History Of Judaism

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIESHKqnPt2-9UcLD5Lzxz8K7LkeNOheikRcFYmgn_ONAqayrPm9jylvXMMaIKK108_8sYErZMDqnAz0-1d78o528E4PUUBKP7nKXy8n7Qsx88I3Qz_arhqHFrCl1GjM6w3rKsunWmeuc/s800/ancient+jerusalem.jpg" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIESHKqnPt2-9UcLD5Lzxz8K7LkeNOheikRcFYmgn_ONAqayrPm9jylvXMMaIKK108_8sYErZMDqnAz0-1d78o528E4PUUBKP7nKXy8n7Qsx88I3Qz_arhqHFrCl1GjM6w3rKsunWmeuc/s16000/ancient+jerusalem.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>Judaism</b></span>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/monotheism">monotheistic</a> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/religion">religion</a> developed among the ancient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew">Hebrews</a>. Judaism is characterized by a belief in one <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcendent">transcendent</a> God who revealed himself to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham">Abraham</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Hebrew-prophet">Moses</a>, and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew">Hebrew</a> prophets and by a religious life in accordance with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-Bible">Scriptures</a> and rabbinic traditions. Judaism is the complex phenomenon of a total way of life for the Jewish people, <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprising">comprising</a> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/theology">theology</a>, law, and innumerable cultural traditions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The first section of this article treats the history of Judaism in the broadest and most complete sense, from the early ancestral beginnings of the Jewish people to contemporary times. In the second section the beliefs, practices, and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture">culture</a> of Judaism are discussed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;">The History Of Judaism</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is history that provides the key to an understanding of Judaism, for its primal affirmations appear in early historical narratives. Thus, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bible">Bible</a> reports contemporary events and activities for essentially religious reasons. The biblical authors believed that the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacred">divine</a> presence is encountered primarily within history. God’s presence is also experienced within the natural realm, but the more immediate or <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intimate">intimate</a> disclosure occurs in human actions. Although other ancient <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communities">communities</a> also perceived a divine presence in history, the understanding of the ancient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Israelite">Israelites</a> proved to be the most lasting and influential. It is this particular claim—to have experienced God’s presence in human events—and its subsequent development that is the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/differentiating">differentiating</a> factor in Jewish thought.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Moreover, the ancient Israelites’ entire mode of existence was affected by their belief that throughout history they stood in a unique relationship with the divine. The people of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Hebrew-patriarch">Israel</a> believed that their response to the divine presence in history was central not only for themselves but for all humankind. Furthermore, God—as person—had revealed in a particular encounter the pattern and structure of communal and individual life to this people. Claiming <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereignty">sovereignty</a> over the people because of his continuing action in history on their behalf, he had established a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/covenant-religion">covenant</a> (berit) with them and required from them obedience to his teaching, or law (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Torah">Torah</a>). This obedience was a further means by which the divine presence was made manifest—expressed in concrete human existence. The corporate life of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/chosen-people">chosen</a> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community">community</a> was thus a summons to the rest of humankind to recognize God’s presence, sovereignty, and purpose—the establishment of peace and well-being in the universe and in humankind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">History, moreover, disclosed not only God’s purpose but also humankind’s inability to live in accord with it. Even the chosen community failed in its obligation and had to be summoned back, time and again, to its responsibility by the prophets—the divinely called spokespersons who warned of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retribution">retribution</a> within history and argued and reargued the case for <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affirmative">affirmative</a> human response. Israel’s role in the divine economy and thus Israel’s particular culpability were dominant themes sounded against the motif of fulfillment, the ultimate triumph of the divine purpose, and the establishment of divine sovereignty over all humankind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: large;"><b>General observations</b></span><div><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>Nature and characteristics</b></span><div style="text-align: justify;">In nearly 4,000 years of historical development, the Jewish people and their religion have displayed a remarkable adaptability and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/continuity">continuity</a>. In their encounter with the great civilizations, from ancient <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylonia">Babylonia</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt">Egypt</a> to Western Christendom and modern <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secular">secular</a> culture, they have <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assimilated">assimilated</a> foreign elements and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrated">integrated</a> them into their own social and religious systems, thus maintaining an unbroken religious and cultural tradition. Furthermore, each period of Jewish history has left behind it a specific element of a Judaic heritage that continued to influence subsequent developments, so that the total Jewish heritage at any given time is a combination of all these successive elements along with whatever adjustments and accretions have occurred in each new age.