Jewish Civilization: Glory, Fall & Renaissance

Continued from Previous Page 

When people talk about the oldest surviving cultures and religions in the world, the term Hinduism suo moto flashes in mind but it would be unfair not to mention the Judaism, Jewish people and Israel in this context. Perhaps, only few people would know that long before the arrival of world’s two most dominant Abrahamic religions namely Christianity and Islam, the Judaism evolved as a culture and religion among the Jewish people in parts of the Middle East in the Old World. It has survived in the modern age as the State of Israel that, geographically, stands at the crossroads of the Europe, Africa and Asia as part of the Asian continent. Israel is a country of the Southern Levant region in the West Asia, bordered by rather hostile Arab nations of Lebanon and Syria to the north, Jordan and the West Bank to the east, the Gaza Strip and Egypt to the southwest, and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, as also small stretches of the Red Sea and the Dead Sea defining its coastline. The Jewish people, more popularly known as Jews (ancient Yahudis), are believed to have originated in the land of present Israel with a rich and long physical, cultural and religious history.

Many historians and modern scholars believe that the Jewish culture and religion is dated back to about 1500 BCE while some others also suggest its origin around 2500 BCE. According to the Jewish Bible, a Jewish monarchy existed since early 1000 BCE in the region, and the first use of the term "Israel" is also more or less of similar vintage in certain historical records. The present-day popular term "Jews" has its origin from the Biblical Hebrew word ‘Yehudi’, with its original meaning referring to “the people of the Tribe of Judah or the people of the Kingdom of Judah”.

As of now, Israel is a small country with an estimated area of 20,770 square kilometers with a total estimated population of about 9.38 million, of which about 74 percent are Jews and the remaining people are of the Arab and other origins. After Israel, the United States have the second largest Jewish population around 6.3 million; the other countries with noticeable Jewish population are France, Canada, the United Kingdom, etc. The region is very significant in the ancient history of the old-world civilizations and cultures that evolved and flourished thousands of years ago. Accordingly, the Jews history, culture and religion is briefly described in the following passages.

Jewish History

Over the past few centuries, both the Muslims and Christians staked claims over the city of Jerusalem, the existing capital of Israel, and have been consistently seeking the blood of the Jews in the process. Notwithstanding the logic and arguments put forth by the adherents of the rival Abrahamic religions, it is established beyond any doubt that the Judaism, the religion followed by the Jewish people, is the oldest culture and religion amongst all such religions, and the Jews are the original inhabitants of the ancient Israel and Judah (also Judea or Judaea) in the Middle East Asia with a history of at least 3000-3500 years. As against this, the Christianity arose about two thousand years ago and Jesus Christ himself was a Jew while the Islam has a history of about fourteen hundred years. According to the Hebrew Bible and as assessed by early Historians, David was the third king of the united Kingdom of Israel, and the Kingdom of Judah flourished during the Iron age in the Southern Levant with Jerusalem as its capital. 

The Kingdom of Judah is widely acknowledged as the legitimate successor to the United Kingdom of Israel, which collectively denotes the united monarchy under the biblical kings such as Saul, David and Solomon in a chronological spanning around 1000 BCE to 800 BCE. The Jews are named after Judah with the widespread belief of having descended from it. Arguably, the kingdoms of Israel & Judah were established and flourished during the Iron age, and the very same people are considered as the Jewish and Samaritan people of the earliest Abrahamic faith tradition. Although the Western scholars put forth different spans for the Iron age in different regions, some even dating is as back as around 3000 BCE in the Mesopotamian states of Sumer and Assyria but more reliably it could be considered at least from around 1200 BCE in many parts of the old world. Most modern scholars believe that the Jewish people (Jews) and their culture branched out of the polytheistic Canaanite people and their cultures that preceded in the region, through the religious faith of a distinct monolatrist, later transforming to the monotheistic religion centered around only one God Yahweh.

