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The origins of the Jews may be found in the groups of seminomadic peoples who migrated from the deserts of Arabia some three to four thousand years ago and eventually settled in Canaan (later called Palestine). Hebrew settlement in Egypt began around 1800 BCE and ended around 1500–1450. The Hebrews eventually conquered Canaan and established a succession of states in the region which came to an end with a series of invasions, first by the Assyrians (850–722 BCE) and later by the Babylonians (587–586 BCE). These conquests ended in the destruction of the first Temple and the forced exile of tens of thousands of Jews to the lands of their conquerors.
It was the searing experience of exile that gave a distinct moral tone to Jewish thinking. The exiled Jews tended to turn inward and blame their own transgressions against the divine commands for the disasters that had befallen them. As a result, they became very concerned with knowing and obeying the divine will as set forth in the Pentateuch or Torah, containing the five books of the Bible written down between 539 BCE and 334 BCE and later codified by Ezra. Also during this period, the notion of a contractual relationship between the Jews as the Children of Israel and God became a fundamental tenant of Jewish belief.
Interestingly enough, for a people known for their monotheistic beliefs, Jews did not adopt monotheism until late in the evolution of Judaism. Modern scholars now feel that monotheistic belief did not really become fully established among the Jews until the Hellenistic period, perhaps as a reaction to Greek polytheism.
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