| Judaism | |
|---|---|
| יַהֲדוּת Yahadut | |
 | |
| Type | Ethnic religion[1] |
| Classification | Abrahamic |
| Scripture | Hebrew Bible |
| Theology | Monotheistic |
| Leaders | Jewish leadership |
| Movements | Jewish religious movements |
| Associations | Jewish religious organizations |
| Region | Predominant religion in Israel and widespread worldwide as minorities |
| Language | Biblical Hebrew[2] |
| Headquarters | Jerusalem (Zion) |
| Founder | Abraham[3][4] (traditional) |
| Origin | 1st millennium BCE 20th–18th century BCE[3] (traditional) Judah Mesopotamia[3] (traditional) |
| Separated from | Yahwism |
| Congregations | Jewish religious communities |
| Members | c. 14–15 million[5] |
| Ministers | Rabbis |
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The most widespread belief among archeological and historical scholars is that the origins of Judaism lie in Bronze Age polytheistic Canaanite religion. Judaism also syncretized elements of other Semitic religions such as Babylonian religion, which is reflected in the early prophetic books of the Tanakh.[6][failed verification]
During the Iron Age I period (12th to 11th centuries BCE[7]), the religion of the Israelites branched out of the Canaanite religion and took the form of Yahwism. Yahwism was the national religion of the Kingdom of Israel and of the Kingdom of Judah.[8][9] As distinct from other Canaanite religious traditions, Yahwism was monolatristic and focused on the especial worship of Yahweh, whom his worshippers conflated with El.[10] Yahwists started to deny the existence of other gods, whether Canaanite or foreign, as Yahwism became more strictly monotheistic over time.[11][12]
During the Babylonian captivity of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE (Iron Age II), certain circles within exiled Judahites in Babylon refined pre-existing ideas about Yahwism, such as the nature of divine election, law and covenants. Their ideas came to dominate the Jewish community in the following centuries.[13]
From the 5th century BCE until 70 CE, Yahwism evolved into the various theological schools of Second Temple Judaism, besides Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora. Second Temple Jewish eschatology has similarities with Zoroastrianism.[14] The text of the Hebrew Bible was redacted into its extant form in this period and possibly also canonized as well. Archaeological and textual evidence pointing to widespread observance of the laws of the Torah among rank-and-file Jews first appears around the middle of the 2nd century BCE, during the Hasmonean period.[15][page needed]
Rabbinic Judaism developed in Late Antiquity, during the 3rd to 6th centuries CE; the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud were compiled in this period. The oldest manuscripts of the Masoretic tradition come from the 10th and 11th centuries CE, in the form of the Aleppo Codex (of the later portions of the 10th century CE) and of the Leningrad Codex (dated to 1008–1009 CE). Due largely to censoring and the burning of manuscripts in medieval Europe, the oldest existing manuscripts of various rabbinical works are quite late. The oldest surviving complete manuscript copy of the Babylonian Talmud dates from 1342 CE.[16]
- ^ Jacobs 2007, p. 511 quote: "Judaism, the religion, philosophy, and way of life of the Jews.".
- ^ Sotah 7:2 with vowelized commentary (in Hebrew). New York. 1979. Retrieved Jul 26, 2017.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c Mendes-Flohr 2005.
- ^ Levenson 2012, p. 3.
- ^ Dashefsky, Arnold; Della Pergola, Sergio; Sheskin, Ira, eds. (2018). World Jewish Population (PDF) (Report). Berman Jewish DataBank. Retrieved 22 June 2019.
- ^ Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 402.
- ^ Hackett 2001, p. 132.
- ^ Hackett 2001, p. 156: "[...] some contemporary scholars propose that what distinguished 'Israel' from other emerging Canaanite Iron I societies was religion - the belief in Yahweh as one's god rather than Chemosh (of the Moabites), for example, or Milcom (of the Ammonites). Indeed, the early Iron Age marked the rise of national religion in the Near East, tying belief in the national god to ethnic identity. Thus the Israelites are the people of Yahweh, just as Moabites are the people of Chemosh; Ammonites, worshipers of Milcom; Edomites, of Qaus. [...] (The terms national religion and national god, though commonly used, are admittedly misleading: the particulars of modern nation-states should not be read back into these ancient societies.)"
- ^
Compare:
Ahlström, Gösta Werner (1982). Royal Administration and National Religion in Ancient Palestine. Volume 1 of Studies in the history of the ancient Near East / Studies in the history of the ancient Near East. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 83. ISBN 9789004065628. Retrieved 11 November 2023.
[...] the picture drawn for us of the northern kingdom and its religion is not reliable. Furthermore, the so-called conservative Yahwism which is said to have predominated in Judah, seems to have existed only in the Jewish scholars' reconstruction of history.
- ^ Smith 2002, pp. 8, 33–34.
- ^ Betz 2000, p. 917: "Monotheism in Israel [...] appears to have developed over a long period of time, beginning about the 10th century up until the end of the Babylonian Exile."
- ^ Albertz 1994, p. 61 The propagation of the sole worship of Yahweh is said to have begun only at a late stage, at the earliest with Elijah in the ninth century, but really only with Hosea in the eighth century, and to have been the concern of only small opposition groups (the 'Yahweh alone['] movement). [...] According to this view, this movement was only able to influence society for a short period under Josiah, but then finally helped monotheism to victory in the exilic and early post-exilic period.
- ^ Gnuse 1997, p. 225.
- ^ "Diseases in Jewish Sources". Encyclopaedia of Judaism. doi:10.1163/1872-9029_ej_com_0049.
- ^ Adler 2022.
- ^ Golb, Norman (1998). The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History. Cambridge University Press. p. 530. ISBN 978-0521580328.
A copy [...] was completed at the end of 1342 [...] by the scribe Solomon b. Simson [...]. [...] This manuscript, now at the Bayerische Staatsbibliotek in Munich (MS Heb. 95), remains the only complete manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud to survive from the Middle Ages.