Revering the Bible and handling it creatively might sound like a contradiction to us, but it wasn't to ancient Jews. To understand why, and therefore to understand Jesus, we need to back up for just a second. As we saw in chapter 3, the Old Testament (more or less as we know it today) was produced by the Israelites in the generations after they returned from the exile in Babylon (539 BCE). These writings--some of which were being produced at that time and others that were much older and now gathered together--told the Israelites' ancient story and eventually became an authoritative guiding document for their present life and future hopes.