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Question 1: Explain the beginning of Judaism. Judaism originated with three men, known as the patriarchs. These men were Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob. Abraham was born in the city state of Ur by the name Abram. Abram’s father was Terach. In Terach’s time, people worshiped idols and a monotheistic religion did not exist. They worshiped idols. When Abram was a little boy, he took a hammer and broke all of the idols with a hammer except for the largest one, and told his father, Terach, that the largest idol became angry and broke all the other idols.
The silliness of this statement caused Terach to realize that worshiping statues was wrong. According to Judaic history, God spoke to Abram offering the rise of a new powerful nation if Abram followed a set of rules that God gave him. Abram agreed, thus establishing the base for Judaism. This offer that God gave Abram is known as the covenant by Jewish people. They believed that if they followed the word of God, they would receive gifts from God. Later on, when Abram turned 100 years old, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of many” in Hebrew.
This was when Abraham had his son, Isaac. God wanted to see just how faithful Abraham was, so he asked him to sacrifice his son for him. Abraham, being completely devoted to God, agreed and was about to sacrifice his son, but God stopped him. This was a moral lesson from God that would go into the Torah. One of the biggest points that Judaism made was that humans are valuable and are not meant to be sacrificed. This order from God also tested Isaac’s faith, and Isaac was completely willing to give his life to God. After Isaac came Jacob. Jacob was Isaac’s son, and he had 12 sons himself.
Each of his sons separated and created their own tribe. Jacob’s name was then changed to Israel, and that is why the 12 sons of Jacob are known as the “Children of Israel”. After King David came Solomon. Solomon’s death split the Kingdom of Israel in two, and then it all fell due to attacks from the Mesopotamians. The Israelites became slaves in Egypt. They were treated very cruelly, and it went completely against the beliefs of the Jews. At this point, the pharaohs were still ruling Egypt. The pharaohs had no respect for the Jews whatsoever.
However, Moses, who is probably the most important prophet in Judaism, led the Jews and the Children of Israel out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. On this journey, Moses received messages from god. These messages were moral rules that Moses and his followers had to follow. These messages became the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments became the basis for Judaism, Christianity, and even our modern laws today. The Commandments were composed of laws such as “do not steal” and “do not kill”. These rules are what we know today as common sense, because of how long ago they were established.
The Ten Commandments were written down and kept in the Ark of the Covenant, which is in Jerusalem. The journey out of Egypt was known as the Exodus. Exodus means “the exit” in Greek. In the Exodus, God led the Children of Israel on a long and hard journey to the top of Mount Sinai. On this mountain, God appeared to the children of Israel and told them that if they formed a covenant, then he will help them build a great kingdom. This was when God revealed the Torah to the Children of Israel. After that, every Child of Israel donated something to the Torah.
The Children of Israel were now bound to the covenant with God. They also believed that all Jewish people are born already bound to this covenant. Moses was a unique prophet to the Jews because they believed that he was the only prophet who had the power to talk to God with words instead of just dreams. They believed that God came down to Moses and gave him the entire Torah. He also instructed him to lead the Jewish slaves out of Israel. He also gave Moses great powers. Moses was able to split the sea in half to allow his followers to pass through to the holy land.
When the journey away from Egypt was over, Moses and the slaves had arrived to Israel. Israel was to be turned into a kingdom. This kingdom would be the Kingdom of Israel. This Kingdom in the Promised land was ruled completely by religion, unlike any other kingdom. This was how Judaism started. Today, we don’t have as many Jews because many of them were finished off during the Holocaust of WWII. However, because of Judaism, we have America’s most popular religion, which is Christianity. In fact, the first five books of the bible can be found in the Torah as well. Question 2: How was Judaism different from other religions?
Judaism was very different from other religions at the time because it was the only religion that supported morals and behavior. In other words, Judaism was a very “good willed” religion. Because of this, the Jews were able to build one of the most powerful and prosperous empires in the history of man. Every religion had a purpose. Judaism’s purpose was basically to keep people from doing bad things, or “sins”. To do this, Judaism has the Ten Commandments, which are basic rules of morality for people to follow such as “do not kill”, “do not steal”, “do not lie”, etc.
Since these rules were sacred, everyone who was Jewish had to follow them. Judaism was different from Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Animism because the eastern religions’ purpose was to create an extremely effective society that always works efficiently. An example of this is Hinduism’s system of Dharma and Karma. A man must follow his Dharma, or his destiny (job), in order to obtain good Karma. Proof of the existence of the difference between Judaism and other religions is present all around us. Judaism evolved into Christianity, which evolved into the Holy Roman Empire.
Without that, nothing today would be the same. In the East, on the other hand, Animism and Hinduism created a completely different kind of civilization. In some ways, that made the East more hardworking than the West. Most of everything is the way it is today because of the fact that Judaism was different from other religions. Judaism’s system of morality was basically the evolution of Hammurabi’s code, and that was exactly what the world needed at the time. Judaism along with other factors, led a large majority of the world into a prosperous age of cooperation and modernization.