Abrahamic Homework Questions

Abrahamic Homework Questions (85 points possible) a. From our study of Judaism, in what ways could we say that the God of Judaism is a deity that acts in human history? That is, how are Jewish history, beliefs, and practices informed by God? Explain this Jewish conception of God and provide concrete examples from the class materials to support your response. (15 points) b. In our study of Christianities past and present, we discovered that the religion includes a wide diversity of beliefs and practices, even including sometimes conflicting understandings of Jesus. How might we account for all the differences across the Christianities? After completing our studies of Christian history and beliefs/practices, what have you observed, which might help explain how such a phenomenon came to be? (15 points) c. Based on our study of Islam, what appear to you to be major enduring themes in Islamic theology? Point to at least three distinct concepts/beliefs that you found prevalent in Islam and explain them. (15 points) d. In what ways might we say that the Abrahamic religions are similar? That is, where did you find overlap between all three traditions? Identify and explain! (20 points) e. What seem to you to be the primary distinctions or differences between each of the three Abrahamic religions? That is, what is it about each of them that makes it unique or distinct from the other two Abrahamic traditions? (20 points) 246 JUDAISM CHAPTER 8 JUDAISM A covenant with God Listen to the Chapter Audio on myreligionlab KEY TOPICS • A history of the Jewish people 246 • Torah 278 • Sacred practices 283 • Holy days 286 • Contemporary Judaism 290 Judaism, which has no single founder and no central leader or group making theological decisions, is the diverse tradition associated with the Jewish people, who may be defined either as a religious group or as an ethnic group. In religious terms, Jews are those who experience their long and often difficult history as a continuing dialogue with God. In a religious sense, “Israel” refers to all those who answer the call of God and who acknowledge and strive to obey the one God, through the Torah, or “teaching,” given to the patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets. As a nation, the Jews preserved memories both of being nomads and of having a homeland in the land of Israel. Both memories contributed to their survival through millennia of dispersion and oppression. After the horrors of the Holocaust in the twentieth century, some Jews successfully promoted the idea of a state for a concentration of Jews in the land of Israel as the only safe way for Jews to resist anti-Semitism and to survive. Other Jews continued to believe that they could seek safety in communities around the world. Many who consider themselves Jews have been born into a Jewish ethnic identity but do not feel or practice a strong connection to Jewish religious traditions. Given the persecution, dispersion, and even lack of religiosity among many Jews, how have they survived as anything more than fossils? Their survival, and that of Judaism as a whole, has required constant accommodation to changing circumstances. Nonetheless, they have managed to sustain a remarkable degree of cohesiveness and similar practices and beliefs. In this chapter we will focus on Judaism as an evolving tradition, first by taking an overview of the history of the Jewish people and then by examining the religious concepts and practices that generally characterize the followers of the Torah today. A history of the Jewish people Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-269-46236-9 The Jewish sense of history begins with the stories recounted in the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. Biblical history begins with the creation of the world by a supreme deity, or God, and progresses through the patriarchs, matriarchs, and Moses who spoke with God and led the people according to God’s commandments, and the prophets who heard God’s warnings to those who strayed from the commandments. But Jewish history does not end where the stories of the Tanakh end, about the second century BCE. After the holy center of Judaism, JUDAISM TIMELINE Judaism BCE c.1900–1700 Abraham, the first patriarch c.1300–1200 Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt 1207 c.1010–970 961–931 722 586 c.535 515 c.430 167 30 BCE–10 CE David, king of Judah and Israel King Solomon builds the first Temple of Jerusalem Fall of northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria Fall of southern kingdom of Judah to Babylon; first temple destroyed; Jews exiled to Babylon Jews return to Jerusalem and Judaea Second Temple of Jerusalem built Torah read to the public by Ezra the Scribe Maccabean Revolt Hillel the Elder 70 Jerusalem falls to the Romans and second temple destroyed c.90 Jewish Canon of Tanakh set, under Rabbi Akiva’s leadership CE 132–135 Bar Kokhba revolt c.200 Mishnah compiled c.500 1095 Babylonian Talmud completed Crusaders begin massacring Jews in Europe en route to the Holy Land 1135–1204 Life of Maimonides 1478 The Spanish Inquisition begins 1492 Mass expulsion of Jews from Spain 1555 onward 1654 1700–1760 c.1720–1780 1881 1933–1945 Ghettos of Italy and Germany Jews begin to settle in North America The Baal Shem Tov begins Hasidism The Enlightenment in Europe Large-scale Jewish migrations to North America begin The Holocaust, reaching its climax in World War II 1935 Nuremberg Laws 1947 Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1950 Law of Return 1948 Israel declared an independent state 1967 The Six-Day War 1972 First woman rabbi ordained 1982 ISBN 1-269-46236-9 Israelites present in Canaan 1990 onward United Nations supports independent Palestinian state Israeli–Palestinian conflicts and peace initiatives 2003 Security wall under construction by Israel 2009 First black female rabbi ordained Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. 