If we further go back to trace the history, the Canaanites (Cannan civilization) have been archaeologically attested during the Bronze age in this region surviving as an independent or semi-independent city-states. The said span of the Canaanites is archaeologically reckoned in the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE). Certain evidences suggest lifestyles based on farming villages and semi-nomadic herding, besides some specialized craft production and trade practices. During the middle to late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), evidences of urbanism is found in the region which appears to had been divided into small city-states, seemingly Hazor was the more important among them. Many aspects of Canaanite (material) culture even reflect a Mesopotamian influence, and the entire region appeared to have been more tightly integrated into a vast international trading network towards the late Bronze Age. Apparently, the Canaanite vassal states were paying tribute to the then Kingdom of Egypt that governed from Gaza. Some accounts also suggest that the Egyptian army under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III had defeated rebellious joint forces of Canaanite vassal states led by Kadesh's king at the Battle of Megiddo in 1457 BCE. Evidences of a primitive civilization right from the Stone Age to early Bronze Age is also found in this Levant region.

Historically, the earliest recorded evidence of the people of Israel have been recorded in the Egyptian Merneptah Stele (1209 BCE) inscriptions, by name of the pharaoh (Egyptian king) Merneptah. According to modern scholars, the Israelites (Jewish people) and their culture was branched out of the Canaanites people with a relatively safe assumption that the population started identifying itself as “Israelite” as distinct from the Canaanites sometime during the Iron Age. Some such differentiating markers between the two included the prohibition of intermarriage, emphasis on a family tree and genealogy, and religion etc. Their cities were apparently large with a complex hierarchical society. Archaeological evidences suggest that hundreds of small villages occurred on the highlands of Cannan on either side of the River Jordan in the north of Jerusalem during the early Iron Age, which had rather a small population (say up to 400 or less) and were self-sufficient dependent on grain cultivation, herding, and growing olives and vines. The pottery in use was plain and undecorated. William G. Dever, an American archaeologist, historian and scholar, visualized and thus referred to ‘Israel’ as a cultural and perhaps political entity, too, in the central highlands more as an ethnic group rather than a truly organized state. 

The Israelite kingdoms of Judah and Israel emerged during the tenth century BCE for which an account is found in the Hebrew Bible about the states with a single kingdom ruled by the kings Saul, David and Solomon, the latter is said to have built the First Temple. The point whether it was a united monarchy is often debated by the archaeologists and scholars. Generally, it is agreed that the northern Kingdom of Israel appeared at least by 900 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah by 850 BCE. The Kingdom of Israel was more prosperous and powerful, controlled large parts of the region including Samaria under the Omride dynasty while the Kingdom of Judah was small but more stable, with the Davidic dynasty ruling for about four hundred years of its existence, uniting the two at some point, with its capital in Jerusalem. They remained under the constant threat from Assyrians with frequent attacks and, the Kingdom of Israel ultimately fell to the Assyria around 720 BCE after a long siege of the capital Samaria.  

According to a scholarly opinion, the Assyrian invasion caused a large-scale destruction in the Kingdom of Israel rendering a large number of refugees, who moved to the Kingdom of Judah that led to a large expansion of Jerusalem and construction of the Siloam Tunnel during the reign of King Hezekiah (715-686 BCE). The tunnel finds a mention in the Bible and was used for the water supply during a siege. During his rule, Assyrians also attempted to capture Judah, besieged Jerusalem but left after receiving a large tribute. During the rule of the King Josiah (641-619 BCE), the Book of Deuteronomy, Book of Joshua and Book of Kings with illustrated accounts of Kings David and Solomon were written. These books are believed to be key texts of the emergence of monotheism in Judah, it was also a period when Assyria was weakened with the emergence of a powerful Babylonia, which forcibly subjugated the Kingdom of Judah to become their vassal state during the late 7th century BCE under the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

King Jehoiakim of Judah (609-598 BCE), son of the King Josiah, allied with Babylon's chief rival Egypt in 601 BCE, in spite of remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah. Consequently, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE, the king was defeated and deported as punishment, and his uncle Zedekiah was installed as the new king. However, the King Zedekiah too revolted against Babylon in a few years, and the King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon attacked and conquered Jerusalem, destroying the First Temple and razing the city. In Babylon’s revenge, the Kingdom of Judah was abolished and its territories were merged with the Babylon as a province named Yehud. The Jedah king was eventually released by the Babylonians and the Davidic dynasty continued to stay as the Babylonian Jewry in the name of “Rosh Galut” as per accounts of both the Jews Bible and the Talmud (ancient sacred teachings of Jews). Many Arab and Jewish sources suggest that the Rosh Galut continued to exist for the next about 1,500 years in what is now Iraq, ending towards the eleventh century.

Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon in 538 BCE taking over its empire. He granted religious freedom to all peoples subjugated by the Babylonians including exiled Jewish people. Consequently, as per the Bible account, over fourty-two thousand Jewish exiles led by Zerubabel returned to Judah from the Babylon captivity, who rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 515 BCE. Yet another group of about five thousand people returned to Jerusalem empowered by the Persian King to restore the walls of the holy city. However, Judah stayed as a province of the Achaemenid empire called Yehud until around 332 BCE. The final text of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is believed to have been written during the Persian period (450-350 BCE) in an Aramaic script, which is also the current Hebrew script. The Bible also refers to tension and rivalry among the returnees, the elites of the First Temple. The Bible describes continuous tension between the returnees, people who remained in Judah, and the elite of the First Temple period, perhaps on account of the former becoming large landholders at the expense of others with the backing of the Persian monarchy.  

With the rise of Greeks, Alexander the Great invaded and conquered the region in 332 BCE as part of his larger campaign against the Persia. Following his death, Judea, a Hellenized version of the Hebrew name Judah (the Kingdom of Judah) of the ancestral Israelites remained a contentious frontier between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt for long. Almost after a century in 200 BCE, the Judea was conquered by the Seleucid Empire. They generally acknowledged the Jewish culture protecting their institutions and Judea was governed by the hereditary office of the High Priest of Israel as a Hellenistic vassal state. However, the process of Hellenization triggered tension and power struggle involving the Greeks, observant Jews and Hellenized Jews over a period. Later on, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Greek King (175-164 BCE) forcibly imposed several socio-religious restrictions on Jews that ultimately led to a final showdown between the rebellious Judas Maccabeus, son of the High Priest Mattathias, who defeated the Seleucids in many battles and captured Jerusalem in 164 BCE, restoring the temple worship. The event is still commemorated by the Jews as the festival of Hannukah. Following Judas’ death and taking the advantage of the declining Seleucid influence, his successors further consolidated their position expanding a vassal Hasmonean state in the territories of Judea, forging ties with the rising Roman Empire. The Hasmonean dynasty produced some worthy kings such as Aristobulus I and Alexander Jannaeus, and many scholars believe that this dynasty was also responsible for institutionalization of the final Jewish biblical canon.

Thus, in their early ancient History, the Jewish people in the Kingdom of Israel & Judah had constant conflicts and wars with the other contemporary and powerful civilizations/kingdoms of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greeks, and so on, and survived as an independent or vassal state for most of the pre-Christ age. However, the Jewish history remained turbulent for many centuries following the Roman invasion too during the early 1st century CE. The Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus declared Judea a Roman province in 6 CE, after defeating the last Jewish king, Herod Archelaus, and appointing a Roman governor to rule Judea. Due to oppressive rule of the consecutive Roman governors, the region experienced several uprisings, conflict and Jewish-Roman war in the subsequent years leading to significant demographic, theological, political, and economic changes. After the Roman Emperor Constantine (Byzantine Empire) officially endorsed Christianity during the 4th Century CE as the state religion, the Jewish population significantly declined in the region due to forced conversion and migration to other parts of the world, and eventually the Christianity became the major religion in the region.

In the beginning of 7th century CE, the Sassanid Persia, assisted with Jewish fighters, invaded the Byzantine Empire reestablishing Jewish rule for a brief spell in the Palestine region. However, Romans returned soon again to recapture it and (Eastern) Roman Emperor Heraclius is said to have ordered massacre of the Jewish population of Galilee and Jerusalem and enforced a ban on Jews entering the latter city. In 635 CE, Jerusalem was conquered by an Arab army under the command of Umar ibn al-Khattab, who established two military districts in Palestine, namely Jund Filastin and Jund al-Urdunn, and a new city called Ramlah was also built as the Muslim capital of Jund Filastin. In the beginning, the Arab caliphate was not so unkind to the Jews but with the passage of time, the Caliph Umar II made it mandatory under law for both the Jews and Christians to wear clothing identifying them, whereby the Jews were required to wear yellow stars round their neck and on their hats, while the Christians had to wear Blue. This was, obviously, done with an intention of persecuting and humiliating them. The Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik also constructed the Dome of the Rock shrine and Al-Aksa Mosque (between 691-705 CE) in Jerusalem at the Temple Mount, the very site where the holy Jewish temple existed in the past.

With the Arab conquest of the land of Israel during the 7th century, the region became a centre of intermittent wars for the religious supremacy between the followers (armies) of Islam and Christianity, which became more intensive and violent from 11th to 13th century during the Mamluk Sultanate, with a brief spell of Mongol invasion and conquest too. The mamluks were eventually replaced by the Ottoman Empire towards the 16th century, following which the region survived as an Ottoman province until the 20th century. With the widespread consolidation of Zionism, a Jewish nationalist movement, return of the Jewish diaspora to the land of Israel (i.e., Aliah) picked up momentum towards the late 19th century. Following the rout of Ottoman Empire during the World War I at the hands of Allied Powers, the control of the Sinai and Palestine was passed on to the Britain (UK), which committed itself for the creation of a Jewish homeland despite opposition from the Arab world for preventing Jewish migration in the region.

The Arab-Jewish tensions and conflicts were an obvious and immediate fallout of the aforesaid development in the region during the ensuing years; thus, their cultural and religious conflict and enmity has a long-drawn history. Here it may also be relevant to mention that the Temple Mount is the place where in the past Jewish holy temple(s) existed and which along with the Western Wall in the vicinity is considered to be the holiest site in Judaism. Later on, the place was declared as the Haram al-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary) with the erection of the al-Aksa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, which is not unusual to Islamic invaders as a stark parallel is observed in India too, where thousands of temples were desecrated and destroyed in the past and some such sites still continue as places of conflict between the Muslims and other Indian religions. As of now, the old city of Jerusalem is venerated as a holy site in Judaism, and Islam and Christianity as well.

During the World War II, a Jewish army was formed from amongst the Jews, who supported the cause of the British and joined the Allied Forces war efforts. According to reports, almost 1.5 million Jewish soldiers served in the US, Russian and British armies during the period. Consequently, annoyed Nazi forces systematically started killing every person of the Jewish lineage and an estimated 6 million Jews were eliminated (holocaust) in the Europe alone by them. After the conclusion of the war, the British did not fulfil their obligation, and tensions and conflicts continued in Palestine (erstwhile Jews abode and stronghold). Ultimately, under the aegis of the United Nations, the General Assembly passed a resolution in November 1947 to create an independent Jewish state, an independent Arab (Palestine for Muslims) state and the City of Jerusalem under an international Trusteeship System. This Plan also envisaged the British to allow a "substantial" Jewish migration by 1 February 1948. However, neither the Britain nor the UN Security Council took any credible and substantive measures to implement the recommendation made in the resolution, and the former continued restriction on Jews attempting to enter the Palestine.

While the General Assembly resolution was welcomed by the Jewish community, it created a large-scale disagreement and resentment in the Arab community, with Arab League members refusing to accept the UN partition plan, which were unhappy with the idea of the Jews being granted recognition with an independent statehood. Consequently, a large-scale violence broke out between two sides in Haifa on 14 May 1948, and on the same day, the Jewish People's Council proclaimed in Tel Aviv the establishment of a Jewish state to be known as the State of Israel. The two known Superpowers, namely the US and USSR, immediately recognized the new state of Israel thus formed and the Zionist paramilitary organization (Haganah) operational at the time was rechristened as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli declaration of the independent state also sparked the immediate Arab-Israel War of 1948 leading to eventual defeat of Arabs, flight of Palestinians from the region and more influx of Jews from other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East. Ever since the formation of the new Jewish state, there has been a constant conflict and fierce wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 with the Arab countries uniting against Israel. 

Jewish Religion and God

A. Origin of Judaism

Many historians, scholars and archaeologists trace the origin of Judaism in the Bronze Age polytheistic Canaanite religion, which absorbed the syncretized elements of other Semitic religions too such as Babylonian, Akkadian, and so on, as is evident from the early prophetic books of the Tanakh (a Jewish term for the Hebrew Bible), which basically represent the Jewish scriptural books on the laws, prophets and collected writings. It is basically comprised of three parts: Torah, a Hebrew word for the law or instruction containing the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; Neviim, the Hebrew term for prophets; and Ketuvim, the Hebrew word for writings. According to a more logical belief, the religion of the Israelites branched out of the Canaanite religion assuming the form of Yahwism, a national religion of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. While the Canaanites believed in many gods and goddesses, the early Israelites during the Iron Age were more or less monolatrist with a focus on the worship of Yahweh (God).

