Yonatan Adler’s recent work, which seeks to establish Judaism’s emergence through the paper and artifact trail, exemplifies a growing trend in modern scholarship: reducing faith to material remains. This method, while useful for historical reconstruction, ultimately fails to grasp the nature of religious identity as a lived, oral, and communal phenomenon. If applied consistently, it would lead to absurd conclusions—not only about Judaism but also about Christianity and many other historical traditions.
The Fallacy of Late Emergence
Adler’s argument hinges on the assumption that Judaism, as a Torah-observant way of life, did not fully take shape until the Hasmonean period (2nd century BCE) because clear archaeological evidence—such as widespread observance of dietary laws, tefillin, or mezuzot—does not appear earlier. This reasoning is flawed for three reasons:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence – A lack of clear material traces does not mean Torah observance was not practiced. Oral traditions, small-scale observance, and non-archaeologically visible expressions of faith existed long before they left physical markers.
Post-exilic Judaism already shows Torah centrality – The return from Babylon was explicitly about restoring Torah-based identity (Nehemiah 8). To suggest that Judaism “only emerged” centuries later ignores both biblical testimony and Jewish self-understanding.
Diversity does not mean non-existence – The presence of different Jewish sects in the Second Temple period (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes) does not indicate that Judaism was just beginning—it indicates that it was mature enough to produce internal debate and sectarianism.
Would Christianity Exist Without Archaeology?
If Adler’s logic were applied to Christianity, we would have to conclude that Christianity did not exist in the first century because there is little direct archaeological evidence of churches, written New Testament texts, or fully formed doctrines before the late second century. This would be an absurd claim—early Christians were active, organizing communities, and transmitting Jesus’ teachings orally before they left a material footprint.
Christianity, much like early Judaism, was primarily an oral tradition before it became a fixed textual tradition. The lack of early Christian artifacts does not mean the faith did not exist; it simply means that it functioned differently from how modern scholars expect religions to leave evidence.
Canonization and the Loss of Orality
This issue ties directly into the problem of canonization cessation in Christianity. Whereas Judaism, even after canonizing the Tanakh, preserved an ongoing oral tradition through the Mishnah and Talmud, Christianity increasingly moved toward a closed, text-based theology. By the time of the early Church Fathers, Christianity had largely lost the Jewish mode of continual oral interpretation, replacing it with systematic theology and creeds.
Thus, the shift away from oral tradition—both in Judaism (with the rise of fixed rabbinic authority post-Yavneh) and in Christianity (with the fixation on a closed canon)—led to an artificial sense of textual finality. Yet, neither faith was originally built on static texts alone. Both relied on an interpretive tradition that was dynamic, communal, and lived.
The Way Forward: Beyond Material Reductionism
Adler’s search for artifacts may yield interesting historical insights, but it ultimately misunderstands how religious identity develops. Judaism was not “invented” in the Hasmonean period any more than Christianity was “invented” in the second century CE. Faith is not reducible to material traces—it is a living tradition, carried through people, practices, and interpretation.
Adler’s search for artifacts may yield interesting historical insights, but it ultimately misunderstands how religious identity develops. Judaism was not “invented” in the Hasmonean period any more than Christianity was “invented” in the second century CE. Faith is not reducible to material traces—it is a living tradition, carried through people, practices, and interpretation.
If Christianity is to recover its Jewish roots, it must reconsider its own reliance on textual finality and embrace the continuity of divine revelation in the way that early Judaism did. Instead of seeing the canon as a boundary, it must return to seeing it as a foundation for ongoing engagement.
In the end, the real question is not whether Judaism or Christianity left an early enough material footprint—it is whether we are willing to acknowledge the reality of oral, living, and evolving faith as the true evidence of divine engagement in history.