247 248 JUDAISM the Temple of Jerusalem, was captured and destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, Jewish history is that of a dispersed people, finding unity in their evolving teachings and traditional practices. These were eventually codified in the great compendium of Jewish law and lore, the Talmud. Biblical stories Although knowledge of the early history of the Children of Israel is based largely on the narratives of the Tanakh, scholars are uncertain of the historical accuracy of the accounts. Some of the people, events, and genealogies set forth cannot be verified by other evidence. It may be that the Israelites were too small and loosely organized a group to be noted by historians of other cultures. No mention of Israel appears in other sources until about 1230 BCE, but biblical narratives and genealogies place Abraham, said to be the first patriarch of the Israelites, at about 1700 to 1900 BCE. Jews hold the Pentateuch, the “five books of Moses” that appear at the beginning of the Tanakh, as the most sacred part of the scriptures. Traditionalists believe that these books were divinely revealed to Moses and written down by him as a single document. Some contemporary biblical researchers disagree. On the basis of clues such as the use of variant names for God, they speculate that these books were oral traditions reworked and set down later by several different sources with the intent of interpreting the formation of Israel from a religious point of view, as the results of God’s actions in human history. The Pentateuch seems to have assumed its final form in the days of Ezra the Scribe (fifth century BCE). The Jewish scriptures consist of the Torah (or Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Writings. These books date roughly from the 10th to the 2nd century bce, and were written mostly in classical Hebrew. They are often referred to as Tanakh, an acronym from the first syllables of each division— Torah, Nev’im, Kethuvim. ISBN 1-269-46236-9 Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. JUDAISM 249 ISBN 1-269-46236-9 Some stories in the Pentateuch, such as the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel, are similar to earlier Mesopotamian legends. Only the last four books of Israelite history (I and II Samuel and I and II Kings) are thought to be edited directly from contemporary sources. Although the accuracy of many of the stories has not yet been independently documented, they are of great spiritual significance in Christianity and Islam as well as in Judaism. They are also politically important, for along with the Talmud they later gave a scattered people a special sense of group identity and of God’s active role in Jewish history. From creation to the God of Abraham The Hebrew scriptures begin with a sweeping poetic account of the creation of heaven and earth by God in six days, from the time of “the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from (or: the spirit of) God sweeping over the water.”1 After creating the material universe, God created man and woman in the divine “image” or “likeness,” placing them as masters of the earth, rulers of “the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth.”2 In this account, God is portrayed as a transcendent Creator, without origins, gender, or form, a being utterly different from what has been created. Since Hebrew has no gender-neutral pronouns, God is generally—though not always—described in male singular terms. This creation story (in Genesis 1 and 2:1–4) is attributed by scholars to the “priestly source,” thought to be editors writing immediately before or after the exile of the Jews to Babylon in 586 BCE. A second, probably earlier, version of the creation story follows, beginning in Genesis 2:4. It is thought to be a contribution to the scriptures from the “Yahwist source,” which used the word transliterated as “Yahweh” for the supreme deity. Instead of presenting woman as the equal of man, the second account of creation portrays her as an offshoot of Adam, the first man, formed to keep him company. This version has commonly been interpreted as blaming woman for the troubles of humanity, although this reading is not supported in the Hebrew manuscripts. According to the legend of Adam and Eve, originally God placed the first two humans in a garden paradise. The woman Eve (“mother of all the living”) was promised wisdom by a serpent (later often interpreted as a symbol of Satan) to encourage her to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, against God’s command. She gave some to Adam as well. According to the legend, this ended their innocence. God cursed the serpent and the land, and banished Adam and Eve from their garden; their lives were no longer paradisical nor were they immortal, for they no longer had access to the “tree of life.” Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. After eating the fruit of knowledge, Adam and Eve are exiled from paradise. ( The Wandering of Adam and Eve, Abel Pann, c.1925, Jerusalem. Colored lithograph.) 250 JUDAISM The Israelites identified themselves as a people whose ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, moved from Ur and Haran in Mesopotamia to Canaan; Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, called “Israel,” resettled his large family in Egypt, where the Israelites were eventually treated as slaves. The theme of exile reappears continually in the Hebrew Bible, and in later Jewish history the people are rendered homeless again and again. The biblical narratives emphasize that the people risk God’s displeasure every time they stray from God’s commands. They are repeatedly exiled from their spiritual home and continually seek to return to it. A more optimistic interpretation developed later, however. This was the feeling that the Jewish people were spread throughout the world by God’s will, for a sacred purpose: to be good citizens of whatever land they reside in, and to help raise the imperfect world again to the condition of perfection in which God had created it. The rabbinic tradition, which began in the first century CE and has shaped Jewish theology into the modern period, emphasized that the way out of exile was through study and righteous living. Commandments have their origin in God and, if