The monolatry is the practice of worshipping one god while acknowledging or believing in the existence of others gods; the term is essentially derived from the Greek word(s) monos, meaning ‘single’, and lateria, meaning ‘worship’. It is distinct from the monotheism in that in the latter case, the adherents believe in and worship only one God. The monolatristic faith of the early Israelites could be understood from the illustration that they adhered to Yahwism as the universal religion of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah with the belief that Yahweh was an exclusive god of their worship but they also conflated him with EI (supreme god of the ancient Canaanites). In due course, the Yahweh centric Israelites started denying the existence of other gods, including all Canaanite and foreign religions, thereby evolving the Yahwism as more strictly monotheistic religion. A more scholarly accepted opinion suggests that during the Babylonian dominance in 6th and 5th centuries BCE, certain exiled Judahites rechristened the pre-existing concepts about Yahwism, including the nature of divine, laws and covenants, which dominated the Jewish community later on with more or less universal acceptance and application.

For the sake of contextual reference, the name of a few deities (gods and goddesses of Canaanites) is listed here along with a brief description of some such significant deities: AI, Anat, Asherah, Astarte, Baal, Dagon, Eshmun, Kothar-wa-Khasis, Lotan, Melqart, Moloch, Mot, Resheph, Shalim, Shemesh, and Yam.

B. Canaanite Deities

AI was the supreme god of the Canaanite religion as also the supreme god of the Mesopotamian Semites in the pre-Sargonic time. He was considered to be the father of mankind and all other creatures. He was also father of many lesser gods like Hadad, Mot and Yam. In the post Cannan period, he appears to have been revealed in the name of Yahweh in the Book of Genesis 914:18-20).

Asherah was a fertility goddess, generally considered to be the consort of the supreme Canaanite god AI.

Anat or Anath was chief goddess of love and war in the West Semitic region, also the sister and helpmate of the god Baal.

Astarte was a Canaanite/Phoenician goddess of love, sex, war and hunting, nearly at par with the Mesopotamian deity Inanna/Ishtar.

Baal was a Canaanite god of fertility and weather, more specifically rainstorms.

Dagon finds a reference as the chief god of the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible.

Kothar-wa-Khasis finds a reference as the skilled god of craftsmanship

Melqart was the king of the underworld, also recognized as the god of death, and fire.

Moloch was a Canaanite deity associated, in biblical references, with the practice of child sacrifice.

Mot finds a reference in the Book of Jeremiah and Book of Hosea as a deity whom Yahweh could mandate Judah as punishment for worshipping other gods.

Resheph was ancient West Semetic god of the plague and the underworld, often equated with the Babylonian god Nergel.

Shalim finds a reference in certain inscriptions as the god of dusk in Canaanite religion.

Shemesh was the god of heavens, also referred to as the sun god, with a disputed gender.

Yam was the god of sea and other water resources worshipped particularly in the parts of Mediterranean coast and modern Syria.

C. God Yahweh and Monotheism

According to the most historians and scholars, the Yahwism evolved from the 5th century BCE onwards into different theological schools of the Second Temple Judaism, including Hellenistic Judaism in the diaspora, along the lines of many similarities with the Zoroastrianism. Also, it was during this period that the text of the Hebrew Bible redacted (edited) and most probably canonized too in the extant form. The Rabbinic Judaism is believed to have evolved during the Late Antiquity from the 3rd to 6th century CE. The Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud and other forms are believed to have been compiled in the later period. According to the Jews biblical texts, the Judaism has three essential and allied components: The study of the documented (written) Torah; the recognition of Israel as the chosen people and recipient of the Law at the Mount Sinai; and that Israelites and their descendants must lead life as per the laws in the Torah.

A systematic chronological review of the historicity of this Levant region suggest that the people believed in polytheism during the early civilization, which gradually transformed to monotheism in Judaism through monolatristism. In the paleo-Hebrew, god’s name is transliterated as YHWH, which during the later age has been accepted as Yahweh with the consensus among the modern scholars. Although any agreed line of the deity’s origin does not exist, Yahweh is recognized as an ancient Levantine deity and national god of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. He is often associated with the ancient Seir, Paran, Edom, Teman and Canaan with worship since the early Iron age. In the oldest biblical literature, his attributes somewhat resemble with the weather and war deities, in the later period the attributes of EI and Yahweh appear to have conflated, although some scholars maintain that EI and Yahweh were always conflated. 

