COURSE CORRESPONDENCE AND

LEARNING MODULES FOR

LIFE OF FAITH AND CHRISTIANITY
 MODULE 1

LESSON 1: JUDAISM

OVERVIEW

Judaism is a religious tradition with origins dating back nearly four thousand years, rooted in the
ancient near eastern region of Canaan (which is now Israel and Palestinian territories). Originating as
the beliefs and practices of the people known as "Israel," classical, or rabbinic, Judaism did not emerge
until the 1st century C.E. Judaism traces its heritage to the covenant God made with Abraham and his
lineage — that God would make them a sacred people and give them a holy land. The primary figures
of Israelite culture include the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophet Moses, who received
God's law at Mt. Sinai. Judaism is a tradition grounded in the religious, ethical, and social laws as they
are articulated in the Torah — the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Jews refer to the Bible as the
Tanakh, an acronym for the texts of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. Other sacred texts include the
Talmud and Midrash, the rabbinic, legal, and narrative interpretations of the Torah. The contemporary
branches of Judaism differ in their interpretations and applications of these texts. The four main
movements within Judaism today are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist,
respectively ranging from traditional to liberal to religiously progressive in their application of Torah.
While diverse in their views, Jews continue to be unified on the basis of their common connection to a
set of sacred narratives expressing their relationship with God as a holy people. Judaism tends to
emphasize practice over belief. Jewish worship is centered in synagogues, which completely replaced
the Second Temple after its destruction in 70 C.E. Jewish religious leaders are called rabbis, who
oversee the many rituals and ceremonies essential to Jewish religious practice.

Quick Fact Details:

 Formed: Though the Jewish calendar goes back more than 5000 years, most scholars date the
beginning of the religion of the Israelites to their forefather in faith, Abraham, whose life is
generally dated to circa 2000-1800 B.C.E.
 Origin: Canaan is the biblical name for the area between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean, approximately the equivalent of what today comprises the state of Israel and
the Palestinian territories.
 Followers: The worldwide count of adherents of Judaism is difficult, as some Jewish
movements dispute the legitimate Jewish identity of others. Many do not affiliate with any
particular branch, and may then be left out of census reports.
 Sacred Texts: Tanakh is an acronym of Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. Torah is the name given
to the first five books — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — also
called the Pentateuch. The Nevi'im and Ketuvim are the books of history, prophecy, poetry,
and other sacred writings. The Talmud is also called the Oral Torah, and is comprised of
rabbinical commentary and interpretation on the Torah.
 Headquarters: While Jerusalem remains the center of Jewish spirituality, the lack of a Temple
or any administrative or jurisdictional authority prevents it from being an organizational
center.
Quick Facts

FORMED C. 2000 B.C.E.

ADHERENTS 14,000,000

DEITY GOD (MONOTHEISTIC)

SACRED TEXT TORAH, TANAKH (HEBREW SCRIPTURES), TALMUD

ORIGIN CANAAN

HEADQUARTERS NONE

Beginnings
The traditional view of Jewish origins is based on the patriarchal narratives
found in the Hebrew Bible. These narratives reflect an attempt by the
ancient Israelites, the ancestors of the Jewish people, to trace the birth of
their nation to one family that began to distinguish itself from those of other
ancient near eastern cultures through the worship of one God. Although
these texts were written about a thousand years after the events described,
they are an outgrowth of the myths associated with the historical origins of a people passed down orally
through the generations.

These narratives associate the origin of Judaism

with Abraham, a nomadic herder who entered
into an unconditional covenant with God based on
two interrelated divine promises of unlimited progeny
and possession of the land of Canaan. The narrative
then sets out to chronicle the trials and tribulations of
this clan, depicting a continual conflict over who
will be the promised heir to the covenant, with the
younger son always prevailing. First there is a
conflict between Abraham's wife Sarah and her
maidservant Hagar over their sons Isaac and Ishmael.
Ultimately it is Isaac who perpetuates the
Abrahamic covenant symbolized by his miraculous
birth by the elder and infertile Sarah, while Ishmael becomes the father of another great nation later
associated with Islam.

