Misplaced Pages

#964035

115-500: In the narrative of Genesis , it refers to the circumstances of Jacob's birth when he held on to the heel of his older twin brother Esau (Genesis 25:26). The name is etymologized (in a direct speech by the character Esau) in Genesis 27:36, adding the significance of Jacob having "supplanted" his elder brother by buying his birthright. In a Christian context, Jacob – James in English form –

230-404: A Berakah is said also at evil tidings. Hence, although the experience of God is like none other, the occasions for experiencing Him, for having a consciousness of Him, are manifold, even if we consider only those that call for Berakot. Whereas Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is immanent or transcendent , and whether people have free will or their lives are determined, halakha

345-597: A centralized authority that would dictate an exact religious dogma. Because of this, many different variations on the basic beliefs are considered within the scope of Judaism. Even so, all Jewish religious movements are, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the principles of the Hebrew Bible or various commentaries such as the Talmud and Midrash . Judaism also universally recognizes the Biblical Covenant between God and

460-542: A family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; after proving herself worthy, Rebekah becomes Isaac's betrothed. Keturah , Abraham's other wife, births more children, among whose descendants are the Midianites . Abraham dies at a prosperous old age and his family lays him to rest in Hebron (Machpelah). Isaac's wife Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau (meaning 'velvet'), father of

575-527: A future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all humankind (the covenant with Noah ) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). In Judaism , the theological importance of Genesis centres on

690-493: A male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each prospective mother— Sarah , Rebekah and Rachel —is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God and God in each case gives a son—in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites . Each succeeding generation of the three promises attains a more rich fulfilment, until through Joseph "all

805-459: A means of experiencing God". Reflecting on the contribution of the Amoraim and Tanaim to contemporary Judaism, Professor Jacob Neusner observed: The rabbi's logical and rational inquiry is not mere logic-chopping. It is a most serious and substantive effort to locate in trivialities the fundamental principles of the revealed will of God to guide and sanctify the most specific and concrete actions in

920-569: A means to learn the contents of God's revelation, but an end in itself. According to the Talmud: These are the things for which a person enjoys the dividends in this world while the principal remains for the person to enjoy in the world to come; they are: honoring parents, loving deeds of kindness, and making peace between one person and another. But the study of the Torah is equal to them all. (Talmud Shabbat 127a). In Judaism, "the study of Torah can be

1035-518: A parallel oral tradition, illustrating the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the details from other, i.e., oral, sources. Halakha , the rabbinic Jewish way of life, then, is based on a combined reading of the Torah, and the oral tradition—the Mishnah, the halakhic Midrash, the Talmud and its commentaries. The halakha has developed slowly, through a precedent-based system. The literature of questions to rabbis, and their considered answers,

1150-514: A permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul the king. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead. Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the Law, called the Oral Torah or "Oral Law," were originally unwritten traditions based on the Law given to Moses at Sinai. However, as the persecutions of

1265-550: A positive commandment is to be fulfilled: The ordinary, familiar, everyday things and occurrences we have, constitute occasions for the experience of God. Such things as one's daily sustenance, the very day itself, are felt as manifestations of God's loving-kindness, calling for the Berakhot . Kedushah , holiness, which is nothing else than the imitation of God, is concerned with daily conduct, with being gracious and merciful, with keeping oneself from defilement by idolatry, adultery, and

SECTION 10

#1732898307965

1380-428: A promise to Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates ". Abram's name is changed to 'Abraham' and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah (meaning 'princess'), and God says that all males should be circumcised as

1495-681: A reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac , his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan ). Later, the descendants of Isaac's son Jacob were enslaved in Egypt , and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. The Law was given at Sinai —the Torah , or five books of Moses. These books, together with the Nevi'im and Ketuvim , are known as Torah Shebikhtav , as opposed to

1610-520: A seminal role in the formation of Western civilization through its impact as a core background element of Early Christianity . Within Judaism, there are a variety of religious movements , most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism , which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. Historically, all or part of this assertion

1725-448: A sign of his promise to Abraham. Due to her old age, Sarah tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar , as a second wife (to bear a child). Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael . God then plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people. Abraham protests, but fails to get God to agree not to destroy the cities (reasoning with Abraham that not even ten righteous persons were found there; and among

