questions about judaism?

Question

does anyone know where judaism spread by 600, how it was spread, the role of leaders, role of women, and the role of religion & social structure. i am just curious on your input.

Answer 1

Around the time in question, most Jews lived in what is now modern day Iraq and Iran...with others scattered throughout the Arab lands and present day Israel. It was the rise of Islam and the Silk road traders (ie fear of the sword and pursuit of commerce) that led to Jews spreading both east and west from there.


The Jewish leaders of those times primarily oversaw the Jewish communities, which were largely but not completely autonomous. Those communities operated under a combination of Jewish law and local law. Jewish religious practice was much like it is today in orthodox communities. There were no sacrifices as the Temple had been destroyed and certain laws were not in effect because the majority of the people were not in Israel. This remains in effect to this day.

The role of women was primarily to run the household, raise the children, and provide income through crafting skills (sewing, dying, cooking, etc).

If you have more specific questions, you can contact me through answers.

Recommended reading: go to artscroll.com and find the histories by Rabbi Berel Wein.

Answer 2

curious? or want someone to do your homework? :P

i would try wikipedia...they have everything

Answer 3

Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people with around 15 million followers as of 2006, making it the twelfth-largest organized religion. It is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. The values and history of the Jewish people are a major part of the foundation of other Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Islam, as well as Samaritanism and the Bahá'í Faith.

Judaism has seldom, if ever, been monolithic in practice (although it has always been monotheistic in theology), and differs from many religions in that its central authority is not vested in any person or group but rather in its writings and traditions. Despite this, Judaism in all its variations has remained tightly bound to a number of religious principles, the most important of which is the belief that there is a single, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, transcendent God, who created the universe and continues to be involved in its governance. According to traditional Jewish belief, the God who created the world established a covenant with the Jewish people, and revealed his laws and commandments to them in the form of the Torah. The practice of Judaism is devoted to the study and observance of these laws and commandments, as written in the Torah.

Traditional view of the development of Judaism:

The subject of the Hebrew Bible is an account of the Israelites' (a branch of Hebrews) relationship with God as reflected in their history from the beginning of time until the building of the Second Temple (ca. 350 BCE). This relationship is often portrayed as contentious, as Hebrews struggle between their faith in God and their attraction for other gods, and as some Hebrews, such as Abraham; (most notably and directly), Jacob, the father of all Israelites -- later known as Israel; and Moses struggle with God.

According to Orthodox Judaism and most religious Jews, the Biblical patriarch Abraham was the first Hebrew. Rabbinic literature records that he was the first since the generation of Noah to publicly reject idolatry and preach monotheism. As a result, God promised he would have children: "Look now toward heaven and count the stars/So shall be your progeny." (Genesis 15:5) Abraham's first child was Ishmael and his second son was Isaac, whom God said would continue Abraham's work and inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan), after having been exiled and redeemed. God sent the patriarch Jacob and his children to Egypt, where after many generations they became enslaved. Then God sent Moses to redeem the Israelites from slavery, and after the Exodus from Egypt, God led the Israelites to Mount Sinai and gave them the Torah, eventually bringing them to the land of Israel.

God designated the descendants of Aaron, Moses' brother, to be a priestly class within the Israelite community. They first officiated in the tabernacle (a portable house of worship), and later their descendants were in charge of worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Once the Israelites had settled in the land of Israel, the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years during which time God provided great men, and occasionally women, to rally the nation against attacking enemies, some of which were sent by God as a punishment for the sins of the people. This is described in the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges. As time went on, the spiritual level of the nation declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle in Shiloh.

The people of Israel then told Samuel the prophet that they had reached the point where they needed to be governed by a permanent king, as were other nations, as described in the Books of Samuel. Samuel grudgingly acceded to this request and appointed Saul, a great but very humble man, to be their King. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead.

Once King David was established, he told the prophet Nathan that he would like to build a permanent temple, and as a reward for his actions, God promised David that he would allow his son to build the temple and the throne would never depart from his children (David himself was not allowed to build the temple because he had been involved in many wars, making it inappropriate for him to build a temple representing peace). As a result, it was David's son Solomon who built the first permanent temple according to God's will, in Jerusalem, as described in the Books of Kings.


After Solomon's death, his Kingdom was split into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. After several hundred years, because of rampant idolatry, God allowed Assyria to conquer Israel and exile its people. The southern Kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem, home of the Temple, remained under the rule of the House of David, however, as in the north, idolatry increased to the point that God allowed Babylonia to conquer the Kingdom, destroy the Temple which had stood for 410 years, and exile its people to Babylonia, with the promise that they would be redeemed after seventy years. These events are recorded in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Jeremiah.

After seventy years the Judahites were allowed back into Judaea under the leadership of Ezra, and the Temple was rebuilt, as recorded in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah. The Second Temple stood for 420 years, after which it was destroyed by the Roman general (later emperor) Titus. The Israelite temple is to remain in ruins until a descendant of David arises to restore the glory of Israel and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; given on Mount Sinai was summarized in the five books of Moses. Together with the books of the prophets it is called the Written Torah. The details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law were originally unwritten. However as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, rabbinic tradition holds that these oral laws were recorded in the Mishnah, and the Talmud, as well as other holy books.

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Critical historical view of the development of Judaism
Although monotheism and Torah are fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism, many critical Bible scholars claim that certain verses in the Torah imply that the early Israelites accepted the existence of other gods, while viewing their God as the sole Creator, whose worship is obligated (a henotheistic point of view). Another way of putting this is that the Israelite, Yahwistic religion that preceded Rabbinic Judaism, as represented by the early prophets, demanded monolatry: worship of a single, "jealous" God. Interestingly, the biblical text that is considered to be the core of Judaism (Deut. 6,4: "Hear, Israel, Yhwh is our God, Yhwh is one" (in Hebrew, "shema yisrael Adonai elohanu Adonai echad", with "Adonai" standing in for YHWH), represents this God's apparent intolerance of accepting the worship of other gods besides himself. As YHWH himself was originally a war God ("YHWH of the hosts"), the worship of fertility gods such as Baal (or the Baalim) was attractive once the Israelites had settled down. In this view, it was only by the Hellenic period that most Jews came to believe that their God was the only God (and thus, the God of everyone), and that the record of His revelation (the Torah) contained within it universal truths. This attitude reflected a growing Gentile interest in Judaism (some Greeks and Romans considered the Jews a most "philosophical" people because of their belief in a God that cannot be represented visually), and growing Jewish interest in Greek philosophy, which sought to establish universal truths, thus leading - potentially - to the idea of monotheism, at least in the sense that "all gods are One".

According to this theory, Jews began to grapple with the tension between their claims of particularism (that only Jews were required to obey the Torah), and universalism (that the Torah contained universal truths). The supposed result is a set of beliefs and practices concerning identity, ethics, and the relationships between man and nature and man and God that examine and privilege "differences" — for example the difference between Jews and non-Jews; the local differences in the practice of Judaism; a close attention, when interpreting texts, to difference in the meanings of three words; attempts to preserve and encode different points of view within texts, and a relative avoidance of creed and dogma.

In contrast to the Orthodox religious view of the Hebrew Bible, critical biblical scholars also suggest that the Torah consists of a variety of inconsistent texts that were edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts.