The Old Testament was born in a wide range of Middle Eastern cultural circles.  All  to this cultural circle  the peoples who have belonged have left their mark on it. The "fertile crescent" trade routes passed through Syria-Palestine. In the Old Testament, the effects are visible  in religious thinking, in attitudes towards politics  , in the forms and genres of written civilization, in the mythical tradition.  The youngest books of the Old Testament show the influence of the Hellenistic culture that had spread with the expeditions of Alexander the Great. Jews lived within this culture in the 5th century BC during exile in Egypt and Babylonia.

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