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The various teachings of Judaism have often been regarded as specifications of the central idea of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/monotheism">monotheism</a>. One God, the creator of the world, has freely elected the Jewish people for a unique covenantal relationship with himself. This one and only God has been affirmed by virtually all professing Jews in a variety of ways throughout the ages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jewish monotheism has had both universalistic and particularistic features. Along universal lines, it has affirmed a God who created and rules the entire world and who at the end of history will redeem all Israel (the classical name for the Jewish people), all humankind, and indeed the whole world. The ultimate goal of all nature and history is an unending reign of cosmic intimacy with God, entailing universal <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/justice">justice</a> and peace. Between creation and redemption lies the particularistic <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/designation">designation</a> of the Jewish people as the locus of God’s activity in the world, as the people chosen by God to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Exodus-Old-Testament">Exodus</a> 19:6). This arrangement is designated a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/covenant">covenant</a> and is structured by an elaborate and intricate law. Thus, the Jewish people are both entitled to special privileges and burdened with special responsibilities from God. As the prophet <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amos">Amos</a> (8th century BCE) expressed it: “You alone have I intimately known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). The universal goal of the Jewish people has frequently expressed itself in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/messiah-religion">messianism</a>—the idea of a universal, political realm of justice and peace. In one form or another, messianism has permeated Jewish thinking and action throughout the ages, and it has strongly influenced the outlook of many secular-minded Jews (see also <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/eschatology">eschatology</a>).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Law embraces practically all domains of Jewish life, and it became the principle means by which Judaism was to bring about the reign of God on earth. It is a total guide to religious and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethical">ethical</a> conduct, involving ritualistic observance as well as individual and social <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethics-philosophy">ethics</a>. It is a liturgical and ethical way constantly expatiated on by the prophets and priests, by rabbinic sages, and by philosophers. Such conduct was to be performed in the service of God, the transcendent and immanent ruler of the universe, the Creator and the propelling force of nature, and the one giving guidance and purpose to history. According to Judaic belief, this divine guidance is <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifested">manifested</a> through the history of the Jewish people, which will culminate in the messianic age. Judaism, whether in its “normative” form or in its sectarian deviations, never completely departed from this basic ethical and historical monotheism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>Periodization</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The division of the millennia of Jewish history into periods is a procedure frequently dependent on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-history">philosophical</a> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predilections">predilections</a>. The Christian world long believed that until the rise of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christianity">Christianity</a> the history of Judaism was but a “preparation for the Gospel” (preparatio evangelica) that was followed by the “manifestation of the Gospel” (demonstratio evangelica) as revealed by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jesus">Christ</a> and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apostle">Apostles</a>. This formulation could be theologically <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reconciled">reconciled</a> with the assumption that Christianity had been preordained even before the creation of the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the 19th century, biblical scholars moved the decisive division back to the period of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Babylonian-Captivity">Babylonian Exile</a> and the restoration of the Jews to the kingdom of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judah-Hebrew-tribe">Judah</a> (6th–5th century BCE). They asserted that after the first fall of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Jerusalem">Jerusalem</a> (586 BCE) the ancient “Israelitic” religion gave way to a new form of the “Jewish” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/faith">faith</a>, or Judaism, as formulated by the reformer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ezra-Hebrew-religious-leader">Ezra</a> (5th century BCE) and his school. In Die Entstehung des Judentums (1896; “The Origin of Judaism”) the German historian Eduard Meyer argued that Judaism originated in the Persian period, or the days of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ezra-Hebrew-religious-leader">Ezra</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nehemiah">Nehemiah</a> (5th