With the passage of time through centuries, the attributes of other gods were also apparently absorbed in Yahweh, and the existence of other gods was refuted. At some point of time, Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator deity and sole divine worth of worshipping. With the passage of time, apparently by the Second Temple period, uttering the name of Yahweh in public became a taboo, as the divine was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be called by name; hence it was replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word “Adonai”, means “My Lord”. In fact, with the Roman dominance over the Judea around 70 CE, following the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the holy temple, the original pronunciation of the god's name was almost discontinued entirely. Among the monotheistic Jews, Yahweh was the only god who should be worshipped. Further, it is believed that various prophets played important role in promoting Yahwism at the cost of other contemporary (rival) religions. The Hebrew Bible, also identified with the name Tanakh, put the belief in one God, emphasizing that there is only one God in Judaism. although it acknowledged the existence of other gods in the historical and cultural context, but referred to them as idols or false gods.

The Judaism had undergone a variety of religious movements over the passage of time, which were mostly derived from the Rabbinic Judaism. According to this, God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on the Mount Sinai, which came both in the form of written and oral Torah. Hebrew Moses was one of the most important prophets in Judaism, and Christianity and Islam as well. His teachings were later on challenged by different religious groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic during the Second Temple Period as also the Karaites during the medieval period. Some of the modern age religious sub-traditions include Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism. Major differences among the various sub-traditions are related to halakha (Jewish Law), the Rabbinic tradition, and significance of the nation of Israel. The Orthodox Judaism holds that the Torah and halakha are divine, original and eternal, hence they should be strictly adhered to by all believers.  The Conservative and Reform Judaism are relatively more liberal, the latter even going to the extent of maintaining that the halakha should be treated as general guidelines rather than strict laws for enforcement. A small tradition of the Humanistic Judaism even considers it secular and nontheistic. 

D. Prophet Abraham

Prophet Abraham, originally Abram, is hailed as the common patriarch of all Abrahamic religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In Judaism, he is considered as the founding father of the Jews who established special relationship between the Jews and God. The tale of the life of Abraham is originally narrated in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible essentially focusing on the themes of posterity and land. According to this story, he is given a call by God to leave the house of his father to settle down in the land of Canaan, promising the land to Abraham and his progeny. In Christianity, he is regarded as the spiritual progenitor of all faithful beings, irrespective of the Jewish or non-Jewish origin, while he constitutes a link in the chain of Islamic prophets in Islam that starts with Adam and culminates in the final Prophet Muhammad. Similarly, in other lesser-known Abrahamic religions such as the Druze and Bahai faiths too, Prophet Abraham is solemnly revered. 

In a nutshell, Abraham was the first Hebrew patriarch, called by God to journey to a new land to settle near Hebron in Canaan, promised for him and his descendants. According to biblical texts, Abraham arrived at Cannan at the age of 75 with wife Sarah, he had a son named Ishmael by his wife’s maidservant, and he and Sarah had a son named Isaac later on. As per Genesis, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to test his faith; obeying God’s command unquestioningly, Abraham went ahead with preparation for the sacrifice of his beloved son but God instead provided him a sacrificial ram at the last moment. Following this, God renewed and emphasized his blessing on Abraham and his offsprings in lieu of the latter’s obedience and trust. Subsequently, this promise was inherited by son Isaac, and Abraham’s wife Sarah; and Ishmael (regarded as ancestor of Arabs) was promised that he too will be founder of a great nation. Abraham established his right to the land by purchasing a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron, used it as Sarah’s grave. Later on, Abraham married Keturah who bore six more sons. However, after Abraham’s death, Isaac received “all Abraham’s goods” and the remaining sons received only “gifts”. Issac finds mention in Torah as the son of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau as his offsprings, and grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel.

E. The Hebrew Bible

In Judaism, the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is regarded as the canonical compilation of Hebrew scriptures. It essentially comprises of the Torah, the Nevi’im and the Ketuvim with various sub-traditions maintaining different versions of the canon. However, the Masoretic (i.e. medieval & modern tradition) text is considered as the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic (a branch of the Semitic family of languages used as a lingua franca) text comprising of twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible in the Rabbinic Judaism. These books are further divided into chapters and verses. The modern biblical scholars additionally employ a variety of the allied sources to understand and interpret the historicity and implication of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament has many commonalities, suggesting the former preceded the later in history. The Hebrew Bible put belief in only one God in Judaism while acknowledging the existence of other gods only in the historical and cultural context. 

