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Backgrounds to English
Literature
Lecture 22: Hebraism 3
Religion Culture
 Religion and Culture
=General contexts
-Name of the ethic group: Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews
1. Hebrew is first used in the scriptures to refer to Abraham. And his
descendants were called Hebrews.
2. The name of Jacob was changed to Israel when he wrestled with a
man of God. The descendants of Jacob (Israel) were called Israelites.
3. Jews was first used to describe the inhabitants of Judah during the
division of the Kingdom.
-Judaism: religion, culture, people. All the Jews do not follow the
religious teachings of Judaism. Some Jews are Roman Catholics.
-Judaism does not represent any single race, belief, or viewpoint, let
alone values and politics.
=Four pillars of Judaism
-Monotheism
-An elect covenant people (chosen people)
-Torah
-Temple/land
=Notion of God: Monotheism
-Judaism was the first religion to worship only One God.
1. Most people around Abraham were polytheists
2. Monotheism was a radical break with the common philosophical
understanding of the Divine at the time.
3. It had eluded the far more culturally advanced civilizations of Egypt
and Mesopotamia, and also all the philosophical learning of Greece.
-Characteristics of God
1. Holiness
2. Supernatural: omniscient and omnipotent
3. Personal
4. Goodness
5. Yahweh: The Jewish name for God.
-Ethical monotheism
1. The oneness of God is an indispensable component of ethical
monotheism: one God means one morality.
2. One morality means one moral code for all humanity.
-Supporting elements for monotheism
1. Criticizing pagans’ way of worshiping
2. Seeing Jerusalem as the only legitimate place for God’s Temple
3. Key sacred texts: Torah and Talmud
-Problems of monotheism
1. How to deal with the polytheism of the earlier writings
2. How to explain the presence of evil and suffering in the world.
=Religious and cultural practices
-Development of the religious and cultural practices
1. To maintain their identity in the contexts of Diaspora among the
Gentiles
2. To keep the covenant between God and the Israel: obligation in
return for God’s promises
3. To pass down the stories to the next generation
-Bris (brit milah): circumcision after 8 days of birth
1. When the baby arrives, the mohel (a professional specially trained
in circumcision) welcomes him with the words: Baruch Ha-Ba
(“blessed is the one who has arrived”)
2. Circumcision
3. A blessing for fulfilling the commandment to bring one’s son into
Abraham’s covenant: “Just as this child has entered into the covenant,
so may he enter into (a life of) Torah, the marriage canopy, and into
good deeds.”
4. The mohel takes a cup of wine and recites over it a special prayer
that announces the baby’s Hebrew name. After that, a drop or two of
the wine is placed in the baby’s mouth, and the parents drink some of
the wine.
-Passage into Adulthood
1. When Jewish children reach the age of maturity (12 years for girls, 13
years for boys) they become responsible for their actions. Before this
age, all the child's responsibility to follow Jewish law and tradition lies
with the parents.
2. A boy is said to become Bar Mitzvah
3. A girl is said to become Bat Mitzvah
-Kashrut (Kosher): Jewish Dietary Laws
1. A set of biblical dietary restrictions dealing with what foods can and
cannot be eaten and how those foods must be prepared .
2. Blood must be drained from the meat or broiled out of it before it is
eaten / Fruits and vegetables are permitted, but must be inspected for
bugs (which cannot be eaten) / Utensils that have come into contact with
meat may not be used with dairy, and vice versa.
3. They can be simply primitive health regulations, but Jews observe
these laws because the Torah says so. For a Torah-observant,
traditional Jew, there is no need for any other reason.
=Joseph and Aseneth
-Joseph and Aseneth is a narrative describing the conversion of
Aseneth, the pagan wife of the patriarch Joseph.
1. Author: anonymous
2. Date and Origin: between the 1st century BC and early 2nd century
AD
3. Original language: written in Greek
-Apocrypha of the Old Testament
1. According to Genesis 41:45, Pharaoh gives Aseneth, the daughter
of Potipherah priest of On to Joseph as a wife. Genesis 41:50-52
narrates that Aseneth bore Joseph two sons Manasseh and Ephraim.