century BCE); indeed, he attributed an important role in shaping the emergent religion to Persian imperialism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These theories, however, have been discarded by most scholars in the light of a more <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprehensive">comprehensive</a> knowledge of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Middle-East">ancient Middle East</a> and the abandonment of a theory of gradual evolutionary development that was dominant at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Jews share a long-accepted notion that there never was a real break in continuity and that Mosaic-prophetic-priestly Judaism was continued, with only a few modifications, in the work of the Pharisaic and rabbinic sages well into the modern period. Even today the various Jewish groups—whether <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Orthodox-Judaism">Orthodox</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Conservative-Judaism">Conservative</a>, or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reform-Judaism">Reform</a>—all claim direct spiritual descent from the Pharisees and the rabbinic sages. In fact, however, many developments have occurred within so-called normative or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Rabbinic-Judaism">Rabbinic Judaism</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In any event, the history of Judaism can be divided into the following major periods: biblical Judaism (c. 20th–4th century BCE), Hellenistic Judaism (4th century BCE–2nd century CE), Rabbinic Judaism (2nd–18th century CE), and modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: large;"><b>Biblical Judaism (20th–4th century BCE)</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The ancient Middle Eastern setting</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bible">Bible</a> depicts the family of the Hebrew <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/patriarch-Eastern-Orthodoxy">patriarchs</a>—<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham">Abraham</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac">Isaac</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Hebrew-patriarch">Jacob</a> (all early 2nd millennium BCE)—as having its chief seat in the northern Mesopotamian town of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Harran">Harran</a>, which then belonged to the Hurrian kingdom of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mitanni">Mitanni</a>. From there Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew people, is said to have migrated to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Canaan-historical-region-Middle-East">Canaan</a> (comprising roughly the region of modern Israel and Lebanon), which was a vortex of west Asian, Egyptian, and east Mediterranean <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cultures">cultures</a> throughout the biblical period and later ages. From Canaan the Hebrew ancestors of the people of Israel (named after the patriarch Jacob, also called Israel) migrated to Egypt, where they lived in servitude; a few generations later they returned to occupy part of Canaan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/46/192146-050-B6DD19E2/Sacrifice-of-Isaac-Abraham-Giambattista-Pittoni-Italian.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/s:690x388,c:crop/46/192146-050-B6DD19E2/Sacrifice-of-Isaac-Abraham-Giambattista-Pittoni-Italian.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a class="md-assembly-title font-weight-bold mb-5 d-inline-block font-16 font-sans-serif media-overlay-link" data-href="/media/1/307197/218222" href="https://cdn.britannica.com/46/192146-050-B6DD19E2/Sacrifice-of-Isaac-Abraham-Giambattista-Pittoni-Italian.jpg" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #14599d; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: 700; margin-bottom: 5px; text-align: start; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: x-small;">Sacrifice of Isaac</span></span></a></div><div class="md-assembly-caption text-muted font-14 font-serif" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;">The painting <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sacrifice of Isaac</em> (1713) by Italian artist Giambattista Pittoni depicts Abraham ready to obey God's command to sacrifice his son Isaac. <span style="font-size: 0.75rem;">© Renata Sedmakova/Shutterstock.com</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Israelite">Israelite</a> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture">culture</a> initially resembled that of its surroundings; it was neither wholly original nor wholly primitive. The Hebrews were seminomadic herdsmen and occasionally farmers. Their tribal structure resembled that of the West Semitic steppe dwellers known from the 18th-century-BCE tablets excavated at the north-central Mesopotamian city of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mari-ancient-city-Syria">Mari</a>; their family customs and law have parallels in the Old Babylonian and Hurro-Semite law of the early and middle 2nd millennium. The <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conception">conception</a> of a messenger of God that underlies biblical prophecy was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amorite">Amorite</a> (West Semitic) and also found in the tablets at Mari. Mesopotamian religious and cultural <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conceptions">conceptions</a> are reflected in biblical cosmogony, primeval history (including the Flood story in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Genesis-Old-Testament">Genesis</a> 6:9–8:22), and law collections. The Canaanite component of Israelite culture consisted of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-language">Hebrew language</a> and a rich literary heritage—whose Ugaritic form (which flourished in the northern Syrian city of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ugarit">Ugarit</a> from the mid-15th century to approximately 1200 BCE) <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/illuminates">illuminates</a> the Bible’s poetry, style, mythological <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allusions">allusions</a>, and religious or