1840-565: A wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Among Judaism's core texts is the Torah , the first five books of the Hebrew Bible , a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures. The Tanakh, known in English as the Hebrew Bible, has the same contents as the Old Testament in Christianity . In addition to the original written scripture, the supplemental Oral Torah

1955-556: A wife and meets Rachel at a well. He goes to her father, his uncle , where he works for a total of 14 years to earn his wives, Rachel and Leah . Jacob's name is changed to Israel after his wrestle with an angel , and by his wives and their handmaidens he has twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and a daughter, Dinah . Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, rapes Dinah and asks his father to get Dinah for him as his wife, according to Chapter 34. Jacob agrees to

2070-559: A work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and their ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. Notable examples are found in the work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth , legend , and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of

2185-476: Is Maimonides ' thirteen principles of faith , developed in the 12th century. According to Maimonides, any Jew who rejects even one of these principles would be considered an apostate and a heretic. Jewish scholars have held points of view diverging in various ways from Maimonides' principles. Thus, within Reform Judaism only the first five principles are endorsed. In Maimonides' time, his list of tenets

2300-533: Is circumcision ; and the last, which does not appear until the Book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath . A great leader mediates each covenant ( Noah , Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name ( Elohim with Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses). Throughout Genesis, various figures engage in deception or trickery to survive or prosper. Biblical scholar David M. Carr notes that such stories reflect

2415-481: Is a system through which any Jew acts to bring God into the world. Ethical monotheism is central in all sacred or normative texts of Judaism. However, monotheism has not always been followed in practice. The Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh ) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel . In the Greco-Roman era, many different interpretations of monotheism existed in Judaism, including

SECTION 20

#1732898307965

2530-582: Is also known as a Sidra (or Sedra / s ɛ d r ə / ). The parashah is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 weekly parshas, or parashiyot in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year. The first 12 of the 54 come from the Book of Genesis, and they are: Judaism Judaism ( Hebrew : יַהֲדוּת ‎ , romanized :  Yahăḏūṯ )

2645-538: Is also the source of the Hebrew term for Judaism, יַהֲדוּת Yahaḏuṯ . The term Ἰουδαϊσμός first appears in the Koine Greek book of 2 Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE (i.e. 2 Maccabees 2:21, 8:1 and 14:38) . In the context of the age and period it meant "seeking or forming part of a cultural entity". It resembled its antonym hellenismos , a word signifying people's submission to Hellenistic cultural norms. The conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind

2760-578: Is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people . Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant , which was established between God and the Israelites , their ancestors. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions in the world. Jewish religious doctrine encompasses

2875-537: Is an esoteric tradition in Judaism in Kabbalah , Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews. This is played out through the observance of the halakha , or Jewish law, and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot , the short blessings that are spoken every time

2990-667: Is assumed, and not argued. The concern of the text is not to prove the history but rather to impress the reader with the theological significance of these acts". The original manuscripts are lost, and the text of surviving copies varies. There are four major groupings of surviving manuscripts: the Masoretic Text , the Samaritan Pentateuch (in Samaritan script ), the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and fragments of Genesis found in

3105-661: Is called the Jerusalem Talmud . It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Palestine. According to critical scholars , the Torah consists of inconsistent texts edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts. Several of these scholars, such as Professor Martin Rose and John Bright , suggest that during the First Temple period the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god

3220-463: Is heavily associated with and most often thought of as Orthodox Judaism . 13 Principles of Faith: — Maimonides In the strict sense, in Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, there are no fixed universally binding articles of faith, due to their incorporation into the liturgy. Scholars throughout Jewish history have proposed numerous formulations of Judaism's core tenets, all of which have met with criticism. The most popular formulation

3335-471: Is normally excluded). Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. (It is, however, worth noting that in the Jahwist source, the patriarchs refer to deity by the name YHWH, for example in Genesis 15.) Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells

3450-702: Is premundane and has no peer or associate; (3) the whole universe is created; (4) God called Moses and the other Prophets of the Biblical canon; (5) the Law of Moses alone is true; (6) to know the language of the Bible is a religious duty; (7) the Temple at Jerusalem is the palace of the world's Ruler; (8) belief in Resurrection contemporaneous with the advent of the Messiah; (9) final judgment; (10) retribution. In modern times, Judaism lacks

