Judaism

Though nowadays a very small handful of religions are dominant in most regions of the world, the ancient world featured a wide variety of relatively small tribal/regional faiths ?most of which have ultimately gone extinct or become integrated into one of the world?s surviving faiths.

The religion we refer to today as ?Judaism? directly derives from one of the world?s ancient tribal/regional religions?one that was first practiced by a small Middle Eastern ethnic group usually referred to today as the ?Hebrews,? ?Israelites,? ?children of Israel,? or ?Jews.?

The God of this group is known by a specific Hebrew language name that most English speakers refer to and/or translate as ?the LORD?, ?Yahweh?, ?Jehovah?, or ?YHWH?.[1]

According to Jewish teachings, the group?s distinct religion and ethnicity can be rooted back to the ancient Middle Eastern patriarch and prophet Abraham (lived c1900s BC)[2], who entered a covenant with YHWH, and was promised a large blessed nation of descendants that would eventually be entitled to the land of Canaan. Not long after Abraham?s death, his descendants migrated to Egypt and were enslaved by native Egyptians. Then, about four centuries after the move, the group?now numbering a few million?was freed from Egypt with YHWH?s help, and under the leadership of the Israelite prophet Moses. Through Moses, YHWH established an exclusive God-to-human covenant with the Israelites and gave them his laws?a series of several hundred specific ordinances that form the foundation of this covenant and the Jewish religion. About a half a century after the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites conquered their ?promised land? of Canaan (from groups of Canaanites that occupied it at the time) and established a Kingdom centered around the Jewish religion.

Tanakh

The religious scriptures of Judaism are collectively known as the Tanakh[3], and contain twenty-four ?books? that are organized into three main sections: the ?Torah?[4] [5], ?Nevi?im?[6] [7], and ?Ketuvim?[8]

Jews (and Christians) generally regard most of the Tanakh?s content as a written recording of God?s revelations to the Israelites/Jews.

According to mainstream Jewish tradition, the Torah section is more or less a recording of YHWH?s direct revelation to Moses (that was written and/or orally transmitted by Moses circa the 15th century BC), while the remainder of the Tanakh?s content derives from later prophets and other divinely-inspired people.


[1] Since at some point in early Jewish history it became taboo to say this name out loud, and since almost all written Hebrew does not contain any vowels, the original pronunciation of it has been lost over time.

Nowadays, when coming across it while reading scripture, or when referring to it outside of the scriptures, almost all Jews substitute it with the word ?Adonai? (?Lord?) or ?Hashem? (?The Name?).

[2] A Note on Dates: Although the Tanakh itself does not contain a uniform date system that directly identifies the date of its events, it does contain detailed chronologies of many family lineages (beginning with the first man), and also describes certain events that historians have been able to place an approximate date on using other (non-Tanakh) historical data available to us?and thus, by working with these figures, almost all Biblical researchers ( ? including both devout Jews and Christians ? ) are in complete agreement regarding approximately when, according to the Tanakh itself, the various events it describes took place.

Throughout this book, I will use those date approximations in my various analyses of Tanakh content.

[3] The Tanakh is also referred to as the Jewish Bible

[4] Also known as the ?Law?, ?Teachings? ?Five Books of Moses? or the ?Pentateuch.? Note that the entire Tanakh is also sometimes referred to as the Torah.

[5] (1) Genesis / Bereshit / In-the-Beginning

(2) Exodus / Shemot / Names

(3) Leviticus / Vayikra / Of The Levites / He Called

(4) Numbers / Bamidbar / In The Wilderness

(5) Deuteronomy / Devarim / Words / Things / A Copy of This Law

[6] or Prophets

[7] , Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of Twelve (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi)

[8] /Writings/Hagiographa