The creation of Jewry was a perfect storm: first there was the Semitic type, which we know about from before there were Jews, who probably came into existence in the second half of the second millennium BC. Greeks tell stories about Arabs and Phonecians as unscrupulous, as liars, as devoted to gain and slaving and a host of other bad practices. This has something to do with neurological substrate – the same thing that makes the Yanomamo so vicious or Negroes the way they are – and partly to do with family structure. The standard Middle Eastern nomadic-clannish family structure encourages the development of values that are just bad.
The first is the Hyksos occupation of Egypt, which I think went on for three centuries. They were eventually expelled and ended up in the Levant. They worshipped Set, the god of storms and foreigners, who was also the murderer of his brother, Osiris.
Secondly was the traumatic Amarna period, also involving a god-against-the-gods, Akhenaten’s ‘Aten’ disk. This episode was so traumatic to the Egyptians that they destroyed all traces of Akhenaten’s reign and the rest of the world knew nothing of it until the 19th century. Akhenaten’s reign was characterized by the destruction of images, the suppression of all competing cults, etc.
The Amarna priesthood was expelled into the Levant as well.
I think the experiences of the Hyksos and the Amarna priesthood are the basis of Judaism. They took ruling positions in Canaan and then started the first Big Lie, or the Biggest Big Lie of all time.
Critical for the formation of Jewish character is their time in Babylon. This is the crucible where the Canaanites, the Amarna priests, and the Hyksos were both introduced to civilization-wide financial manipulation – and so I suspect where the true origin of the Joseph story comes from – and to the necessity to ‘keep the race pure’. The redaction of Torah is sometime in the 6th century BC in Babylon, probably by Ezra, scholars now believe.
So, as I say, a perfect storm: the Semitic temperament, which never really understood that other people had rights that needed respecting, combined with a facility for verbal manipulation, corralled and husbanded by Hyksos Set-worshippers and Amarna priests, both of whom have a burning hatred for Egypt and anything like Egypt.