3565-599: Is referred to as responsa (Hebrew Sheelot U-Teshuvot ). Over time, as practices develop, codes of halakha are written that are based on the responsa; the most important code, the Shulchan Aruch , largely determines Orthodox religious practice today. Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. Major Jewish philosophers include Philo of Alexandria , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Saadia Gaon , Judah Halevi , Maimonides , and Gersonides . Major changes occurred in response to

Jacob (name) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3680-578: Is regarded as the first Jewish diaspora . Later, many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylon by the Persian Achaemenid Empire seventy years later, an event known as the Return to Zion . A Second Temple was constructed and old religious practices were resumed. During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as

3795-799: Is represented by later texts, such as the Midrash and the Talmud . The Hebrew-language word torah can mean "teaching", "law", or "instruction", although "Torah" can also be used as a general term that refers to any Jewish text that expands or elaborates on the original Five Books of Moses . Representing the core of the Jewish spiritual and religious tradition, the Torah is a term and a set of teachings that are explicitly self-positioned as encompassing at least seventy, and potentially infinite, facets and interpretations. Judaism's texts, traditions, and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and Islam . Hebraism , like Hellenism , played

3910-411: Is structured around the three patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The stories of Isaac arguably do not make up a coherent cycle of stories and function as a bridge between the cycles of Abraham and Jacob. The Genesis creation narrative comprises two different stories; the first two chapters roughly correspond to these. In the first, Elohim , the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the heavens and

4025-418: Is that halakha should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced halakha ; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and

4140-622: Is the name for several people in the New Testament: (1) the apostle James, son of Zebedee , (2) another apostle, James, son of Alphaeus , and (3) James the brother of Jesus (James the Just), who led the original Nazarene Community in Jerusalem. There are several Jacobs in the genealogy of Jesus . From 1999 through 2012, Jacob was the most popular baby name for boys in the United States. In 2022, it

4255-399: Is then made second in command of Egypt by the grateful pharaoh, and later on, he is reunited with his father and brothers, who fail to recognize him and plead for food as the famine had reached Canaan as well. After much manipulation to see if they still hate him, Joseph reveals himself, forgives them for their actions, and lets them and their households into Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them

4370-530: The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy ), 2 Macc. ii. 21: "Those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Iudaisme." At its core, the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is an account of the Israelites ' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple ( c.  535 BCE ). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As

4485-459: The Dead Sea Scrolls . The Dead Sea Scrolls are oldest but cover only a small proportion of the book. Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot , meaning "these are the generations", with the first use of the phrase referring to the "generations of heaven and earth" and the remainder marking individuals. The toledot formula, occurring eleven times in

4600-473: The Edomites , and Jacob (meaning 'supplanter' or 'follower'). Esau was a couple of seconds older as he had come out of the womb first, and was going to become the heir; however, through carelessness, he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. His mother, Rebekah, ensures Jacob rightly gains his father's blessing as the firstborn son and inheritor. At 77 years of age, Jacob leaves his parents and later seeks

4715-705: The Enlightenment (late 18th to early 19th century) leading to the post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox oriented philosophy. Notable among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler , Joseph B. Soloveitchik , and Yitzchok Hutner . Well-known non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers include Martin Buber , Franz Rosenzweig , Mordecai Kaplan , Abraham Joshua Heschel , Will Herberg , and Emmanuel Lévinas . 13 Principles of Hermeneutics: — R. Ishmael Orthodox and many other Jews do not believe that

Jacob (name) - Misplaced Pages Continue

4830-710: The Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple. Later, Roman emperor Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple Mount and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE), after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism

4945-577: The Hebrew word elohim for God. This original work was expanded in the 8th century BC, with the name Yahweh used for God. In the 7th century BC, during the time of Jeremiah , the final parts of the Pentateuch were added, specifically the main parts of Deuteronomy. This would mean the Pentateuch achieved its final form before the Babylonian Exile ( c.  598 BC  – c.   538 BC ). At

5060-658: The Kohanim and Leviyim (members of the tribe of Levi ), some only to farmers within the Land of Israel. Many laws were only applicable when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, and only 369 of these commandments are still applicable today. While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were based on the written text of the Torah alone (e.g., the Sadducees , and the Karaites ), most Jews believe in

5175-680: The Maccabean Revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos . Shaye J. D. Cohen writes in his book The Beginnings of Jewishness : We are tempted, of course, to translate [ Ioudaïsmós ] as "Judaism," but this translation is too narrow, because in this first occurrence of the term, Ioudaïsmós has not yet been reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish)." Among these characteristics, to be sure, are practices and beliefs that we would today call "religious," but these practices and beliefs are not