The Hebrew Bible also includes a variety of genres and narratives of events in the ancient past. The Torah including the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy essentially deals with the laws to be followed by all believers. The Book of Psalms include a collection of hymns, and songs are included in the Books of Exodus, Samuel, and Jonah. Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are full of the wisdom literature. The books of prophecy in the Bible are the books mainly attributed to prophets who either denounced the evil or predicted what God would do in the future, as part of Nevi’im, which is the second main division of it. The remaining books, or the balance part of the text, is categorized as apocalyptic and/or proto-apocalyptic literature. According to the biblical scholar John Barton, the Hebrew scripture consistently present YHWH as the only God who created the world (Israel). The God gave his subjects the promised land as an eternal possession and he remains both the God of the covenant as also the god of redemption.

The Hebrew Bible begins with the Genesis creation narrative tracing the Israelite origin to the patriarchs, Abraham, his son Isaac, and grandson Jacob. The twelve children of Jacob become the ancestors of the same number tribes of Israel. The narrative also refers to a famine, mandating Jacob and family to settle in Egypt where the descendants live for over four centuries. It refers to the Exodus, Israelites wandering in the wilderness for a certain period, then God gives the law of Moses, both religious and ethical, to guide their conduct and action. God leads Israel into the promised land of Canaan, unconditionally loves his people but punishes too if they violate the covenant. The narrative traverses through the saga of Samuel, Saul, Benjamin, and Israel’s enemy the Philistines. Later David (the God chosen king of Israel and hero of David & Goliath saga) is anointed king over the entire Israel, he captures Jerusalem, makes it his capital and rules all tribes. David’s son powerful King Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem and after his death the United Kingdom of Israel was divided into northern Kingdom of Israel with Samaria as its capital, and southern Kingdom of Judah with the capital at Jerusalem. The narrative goes on to summarize how the Kingdom of Israel survived until it was conquered by Assyria in 722 BCE, while the Kingdom of Judah lasted till 586 BCE when it was conquered by the Babylonia.

Hebrew Mythology: Legends and Myths

Like many other Civilizations of the Old World, including the Middle East, the Israelites too, through their precursors Canaanites, were polytheistic believing in multiple gods, semi-gods and supernatural powers and events. With the passage of time and by the Iron Age only, they turned to the monotheism faith of believing in the existence of only one God, in between too was the transient monolatrist phase. Like any other ancient civilization, Israelites’ mythology too reflects divergent traditions, philosophies, supernatural events of mystical and charismatic nature, and mythical and legendary tales and narratives. A few such representative tales are briefly enumerated in the following paragraphs.

1.  Creation Narrative

The narrative exists in the Book of Genesis (Chapters 1-3). In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was a formless void, engulphed by darkness all over. Then he uttered – Let there be light, and there was light: Now He separated light and darkness calling them day and night respectively on the first day. Then he pronounced the formation of a dome in the midst of waters, separating it over and below, the dome became the sky, and evening and morning were created the second day. Now God commanded that the water under sky be gathered at one place allowing the dry land to appear, which was called earth and the waters around it were called seas. Finding these developments good, God invoked vegetation of all sorts yielding seeds, fruits, etc., on the earth on the third day. Next, He created the seasons, days and years with two great lights, the greater one to illuminate the day and the lesser to rule the night, and the stars, on the fourth day. On the fifth day, God created living creatures from waters to birds flying in the sky. In the process, the great sea monsters, every living thing that move including cattle, creeping things, wild animals, and winged birds of all sorts were created. Finally on the sixth day, God created humankind in his image, separate male(s) and female(s), and blessed them that the humankind should have dominion over all other creatures at sea, land and sky in the world.

2.  The Flood Story

The Jewish flood story is narrated in the Book of Genesis, Hebrew Bible (Chapters 6-9). At one point, God became very angry and upset with the mankind for their ever-growing sins and decided to destroy the world by flood. As he was kind to Noah for his good conduct and deeds, he asked him to build an ark, and take his family, and two animals and seeds of every kind on the board to escape the imminent flood. The floodgates of heaven were opened and it continuously rained for fourty days and equal number of nights. The Noah’s ark remained anchored to the mountain of Ararat till the waters subsided. Then to please God, Noah built an alter and made a sacrifice. Consequently, God made a covenant with Noah and promised the latter to never ever destroy life by the flood again.

