““The exiled Jews who settled in Babylonia were able to maintain their identity, in part because they were allowed to practice their religion. They not only kept their beliefs but also deepened and enriched their understanding of those beliefs by beginning to compile and write down the Torah (the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, which are also the first five books of the Christian Bible’s Old Testament).””
![“For many people during many centuries, mankind's history before the coming of Christianity was the history of the Jews and what they recounted of the history of others. Both were written down in the books called the Old Testament, [the Torah] the sacred writings of the Jewish people ... They were…” quote by John Roberts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6ed/john-roberts-13892_abstract_for-many-people-during-many-centuries-ma_3050374.jpg)
