Judaism research paper

Judaism research paper

The quranic sūra The Women says that Jews claimed to have killed and crucified Christ but denies that they did so. Rather, the verse says, ‘it was made to appear to them so.’. For centuries, controversy has swirled around these verses, as most Muslims took them to deny that Christ was crucified. If we place them in the historical Judaism and Islam - Judaism and Islam research papers examine the naming rituals and funeral practices of the two religions. The Maccabees - The “Maccabees” was the name given to a Jewish family in Israel who led a revolution and died heroically for the right to worship God, as opposed to the pagan gods, during a thirty year period before the birth of Christ Some Suggested Research Topics on Judaism: Beliefs: Aspects of belief in God: God's unity; The names of God and what they signify; God's qualities of justice and mercy; God's presence in the world: the Shekhinah; The nature and significance of miracles; Afterlife, reward and punishment. Eschatology (redemption, Messiah) Jewish understandings of Human nature

Judaism Research Paper Sample | blogger.com

View sample Judaism research paper. Browse other research paper examples and check the list of religion research paper topics for more inspiration.

If you need a religion research paper written according to all the academic standards, you can always turn to our experienced writers for help. This is how your paper can get an A! Feel free to contact our custom writing service for professional assistance. We offer high-quality judaism research paper for reasonable rates.

The reports that reached philosophers such as Theophrastus and Megasthenes c. The Jews, they wrote, were stubborn believers in a singular god who was both the god of Israel and the god of the world.

Other writers noted that the Jews insisted on certain practices that were strange to the Greeks: circumcision, abhorrence at consuming pork, and a kind of insular culture that judaism research paper at odds with what the Greeks believed to be their own open-mindedness. Such traits were considered by some observers as both peculiar and the reason for what they called— perhaps unconsciously describing their own elitism— Jewish misanthropy, lack of patriotism toward Greek cultureand general disregard for humankind outside of their own nation.

The Greeks thus articulated both a kind of attraction and repulsion toward Judaism. Despite such ambivalence, however, many Romans to the dismay of their ruling classes were fascinated by this religious civilization.

Judaism had an overwhelming influence on the premodern history of the world west of the Indus River, and an enduring impact on the entire world in the modern period. The impact of Judaism on world history is both direct and felt through its relationships with the conquering religious civilizations that followed, first Christianity and then Islam. As such, what we today call Judaism must be distinguished from its older forms. In fact, Judaism is only one of the heirs of biblical religion, as are all the faiths in the family of religions referred to as Judaism research paper. Biblical religion itself is multifaceted, since it evolved for centuries during the historical period represented in the Hebrew Bible Old Testament.

It has become evident to scholars that biblical religion was not always purely monotheistic, for it reflects periods of tension between those who would allow rituals associated with figurines representing other powers or deities and those who would accept nothing other than the one god, the God of Israel 1 Sam.

It is judaism research paper, however, that the people that called itself Israel the name derives from the biblical figure Jacob, who was also called Israel—Gen. It is likely that the concept of monotheism existed among individuals before the emergence of the people of Israel.

Even powerful and influential individuals such as the pharaoh Akhenaton mid-fourteenth century BCE may have been monotheists or proto-monotheists, but no entire community succeeded in adopting monotheism prior to ancient Judaism. It established a theological paradigm that would have a profound impact on the nature of all subsequent religions, whether monotheistic or not, judaism research paper.

Ancient Israel saw itself as a small and beleaguered monotheistic people living in a world of countless foreign nations, all sharing the temptation of worshipping multiple deities Deut.

Out of this awkward and precarious social and political situation, coupled with a feeling of obvious theological uniqueness, emerged an impression, and then a doctrine, of election, of being chosen by the one and only true god to represent and worship him unreservedly and unconditionally Deut. Throughout the Hebrew Bible we find the message that all the nations of the Earth worship their sets of gods, but only Israel worships the One God, the God of the entire world.

Election, therefore, became deeply ingrained into the Israelite consciousness. The term actually refers to a host of formal or legal relationships in the Hebrew Bible ranging from judaism research paper between two individuals Gen. But one special type of biblical covenant agreement came to define the relationship between the only community of monotheists and the only true God, judaism research paper.

It was reaffirmed with the biblical patriarchs Gen, judaism research paper. This divine covenant was extended also to non-Israelite peoples who escaped along with Israel in the redemption from Egypt Exod. The concepts of election and covenantal relationship with God originated with ancient Israel and its religion, but these traits became intimately associated with monotheism in general. Election and judaism research paper, therefore, are not only essential to Judaism, but are intimately associated with Christianity and Islam.

Election and covenant, closely associated with Israel and Judaism and judaism research paper integral part of all expressions of monotheismcan be viewed as divisive traits. The legacy of Israelite religion is not, however, all exclusion and division. The inclusive and compassionate aspects of the universal religious imperative in Western religions also seem to have originated in ancient Israel.

The exclusivist aspects of monotheism in Israelite religion were always in tension with inclusionism, as defined by care for the stranger and a sense of responsibility toward others. Thus, although Israelites may have considered themselves to be the only people in the ancient world that truly respected the one God of the universe, judaism research paper, God was nevertheless the God of all, including those who did not recognize him.

Codes or lists of formalized social precedents customs and formulaic duties existed before the emergence of ancient Judaism. These are similar to what today would be called law obligations to state, society, and private individuals. This pre-Israelite material was as closely associated with a sense of societal justice as that found in the Hebrew Bible.

On the other hand, the prebiblical codes maintained a sharp tripartite division of society into an upper level of free men, a class of state dependents, and a slave caste. There was no expectation of judaism research paper mobility between these classes, and the rights, responsibilities, and sanctions in the codes reflected this rigid division.

You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you Deut. Individuals are accountable, judaism research paper, judaism research paper only for themselves but also for others.

It should be likened more to a set of behavioral expectations for ritual and social behavior, centered around the idea that the individual is responsible to the group and the group to the individual. That the entire nation is punished by God for the misbehavior of the few is a foundation of Israelite law and referenced throughout the Hebrew Bible. All the people were witnesses at the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and all are therefore responsible to ensure that the Torah teaching is upheld.

This is the essence of the Israelite system, which is based upon a balance between individual and community and between freedom and responsibility Deut. The true origin of the Israelites remains uncertain.

While some have suggested that it lies in Mesopotamia or Judaism research paper, recent scholarship places it within Canaanite society, suggesting that Israel symbolizes a judaism research paper trend in Canaanite culture originating perhaps as early as the second millennium BCE that eventuated in an independent judaism research paper. But the tribes of Israel were not always purely monotheistic, and the journey into the kind of theology we would recognize today as monotheism did not end until the exilic or post-exilic periods after the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem in BCE, judaism research paper.

It may have been the realization that the God of Israel could be worshipped even in Babylonian exile that solidified the tendency toward monotheism and convinced the exilic community that there was one God who created the universe, and that the same one God maintained it.

Israel had divided into two separate nations with independent monarchies and centers of worship shortly after the reigns of kings David and Solomon c. The northern kingdom, composed of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, was destroyed by the Assyrian empire in BCE and never recovered.

The southern kingdom, formally made up of the large tribe of Judah and the small tribe of Benjamin but including parts of other tribes and peoples as wellwas destroyed a century and a half later by the Babylonian empire. But the Babylonians were soon overtaken by the Persians, who were friendly to the exiles from the tribal areas of Judah and Benjamin.

The Persians invited the exiles to return from their banishment to the east and reestablish themselves in the ancient land. The Judean community, like its parent, the intertribal community of Israel, remained small in numbers relative to the great empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt. But as a result of the conquests by the Mesopotamian powers and the dispersion of the Israelite tribes, Jewish communities began to establish themselves in many parts of the Mediterranean basin.

The largest communities remained in Judaism research paper and Judea, but significant communities grew up also in Egypt, Anatolia, Greece, and North Africa. These communities did not look like Jewish communities of today, for they practiced a kind of ancient Judaism that was still oriented toward temple worship with sacrifices and burnt offerings.

In some places such as Elephantine, an Egyptian island community in the Nile, they established their own temples independent of the Temple in Jerusalem. In others closer in proximity to Jerusalem, the communities joined in the annual pilgrimage festivals to the Jerusalem Temple and worshipped according to the systems described in the Bible. The Hebrew Bible conveys the message that monotheism always survived precariously and, aside from the Persians, was resented by the nations of the world.

When traveling, for example, it was a common practice among polytheists to make offerings to the gods of the local area or people, judaism research paper. It was considered a common courtesy and expected polite behavior, and to peoples who worshipped multiple deities, it created no theological problem to make a token offering to foreign gods.

