RELG 108 test 1 study guide

With the rise of _____ —first an offshoot of Judaism, then a more formal competitor in the Roman world—anti-Jewish hostility was given strength through some interpretations of New Testament writings, including the Gospels of John and Matthew. (In John 19:15, for instance, the chief priests and the Jews cry out for Christ's crucifixion and in Matthew 27:25 the crowd calls for Christ's death saying, "His blood be on us and our children!") Such writings, although unique to their own context, authorship, and socio-political perspective, would lay the foundation for centuries of negative stereotyping.

Christianity

After the final compilation of the Torah, the book of Ezra notes that the first public reading of the text took place in 444 BCE, when ____ instituted the practice in Jerusalem.

Ezra the Scribe

According to a course reading, the Hebrews originated in...

Mesopotamia (i.e., ancient Iraq)

The Torah thus accounts for its own origins, and even recounts the death of its traditional author, ______

Moses

After the destruction of the Second Temple by the ____ in the year 70 CE and during the subsequent exile of the Jews from the land of Israel once again, the rabbis confirmed and remodeled Jewish practice into some of the systems more contemporary Jews may recognize today.

Romans

According to a course reading, Torah literally means...

guidebook

First recorded as an oral tradition and written _____, the Hebrew text of the five books of the Torah was edited over a period of centuries

in fragments

In Judaism, the God of Israel ____ the God of all creation

is

The idea that one God as the creator of all existence is called...

monotheism

Kabbalah, the ____ tradition within Judaism, includes the modern Hasidic movement, which emerged out of the charismatic Jewish communities of 18th century Eastern Europe

mystical

In Judaism, God is ____

one

In Jewish communal worship today, the weekly Torah reading is the heart of the synagogue service. The ____ of the Torah are kept in the holy ark, often covered with velvet.

scrolls

The God is Judaism is....

singular

In Judaism, peoplehood is a ____ concept

symbolic

Torah provides the basis for...

the Jews' relationship to God as well as their interactions as a socio-political cultural group.

Many trace the roots of _____ sentiment to particular passages in the Christian New Testament, but antisemitism became especially fervent in the European Enlightenment as Jews began gaining greater civil freedoms. The most horrific and destructive ... event was the Holocaust (or Shoah, in Hebrew), in which the Nazis systematically killed over six million Jews and created a lasting need for remembrance among surviving Jews.

Anti-Semitic

1500 and 500 _____, the Israelite people of the ancient Near East began to articulate a radical new understanding of divinity.

BCE

the five books of the Torah was edited over a period of centuries (generally thought to be from 1000 to 500 _____), and canonized in its final form during subsequent generations.

BCE

In the year 586 BCE, the ____ conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and exiled the majority of the population. In exile, the Israelite people responded by developing a sense of unity transcending geopolitical divisions (i.e., a strong sense of peoplehood).

Babylonians

Torah is the central text of Judaism. It refers specifically to the first _____ books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, traditionally thought to be penned by the early Hebrew prophet Moses.

5

Besides containing the history of God's relation with Israel, the first five books of the Bible are interspersed with _____ divine laws (mitzvot, commandments). This divine law informs both ethical and ritual behavior, forming the basis of all subsequent Jewish law.

613

Which ideas are associated with Judaism...

Free-will, freedom and dignity

Diaspora, or dispersion, created Jewish communities such as the Ashkenazi (_____) and Sephardic (_____) communities. These communities are still recognizable far afield and centuries after their creation, even in the United States.

German, Iberian

The Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim together comprise the Hebrew Scriptures, known by its Hebrew acronym Tanakh. With some revisions and rearrangements, the Tanakh was translated into _____ to become the Septuagint, the basis of the Christian "Old Testament."

Greek

_____ literally means "the one who struggles with God" (Genesis 32:29).

Israel

According to a course reading, the concept of monotheism is a great _____ contribution to the world's religious heritage.

Jewish

According to a course reading, _____ today continue to pride themselves on the fact that the ethical monotheism of Judaism is the basic building block of Western religion

Jews

Judaism's syncretic interaction with the European Enlightenment created the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). From the Haskalah came the contemporary Jewish Reform, Conservative, and neo-Orthodox movements, as well as Zionism, a _____ form of Jewish expression that some considered "secular" (that is, divorced from theistic belief or Jewish practice).

Political

As a whole, the great religious innovation of the ____ was to adapt the divine service of the priesthood for the use of the entire people, thereby democratizing the obligations and the experience of a life of holiness. By transforming Biblical precedents into a practical religiosity, the early _____ succeeded in transferring the locus of Jewish religion from the temple in Jerusalem into the synagogue and home.

