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World Religions, Sixth Edition
Warren Matthews
Chapter Eight:
Judaism
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Abraham
 Father of Jewish people
 Known for his faith
 Accepting promise of Canaan as a future gift
 Trusting God for his promised son
The Hebrew Book of Abraham
Jewish Scripture
 The Tanakh
 Torah – five books of Moses
 Prophets (Nevi´im) – kings, early and later prophets
 Writings (Kethuvi´im) – poetry, exile prophets
The Jewish Bible (Tanakh)
 Also known to Christians as the Old Testament
 Foundation of the Jewish self-understanding as a chosen and
covenanted people
 Modern scholarship is divided on its interpretation into traditional and
liberal camps
The Tanakh
 Traditional scholars’ view:
 The Tanakh is unerring Word of God
 All its theological teachings are direct truth
 Contains no lies or mistakes
 Historical details are accurate
The Tanakh
 Liberal scholars’ view:
 The Tanakh is a book written by people at God's direction
 Intended religious teachings are accurate
 Was put together by human beings
 Must have human errors
 Must be interpreted by secular history
Formation of the Tanakh
 Traditional view:
 Moses wrote the five initial books
 Jeremiah collected and edited the Nevi´im and initial part of the
Kethuvi´im
 Ezra also edited and added rest of Kethuvi´im

Transcribed the Tanakh from Hebrew to Aramaic

Established the canon ~ 400 BCE
Formation of the Tanakh
 Liberal view:
 Oral history and some psalms until about 200 BCE
 200 BCE Series of rewrites combines various editions to form
present text

Three sources for Genesis, labeled:
 J = Jehovah
 E = Elohim
 P = Priestly
 Canon first established ~ 90 CE
Locations of Biblical and First-Century CE
Judaism
Important Dates in Judaism
Traditional Scholarship
4000 BCE
~2350 BCE
~1900 BCE
~1700 BCE
~1450 BCE
~1000 BCE
722 BCE
586 BCE
538 BCE
~ 420 BCE
175 BCE
~ 165 BCE
~ 60 BCE
~ 90 CE
Creation of the world
Worldwide Flood
Abraham leaves Ur
Alternate Abraham leaves Ur
Exodus from Egypt
Israelite Monarchy established
Northern Kingdom destroyed
Southern Kingdom in exile
Return to Palestine
Ezra (last books of Tanakh) written
Hellenization program
Maccabee independence
Romans take over
Tanakh formalized
Important Dates in Judaism
Liberal Scholarship
~6 billion BCE
~2350 BCE
~1400 BCE
~1200 BCE
~1000 BCE
722 BCE
586 BCE
538 BCE
~ 200 BCE
175 BCE
~ 165 BCE
~ 60 BCE
~ 90 CE
Creation of the world
Local Mesopotamian flood
Abraham leaves Ur
Exodus from Egypt
Israelite monarchy established
Northern Kingdom destroyed
Southern Kingdom in exile
Return to Palestine
Tanakh written
Hellenization program
Maccabee independence
Romans take over
Tanakh formalized
Early History of the Jews
 Abraham
 Child of Ur, in Mesopotamia
 Left Mesopotamia as directed by God
 Traveled to Canaan (Palestine)
 Had two sons
 Isaac by wife Sarah
 Son of promise
 Abraham age 100, Sarah age 90
 Ishmael by concubine Hagar
Early History of the Jews
 Abraham's grandson Jacob
 Had twelve sons
 Became source of twelve tribes of Israel
 Acquired name Israel from God
 Moved family to Egypt during a famine
 Son Joseph Prime Minister of Egypt
Early History of the Jews
 Israelites in Egypt
 New royal family enslaved
 Moses leads rescue
 Adopted by Egyptian princess
 Exiled for saving a fellow Israelite from murder
 Called by God in a burning bush
 Ten plagues cause eviction of Israelites
 Passover is the remembrance of that departure
Early History of the Jews
 Israelite covenant with God
 At Mount Sinai
 Suzerainty covenant (chosen by God)
 Israelites to be subject to God
 Obey God’s rules (Ten Commandments)
 God to provide/protect them
 Particular sign
 Circumcision
 Observance of Sabbath
Jewish Life in Palestine
 Conquered ~1400 BCE traditional / ~1200 BCE Liberal
 Established as kingdom ~ 1000 BCD
 David – poet, warrior, ideal follower of God
 Solomon – wise, largest kingdom
 Jerusalem as center of worship, split into two sister kingdoms:

