Vicki

I am currently enrolled in a religious studies class at my college and have the final exam tomorrow night. While studying, I came across a couple questions about Judaism and decided to come here for some expert advice.

The first question is "Explain how Judaism is unique in its view of God, Law (covenant) and history." I understand that both Islamic and Christian traditions originated from Jewish beliefs, but am unsure about what makes it unique or distinct from the other monotheistic religions.

The other question is "At what point in biblical history did the fundamental pattern of Jewish experience emerge, and what shape did it take? Give two examples from the history of Judaism." I am unsure about the approach of this question, and uncertain what two good examples would be.

Any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

neilgodfrey

You won't like my answers to your questions because I can only say, in relation to the first: "What a horrible useless rotten question!" First of all, what is meant by Judaism? Contemporary? Ancient? Medieval? Which strands? Secondly, change that prejudicial word "how" to the briefer "is" -- IS Judaism (what's that?) unique in this, something else, and the other? And what's with this "unique" word? Every concept has to be "unique" for it to have any differentiation from anything else anyway.

As for the second question, do "Jewish experience" and "Judaism" refer to the experience of a genetic race? a religion? a social group? a political entity? a varying mixture of any of the above at varying eras?

I'm as confused as you and sympathize with your plight.

Perhaps the examiner is not wanting you to think but to just parrot out the usual cliches and conventional constructs found in most books that discuss turning points of "Jewish experience" pivotted about the exodus from egypt, the babylonian captivity, the return under nehemiah and ezra, the destruction of 70 c.e. and the ensuing rabinnical development. And to talk about the traditional view of monotheism being the gift of "Judaism" regardless of any findings about the growth of monotheism throughout the Hellenistic world and into the later Roman imperial period, and the complexity of religious ideas really found among what is loosely bracketed as original "Judaism".


Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Malachi151

Well, its a fact that Judaism as we know it today didn't take shape until around the 2nd to 5th centuries, but still to this question *I* would answer as follows:

It took the shape of a self-doubting and self-blaming religion during the time that the books of the prophets were written. Examples of this are throughout the later books of the Hebrew Bible, I'll let you look for yourself, but basically everything from Isaiah through Maccabees is about how God no longer loves the Jews because they aren't honoring him properly, or some such business, and about God is hates them and is going to kill them, or about how God is going to kill everyone else, or about how God is going to rule all the nations and destroy all of their enemies.

Its a pretty brutal and savage religion really.

I didn't really provide a good answer here, but I would work the brutal and self-loathing angle of the religion.

Toto

I'm willing to bet that an answer like Malachi's will not get you a good grade, and I doubt its accuracy. The self-doubting and self-blaming stuff sounds like it was inspired by Woody Allen or Philip Roth.

Yahweh was originally a war god, and his covenant was a deal to provide victory in war if his people obeyed his 613 laws. Since the Jews believed that their god controlled everything, they had to believe that if something bad happened to them, it must be because they had violated some rule. This is where you get the apparent self-loathing that Malachi speaks of. The prophets saw people breaking a law, and assumed that meant that the next war would not be successful. Or conversely, if the last war did not go well, they assumed that it was because they had violated one of god's laws, and needed to repent.

When the Jews were defeated by the Romans in the Bar Kochba rebellion in the second century CE, the surviving religious leaders developed a much more sophisticated and humane philosophy of life.

Christians and Muslims believe in the devil, so if something bad happens to them, they can rationalize it as the work of the devil, or some temporary setback on their way to their reward in heaven.

spin

If you want to survive the course, forget about what was likely to have happened in reality and argue (that the emergence of Judaism was naturally an evolutionary process):

1) Jeremiah represented the triumph of monotheism -- the Jews before then were too likely to fall away into all those other religions, and chase those naughty deities with golden calves and priests of Baal and Asherah.

2) Ezra, when he imposed the law (Torah) on the people started the process which made the book the center of the religion rather than the temple.

3) The Pharisaic movement which came into vision in the second century BCE oriented the religion for the masses into synagogue centered religion based on the practice of the law as against the priestly controlled temple centered religion based on sacrifice. It was at this time that the notion of "oral torah" came into importance as a support for the "written torah".

4) With the loss of the temple with the end of the Jewish War the focus could no longer be the priestly religion. That's when the heirs of the Pharisees gained control of the religion and stabilized it on their teacher centered religion.


spin

Malachi151

What Toto says is true, and a good point, something you could perhaps use as a way to address the subject. Since the Jews attributed both fortune and grief to their god, when bad things happened to them, as Toto said, they believed that it was because their god was unhappy them. Since the Jews were usually being oppressed by others, especially from the time of the conquest of Alexander until the rise of the Hasmonean Kingdom in the 2nd century BCE, their conclusion was that their own god was against them, or punishing them.

In many ways, "the devil" of Christianity was a way to resolve that issue, and put blame for ills on someone else.

Vicki

As both Toto and spin provided excellent elaboration on the second question, I would like to thank you for your response. I feel much more confident with the one question, but am desperetly hoping someone might clarify something about the first before my exam tonight.

Would I then be correct in the assumption that Jews believe in one supernatural force (God) that influences both the good and bad that exists in this temporal existence, and this aspect would make Judaism unique from Christianity and Islamic traditions? Also, if my above assumption is correct, does that mean Jews have a different interpretation of the after-life, and a unique outlook on the system of rewards and punishments? From my understanding, Jewish traditions believe that Sheol is where one goes after death (either body, soul, or both) despite their actions in life.

No Robots

I'm afraid that this subject requires something more than a cursory request for help on an internet discussion board. All the same, if you are serious, it should take about 5-10 hours of concentrated study to make you conversant with the key issues at play. There is simply nowhere else for the serious student to go than to Spinoza and his Theological-Political Treatise. The online version I linked to is well constructed with a hypertext table of contents that will allow you to skip about looking for areas of particular interest. This is not a work that in itself is likely to please your instructor, but it will give you a good understanding that you can package as required.

Toto

If you want to pass the course and the exam is tonight, put off reading Spinoza. There must have been some official course material on this question, and you would do better to just repeat it.

A fairly safe answer to the "uniqueness" question is that Jews do not believe in any intermediary between themselves and God (if the teacher is Jewish write G-d). Christians rely on Jesus as an intermediary, and if they are Catholic a variety of saints, the Virgin Mary, etc. Muslims rely on the message of the prophet Mohammed. Jews of all shades of opinion believe in wrestling with their god directly, and are less likely to emphasize blind obedience as a virtue (in spite of the Abraham Isaac story).