5290-713: The Oxford English Dictionary the earliest citation in English where the term was used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews" is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce (1516). "Judaism" as a direct translation of the Latin Iudaismus first occurred in a 1611 English translation of the Biblical apocrypha (the Deuterocanonical books in

5405-672: The Patriarch Abraham as well as the additional aspects of the Covenant revealed to Moses , who is considered Judaism's greatest prophet . In the Mishnah , a core text of Rabbinic Judaism , acceptance of the Divine origins of this covenant is considered an essential aspect of Judaism and those who reject the Covenant forfeit their share in the World to Come . Establishing the core tenets of Judaism in

5520-519: The Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself. Describing

5635-584: The Victorian crisis of faith as evidence mounted that the Earth was far older than six thousand years. It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion , popularly referred to as a parashah , to be read during Jewish prayer services on Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays. The full name, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ , Parashat ha-Shavua , is popularly abbreviated to parashah (also parshah / p ɑː r ʃ ə / or parsha ), and

5750-493: The halakha whereas its ultimate goal is to bring the holiness down to the world. Mordecai Kaplan , the founder of the Reconstructionist Judaism , abandons the idea of religion for the sake of identifying Judaism with civilization and by means of the latter term and secular translation of the core ideas, he tries to embrace as many Jewish denominations as possible. In turn, Solomon Schechter 's Conservative Judaism

5865-420: The land of Goshen . Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future before he dies. Joseph lives to old age and tells his brothers before his death that if God leads them out of the country, then they should take his bones with them. In 1978, David Clines published The Theme of the Pentateuch . Considered influential as one of the first authors to take up the question of the overarching theme of

SECTION 50

#1732898307965

5980-524: The oral law . These oral traditions were transmitted by the Pharisee school of thought of ancient Judaism and were later recorded in written form and expanded upon by the rabbis. According to Rabbinical Jewish tradition, God gave both the Written Law (the Torah ) and the Oral Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai . The Oral law is the oral tradition as relayed by God to Moses and from him, transmitted and taught to

6095-412: The rabbis and scholars who interpret them. Jews are an ethnoreligious group including those born Jewish, in addition to converts to Judaism . In 2021, the world Jewish population was estimated at 15.2 million, or roughly 0.195% of the total world population, although religious observance varies from strict to none. In 2021, about 45.6% of all Jews resided in Israel and another 42.1% resided in

6210-466: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Later, in chapter 3, a serpent , portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster , convinces Eve to eat the fruit. She then convinces Adam to eat it, whereupon God throws them out and punishes them—Adam was punished with getting what he needs only by sweat and work, and Eve to giving birth in pain. This is interpreted by Christians as the " fall of man " into sin . Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel . Cain works in

6325-448: The 16th to the 19th century treated the book of Genesis as factual. As evidence in the fields of paleontology , geology and other sciences was uncovered, scholars tried to fit these discoveries into the Genesis creation account. For example, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in the 18th century believed that fossils were the remains of creatures killed during the flood. This literal understanding of Genesis fell out of favor with scholars during

6440-406: The 3rd century BC. Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological , genetic , and linguistic evidence, some mainstream Bible scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical . It is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of

6555-405: The Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship ) into the God-given land of Canaan , where he dwells as a sojourner , as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob . Jacob's name is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph , the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them

6670-415: The Conservative movement. The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and thought: The basis of halakha and tradition is the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses). According to rabbinic tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Some of these laws are directed only to men or to women, some only to the ancient priestly groups,

6785-433: The Great Assembly, led by Ezra the Scribe . Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed . Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE, and its creation sparked widespread controversy in Jewish communities, starting "conflicts within Jewish communities about accommodating the cultures of occupying powers." During

6900-517: The Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Judah ha-Nasi in the Mishnah , redacted c.  200 CE . The Talmud was a compilation of the Mishnah and Gemara , rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia ( Lower Mesopotamia ). Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation

7015-439: The Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishnah and the Talmud . Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time passed, the nation's spiritual level declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel that they needed to be governed by

SECTION 60

#1732898307965

7130-432: The Pentateuch, Clines' conclusion was that the overall theme is "the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial nonfulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs". (By calling the fulfilment "partial", Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of Deuteronomy the people of Israel are still outside Canaan.) The patriarchs , or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph

7245-447: The Pentateuch: J, D, and P. The E source is considered no more than a variation of J, and P is considered a body of revisions and expansions to the J (or "non-Priestly") material. The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis. More recent thinking is that J dates from either just before or during the Babylonian Exile, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after. The almost complete absence of all

7360-413: The Persians of the Achaemenid Empire , after their conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Second Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and

7475-452: The United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe, and other groups spread throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The term Judaism derives from Iudaismus , a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ioudaismos ( Koinē Greek : Ἰουδαϊσμός , from the verb ἰουδαΐζειν , "to side with or imitate the [Judeans]"). Its ultimate source was Hebrew : יהודה , romanized :  Yehudah Judah ", which

7590-451: The age of the world since creation. This Anno Mundi system of counting years is the basis of the Hebrew calendar and Byzantine calendar . Counts differ somewhat, but they generally place the age of the Earth at about six thousand years. During the Protestant Reformation , rivalry between Catholic and Protestant Christians led to a closer study of the Bible and a competition to take its words more seriously. Thus, scholars in Europe from

7705-466: The analysis of the Abraham cycle, the Jacob cycle, and the Joseph cycle, and the Yahwist and Priestly sources . The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal theme of the divine promise to the stories of Genesis 1–11 (the primeval history ) with their theme of God's forgiveness in the face of man's evil nature. One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain alienated from humankind: God creates

7820-478: The ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites . Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar , pretending to be brother and sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but God warns him to return her (as she is really Abraham's wife) and he obeys. God sends Sarah a son and tells her she should name him Isaac ; through him will be the establishment of the covenant (promise). Sarah then drives Ishmael and his mother Hagar out into

7935-453: The authority of the rabbinic tradition , and the significance of the State of Israel . Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and halakha are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position

8050-430: The basis of the Talmud. According to Abraham ben David , the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah haNasi after the destruction of Jerusalem, in anno mundi 3949, which corresponds to 189 CE. Over the next four centuries, the Mishnah underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylonia ). The commentaries from each of these communities were eventually compiled into

8165-458: The beginning' ). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world , the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people . Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as the Torah's author . It was probably composed around the 5th century BC , although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), may have been composed and added as late as

8280-471: The belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind. According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation. Many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God; that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate God's concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to love one another; that is, Jews are to imitate God's love for people. Thus, although there

8395-402: The book of Genesis, serves as a heading which marks a transition to a new subject. The creation account of Genesis 1 functions as a prologue for the whole book and is not introduced with a toledot . The toledot divide the book into the following sections: It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on

8510-424: The characters and incidents mentioned in primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BC. As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that

8625-514: The covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land . The name Genesis is from the Latin Vulgate , in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek Γένεσις , meaning 'origin'; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , 'In [the] beginning'. Genesis was written anonymously, but both Jewish and Christian religious tradition attributes

8740-483: The deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for humans, but when man corrupts it with sin, God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish the relationship between man and God. The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel , God's chosen people . At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of

8855-527: The designations for God. For example, the Yahwist source uses Yahweh, while the Elohistic and Priestly sources use Elohim. Scholars also use repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include the two creation stories, three different wife–sister narratives , and the two versions of Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. According to the documentary hypothesis, J

8970-467: The earth including humankind, in six days, and rests on the seventh . In the second, God, now referred to as " Yahweh Elohim" (rendered as "the L ORD God" in English translations), creates two individuals, Adam and Eve , as the first man and woman, and places them in the Garden of Eden . In the second chapter, God commanded the man that he is free to eat from any tree, including the tree of life, except from

9085-626: The end of the 19th century, most scholars adopted the documentary hypothesis . This theory held that the five books of the Pentateuch came from four sources: the Yahwist (abbreviated as J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly source (P). Each source was held to tell the same basic story, with the sources later combined by various editors. Scholars were able to distinguish sources based on

9200-421: The entire Pentateuch —Genesis, Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy —to Moses . During the Enlightenment , the philosophers Benedict Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes questioned Mosaic authorship . In the 17th century, Richard Simon proposed that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors over a long period of time. The involvement of multiple authors is suggested by internal contradictions within

9315-456: The establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people he created. Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism :

9430-415: The garden, and Abel works with meat; they both offer offerings to God one day, and God does not accept Cain's offering but does accept Abel's. This causes Cain to resent Abel, and Cain ends up murdering him. God then curses Cain . Eve bears another son, Seth , to take Abel's place in accordance to the promises given at 3:15, 20. After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth,

9545-427: The interpretations that gave rise to Christianity. Moreover, some have argued that Judaism is a non-creedal religion that does not require one to believe in God. For some, observance of halakha is more important than belief in God per se . The debate about whether one can speak of authentic or normative Judaism is not only a debate among religious Jews but also among historians. In continental Europe , Judaism

9660-527: The marriage but requires that all the males of Hamor's tribe be circumcised, including Hamor and Shechem. After this was performed and all the men were still weak, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi murdered all the males. Jacob complained that their act would mean retribution by others, namely the Canaanites and Perizzites. Jacob and his tribe took all the Hivite women and children as well as livestock and other property for themselves. Joseph , Jacob's favourite son of

9775-497: The modern era is even more difficult, given the number and diversity of the contemporary Jewish denominations . Even if to restrict the problem to the most influential intellectual trends of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the matter remains complicated. Thus, for instance, Joseph Soloveitchik's (associated with the Modern Orthodox movement ) answer to modernity is constituted upon the identification of Judaism with following

9890-484: The next few centuries. Later, two poetic restatements of these principles (" Ani Ma'amin " and " Yigdal ") became integrated into many Jewish liturgies, leading to their eventual near-universal acceptance. The oldest non-Rabbinic instance of articles of faith were formulated, under Islamic influence, by the 12th century Karaite figure Judah ben Elijah Hadassi : (1) God is the Creator of all created beings; (2) He

10005-409: The patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the context of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible means an agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of a belief.) The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land. The fulfilment of the promise to each patriarch depends on having

10120-467: The publication and public acceptance of this new law code c.  444 BC . There was now a large gap between the earliest sources of the Pentateuch and the period they claimed to describe, which ended c.  1200 BC . Most scholars held to the documentary hypothesis until the 1980s. Since then, a number of variations and revisions of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed. The new supplementary hypothesis posits three main sources for

10235-465: The rest of the Pentateuch did not reach its final, present-day form until after the Babylonian Exile. Julius Wellhausen argued that the Pentateuch was finalized in the time of Ezra . Ezra 7 :14 records that Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 458 BC with God's law in his hand. Wellhausen argued that this was the newly compiled Pentateuch. Nehemiah 8 – 10 , according to Wellhausen, describes

10350-451: The revealed Torah consists solely of its written contents, but of its interpretations as well. The study of Torah (in its widest sense, to include both poetry, narrative, and law, and both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) is in Judaism itself a sacred act of central importance. For the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud, and for their successors today, the study of Torah was therefore not merely

10465-421: The righteous was Abraham's nephew Lot ). Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot (who was living there at the same time) and his family, but his wife looks back on the destruction, (even though God commanded not to) and turns into a pillar of salt for going against his word. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never find husbands, get Lot drunk so they can become pregnant by him, and give birth to

10580-431: The sages ( rabbinic leaders) of each subsequent generation. For centuries, the Torah appeared only as a written text transmitted in parallel with the oral tradition. Fearing that the oral teachings might be forgotten, Rabbi Judah haNasi undertook the mission of consolidating the various opinions into one body of law which became known as the Mishnah . The Mishnah consists of 63 tractates codifying halakha , which are

10695-419: The shedding of blood. The Birkat Ha-Mitzwot evokes the consciousness of holiness at a rabbinic rite, but the objects employed in the majority of these rites are non-holy and of general character, while the several holy objects are non-theurgic. And not only do ordinary things and occurrences bring with them the experience of God. Everything that happens to a man evokes that experience, evil as well as good, for

10810-577: The sole content of the term. Thus Ioudaïsmós should be translated not as "Judaism" but as Judaeanness. Daniel R. Schwartz, however, argues that "Judaism", especially in the context of the Book of Maccabees, refers to the religion, as opposed to the culture and politics of the Judean state. He believes it reflected the ideological divide between the Pharisees and Sadducees and, implicitly, anti-Hasmonean and pro-Hasmonean factions in Judean society. According to

10925-423: The subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 1–11) and a patriarchal history (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on the flood story (chapters 6–9) with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after. The ancestral history