Rabbis

Ezra the scribe initiated a professional class of specialists in the transcription, illumination, and instruction of Torah. During the Roman empire, these master teachers, now known as _____, became the leaders of the Jewish community

Rabbis

Given that a major contribution of the _____ was to reconstruct Judaism and enable Jewish worship without its central temple, a new institution was developed to take the temple's place: the synagogue (bet knesset, house of assembly).

Rabbis

Having lost the rituals of pilgrimage and sacrifice when the temple was destroyed, the _____ reimagined these observances for the synagogue and home. For Sukkot, they adopted and reinterpreted the folk custom of building outdoor huts, recalling the sojourn of the people of Israel in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt.

Rabbis

he development of what we know as Judaism today took place late in the Second Temple period, as the religious leadership of the _____ emerged.

Rabbis

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) is a Russian _____ circulated as the minutes of a meeting in which Jews conspired to take over the world

forgery

In Judaism, God is...

actively involved in history

From the perspective of Jewish tradition, ____ Jews share a common ancestry descended from Abraham and his wife Sarah, and are therefore part of the same extended family.

all

Torah is....

both vertical and horizontal

Judaism is critically concerned with the evolving relationship between God, Torah, and the Jewish people, a relationship described as a....

covenant

Jewish holy time and space _____ the Jerusalem temple

does not require

Shabbat is understood allegorically as the beloved of Israel, the time when the _____ presence of God (called the shechina) descends to the world

feminine

Genesis contains...

the story of creation, the story of human origins, and patriarchal narratives

Judaism embraces the intricate religious and cultural development of the Jewish people through more than _____ centuries of history

thirty

According to a course reading, Judaism places great value on history

true

During the Holocaust, in Poland and Lithuania, where centuries of Jewish life and culture came to an abrupt end, 90 percent of the Jewish community was killed.

true

From a religious perspective Judaism may be a theistic system, but from a peoplehood perspective, it is also the group memory of the manifold communities and cultures formed by Jews through the ages.

true

In Judaism individuals and societies exist for a reason, and history unfolds along a known plan

true

In addition to the five books of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible contains two more collections, Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings).

true

Judaism includes what some would call "politics"—whether in Poland, America, or Israel.

true

Outside the synagogue, Torah study is an important activity of the Jewish school and home. Since it is considered the direct utterance of God and therefore sacred, study is as important as worship

true

Rejecting the anthropomorphic tendency of the time, the Hebrews did not represent God in any human form or earthly likeness, but as a universal God, engaged in a lasting relationship with humankind through the instruments of revelation, Torah, and a covenantal people, Israel.

true

The Jewish tradition....includes the social, cultural, and religious history of a widespread and diverse community, including people who do and do not think of themselves as "religious."

true

The ancient Hebrews were most likely polytheistic, believing in numerous deities representing different forces of nature and serving various tribes and nations.

true

The holy space of the temple was also replaced by the yearly cycle of Jewish holidays and the Jewish emphasis on sacred time. The major holidays during the Temple period were the three pilgrimage festivals of Sukkot, Pesach (Passover), and Shavuot. All originated as agricultural festivals, later reinterpreted to commemorate the liberation from slavery in Egypt (Sukkot and Pesach) and the receiving of the Torah at Sinai (Shavuot).

true

The rabbis designated their literature the Oral Torah, as opposed to the finalized canon of the Written Torah. While the Torah refers mainly to the five books of Moses, it also refers more widely to all of Jewish sacred literature. To ensure the durability and relevance of the Biblical tradition, rabbis drew a distinction between the written Torah dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and the unwritten Torah dictated by God to Moses verbally. According to rabbinic tradition, this second tradition was passed down orally, eventually developed in writing by the rabbis of the 3rd century CE in Palestine and becoming known as the Mishnah.

true

there are no equivalent words for "Judaism" or for "religion" in Hebrew; there are words for "faith," "law," or "custom" but not for "religion"

true

torah (no capitalization) is often used to refer to all of Jewish sacred literature, learning, and law. It is the Jewish way.

true

Tanakh and the Old Testament are...

two different books with slight differences

In Judaism YHWH is...

unpronounceable

As the modernization of the Jewish value of peoplehood, ____ provides complexity and multivalency to traditional Judaism while Israel provides a context for the flourishing of traditional Judaism.

zionism

____ is a political movement that was initiated in the late 19th century with the aim of actualizing the Jewish sense of peoplehood in a physical nation, leading to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. ____ today informs many Jews' continued support and commitment to Israel.

zionism