra and the Law. Did the Torah derive its authority from a Persian king? Did Ezra have the Torah as we now have it, and how far did he succeed in making people keep it? Texts: Ezra 7; 9–10; Nehemiah 8; 9; 13.
Jews in Diaspora. Life away from Judea as imagined in the stories of Esther and Daniel: how Jews related to their political overlords and their Gentile neighbors, and what the Law meant abroad. Texts: Esther; Daniel 1–6.
Wisdom Literature. Proverbs, Job, and Qoheleth preserve a form of instruction with no explicit reference to Moses or the history of Israel, and yet they too belong to the Jewish tradition. Texts: Proverbs 3; 6; 8; Job 28; Qoheleth 1; 12.
Ben Sira. By the early Hellenistic period the Torah carries iconic weight even in wisdom writing. Ben Sira (c. 180 BCE) is the bridge: a sage who identifies Wisdom herself with the Torah of Moses. Texts: Sirach Preface; 24; 38; 41; 50.
The Maccabean Revolt. Was it a rejection of Hellenistic culture, a reaction to taxation, or a defense of the ancestral laws? The evidence of 1 and 2 Maccabees points in a clear direction. Texts: 1 Maccabees 1–2; 2 Maccabees 4–6.
The Visions of Daniel. While the Maccabees took up the sword, Daniel looks to the heavenly host and to judgment after death. It is the one full example of apocalyptic literature in the Hebrew Bible. Texts: Daniel 7–12.
The Books of Enoch. Found in Aramaic among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Enoch literature shows human life caught between angelic and demonic forces, with reward or punishment waiting beyond the grave. Texts: 1 Enoch 1–36.
Apocalypticism as a Worldview. A mid-course pause on the new outlook that appears in early second-century Judaism: not only the end of history, but a world beyond this one and the destiny of people after death.
The Hasmoneans. Not noted for their piety, the Hasmonean kings nonetheless presided over stricter observance of Jewish distinctives, especially purity, and the emergence of the Pharisees, Essenes, and other sects.
The Dead Sea Scrolls. The discovery at Qumran gave us a trove of primary evidence for Judaism in the last centuries before the Temple’s destruction, reshaping what we know about Scripture and sectarian conflict.
The Sectarian Association. The Scrolls describe a community with its own admission rituals and rules, almost certainly the Essenes, existing in two forms: one that accepted marriage, and one that aspired to a higher holiness. Texts: CD 1–3; 7–8; 1QS 5–8.
Messianic Expectation. Dormant since the Persian period, messianic hope revives when the non-Davidic Hasmoneans take the crown. The Scrolls attest a royal Davidic messiah and a priestly one, and to a lesser degree a prophet.
Apocalypticism in the Scrolls. A distinctive apocalypticism rooted in a Persian-style dualism of light and darkness, and the striking belief that the sect already mingled with the heavenly host in this life. Texts: 1QS 3–4; the War Scroll.
The Egyptian Diaspora. The great Jewish community of Hellenistic Egypt, which produced the Greek translation of the Scriptures (the Septuagint) and the allegorical reading of Scripture that culminates in Philo of Alexandria.
The Destruction of Alexandrian Judaism. The community that flourished under the Ptolemies came under attack and was all but destroyed once Rome took Egypt. Ancient antisemitism, or something more tangled in the position of Jews between Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians?
Roman Judea. Rome takes control when Pompey enters Jerusalem in 63 BCE. Client kings such as Herod the Great give way to direct rule, bitterly resented by some, whom Josephus would call a “fourth philosophy.”
The Revolt against Rome. The years before the war throw up a series of prophetic and quasi-messianic figures whose careers offer striking parallels to that of Jesus of Nazareth, and help explain why Rome was so alarmed.
After the Fall. Several apocalyptic texts date to the years after Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 CE. We close with 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, profound reflections on the fate of Second Temple Judaism and on what might lie beyond the catastrophe. Texts: 4 Ezra (2 Esdras 3–14); 2 Baruch.
A free copy of Prof. Collins’ brand-new book (Eerdmans, June 2026), written as a companion to this course on how apocalyptic thought shaped ancient Judaism. 192 pages, paperback. Shipped within the U.S.; international students may choose any catalog course valued at $24.95 or less instead.
A dedicated Q&A recording paired with each lecture, where Prof. Collins takes on the common questions and the harder problems alongside the material.
An exclusive preview for Judaism Before Jesus students: the opening lesson of Dr. Joel Baden’s companion course, The Hebrew Bible.
Four quizzes spread across the course to consolidate the key texts, figures, and arguments, and to test your grasp as you go.
Download Prof. Collins’ full slide decks for all twenty lectures, ideal for review, note-taking, or sharing with a study group.
Searchable transcripts of every lecture, perfect for quoting, deeper study, or following along if English is not your first language.
MP3 downloads of every lecture. Listen on your commute, during a walk, or whenever you’re away from a screen.
A digital certificate of completion to mark your study and your accomplishment once you finish the course.
$1 from every registration is donated to charity: water, bringing clean water to people in need.
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Prof. John J. Collins presents twenty fifty-minute lectures tracing five centuries of Jewish history, from the Babylonian Exile to the revolt against Rome. All are available on demand, so you can watch at your own pace.
Once you have purchased the course, you will receive instructions by email to log in to our online course platform, ThriveCart Learn. Once logged in, you will find all twenty lectures available to watch on demand. If you are a member of Biblical Studies Academy (BSA), your access will also be available inside the community.
No problem at all. Every lecture is available on demand and stays accessible after the course ends. If life gets in the way, simply pick up where you left off. There is no requirement to watch on any particular schedule.
Yes. All twenty lectures are yours with lifetime access. You can watch them on any device, on your own schedule, and return to them as often as you like.
No prior knowledge required. Prof. Collins introduces every text and all the historical context as the course unfolds. Whether you’re coming in fresh or already have a background in biblical studies, you’ll find the course genuinely rewarding.
Yes. All lectures include closed captions, and full transcripts are included with the course, so you can follow along in text or search for specific passages.
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Absolutely. If you don’t love the course, send us an email at support@bartehrman.com within 30 days of purchase and we will refund every penny.
Comparable university courses on this period routinely run into the thousands of dollars. We don’t offer college credit, but you get the same depth and rigor at a fraction of the cost, world-class biblical scholarship made accessible to everyone.