cultic terms. Egypt provides many <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogues">analogues</a> for Hebrew hymnody and wisdom literature. All the cultures among which the patriarchs lived had cosmic gods who fashioned the world and preserved its order, all had a developed <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethical">ethical</a> system expressed in law and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral">moral</a> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/admonitions">admonitions</a>, and all had elaborate religious rites and <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myths">myths</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although plainer when compared with some of the learned literary creations of Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt, the earliest biblical writings are so imbued with contemporary ancient Middle Eastern elements that the once-held assumption that Israelite <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/religion">religion</a> began on a preliterate level must be rejected. Late-born amid high civilizations, the Israelite religion had from the start features characteristic of all the known religions of the area. Implanted on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/land-bridge">land bridge</a> between Africa and Asia, it was exposed to crosscurrents of foreign thought throughout its history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The pre-Mosaic period: the religion of the patriarchs</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Israelite tradition identified YHWH (by scholarly convention pronounced <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh">Yahweh</a>), the God of Israel, with the creator of the world, who had been known and worshipped from the beginning of time. Abraham did not discover this God but entered into a new covenantal relationship with him, in which Abraham was promised the land of Canaan and numerous progeny. God fulfilled that promise, it is believed, through the actions of the Hebrew leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Hebrew-prophet">Moses</a> (14th–13th century BCE): he liberated the people of Israel from Egypt, imposed covenantal obligations on them at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Mount-Sinai-mountain-Egypt">Mt. Sinai</a>, and brought them to the Promised Land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Historical and anthropological studies present <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/formidable">formidable</a> objections to the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/continuity">continuity</a> of YHWH <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/worship">worship</a> from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-and-Eve-biblical-literary-figures">Adam</a> (the biblical first man) to Moses. The Hebrew tradition itself, moreover, does not unanimously support even the more modest claim of the continuity of YHWH worship from Abraham to Moses. This lack of continuity is demonstrated in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Exodus-Old-Testament">Exodus</a> 6:3, which says that God revealed himself to the patriarchs not as YHWH but as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/El-Shaddai">El Shaddai</a>—an <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archaic">archaic</a> epithet of unknown meaning that is not specifically Israelite but is found throughout the patriarchal narratives and in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Book-of-Job">Book of Job</a>. The epithet El Elyon (God Most High) also appears frequently in the patriarchal narratives. Neither of these epithets is used in postpatriarchal narratives (excepting the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Book-of-Ruth">Book of Ruth</a>). Other <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compounds">compounds</a> with El are unique to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Genesis-British-rock-group">Genesis</a>: El Olam (God the Everlasting One), El Bethel (God Bethel), and El Roʾi (God of Vision). An additional peculiarity of the patriarchal stories is their use of the phrase “God of my [your, his] father.” All these epithets have been taken as evidence that patriarchal religion differed from the worship of YHWH that began with Moses. A relation to a patron god was defined by revelations starting with Abraham (who never refers to the God of his father) and continuing with a succession of “founders” of his worship. Attached to the founder and his family, as befits the patron of wanderers, this unnamed deity acquired various Canaanite epithets (El, Elyon, Olam, Bethel, Qone Eretz [“Possessor of the Land”]) only after their immigration into Canaan. Whether the name of YHWH was known to the patriarchs is doubtful. It is significant that while the epithets Shaddai and El occur frequently in pre-Mosaic and Mosaic-age names, YHWH appears as an element only in the names of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joshua">Yehoshuaʿ</a> (Joshua) and perhaps of Jochebed—persons who were closely associated with Moses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The patriarchs are depicted as objects of God’s blessing, protection, and providential care. Their response is loyalty and obedience and observance of a cult (i.e., a system of religious beliefs and practices) whose ordinary expression is <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacrifice-religion">sacrifice</a>, vow, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/prayer">prayer</a> at an altar, stone pillar, or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacred">sacred</a> tree. Circumcision was a distinctive mark of the cult <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community">community</a>. