Teshuvah in Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period: A Modern Perspective

In an attempt to comprehend the processes taking place in the modern world, poloticians, thinkers and a broader audience are increasingly turning to exploring Biblical constants, looking for possible answers to the most challenging questions of todays` society. Despite the rapid development of the modern world, often referred to as the world of postmodernism, the Biblical texts and Jewish texts of the Second Temple period become the focus of many researchers. We can say that the modern Bible studies are at a new peak of interest among scholars, opening a new persrective on the importance of these texts for a modern person.

One of the major cocepts of Tanakh, which had a particular influence on the development of religious thought of the Jewish people of the Second Temple period, and a later gained new momentum and was reflected in Talmudic Judaism, is teshuvah.

In the Second Temple period the subject of teshuvah, tracing back to the fragment of the book of Devarim, 30:1-10, gained particular importance for the authors of the texts avaliable to modern scholars. In the context of the "continued captivity", the awareness of the need for teshuvah would continue to have a significant impact on religious ideas of the Jewish people, as well as on the evolution of eschatological Messianic expectations.

By the example of the development of teshuvah concepts we will attempt to understand the reflection of a Second Temple jew on the earlier Bible texts having civilizational importance.