The narrative later recounts the story of the twin brothers Jacob and Esau who engage in a sibling
rivalry over who will receive their father's birthright, with the slightly younger and clever Jacob
outsmarting the dim-witted oaf Esau by deceiving his senile father with the help of his mother,
Rebecca. This common "disqualification" motif is more than just a literary tool; it is also an historical
justification of Israel's self-acknowledged status in history as a youthful nation that has the divine right
to conquer the land of the stronger and more established Canaanite cultures.

Ultimately it is Jacob who acquires the name Israel, "one who

wrestles with God," through his mysterious encounter with an
angel, and it is he who becomes the father of twelve sons who
are the eponymous ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.
These tribes ultimately form the nucleus of the Israelite nation
that enters into a conditional covenant with God predicated on
the divine redemption of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage
and contingent upon Israel's continued observance of God's
commandments. This national covenant further confirms the
promises made by God to Abraham in his familial covenant.

Later in the narrative, God enters into another unconditional covenant, this time pledging eternal
support for the Davidic Kingdom based on David's prior fidelity. Yet because of the king's
bloodstained past, he is not able to build the sacred
house for God that he envisioned, but instead must
cede the construction of the Holy Temple to his son
Solomon.

God's loyalty to David and his descendants is severely

tested during the ensuing division of the kingdom into
two commonwealths following the death of King
Solomon: the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Despite its superior size,
geographical position, and military strength, Israel would meet an earlier demise than that of Judah in
722 B.C.E. because of its political and religious instability. Yet Judah would not fare much better,
facing its own demise in 586 B.C.E. with the destruction of the Holy Temple and ensuing exile,
perhaps as a result of being squeezed by the two larger powers of Egypt and Babylonia and forced to
switch political allegiances.

With the blessing of the Persian king Cyrus, many

Judeans would come back to Jerusalem to rebuild their
Holy Temple anew under the leadership of the priest
Ezra in 516 B.C.E. The Sanhedrin, the original body of
legal interpreters began to construct the rough outlines
of what would later become rabbinic Judaism by
instituting the oral tradition in 444 B.C.E., a collection
of ongoing oral interpretations of the
written Torah received by Moses at Mt. Sinai. The
later Pharisees or "interpreters" of the 1st century
B.C.E. would go further by claiming that one cannot
understand the written law without consulting the
parallel "oral law" that was also believed to be
transmitted to Moses at Mt. Sinai by God.

The conquest of Alexander the Great brought the

Persian era to an end in 333 B.C.E., ushering in the
Greco-Roman period in which there was a process of Hellenization, or infusion of Greek culture into
Judean society, reflected at the popular level with the introduction of a common language, dress, and
schools. Yet Judean assimilation into Greek culture even occurred at the institutional level with
different priestly families competing for the position of High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple based on
how much tribute they could give the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kings of the Greek empire to sanction
their office.

The worst offender was Menelaus who embezzled funds and stole sacred vessels from the Temple
treasury to pay debts to the Seleucid King Antiochus, even dedicating the Jerusalem Temple to the
Greek god Zeus. This political and religious corruption ignited a civil war between the Maccabee
traditionalists and the Hellenized reformers, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Hasmonean
dynasty, a brief return to autonomous Jewish self-rule. Yet the Judean political and religious infighting
would continue through the 1st century B.C.E., when the Romans took over Judea and appointed
Herod, an Idumean (from Edom) convert to be King and High Priest over the Judeans in 40 B.C.E.

During this period of extreme religious and political instability, the Pharisees were one of three major
groups vying for the mantle of divine truth, separating themselves from the priestly Sadducees who
denied the legitimacy of the oral law largely to preserve their own political and religious authority. The
Essenes further distanced themselves from a Judean society that they saw as tainted by the material
world, opting for an ascetic existence near the Dead Sea.

It was in this volatile mix of first century C.E. Judean subcultures that Jesus of Nazareth most likely
lived and preached, demonstrating a clear affinity for the teachings of the Pharisees. Unfortunately this
theological and discursive volatility contributed to social and political instability, which the Romans
would not tolerate. This further Roman intervention in Judean society sparked the "Great Revolt" in the
years 66-70 C.E., which catastrophically lead to the destruction of the Second Temple, exile, and the
inevitable fragmentation of Judean culture.