3.  David and Goliath

The saga of David and Goliath from the Hebrew scriptures in the Book of Samuel is a famous adventure story of a shepherd boy and the giant philistine enemy of Israelites. David was a young shepherd boy who lived in Bethlehem, Israel, when the enemy Philistines waged war against the King Saul. The Giant Goliath, supposed to be 9 feet 9 inch tall (according to Masoretic text), dared the Israelites to put forth a champion warrior who could engage with him in one-to-one combat. There was none in Saul’s army who could accept Goliath’s challenge. Ultimately, David volunteered to fight Goliath and the king very reluctantly agreed to allow him offering his armour, which David politely declined. Instead, he chose his own staff, picked up five smooth stones from a creek bed, and his sling to face enemy in the battlefield. In the ensuing battle, David ran towards Goliath and skilfully fired a stone from his sling targeting the former’s head. 

The stone hit Goliath on his forehead and he fell on the ground. At this point of time, clever David pulled Goliath’s sword to cut off his head. Watching the nemesis of Goliath, the Philistines started fleeing and were pursued by the Israelites as for as Gath and gates of Ekron killing more giants of the enemy army. David put the armour of Goliath in his own tent and took the head to Jerusalem to see the King. The story suggests King Saul’s inability to protect his people as well as David’s bravery and courage to protect Jewish people with the blessings of God.

According to the Bible, God chose David to become king summoning him from tending his flock, and Prophet Samuel anointed him as the next king of Israel. In the annal’s of the Jewish history, David’s reign as the king of Israel is depicted as “The Golden Age” owing to Israel’s prosperity under a united kingdom. Further, he is regarded as the divinely ordained model ruler, and ancestor of Jesus too in the lineage.

Epilogue

As it would be evident from the foregoing account that the Jewish people are the oldest surviving community ever since the Abrahamic culture and religion originated in the world in the Levant region of the West Asia. The Jewish people are believed to have originated in the land of present Israel with a long physical, cultural and religious history. Going by the Jewish Bible, the Jewish monarchy existed there since almost 1000 BCE, and the first use of the term "Israel" too is also more or less of similar vintage in their historical records. The present-day popular term "Jews" has its origin from the Biblical Hebrew word Yehudi, with its original meaning implying “the people of the Tribe of Judah or the people of the Kingdom of Judah”. As against this position, of the two dominant Abrahamic religions of the world today, the Christianity is about two millennia old since the age of Christ, and Islam originated only approximately 1400 years ago. 

For long, many Christians driven by the clergy held Jewish people responsible for the killing of Jesus Christ, which led to large-scale persecution of Jews with blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres of Jews, particularly in Europe and America for a long time. The Jews have faced worst ever pogroms at the hands of enemies in the past. At one point of time, the concept of anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe, was so grave and vicious that the very survival of the Jew was in jeopardy, when the persecution of Jews reached to a new paradigm of the “holocaust” and “genocide” under the Nazi Germany during the Second World War. In the modern age, the tiny State of Israel is located in a region where its Arab neighbours do not even acknowledge its right to exist on the planet. Since its formation in 1948, the Wars of 1948 and 1956 in the Middle East led to in mass exodus of Jews as refugees owing hostilities and atrocities at the hands of Arabs in the neighbouring countries. Then the State of Israel experienced a real threat in 1967 from the Arab neighbouring countries who wanted to wipe it out from the world map but the Jews fought valiantly against the enemies and inflicted a convincing defeat on them in a record minimum time. 

Thus, for many others, it may simply be a question of the cultural, religious or ideological conflict, it’s a question of the existential threat for the Jews of Israel and other parts of the world. This is also the reason why Israel tackles its security threats, whether perceived or real, with an assertiveness and immediate response. Perhaps the only other civilization in the world is that of Hindus, which has historically faced such serious existential threats of survival from the enemies with multiple invasions, pogrom and genocide efforts, yet survived so far as the oldest culture and religion of the world. This saga of attrition and vilification has gone incessantly till now against the nation of Israel but the Israelites have so far valiantly and successfully battled for their survival. Besides, as a surviving old civilizational culture and religion, the Jews have made a very significant contribution to the mankind in the areas of the science, technology and war material.

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