Northern destroyed by Assyrians ~722 BCE

Southern destroyed / exiled by Babylonians 586 BCE
Jewish Life in Palestine
 Reestablished in Palestine ~ 538 BCE
 Under Persian rule
 Extended Jewish presence in neighboring countries
 Tanakh completed
 Traditional ~400 BCE / liberal ~200 BCE:
 Synagogue worship begins
 Rabbinical leadership begins
Ruin of Fourth-Century Synagogue in
Capernaum, Israel
Jewish Life in Palestine
 Persecution by the Greeks
 Attempted to eradicate Hebrew culture
 Religion is resistance
 Desire for savior (messiah) becomes strong
 Successful resistance results in independence
 Roman conquest
 Destruction of temple 67-70 CE
 Exile from Palestine 140 CE
Historical Development
 Destroyed kingdoms, exiled leaders
 Editing the scriptures
 Creating congregations
 Postexilic Judaism
 The Greeks
 Wisdom literature
 The Maccabean Revolt
 The Romans
 Rabbinic Judaism
Historical Development
 Medieval Judaism
 Maimonides
 The Kabbalah
 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Spain
 Judaism in the Modern Age
Rabbinic Judaism
 Without a central temple for covenantal sacrifice and without
permanent homes, religious life re-centered on something portable –
Jewish law
 Religious specialists struggled to formulate orthodox versions of law
and its interpretation
 Source of this law derives from the stipulations of the covenant
between God and the Jewish nation
 Occurred in stages over many centuries of living in diaspora
Rabbinic Judaism
 The Mishnah – the earliest collection of attempts to record and
formulate Jewish law
 The Gemarah – further commentaries and elaborations built on the
Mishnah
 Mishnah + Gemarah = Talmud
 Talmud was legal and narrative material
 Does not directly address questions of legal decision making, but
supports such jurisprudence
Medieval Jewish Life
 In the diaspora that continued after the fall of the Roman Empire,
Jews lived in Christian or Muslim territory
 Jews who relocated in Christian central Europe became known as
Ashkenazim
 Jews living in Christian and Muslim southern Spain became known
as Sephardim
Major Centers of Judaism in Europe
Medieval Judaism
 Maimonides (1135-1204 CE)
 Known as medical doctor
 Served Muslim leaders as physician
 Wrote extensively on medicine
 Practiced faith in both Hebrew and Arabic
Kabbalah
 Esoteric, occult tradition within Judaism
 Mystical interpretations of Jewish ideas
 Moses de Leon (1250-1305 CE) author of the Zohar
 Divine reality is in need of rescue by Jews from within the
corrupting influence of the material world
 Isaac Luria (1534-1572 CE)
 Jews need to redeem divine reality by extracting it from the
material world, reforming it into an original lost integrity
Relations with Christians and Muslims
 Jews, living in diaspora without a state of their own, relegated to a
second-class status in Christian and Muslim lands and subjected to
ongoing harassment
 Jews forced out of some countries
 France in 1394
 Spain in 1492
Modern Jewish Thought
 Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)
 Was excommunicated from his Dutch Jewish community for
controversial rationalist philosophic views regarding immortality,
the providence of God, and the composition of the Bible
 Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
 Argued for a common humanity between Jews and Gentiles,
petitioned for the release of Jews
 Abraham Geiger (1810-1874)
 Argued that Judaism does not stand on revelation, sought to
reform Judaism and place new emphasis on ethics
Modern Jewish Thought
 Zacharias Frankel (1801-1875)
 Sought to make Judaism more compatible with the modern world,
but wanted to retain ritual
 Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888)
 Wanted to retain all of traditional elements of Jewish life
 Hermann Cohen (1842-1918)
 Influenced by Kant, argued that Judaism gave monotheism to the
world, and upheld reason and the value of learning
Branches of Jewish Life
 Reform Judaism
 Inspired by David Einhorn and Isaac Mayer Wise in 1885
 Holds that only the moral strictures of Jewish law were binding
 Conservative Judaism
 Led by Solomon Schechter, who was influenced by Frankel
 Holds that Mitzvoth, responses to God, must be followed as
interpreted by congregations
 Included Zionism, a movement to establish a Jewish homeland
 Reconstructionism
 Led by Mordecai Kaplan in 1955
 Stresses science and ethics, rejected the supernatural
Branches of Jewish Life
 Orthodox Judaism
 Retains as much as possible from the Torah and Talmud
 Stresses Jewish law and ritual
 Has supported a Jewish homeland since 1948, is considered
standard in Israel
 Hasidism
 Organized around a Zaddik, a holy man with connection to God
 Later promoted by Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher
 Is strongly traditional
Branches of Jewish Life
 Zionism
 Movement of the late nineteenth century that intended to
establish a Jewish homeland
 Since 135 CE, the Jews had lost control of life in Jerusalem, living
in many different countries with no land of their own (diaspora)
 220,000 Jews lived in Palestine by the early 1930s as Hitler rose
into power in Germany
 Arab protests led British to place a quota on Jewish immigrants to
Palestine
 The Holocaust confirmed this vulnerability in the minds of many
The Holocaust
 Since the rise of Adolph Hitler and throughout World War II, German
Nazis carried out a program of Jewish persecution and extermination
 The Holocaust (1933-1945) represented the Nazis’ extermination
of six million Jews in Europe
 Nazi officers enacted a “final solution” to the Jewish “problem”
 Records of the Nuremberg trials show widespread cooperation by
the European population
 Today, the extent of anti-Semitism shocks most people
 The Holocaust has had an indescribable impact on every Jew
 Older and younger Jews stress different aspects of the Holocaust
Death Camp at Belsen
State of Israel
 Following WWII, the United Nations established Israel in Palestine
(1948), despite objections by Arabs living in the area and elsewhere
 Establishment of Israel has resulted in a long-standing Arab-Israeli
conflict
 It has led to conflict among Jews regarding who is, or is not, a
legitimate Jew, the question that determines who may be eligible for
emigration to Israel
Jewish Worldview
 God is sovereign and personal, and has entered into a special
contract with the Jews
 The world and especially humans are regarded as separate and
different from God, but dependent upon God for creation and
sustenance
 Creation affirmed as good
 Covenantal obligations with God include ethical mandates and laws
sustaining rituals such as those regarding food preparation
 Little emphasis on questions of afterlife, though some authorities
have asserted that resurrection will occur in the future