The rabbis of the 2nd century attempted to fill the religious and political void left in the wake of the
destruction by pragmatically introducing three changes in the Jewish worldview with both religious and
political implications. First, they reinterpreted the oral law of their pharisaic predecessors by arguing
that all future interpretations of the Torah were already transmitted to Moses at Mt. Sinai, thus
legitimizing their new role as the authoritative interpreters of their generation. Next, they proclaimed
that the age of prophecy had been replaced by Torah study, in effect democratizing Jewish
communication to God. Finally, they taught that following the destruction of the Second Temple, God
had actually gone into exile with God's people. In a sense, with the loss of Jewish power, God allowed
divine power to somehow be diminished in order to suffer with the Jewish people, ultimately leaving
room for the rabbis to assume a more active political as well as religious role in the world.

With these three innovations, the rabbis built a bridge between Judean culture and what became
classical Judaism by preserving the Jewish connection to Israelite religion while at the same time
extending it to further generations.

Short Quiz

Task 1.1
Study Questions:
1. Why is patriarchy important to Judaism's history?
2. What do Judaism's literary motifs reveal about its status?
3. What is the role of covenant in Judaism?
4. Who was Abraham? Jacob?
5. Describe the relationship between politics and the Jewish Temple.

Sacred Texts
The Hebrew Bible emerged out of an oral tradition developed by the
ancient Israelite community in an effort to narrate their history, explain
the origins of the cosmos, and define their place in it as members of the
larger human community. The process of transcribing this oral tradition
into writing began during the period of the Davidic Monarchy in 1000
B.C.E. and lasted approximately 800 years.

Books of the Torah

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
In contrast to other nations of the ancient near east whose national origins were directly intertwined
with their creation myths, the Israelite scribes connected their historical emergence as a nation to the
creation myths through a series of ancestral narratives depicting the birth of the world, a family, and a
nation called Israel. The Hebrew scriptures consist of twenty-four books and is divided into three
sections that are referred to with the acronym TaNaKh, an abbreviation for Torah, Neviim, and
Ketuvim.
 The Torah (or Pentateuch) refers to the first five
books of the Hebrew Bible, associated with its central
figure Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. Although these books are
theologically united together as the "Law of Moses"
received from God at Mt. Sinai, they are historically
understood as a series of narratives grouped together
under the other meaning of Torah, "instruction." They
lack a continuous theme or a single author and were edited over a period of 500 years and canonized
during the 6th century B.C.E.

Books of the Nevi'im

(Prophets)
Joshua
Judges
Samuel (I-III)
Kings (I-II)
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Minor Prophets
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

Neviim, "Prophets," is the second section of the Tanakh. It is comprised of the books of Joshua,
Judges, Samuel I-II, Kings I-II, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and twelve minor or shorter prophetic
narratives, including those of Hosea through Malachi. In the medieval period, rabbinic commentators
divided this one section of texts in half, referring to Joshua through Kings as "former prophets" and
Isaiah through the twelve minor prophets as "latter prophets," based on their placement within the
biblical text. While the books of Joshua through Kings are not named after prophets, it can be argued
that they all involve some degree of prophecy. Yet it is even more plausible to group them together as
one continuous historical narrative, beginning in the Book of Deuteronomy, involving the worship of
one God associated with the Davidic kingdom who actively rewards and punishes Israel for its sins. It
is likely that these prophetic books were canonized after those in the Torah during the late Persian and
early Hellenistic periods.

Books of the Ketuvim (Writings)

Psalms
First Section:
Proverbs
Poetry
Job
Song of Songs
Ruth
Second Section:
Lamentations
Smaller books
Ecclesiastes
Esther
Third Section: Daniel
Historical texts Ezra/Nehemiah
 Chronicles

Ketuvim or "writings," is a collection of books that were most likely canonized together because they
were all compiled by the end of the Second Temple period. They are comprised of a variety of
material. The first section consists of poetry—Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. Then there is a grouping of
five smaller books copied together because they were originally written on small scrolls—Song of
Songs, an erotic love poem; Ruth, the story of the first "convert" to Judaism; Lamentations, a dirge
over the destruction of the First and Second Temples; Ecclesiastes, a wisdom book portraying a
Hellenistic type of fatalism; and Esther, the story of diaspora Jews triumphing over an attempted
genocide. The last section of Ketuvim involves the historical texts of Daniel, depicting Judean history
from the Persian to the Hellenistic periods; Ezra/Nehemiah portraying the history of the exilic period;
and Chronicles, presenting a selective retelling of history from Adam through Cyrus in 538 B.C.E.