No more is said of her.
2. But the 29 chapters of the apocryphal narrative of Joseph and
Aseneth narrate the transformation of Aseneth, from idolatry to
monotheism
-The main plot summary of the story: The story is set in Egypt when
Joseph was gathering grain in preparation for future famine. Aseneth
falls in love with the handsome Joseph. Joseph refuses to marry her
because she worships idols. Only after Aseneth repents of her idols
and converts to the worship of Joseph's God do they marry and
conceive two sons.
-Themes of the inferiority of idolatry in the face of monotheism, the
importance of the sexual and dietary purity, the socially just and
benevolent ethics of the Jewish community over against the Gentiles
1. The weakness of Aseneth: she is a highborn, wealthy, and beautiful
Egyptian who has carefully preserved her virginity and proudly
rejected all suitors. Yet her only vice is an arrogant attachment to
Egyptian idols and ways of life.
2. After being refused by Joseph, Aseneth says: “What shall I do now,
wretched as I am? Did I not speak, saying that Joseph is coming, the
shepherd’s son from the land of Canaan? And now, behold, the sun
from heaven has come to us on its chariot and entered our house
today, and shines in it like a light upon the earth . . .And now be
gracious on me, Lord, God of Joseph, because I have spoken wicked
words against him in ignorance.” (Joseph and Aseneth 6:1–8)
3. Aseneth’s conversion: it includes fasting, sackcloth, visions, giving
alms, rejection of luxury, rejection of unclean food and other impure
items, the destruction of her idols, and an angelic appearance during
which she is fed a heavenly honeycomb that symbolizes pure bread,
wine, and oil as well as immortality. She is given a new name, “City
of Refuge.”
=Torah
-The concept of Torah
1. Torah means teaching, instruction, or law and is commonly known
as the Law of Moses.
2. The word Torah stands for God’s revelation to Moses at Sinai. It
further refers to all authoritative teaching by sages, which enjoy the
same status as God’s revelation to Moses at Sinai.
3. It refers not to canonical writings alone, but to God’s will for holy
Israel in every dimension of the everyday.
4. R. Aqiba said, “I once went after R. Joshua to the privy and I
learned the three things from him: I learned that people defecate not
on an east–west axis but on a north–south axis. I learned that one
urinates not standing but sitting. And I learned that one wipes not
with the right hand but with the left.” Said Ben Azzai to him, “Do you
behave so insolently toward your master?” He said to him, “It is a
matter of Torah, which I need to learn.”
-Contents of Torah
1. The Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, Deuteronomy
2. The entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament).
3. Oral traditions:
3.1. At Sinai God revealed the Torah to Moses in two media, written
and oral
3.2. Written Torah: the Hebrew Scriptures
3.3. Oral Torah (Mishnah): originally the Oral Law was not
transcribed. Instead it was transmitted from father to son and from
teacher to disciple (thus the name "Oral" Law). The oral law is the
Mishnah.
-Ideas of the Talmud
1. Meaning of Talmud: instruction and learning
2. Not the inspired Word of God, but a very old collection of the
sayings of rabbis
3. A central text of mainstream Judaism and consists primarily of
discussions and commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures.
4. The Talmud is the civil and canonical law of the Jewish people with
references to the religious life, philosophy, medicine, history,
jurisprudence, practical duty, dietary and ceremonial regulations.
-Two Talmuds
1. Jerusalem Talmud: in the mid-fourth century the Romans
suppressed Jewish scholarship in Israel and the Jerusalem Talmud
was forcibly interrupted (not complete)
2. Babylonian Talmud: then, most of the Talmudic scholars fled to
Babylon. The Babylonian Talmud, the final great work of Rabbinic
Judaism, was completed by the sixth century.
Group Discussions
-A story about a boat from Talmud:
A group of people were travelling in a boat. One of them took a drill
and began to drill a hole beneath himself. His companions said to him:
"Why are you doing this?" Replied the man: "What concern is it of
yours? Am I not drilling under my own place?" They said to him: "But
you will flood the boat for us all!“
-Discuss the meaning of the story
-Provide a similar story from your own personal experience or the
history or our contemporary situation