followed, will lead humanity back to a life in harmony with God. ris Tig Haran MESOPOTAMIA Eu ph ra te NIC IA s AKKAD PH OE Mediterranean Sea SUMER Ur LOWER EGYPT CANAAN IA ISRAEL Jordan Nil e Sea of Galilee Traditional location of Mount Sinai PH I U P P E R E G YP T Dead Sea Red Sea JUDAH Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 1-269-46236-9 LI ST Jericho Jerusalem ISBN 1-269-46236-9 JUDAISM Covenant A unique belief introduced into Jewish theology was the idea of a special covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God. In this contract both are accountable. On the people’s side, obedience to God is expected. On the divine side, God grants special favors and is also bound by his own ethical agreements to the people. The paradigm for this special relationship is the covenant between God and Abraham on behalf of the Jewish people. A more universal covenant with humanity as a whole is portrayed in the story of Noah, who was said to be the sole righteous man of his time. According to the biblical narrator, who attributes thoughts and emotions to God, God despairs of the general wickedness of humans, regrets having created them, and sends a great flood “to destroy all flesh under the sky.”3 The belief that a great flood did occur in Mesopotamia is now supported by nonbiblical evidence from archaeology, geology, and legends of other peoples, grounding at least part of the narrative in historical fact. In the biblical story, God establishes a covenant with Noah and gives directions for the building of an ark, which saves Noah’s family and two of each of God’s creatures. God promises never again to destroy the created world or to interfere with the established natural order, with the rainbow as a sign of this covenant “between me and all flesh that is on earth.”4 God does, however, continue to intervene in history, according to the narrators. Ten generations after the legend of Noah, the narrative focuses on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (the “patriarchs”), and their wives, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel (the “matriarchs”). According to the biblical narratives, Abraham was born in Ur (now in Iraq), migrated to Haran (now in Turkey), and then was called by God to journey to Canaan. With his wife Sarah and his household, he left the land of his father and also the religion of his father, a worshiper of the old gods. Abraham is held up as an example of obedience to God’s commands. Without hesitation, he is said to undergo circumcision (cutting away of the foreskin of the penis) as an initiatory rite, a sign of the covenant in which God agrees to be the divine protector of Abraham and his descendants, with all males to be likewise circumcised on the eighth day after birth. Abraham and his wife Sarah were childless for many years. Sarah offered her servant, the Egyptian woman Hagar, as Abraham’s concubine. According to social tradition, any child who was born of this relationship was considered to be the offspring of Abraham and Sarah, and if Sarah herself were to give birth to a child, it would carry the inheritance rights of the firstborn. After Hagar conceived a son by Abraham—Ishmael—God blessed Sarah at the age of ninety, saying that she will become the “mother of nations: the kings of many people shall spring from her” (Genesis 17:16). According to the biblical account, Sarah does indeed give birth to a son, Isaac, and then insists that Ishmael and Hagar be banished to the wilderness. God supports this demand, assuring Abraham that he will be father of two nations—one line through Isaac (to become the Israelites) and one through Ishmael (whom Arabs consider their ancestor). According to the biblical narrative, God tested Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice his most precious possession, which was his beloved son Isaac (see Box). Thinkers have struggled to explain this demand, for human sacrifice was deemed to be very loathsome, but the point of the story seems to be the merit of Abraham’s great obedience to God. When Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac, the Lord stops him, satisfied that “now I know that you fear God.”5 Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pearson. Copyright © 2014 by Pearson Education, Inc. 251 Abraham’s descendants are said to have given birth to the twelve tribes of Israel. They are symbolically depicted here as sitting in the patriarch’s lap. (Souvigny Bible, 12th century, France.) 252 JUDAISM TEACHING STORY Abraham’s Willingness to Sacrifice Isaac God put Abraham to the test. He said to him, “Abraham,” and he answered, “Here I am.” And He said, “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” So early next morning, Abraham saddled his ass and took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and he set out for the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. He himself took the firestone and the knife; and the two walked off together. Then Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he answered, “Yes, my son.” And he said, “Here are the firestone and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” And Abraham said, “God will see to the sheep for His burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together. They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son. Then an angel of the LORD called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.” And he said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” When Abraham looked up, his eye fell upon a ram, caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. … The angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By Myself I swear, the LORD declares: Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your favored one, I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.” Genesis 22:1–18 The Hebrew word yirah, usually translated as “fear” of God, also implies “awe of God’s greatness,” or what Rabbi Lawrence Kushner calls “trembling in the presence of ultimate holiness.”6 Living Religions, Ninth Edition, by Mary Pat Fisher. Published by Pea …
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