516 BCE-70 CE: Second Temple Period

70-200 CE: Period of the Tannaim ("repeaters" of oral traditions)→MISHNAH
200-500 CE: Period of the Amoraim (Mishnah "discussers")→GEMARA

While the official canonization of the Hebrew Bible ended in the 2nd century B.C.E, the transmission
of "Jewish scriptures" has continued unabated in the form of midrash or commentary to the Torah up
through today. In fact, one could argue that even during the biblical period, priests, prophets, psalmists,
and scribes were composing scripture by recycling and reinterpreting earlier versions of it, illustrating
what one biblical scholar Michael Fishbane has referred to as "inner biblical exegesis."

The Pharisees astutely referred to this type of dynamic interpretive process as the Torah shebe'al peh or
Oral Torah, which they argued was equally as authoritative as the Torah shebikhtav or Written Torah,
because both were given to Moses at Mt. Sinai simultaneously as parallel divine truths. Following the
destruction of the Second Temple, the tannaim who had memorized the oral interpretations of the
Torah by the Pharisees were forced to write them down in order to preserve them, eventually compiling
them in the Mishnah by the 3rd century.

Mishna + Gerara = Talmud

Jerusalem Talmud
Babylonian Talmud
The organic process of rabbinic commentary continued with the Amoraim, "discussers" of the
Mishnah, who later compiled their interpretations in the book of the Gemara, "learning," by the end of
the 5th century. Together, the Mishnah and the Gemara comprised the Talmud. While the rabbis of
Palestine produced the Jerusalem Talmud, the dispersed rabbinic community of Babylonia produced its
own Babylonian Talmud a century later. Yet the rabbis didn't see these texts as merely literary
achievements, but rather as a continuation of sacred scripture itself, arguing that every rabbinic
interpretation ever to be given was already revealed to Moses at Mt. Sinai by God as part of the Oral
Torah.

In the medieval period, rabbinic commentators perpetuated the divine revelation of Torah with their
own midrashic or interpretive techniques to develop legal, philosophical, and mystical commentaries
that would further uncover new meanings of God's word.

The 18th-century pietistic movement Chasidism would further

extend the meaning of the Oral Torah beyond the earlier
rabbinic commentaries to include the writings of zadikim,
righteous individuals in every generation, particularly the
Chasidic leaders themselves who even had the right to "cancel"
a divine decree when necessary.

The medieval philosophical and legal interpretations also paved

the way for modern and contemporary innovations of Jewish
theology and legal observance including traditional, liberal, and
feminist approaches. While the Hebrew biblical canon has
remained sacrosanct throughout history, Jewish thinkers in every generation have continued to create
"scripture" anew by participating in the ongoing process of interpretation.

Task 1.2

Study Questions:
1. Why was an oral tradition important to the transmission of Judaism?
2. What is the Torah? How are its sections divided?
3. What is midrash?
4. Why is midrash important to the oral Torah? How does it influence the text in contemporary
settings?

Sacred Narratives
The foundation of Jewish sacred narrative is the Hebrew scriptures, and its
thematic center is the evolving relationship between God and Israel that is
presented in a linear fashion with three temporal coordinates: creation,
revelation, and redemption. The first point on the time line is creation and
the myths associated with the origins of the cosmos that are common to the
ancient near east, specifically the creation of the world in seven days as
stated in Genesis 1: the first day in which God creates light, separating it
from darkness; the sky on day two; land and plants on day three; the
celestial lights of the sun, moon, and stars on day four; fish and birds on day
five; land animals and humans on day six; and Shabbat rest on day seven.

Creation: GENESISRevelation: EXODUS Redemption

creation myth
God and Israel onfreedom from slavery
flood
Sinai received as God's people
covenant with Noah
Genesis chapters 3-9 present other origin narratives that explain the roots of evil beginning in the story
of the first human beings, Adam and Eve. The serpent represents a type of preexisting evil in the
universe; it convinces Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge that leads to increased
understanding and shame over their nakedness. Moreover, their divine punishments serve as an
etiological myth for snakes slithering on the ground, female pain in childbirth and apparent
subordination to the male, as well as manual labor for males.

