Sermon Tone Analysis

JUDAISM: RELIGION OF THE JEWS

 

Unlike the other major religions, Judaism is the religion of only one people- the Jews.

It was the first religion to teach the belief in one God.

Judaism presents a strange paradox.

Although it gave birth to two religions, Christianity and Islam.

Though a Jew remains a Jew, even if he denies every tenet of Judaism (most Jews would make an exception of the one who becomes a Christian), no one can become a Jew except by formally accepting Judaism.

*I.

JUDAISM IT’S PAST.*

Judaism is the Oldest Living religion; it had its start with Abraham 4000 years ago.

Abraham was called by God out of the Ur of the Caldees.

He is the first Hebrew because he crossed over into another country.

God called Him to go to the land of Palestine.

He was a believer in Jehovah.

Before the time of Abraham there were people who believed and worshiped Jehovah, Job, Noah, Adam etc. Abraham made a difference because God came to Abraham many times.

God gave him many promises and made a covenant with him.

The grandfather or father was the family priest.

This was continued until the time of Moses when God selected the tribe of Levi to be the priests.

*WHAT MAKES THEM DISTINCT?*

*1.

CIRCUMCISION*

            *2.

DIETARY LAWS*

            *3.

SABBATH REST.*

These were the marks of a Jew.

The Law became very important to them.

The Law was given to them from God.

 

*10 COMMANDMENTS*

!

613 Commandments 248 of them positive 365 negative

 

1. *MORAL LAW                  EX.* 20:1-

2. *CIVIL LAW                      EX.* 21- 23

3. *CEREMONIAL LAW     EX.*

24:2-31:8

 

The law was good and was to guide them to God.

All around people were Animistic and Spiritualistic.

They were Polytheistic.

The Law was to keep them from these sins.

The change in Judaism.

Over time instead of the Law guiding them to worship God.

They began to worship the Law.

The Law became their God.

By the Time of Jesus Judaism had become a false religion in many people’s minds.

Over the years, the rabbis had supposedly determined that, just as there were

*613 SEPARATE LETTERS* in the Hebrew text of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, in the              book of Numbers, there were also

*613 SEPARATE LAWS IN THE PENTATEUCH*, the five books of Moses.

Such literalism, as it is sometimes called, was extremely popular and was considered to be a valuable exegetical tool for interpreting Scripture.

The rabbis had divided those *613 LAWS* into *AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE GROUPS*, holding that there were *248 AFFIRMATIVE LAWS*, one for every part of the human body, as they supposed, and *365 NEGATIVE LAWS*, one for each day of the year.

The laws were also divided into *HEAVY* and *LIGHT*, the heavy ones being absolutely binding and the light ones less binding.

There had never been unanimity, however, as to which laws were heavy and which were light, and the rabbis and scribes spent countless hours proudly debating the merits of their particular divisions and the ranking of laws within the divisions.

*A.

IMPORTANT BOOKS*

1. *TORAH = PENTETUCH*  5  BOOKS OF MOSES

2. *BOOKS OF HISTORY.*    12 BOOKS

3. *BOOKS OF PROPHETS*.

12 BOOKS

 

B.

*THE TALMUD* - is a collection of legal and ethical writings, as well as Jewish history and folklore.

It serves primarily as a guide to the civil and religious laws of Judaism.

Orthodox Jews believe the laws in the Talmud were given to Moses by God and passed down orally from generation to generation.

About A.D. 200, scholars wrote down these oral laws in a work called the:

 

*C.

MISHNAH*  = Oral law

 

*D.

GEMARA ARE * 

= Longer commentary on it the Mishnah* *which were written between 200 and 500.

The Mishnah and Gemara together make up the Talmud.

*6.

MIDRASH *

 

*7.

HAFFTORAS*

 

The rabbis (RABBI is a title of respect given to an expert in the Torah; he is neither a priest, nor a preacher, though in the modern synagogue he often performs the function of a preacher.)

then surrounded these commandments with a "Hedge," that is subsidiary commandments, the keeping of which would guarantee the keeping of the original commandment.

*TWO FORMS OF LAW.*

1. *ORAL LAW*, the traditions of the elders - Jesus refer to this a number of times in the Gospels.

2. The *WRITTEN LAW* - 39 books of the O.T.

 

The Oral law began to become more authoritative than the Written law.

The *TALMUD*, which is the repository of *Jewish tradition,* teaches that God gave the oral law to Moses and then told Moses to pass it on to great men of Israel.

These men were then to do three things with the law they had received.

1) First, they were to deliberate on it and properly apply it.

2) Second, they were to train disciples in order that the next generation would have teachers of the law.

3) Third, they were to build a wall around the law in order to protect it.

Because their hearts were not right with God, the rabbis' wall-building "protection" of His law actually undermined and contradicted it.

Their purpose was not to lead the people to worship and serve God from pure hearts made clean by Him, but to worship and serve Him by human means and from unchanged hearts.

To provide the means for superficially keeping God's commandments, regulation after regulation and ceremony after ceremony were added, until God's own Word was utterly hidden behind the wall of tradition.

Instead of protecting.

God's Word, the tradition obscured and perverted it.

Under the leadership of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and his successors the oral law was developed by analogy to cover every circumstance of life, even when the written law did not deal with it.

The concept was entirely reasonable, once one granted that the purpose of the Torah was to control the whole of life.

*By A.D. 200* the rabbis had persuaded, crushed, or driven out all in Jewry who disagreed, and had formulated the oral law in the *MISHNAH.*

The *MISHNAH* with the much longer commentary on it, the *GEMARA*, completed about A.D. 500 forms the *TALMUD* which, for an orthodox Jew, shares in the authority of the O.T. for it is the authoritative expression of what the Torah demands.

It goes without saying that the Talmud has had to be adapted to meet the changing circumstances of later centuries, but every rule which the Orthodox consider binding goes back in principle to the Talmud.

Though from the middle of the ninth century Greek philosophy brought a rationalistic strain into Judaism which it has never lost, at the earlier date all such speculation was deeply distrusted (the memory of Philo of Alexandria would have been lost, if his works had not been copied by Christian scribes); in addition there was every effort to make it impossible for a Jew to become a Christian.

As a result there is very little real theology in Judaism, and the Torah was exalted until it occupied a place almost as high as *JESUS CHRIST* does in Christianity.

*II.

THE 13 ARTICLES OF FAITH*

 

The Shemah has remained as the foundation cornerstone of Judaism.

A Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, who lived in the first century A.D. (20 B.C.-50 A.D.)             Compressed the basic beliefs of Judaism into five fundamental concepts:

1.

The belief in God.

2. The belief that there is only One God.

3. The belief that God created the world; but the world is not eternal.

4. The belief that there is only One universe.

5.

The belief that God cares for the world and all its creatures.

Maimodides reduced Judaism to 13 Articles of Faith.

Though not officially adopted, this Credo was incorporated into the Daily Prayer book.

The Credo reads:

 

1.

*I believe* with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His Name, is the Creator and guide of everything that has been created, and He alone has made, does make and will make all things.