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/eschatology">eschatology</a> (doctrine of ultimate destiny) of their <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/faith">faith</a> was God’s promise of land and a great progeny. Any flagrant contradictions between patriarchal and later mores have presumably been censored; yet distinctive features of the post-Mosaic religion are absent. The God of the patriarchs shows nothing of YHWH’s “jealousy”; no religious tension or contrast with their neighbours appears, and idolatry is scarcely an issue. The patriarchal <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/covenant">covenant</a> differed from the Mosaic, Sinaitic covenant in that it was modeled upon a royal grant to favourites and imposed no obligations as conditions of the people’s happiness. Evidently not the same as the later religion of Israel, the patriarchal religion prepared the way for the later one through its familial basis, its personal call by the Deity, and its response of loyalty and obedience to him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Little can be said of the relation between the religion of the patriarchs and the religions of Canaan. Known points of contact between them are the divine epithets mentioned above. Like the God of the fathers, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/El">El</a>, the head of the Ugaritic pantheon, was depicted as both a judgmental and a compassionate deity. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Baal-ancient-deity">Baal</a> (Lord), the aggressive young agricultural deity of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ugarit">Ugarit</a>, is remarkably absent from Genesis. Yet the socioeconomic situation of the patriarchs was so different from the urban, mercantile, and monarchical background of the Ugaritic myths as to render any comparisons highly questionable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: large;"><b>The Mosaic period: foundations of the Israelite religion</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt">Egyptian</a> sojourn</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to Hebrew tradition, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/famine">famine</a> caused the migration to Egypt of the band of 12 Hebrew families that later made up a tribal league in the land of Israel. The schematic character of this tradition does not impair the historicity of a migration to Egypt, an enslavement by Egyptians, and an escape from Egypt under an inspired leader by some component of the later Israelite tribes. To disallow these events, it can be argued, would make their centrality as articles of faith in the later religious beliefs of Israel inexplicable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tradition gives the following account of the birth of the nation. At the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Exodus-Old-Testament">Exodus</a> from Egypt (13th century BCE), YHWH showed his faithfulness and power by liberating the Israelites from bondage and punishing their oppressors with plagues and drowning them in the sea. At Sinai he made the Israelites his people and gave them the terms of his covenant, regulating their conduct toward him and each other so as to make them a holy nation. After sustaining them miraculously during their 40-year trek in the wilderness, he enabled them to take the land that he had promised to their fathers, the patriarchs. Central to these events is Moses, who was commissioned by God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, mediate God’s covenant with them, and bring them to Canaan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Behind the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legends">legends</a> and the multiform law collections, it is possible to discern a historical figure to whom the legends and the legislative activity can be attached. And it is precisely Moses’ unusual combination of roles that makes him credible as a historical figure. Like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Muhammad">Muhammad</a> (c. 570–632 CE) at the birth of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islam">Islam</a>, Moses fills oracular, legislative, executive, and military functions. He shapes the main institutions of Israel: the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/priesthood">priesthood</a> and the sacred shrine, the covenant and its rules, and the administrative apparatus of the tribal league. Although Moses is compared to a prophet in various texts in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Torah">Pentateuch</a> (the first five books of the Bible), he is never designated as one—the term being evidently unsuited for so <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprehensive">comprehensive</a> and unique a figure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>Mosaic religion</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The distinctive features of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Israelite">Israelite</a> <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/religion">religion</a> appear with Moses. The proper name of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Hebrew-patriarch">Israel’s</a> God, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh">YHWH</a>, was revealed and interpreted to Moses as meaning ehye asher ehye—an <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enigmatic">enigmatic</a> phrase of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infinite">infinite</a> suggestiveness, literally meaning “I am/shall be what I am/shall be.” The <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/covenant">covenant</a>, defining Israel’s obligations, is ascribed to Moses’ mediation. It is impossible to determine what rulings go back to Moses, but the Decalogue, or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ten-Commandments">Ten Commandments</a>, presented in chapter 20 of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Exodus-Old-Testament">Exodus</a> and chapter 5 of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deuteronomy">Deuteronomy</a>, and the larger and smaller covenant codes in Exodus 20:22–23:33 and 34:11–26 are held by critics to contain early covenant law. From them the following features may be noted: the rules are formulated as God’s utterances—i.e., expressions of his <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereign">sovereign</a> will, directed toward and often explicitly addressed to the people at large, Moses merely conveying the sovereign’s message to his subjects—and, publication being of the essence of the rules, the people as a whole are held responsible for their observance.