While Genesis 3 involves the tension between choice and

temptation within the human psyche as a result of the serpent's evil
influence, Genesis 4:1-16 transposes the internal conflict
into a sociological context involving the murder of a
brother resulting from an apparently inexplicable
tension between Cain, Abel, and God, based on God's refusal to
take Cain's offering. Yet this narrative is not so much about
Cain's intention to commit a crime, but rather about how he deals
with unjustified suffering when he does not receive a response
from God for his offering. Cain thus inherits the internal tension
of his parents to resist the existence of evil in the form of the serpent as a result of selfishness, but then
acts upon it in a way that causes someone else's death, turning desire and curiosity into interpersonal
aggression, rage, and revenge. Again the knowledge of good and evil leads to death and banishment
east of Eden.

This theme of evil culminates in the story of the flood,

which has a direct parallel in the Mesopotamian flood
narratives, Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. Like Genesis,
these ancient flood narratives provide a culmination
for the literary schema of creation, development, and
degeneration of humanity. In all three narratives, there
is a decision to destroy humanity with a flood that is
considered divine retribution for general human
injustice, described in Genesis 6:5. In each narrative, a
god warns a human being and instructs him to build
an ark allowing for the survival of a small group of
humans and animals. The floodwaters cause all life
outside the ark to be destroyed, representing an
explicit reversal of the creation.

In the case of Genesis, Noah is like the new Adam who will be the next progenitor of humanity after
the flood. The sign of the covenant made between God and Noah after the flood is a rainbow, a symbol
of the divine promise of redemption offering the comfort and consolation associated with Noah in
Genesis 5:29. Finally, the ark rests on a mountaintop and birds are sent out to discover if water has
receded, followed by a sacrifice after the ark is emptied. Whereas there is no guarantee that gods won't
destroy the world again in the Mesopotamian flood narratives, in Genesis God displays a rainbow in
heaven marking the end of the flood; God explicitly reverses an earlier curse to Adam in Genesis 3:17,
promising never to curse the earth again.

These creation narratives are followed by a set of narratives surrounding the next major theological
event on the biblical timeline, revelation. This is the fundamental encounter between God and Israel at
Mt. Sinai, described in the Book of Exodus, in which they enter into a conditional covenant based on
divine commandments. This narrative is preceded and legitimized by earlier myths of the patriarchs
and matriarchs in Genesis. These portray the origins and development of this relationship between God
and Israel as it originates with the divine promise of progeny and land to Abraham.

This narrative reflects a progression from a divine relationship with an individual to a family and
eventually to tribes. In addition, Exodus also presents the paradigmatic narrative of exile when the
Israelites were strangers and slaves in Egypt, a narrative that would be repeated later in the Hebrew
scriptures and throughout history following the destruction of the First and Second Temples. This exilic
narrative would also become the ethical basis for Jewish treatment of the slave, the marginalized
"other" and needy outside the community.

The final narrative point on the biblical timeline is

that of redemption, which begins with the Israelite
redemption from slavery, traverses the midpoint of
revelation, and continues indefinitely through the
intertribal conquest of the land of Israel, the ensuing
monarchy, and the recapitulation of the exile. This
narrative segment involves the fulfillment of four
divine promises in Exodus 6 in which God will "bring
out," "deliver," "redeem," and "take" the Israelites to
be God's people. Yet there was a fifth promise of God
to "bring" the Israelites to the land of Israel, which was only temporarily fulfilled because of the
resumption of the exile after the destruction of the First and Second Temples. It is this unfulfilled
promise of redemption that Jews commemorate during the holiday of Pesach by reenacting the Israelite
exodus from Egypt as a paradigm of future redemption for themselves and the world.

Task 1.3

Study Questions:
1. Where does Jewish sacred narrative originate?
2. What are the major themes within the book of Genesis? How is it a story of creation and
destruction?
3. When did revelation occur within Jewish scripture? What was revealed?
4. What does Jewish sacred narrative reveal about redemption?