Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
According to Jewish tradition, Sarah was a member of Abraham's extended family, [33] and her descendants became Jewish. Hagar and Keturah's descendants were considered non-Jewish. Isaac had one wife (Rebecca, a member of Abraham's extended family [34]) and two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob's descendants became Jewish.
Anthropologist and Biblical scholar Raphael Patai writes in The Hebrew Goddess that the Jewish religion, far from being pure monotheism, contained from earliest times strong polytheistic elements, chief of which was the cult of Asherah, the mother goddess. A story in the Biblical Book of Judges places the worship of Asherah in the 12th century BC.
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, [1] from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not simply a faith-based religion, but an orthopraxy and ethnoreligion , pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. [ 2 ]
Matrilineality in Judaism or matrilineal descent in Judaism is the tracing of Jewish descent through the maternal line. Close to all Jewish communities have followed matrilineal descent from at least early Tannaitic (c. 10–70 CE) times through modern times. [109] The origins and date-of-origin of matrilineal descent in Judaism are uncertain.
Laws and customs of the Land of Israel in Judaism are those Jewish laws that apply only to the Land of Israel. These include the commandments dependent on the Land (Hebrew: מצוות התלויות בארץ; translit. Mitzvot Ha'teluyot Be'aretz), as well as various customs.
Most scholars maintain that Sephardic Jews are inheritors of the religious traditions of the great Babylonian Jewish academies, and that Ashkenazi Jews are descendants of those who initially followed the Judaean or Galilaean Jewish religious traditions. [4] [5] Others, such as Moses Gaster, maintain precisely the opposite. [6]
Jewish tradition mostly emphasizes free will, and most Jewish thinkers reject determinism, on the basis that free will and the exercise of free choice have been considered a precondition of moral life. [28] "Moral indeterminacy seems to be assumed both by the Bible, which bids man to choose between good and evil, and by the rabbis, who hold the ...
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "denominations", include diverse groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Samaritans are also considered ethnic Jews by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, although they are frequently classified by experts as a sister Hebrew people, who practice a separate branch of Israelite religion.