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The liberation from Egypt laid upon Israel the obligation of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exclusive">exclusive</a> loyalty to YHWH. This meant <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eschewing">eschewing</a> all other gods—including idols venerated as such—and the elimination of all magical recourses. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/worship">worship</a> of YHWH was aniconic (without images); even figures that might serve in his worship were banned, apparently because their use suggested theurgy (the art or technique of influencing or controlling a god by fixing his presence in a particular place and making him accessible). Although there is a mythological background behind some cultic terminology (e.g., “a pleasing odour to YHWH” and “my bread”), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacrifice-religion">sacrifice</a> is conceived as tribute or is regarded (in priestly writings) as purely a sacrament—i.e., as a material means of interacting with or making a connection to God. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew">Hebrew</a> festivals also have no mythological basis; they either celebrate God’s bounty (e.g., at the ingathering of the harvest) or his saving acts (e.g., at the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/feast-religion">festival</a> of unleavened bread, which is a memorial of the Exodus).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The values of life and limb, labour, and social solidarity were protected in the rules governing interpersonal relations. The involuntary perpetual <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/slavery-sociology">slavery</a> of Hebrews was abolished, and a seven-year limit was set on bondage. The humanity of slaves was defended: one who beat his slave to death was liable to death; if he maimed a slave, he was required to set the slave free. Murderers were denied asylum and could not ransom themselves from death, and for deliberate and severe bodily injuries the lex talionis—the principle of “an eye for an eye”—was ordained (see <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/talion">talion</a>). Theft and harm to property were punished monetarily rather than by death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Moral">Moral</a> exhortations called for solidarity with the poor and the helpless and for brotherly assistance to those in need. Institutions were created—e.g., the sabbatical, or seventh, fallow year, in which land was not cultivated—to embody such exhortations in practice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since the goal of the Israelites was the conquest of a land, their religion had warlike features. Organized as an army (called “the hosts of YHWH” in Exodus 12:41), they encamped in a protective square around their palladium—the tent housing the ark in which rested the stone “Tablets of the Covenant.” When journeying, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacred">sacred</a> objects were carried and guarded by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Levite">Levite</a> tribe or clan, whose rivals, the Aaronites, exercised a monopoly on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/priesthood">priesthood</a>. God, sometimes called “the warrior,” marched with the army; in war, part of the booty was delivered to his ministers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The period of the conquest and settlement of Canaan</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The conquest of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Canaan-historical-region-Middle-East">Canaan</a> was remembered as a continuation of God’s marvels at the Exodus. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Jordan-River">Jordan River</a> was split asunder, the walls of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Jericho-West-Bank">Jericho</a> fell at Israel’s shout, the enemy was seized with divinely inspired terror, and the sun stood still in order to enable Israel to exploit its victory. Such stories are not necessarily the work of a later age; they reflect rather the impact of these victories on the actors in the drama, who felt themselves successful by the grace of God.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A complex process of occupation, involving both battles of annihilation and treaty agreements with <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indigenous">indigenous</a> peoples, has been simplified in the biblical account of the wars of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joshua">Joshua</a> (13th century BCE). Gradually, the unity of the invaders dissolved (most scholars believe that the invading element was only part of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan; other Hebrews, long since settled in Canaan from patriarchal times, then joined the invaders’ covenant league). Individual tribes made their way with varying success against the residue of Canaanite resistance. New enemies, Israel’s neighbours to the east and west, appeared, and the period of the judges (leaders, or champions) began.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Book-of-Judges">Book of Judges</a>, the main witness for the period, does not speak with one voice on the religious situation. Its editorial framework describes repeated cycles of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apostasy">apostasy</a>, oppression, appeal to God, and relief through a champion sent by God. Israel’s troubles prior to the institution of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/monarchy">monarchy</a> under <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saul-king-of-Israel">Saul</a> (11th century BCE) were caused by the weakness of the disunited tribes and were thus accounted for by the covenantal <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sin-religion">sin</a> of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostasy">apostasy</a>. The individual stories, however, present a different picture. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apostasy">Apostasy</a> does not figure in the exploits of the judges <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ehud">Ehud</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Deborah-biblical-figure">Deborah</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jephthah">Jephthah</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samson">Samson</a>; YHWH has no rival, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/faith">faith</a> in him is periodically confirmed by the saviours he sends to rescue Israel from its neighbours. This faith is shared by all the tribes; it is owing to their common cult that a Levite from Bethlehem could serve first at an Ephraimite and later also at a Danite sanctuary. The religious bond, preserved by the common cult, enabled the tribes to work together under the leadership of elders or an inspired champion in time of danger or religious scandal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both written and archaeological testimonies, however, point to the Hebrews’ adoption of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Canaanite-religion">Canaanite cults</a>—the Baal worship of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gideon-biblical-figure">Gideon</a>’s family and neighbours in Ophrah in Judges, chapter 6, is an example. The many cultic figurines (usually female) found in Israelite levels of Palestinian archaeological sites also give colour to the sweeping indictments of the framework of the Book of Judges. But these phenomena belonged to the private, popular religion; the national God, YHWH, remained one—Baal sent no prophets to Israel—though YHWH’s claim to exclusive worship was obviously not effectual. Nor did his cult conform with later orthodoxy; Micah’s idol in Judges, chapter 17, and Gideon’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ephod">ephod</a> (priestly or religious garment) were considered <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostasies">apostasies</a> by the editor, in accord with the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dogma">dogma</a> that whatever is not orthodoxy is apostasy—heterodoxy (nonconformity) being unrecognized and simply equated with apostasy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To the earliest sanctuaries and altars honoured as patriarchal foundations—at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Shechem-ancient-Canaanite-city">Shechem</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bethel-ancient-city-Palestine">Bethel</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Beersheba">Beersheba</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Hebron-city-West-Bank">Hebron</a> in Cisjordan (west of the Jordan); and at Mahanaim, Penuel, and Mizpah in Transjordan (east of the Jordan)—were added new sanctuaries and altars at Dan, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Shiloh-ancient-city-Palestine">Shiloh</a>, Ramah, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Gibeon">Gibeon</a>, and elsewhere. A single priestly family could not operate all these establishments, and so <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Levite">Levites</a> rose to the priesthood; at private sanctuaries even non-Levites might be <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consecrated">consecrated</a> as priests. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ark-of-the-Covenant">Ark of the Covenant</a> was housed in the Shiloh sanctuary, staffed by priests of the house of Eli, who traced their consecration back to Egypt. But the ark remained a portable palladium in wartime; Shiloh was not regarded as its final resting place. The law in Exodus 20:24–26, which authorized a plurality of altar sites and the simplest forms of construction (earth and rough stone), suited the plain conditions of this period.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: large;"><b>The period of the united monarchy</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The religious and political problem</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decentralized tribal league could not cope with the constant pressure of external enemies—camel-riding desert marauders who pillaged harvests annually and iron-weaponed <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Philistine-people">Philistines</a> (an Aegean people settling coastal Palestine c. 12th century BCE) who controlled key points in the hill country occupied by the Israelites. In the face of such threats, a central authority that could mobilize the forces of the entire league and create a standing army had to be established. Two attitudes were distilled in the crisis—one <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative">conservative</a> and anti-monarchic, the other radical and pro-monarchic. The conservative attitude appears first in Gideon’s refusal to found a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dynasty">dynasty</a> in Judges 8:23: “I will not rule you,” he tells the people, “my son will not rule over you; YHWH will…!” This theocratic view pervades one of the two contrasting accounts of the founding of the monarchy fused in chapters 8–12 of the First Book of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Books-of-Samuel">Samuel</a> (see <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Books-of-Samuel">Samuel, books of</a>). The popular demand for a king was viewed as a rejection of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/theocracy">kingship of God</a>, and in response to the demand there appeared a series of inspired saviours, from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Moses-Hebrew-prophet">Moses</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aaron-biblical-figure">Aaron</a> (14th–13th century BCE) through Jerubbaal, Bedan, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jephthah">Jephthah</a> to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Hebrew-prophet">Samuel</a> (11th century BCE) himself. The other, more radical account depicts the monarchy as a gift of God, designed to rescue his people from the Philistines (1 Samuel 9:16). Both accounts represent the seer-judge Samuel as the key figure in the founding of Israel’s monarchy, and it is not unlikely that the two attitudes struggled within him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/52/3352-050-7DC9C5D2/Palestine-David-Solomon.jpg"><img src="https://cdn.britannica.com/s:690x388,c:crop/52/3352-050-7DC9C5D2/Palestine-David-Solomon.