The Diversity of Judaism in the Second Temple Period

The Septuagint Bible, became the dominant Greek version. Many Jews couldn't read a word of Hebrew in our period. Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic Jewry then were an essential cultural component of Western civilization. Was there some kind of core Jewish teaching that even the weirdest, most far-flung elements of the diaspora held? Maybe monotheism? Nope. Monotheism is right out. The community of Jews on the Egyptian island of Elephantine, who may have arrived there as soldiers in the army of the Congregation Persian Empire in the 6th century or may have already been there in Egypt from who knows when.