World Religions TH 608

1. Chapter Eleven
Judaism

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Biblical Patriarchs
• God called upon Abraham and his family
• Abraham was promised that he would
become the father of a great nation,
possess a land, and become a blessing to
all people if he were faithful to his part of
the covenant with God
– Abraham is succeeded in the covenant by his
son, Isaac, his grandson, Jacob, and Jacob’s
twelve sons. These men are the patriarchs.

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Biblical Patriarchs
• The religious practices of the patriarchs
included worshiping one god through
animal sacrifice
• Worship was conducted without temples
or churches
• From early on, circumcision of the males
was practiced

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Exodus
• The Exodus is one of the most important
events in Judaism
• When in Egypt, the Jews were enslaved
• Their exodus from Egypt, journey to
Canaan, and conquest of the land had to
be accomplished before God’s promise to
Abraham could be fulfilled

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Sinai and the Law
• The Israelites came to Mount Sinai during
their journey to Canaan
• Moses received the Ten Commandments
on Mount Sinai
• They stressed loyalty and obedience to
YHWH and decent behavior toward
members of the community

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Post-Sinai Religious Institutions
• The years in the Sinai wilderness gave the
Jews two other religious institutions:
• The Ark of the Covenant
– Contained the sacred relics of the Exodus
• The Tent of Meeting
– Provided a place for worship

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Religion in the Time of the Hebrew
Monarchy
The Temple
•Solomon, David’s successor, built the
Jerusalem Temple
•The Ark of the Covenant was placed in the
Temple
•Worship of YHWH took on a more formal
status

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Exile and Return
• After the reign of Solomon, a rebellion split
the nation of Israel in two
• During Babylonian captivity, certain
theological changes were forced on the
Jews
• The Temple was destroyed and the
people were scattered to strange lands

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Exile and Return
• When the Jews returned from Babylon,
Ezra was an important figure
– Ezra read Scripture to the citizens of the
rebuilt Jerusalem
– He probably began the process of canonizing
books as the word of God
• The Temple was rebuilt and Jewish life
flourished

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Diaspora
• After the Assyrian destruction of Israel, the
scattering of the Jews to foreign lands was
called the Diaspora
• The Synagogue
– Because the Jews were now separated from
each other and the Temple, the institution of
the synagogue developed as a center for
prayer and study

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Diaspora
• The Mishnah
– A collection of legal commentary that became
a milestone of Jewish history
– It explains Jewish attempts to live God’s laws
– It also helped to explain how Jews could
follow God’s law correctly
• The Talmud
– Included additional authority on the Mishnah
and Torah

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Medieval Judaism
• As Islam spread, Muslim tolerance of
Judaism was inconsistent
• Jews in Spain were given the option of
conversion of expulsion – although this
was not evenly applied
• Although Jews resided all over Europe,
Spain and Babylon were favored sites for
early Jewish life

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Judaism and the Modern World
• The Jews continued to have periods of
peace and then persecution
• In the sixteenth century, the Protestant
Reformation caused Catholic retaliation
against Jews
• In the seventeenth century, Polish Jews
were attacked by the uprising of poor
Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants

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Responses to Modernity
• Shabbatai Zevi
– Declared the Messiah by his disciples and
raised Jewish hopes all over the world
– When imprisoned in Turkey, Shabbatai Zevi
converted to Islam, and crushed the hopes of
his followers
• Mendelssohn
– Encouraged the Jews to embrace the modern
world

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Responses to Modernity
• Baal Shem Tov
– Created the Hasidic movement, which
required simple, heartfelt faith instead of
scholarly study
• Reform Judaism
– Judaism is continuing to develop
– The Talmud has no authority for the modern
Jew
– We seek no Messiah or homeland

16. Responses to Modernity
• Zionism
– Theodor Herzl is considered the founder of
the Zionist movement
– Herzl and others came to believe that Jewish
people would never be treated fairly until they
had a land of their own
– Zionism pleads their case for a Jewish state
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17. Responses to Modernity
• The Holocaust
– When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany
in the 1930s, he changed the nation into an
anti-Semitic dictatorship
– His leadership caused the Holocaust, in which
millions of Jews were taken from their homes
and forced into concentration camps
– While there, about six million Jews were
executed or died from disease or starvation
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Jewish Festivals and Holy Days
• Sabbath
– The seventh day for rest and worship
• Passover
– Commemorates the Exodus from Egypt
• The Feast of Weeks (Shavuot)
– Commemorates Moses receiving the Ten
Commandments
• The Feast of Lots (Purim)
– Remembrance of victory over Gentile foes

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Jewish Festivals and Holy Days
• New Year (Rosh Hashanah)
– Believed to commemorate the first days of
creation
• The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
– Prayers of forgiveness are offered
• The Feast of the Tabernacle (Sukkot)
– Remembrance of wandering in the wilderness
• The Feast of Dedication (Chanukah)

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Judaism Today
• One of the primary tasks for twenty-first
century Jews is attempting to interpret the
Holocaust
• Judaism has always sought to understand
God through history and to interpret the
Exodus experience
• How can modern-day Jews interpret the
Holocaust?