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Palestine during the time of David and Solomon.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Benjaminite <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saul-king-of-Israel">Saul</a> was made king (c. 1020 BCE) by divine election and by popular acclamation after his victory over the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ammonite">Ammonites</a> (a Transjordanian Semitic people), but his career was clouded by conflict with Samuel, the major representative of the old order. Saul’s kingship was bestowed by Samuel and had to be accommodated to the ongoing authority of that man of God. The two accounts of Saul’s rejection by God (through Samuel) involve his usurpation of the prophet’s authority. King <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David">David</a> (10th century BCE), whose forcefulness and religious and political genius established the monarchy on an independent spiritual footing, resolved the conflict.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong; font-size: medium;"><b>The Davidic Monarchy</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The essence of the Davidic <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation">innovation</a> was the idea that, in addition to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sacred">divine</a> election through <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Hebrew-prophet">Samuel</a> and public acclamation, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David">David</a> had received God’s promise of an eternal dynasty; a conditional (perhaps earlier) and an unconditional (perhaps later) form of this promise exist in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Psalms">Psalms</a>, chapter 132 and 2 Samuel, chapter 7, respectively. In its developed form, the promise was conceived of as a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/covenant">covenant</a> with David, paralleling the covenant with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacob-Hebrew-patriarch">Israel</a> and instrumental in the latter’s fulfillment—the covenant being that God would channel his benefactions to Israel through the chosen <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dynasty">dynasty</a> of David. With this new status came the inviolability of the person of God’s anointed (a characteristically Davidic idea) and a court rhetoric—adapted from pagan models—in which the king was styled “the [firstborn] son of God.” An index of the king’s sanctity was his occasional performance of priestly duties. Yet the king’s mortality was never forgotten: he was never deified, and, although prayers and hymns might be said on his behalf, they were never addressed to him as a god.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">David captured the Jebusite stronghold of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Jerusalem">Jerusalem</a> and made it the seat of a national monarchy (Saul had never moved the seat of his government from his birthplace, the Benjaminite town of Gibeah, about three miles north of Jerusalem). Then, fetching the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ark-of-the-Covenant">ark</a> from an obscure retreat, David installed it in his capital, asserting his royal <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prerogative">prerogative</a> (and obligation) to build a shrine for the national God and thus at the same time joining the symbols of the dynastic and the national <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/covenants">covenants</a>. This move of political genius linked the God of Israel, the chosen dynasty of David, and the chosen city of Jerusalem in a henceforth indissoluble union.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">David planned to build a temple to house the ark, but the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenacious">tenacious</a> tradition of the ark’s portability in a tent shrine forced the postponement of the project to the reign of his son <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Solomon">Solomon</a>. As part of his extensive building program, Solomon erected the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Temple-of-Jerusalem">Temple</a> on a Jebusite threshing floor, located on a hill north of Jerusalem, which David had purchased to mark the spot where a plague had been halted. The ground plan of the Temple—a porch with two freestanding pillars before it, a sanctuary, and an inner sanctum—followed Syrian and Phoenician sanctuary models. A bronze “sea” resting on bulls and placed in the Temple court had a Babylonian <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analogue">analogue</a>. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Temple-of-Jerusalem">Temple of Jerusalem</a> resembled Canaanite and other Middle Eastern religious structures but was also different from them: notably, in the inner sanctum of the Temple there was no image of God but only the ancient ark covered by the wings of large <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/cherub">cherubim</a>. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh">YHWH</a>, who was enthroned upon celestial cherubim, was thus symbolically present in the Temple.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Trirong;"><b>[<a href="https://www.britannica.com/contributor/Louis-H-Feldman/907" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0e3f70; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Louis H. Feldman</a> |  <a href="https://www.britannica.com/" target="_blank">Britannica</a> | <a href="https://www.britannica.com/browse/Philosophy-Religion" target="_blank">Religion</a> | <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judaism/Biblical-Judaism-20th-4th-century-bce" target="_blank">Judaism</a>]</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>

History Of Judaism

Judaism , monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews . Judaism is characterized by a belief in one transcendent God who re...

History Of Judaism

Judaism , monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews . Judaism is characterized by a belief in one transcendent God who re...

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