Not so Israel, which was commanded to worship only the one God of Israel, judaism research paper, the God of the universe. Judaism research paper situation continued into the Hellenistic period that began with the invasion of Alexander in the s BCE, and into the Roman occupation of Judea that began three centuries later. The Judeans remained a small community and largely without power aside from a few generations under the rule of the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty of kings.

Finally, in 70 CE, after a major Judean revolt against Roman imperial rule, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed a second and final time, never to be rebuilt. By this time, Jews had been dispersed throughout the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds and brought their religion with them.

Monotheism, the theological core of ancient Judaism, survived the vicissitudes of history, but the religious rituals and worship that articulated that basic theology evolved and changed over the centuries.

The repeated judaism research paper of the Jerusalem Temple put an end to the sacrificial system, but the core idea of a singular god endured. However, the geographical dispersion, influence of multiple cultures, judaism research paper, and internal cultural change brought new ideas into biblical Judaism. This eventuated in a synthesis that gave birth judaism research paper factions or parties, sects, and eventually new religious movements.

One of these was the Jesus Movement that began in Judaism and became judaism research paper starting point out of which the family of Christian religions emerged.

Another was a movement that emerged around a core group of leaders steeped in an oral tradition of Judaism that existed parallel to the sacrificial system and written scripture of the Bible. Those leaders we know of were almost all men, though it is clear that women were also instrumental in the transmission of oral lore.

They could be described as traditionists, and included the Pharisees as well as others. Later, they were known as rabbis. When the long process of recording the oral tradition ended in the sixth century CE, judaism research paper, it became known as the Talmud. This Judaism existed in exile for close to two millennia, even in the core land of Judea, which was governed by non-Jews. Rabbinic Judaism always represented the stranger in the lands of others.

It is quietist and highly intellectual, relying more on the survivability of its adherents and the wits of its leaders than directly on the biblical God acting in history. Unlike Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism requires little dogmatic theological belief beyond that in the unity of God, judaism research paper, and salvation is presumed for all who live a pious life of good deeds.

This required repeated reevaluation of judaism research paper meaning of self in relation to the other of Judaism, and resulted in the growth of theologies, laws, and various religious and secular sciences in both Jewish and non-Jewish civilizations.

Judaism therefore contains many ideas but little absolute dogma. Judaism research paper customary argumentation found in Jewish literatures rarely arrives at any final judaism research paper. Every issue and point can and should be revisited and reexamined, and new meanings judaism research paper always possible.

The huge written compendium of the Talmud and its interpretation contain complex discussion and argument over topics that range from folk medicine to legal theory, property law, family law, judaism research paper, business ethics, and theologies, judaism research paper.

The literatures that epitomize Rabbinic Judaism stress the need for a deep and universal intellectual engagement with the divine word in Bible and Talmud, and this foundation of Judaism encouraged a very high per capita involvement in reading and education. In the modern period, when Jews were eventually released from their restricted status in the West and were allowed to enter the universities and engage in the professions and sciences, their religious culture provided the intellectual training that would result in contributions far above their per capita representation.

To provide one striking example, Jews make up less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of the world population, yet they account for some 18 percent of the Nobel Prizes awarded in the twentieth century.

There is no need to list the many contributions of Jews to the arts, judaism research paper, science, literature, and music. Some of the ideas that were incubated in premodern Judaism have come to the fore in contemporary postmodern thought.

These include aspects of literary deconstruction and concepts of exile, both of which have had a major impact on current intellectual discourse.

Judaism, like all religions, encompasses more than a theological system of beliefs. It is best described as a religious civilization, and this civilization has had a foundational influence on world civilizations west of the Indus River for two millennia.

Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale

, time: 1:26:18

Judaism Research Topics:

Reform Judaism Research Paper End Of Life Care -nursing Cultural Competency. An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the The Concept of the Messiah within Judasim and the Development of the Messanic Tradition Within Christianity. This The quranic sūra The Women says that Jews claimed to have killed and crucified Christ but denies that they did so. Rather, the verse says, ‘it was made to appear to them so.’. For centuries, controversy has swirled around these verses, as most Muslims took them to deny that Christ was crucified. If we place them in the historical Judaism and Islam - Judaism and Islam research papers examine the naming rituals and funeral practices of the two religions. The Maccabees - The “Maccabees” was the name given to a Jewish family in Israel who led a revolution and died heroically for the right to worship God, as opposed to the pagan gods, during a thirty year period before the birth of Christ