11040-429: The text. For example, Genesis includes two creation narratives . By the early 1860s, the leading theory for the Pentateuch's composition was the old supplementary hypothesis. This theory held that the earliest portions, the so-called Book of Origins (containing Genesis 1 and most of the priestly laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers), was composed in the time of King Solomon by a priest or Levite . This author used

11155-429: The twelve, makes his brothers jealous (especially because of special gifts Jacob gave him) and because of that jealousy they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt . Joseph endures many trials including being innocently sentenced to jail but he stays faithful to God. After several years, he prospers there after the pharaoh of Egypt asks him to interpret a dream he had about an upcoming famine, which Joseph does through God. He

11270-562: The two Talmuds, the Jerusalem Talmud ( Talmud Yerushalmi ) and the Babylonian Talmud ( Talmud Bavli ). These have been further expounded by commentaries of various Torah scholars during the ages. In the text of the Torah, many words are left undefined, and many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions. Such phenomena are sometimes offered to validate the viewpoint that the Written Law has always been transmitted with

11385-497: The vulnerability felt by ancient Israelites and that "such stories can be a major way of gaining hope and resisting domination". Examples include: In both Judaism and Christianity , a genre of literature emerged dedicated to interpreting and commenting on the Genesis creation narrative, known as the Hexaemeron . By totaling the spans of time in the genealogies of Genesis, religious authorities have calculated what they consider to be

11500-524: The wilderness (because Ishmael is not her real son and Hagar is a slave), but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. Then, God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac . As Abraham is about to lay the knife upon his son, "the Angel of the Lord" restrains him, promising him again innumerable descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron ) for

11615-460: The wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However, the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text. Genesis is an example of

11730-474: The work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of the variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology." Tremper Longman describes Genesis as theological history: "the fact that these events took place

11845-561: The world and humans, humans rebel, and God "elects" (chooses) Abraham. To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist), the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham ( Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign

11960-489: The world becomes corrupted by human sin and Nephilim , and God wants to wipe out humanity for their wickedness. However, Noah is righteous and blameless. So first, he instructs the Noah to build an ark and put examples of all the animals on it, seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean. Then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises he will never destroy

12075-534: The world with water again, making a rainbow as a symbol of his promise . God sees humankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the Tower of Babel , and divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with confusion. Then, a generation line from Shem to Abram is described. Abram, a man descended from Noah, is instructed by God to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan . There, God makes

12190-401: The world" attains salvation from famine, and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which the promise can be fulfilled. Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the efficacy of trying to examine Genesis' theology by pursuing a single overarching theme, instead citing as more productive

12305-579: Was centered on a pantheon of gods much like in Greek mythology . According to the Hebrew Bible , a United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem . After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it

12420-602: Was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period ; the Karaites during the early and later medieval period; and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations. Some modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be considered secular or nontheistic . Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism ( Haredi and Modern Orthodox ), Conservative Judaism , and Reform Judaism . Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to halakha (Jewish law),

12535-686: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; many people were taken captive from the capital Samaria to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple , which was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judeans were exiled to Babylon , in what

12650-595: Was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo . Albo and the Raavad argued that Maimonides' principles contained too many items that, while true, were not fundamentals of the faith Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe halakha and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Maimonides' principles were largely ignored over

12765-451: Was identical with the tradition understood as the interpretation of Torah, in itself being the history of the constant updates and adjustment of the Law performed by means of the creative interpretation. Finally, David Philipson draws the outlines of the Reform movement in Judaism by opposing it to the strict and traditional rabbinical approach and thus comes to the conclusions similar to that of

12880-532: Was produced during the 9th century BC in the southern Kingdom of Judah and was believed to be the earliest source. E was written in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC. D was written in Judah in the 7th century BC and associated with the religious reforms of King Josiah c.  625 BC . The latest source was P, which was written during the 5th century in Babylon . Based on these dates, Genesis and

12995-410: Was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion") until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in the fourth century. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and

13110-554: Was superior to other gods. Some suggest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism. In this view, it was only by the Hellenistic period that most Jews came to believe that their god was the only god and that the notion of a bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed. John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh , El , Asherah , and Ba'al , may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion , which

13225-557: Was the 12th most popular name given to boys in Canada. Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek Γένεσις , Génesis ; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית ‎ , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , lit.   'In [the] beginning'; Latin : Liber Genesis ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word , Bereshit ( 'In

#964035