Judaism

1. Judaism Ancient Hebrews

2. What is the difference between the Ancient Hebrews and Judaism?

3. Who were the Ancient Hebrews? • Probably were Canaanite refugees. • Collection of various groups (tribes?) which coalesced into something like a people. • Very much influenced by Mesopotamian and Canaanite religions and culture.

4. Evidence suggests that the Israelites were Canaanites. • Canaan consisted of well-fortified city-states, each with its own king, that in turn served Egypt and its pharaoh. • These city-states contained elite upper-class Canaanites as well as lower- class commoners, serfs, and slaves. • Archeological evidence suggests that, rather than conquering the Promised Land from outside territories as a separate people (as described in the book of Joshua), the Israelites were actually disenfranchised Canaanites who joined in a revolt to overthrow the elites. • Out of these people who overthrew the ruling class, a culture of Israelites emerged.

5. Figurines like this one show us that the Hebrews were polytheistic. The movement to monotheism is not a clear path – there were probably many influences leading to the belief in one god.

6. Yahweh Asherah

7. The goddess Asherah: Yahweh’s wife

8. Impact of Mesopotamian culture on the Hebrews: • Flood stories and other myths were borrowed by the Hebrews fromthe Mesopotamians. • Concepts such as angels and other spiritual beings came from Mesopotamia as well. • Like the Mesopotamians, the Hebrew religion was based on a sacrificesystem. The ultimate symbol of this cultic sacrifice system wasSolomon’s temple.

9. During this early stage, the temple sacrifice system was the primary focus of worship. The Torah and other writings played at best, a secondary role. There is evidence in the Jewish scriptures that generations went by without much consideration or study of the scriptures. The priestly tribe held a primary role and most of the power. Some of this power was offset by the creation of the monarchy. Prior to the monarchy, the tribes lived in a loose federation and would come together only on important matters – especially warfare.

10. The concept of Time

11. 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”  And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The Lord,  the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. 16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’

12. The Prophetic Tradition • Represents a truly new movement in the Ancient Near East. • These were men who were outside of the traditional power bases and “spoke truth to power”. • Their issues with the Hebrews were legion but the most important were: • Their inability to let go of Canaanite gods and traditions. • The Hebrews’ belief that cultic rituals at the temple compound were all that was required to appease their god. • Putting cultic practices above common sense moral issues like poverty and greed.

13. Amos 2:6-8 6Yahweh says this: For the three crimes, the four crimes of Israel, I have made my decree and will not relent: because they have sold the upright for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, 7 because they have crushed the heads of the weak into the dust and thrust the rights of the oppressed to one side, father and son sleeping with the same girl and thus profaning my holy name, 8 lying down beside every altar on clothes acquired as pledges, and drinking the wine of the people they have fined in the house of their god.

14. Amos 5: 6-11 6 Seek out Yahweh and you will survive or else he will sweep like fire upon the House of Joseph and burn it down, with no one at Bethel able to quench the flames. 7 They turn justice into wormwood and throw uprightness to the ground. 8 He it is who makes the Pleiades and Orion, who turns shadow dark as death into morning and day to darkest night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the surface of the land. Yahweh is his name. 9 He brings destruction on the strong and ruin comes on the fortress. 10 They hate the man who teaches justice at the city gate and detest anyone who declares the truth. 11 For trampling on the poor man and for extorting levies on his wheat: although you have built houses of dressed stone, you will not live in them; although you have planted pleasant vineyards, you will not drink wine from them:

15. Amos 5: 18 – 25 18 Disaster for you who long for the Day of Yahweh! What will the Day of Yahweh mean for you? It will mean darkness, not light, 19 as when someone runs away from a lion, only to meet a bear; he goes into his house and puts his hand on the wall, only for a snake to bite him. 20 Will not the Day of Yahweh be darkness, not light, totally dark, without a ray of light? 21 I hate, I scorn your festivals, I take no pleasure in your solemn assemblies. 22 When you bring me burnt offerings . . . your oblations, I do not accept them and I do not look at your communion sacrifices of fat cattle. 23 Spare me the din of your chanting, let me hear none of your strumming on lyres, 24 but let justice flow like water, and uprightness like a never-failing stream! 25 Did you bring me sacrifices and oblations those forty years in the desert, House of Israel?

16. The Babylonian Captivity • Put the Hebrews on a radically different course. • The Babylonian captivity was seen as divine punishment for not being solely devoted to YHWH. • Without the temple the focus of the religion changed radically as well. The only religiously important items the Hebrews could take with them were their scriptures. • In Babylon a new institution was created for the study of the scripture - the synagogue.

17. The Persian Influence The Pharisees Cyrus did not allow the monarch and left the priests as the only power Creation of the Sadducees from Zadok – meaning priests.

18. Destruction of the Herod’s Temple The Diaspora 70 CE

20. Impact of the destruction of Jerusalem • The temple and its sacrificial system cease to play a role in the religion. • The synagogue and the rabbinical tradition become the central institution in the religion. • The Babylonian community becomes the most influential school in religious thought. • The Hebrew religion becomes what we now call Judaism.