The Jews adopt a long-established Egyptian ritual - the circumcision of boys

The god of the Hebrews, announcing to Moses 'I Am Who I Am', acquires his name - YHWH, meaning 'He Who Is'

Stone tablets, engraved by Moses to signify God's covenant with his people, are placed in a sacred chest - the ark of the covenant

The Jews write down the Torah, the earliest part of the text subsequently known to Christians as the Old Testament

The Israelites, settled in Canaan, become the first people in history to decide that their god is the only god

Solomon, the king of Israel, builds the first Temple in Jerusalem

The Jews, taken into captivity in Babylon, form the first community of the Diaspora

The synagogue, as a simple place of Jewish worship, develops during the Babylonian captivity

The optimistic concept of the Messiah is part of the Jewish response to captivity in Babylon

Returning to Jerusalem, the Jews begin to rebuild the Temple

The Jewish community of Alexandria coins the word diaspora for Jews living far from Israel

The Jews of Alexandria commission the Greek translation of the Old Testament which becomes known as the Septuagint

Simon the Maccabee is appointed high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, with the position declared hereditary in his family

The priestly Sadducees are confronted in the Sanhedrin by a new opposition party - the Pharisees

The Essenes, a Jewish sect, withdraw from secular life to form monastic communities in the desert

Herod the Great, king of Judaea, begins to build a spectacular new Temple for the Jews on the sacred mount in Jerusalem

The Essenes hide their sacred scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea, to save them from the Romans

The first yeshiva, established by Johanan ben Zakkai at Yavne, begins a strong tradition of Jewish scholarship in the Diaspora

The last of the Jewish insurgents are besieged in the stronghold of Masada, eventually killing each other to end their ordeal

Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi compiles the Mishnah, a six-part digest of the Oral Torah

Origen, living in Caesarea, compiles the Hexapla, displaying versions of the Old Testament in six columns for comparative study

The Jews of the Diaspora have by now spread through much of the Roman empire, where they are treated with tolerance

The earlier of the two Talmuds, consisting of commentaries on the Mishnah, is collected by rabbis in Palestine

The scribes known as Masoretes safeguard the ancient Hebrew of the Torah by their careful copying of the text

Ritual intoning of the psalms, derived from Jewish synagogues, is formalized in Christian worship as Gregorian chant