Abrahamic religions Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Judaism === {{Main |Jewish history}} [[File:Skverer Rebbe With Torah.jpg |thumb |A Jewish [[Rebbe]] holds a [[Torah scroll]].]] Jewish tradition claims that the [[Twelve Tribes of Israel]] are descended from Abraham through his son [[Isaac]] and grandson [[Jacob]], whose sons formed the nation of the [[Israelites]] in [[Canaan]]; Islamic tradition claims that twelve Arab tribes known as the [[Ishmaelites]] are descended from Abraham through his son [[Ishmael]] in the Arabian Peninsula.<ref>{{harvp|Hatcher|Martin|1998|pp=130–31}}; {{harvp|Bremer|2015|p=19–20}}; {{harvp|Able|2011|p=219}}; {{harvp|Dever|2001|pp=97–102}}</ref> In its early stages, the Israelite religion was derived from the [[Canaanite religion]]s of the [[Bronze Age]]; by the [[Iron Age]], it had become distinct from other Canaanite religions as it shed polytheism for [[monolatry]]. [[Yahwism|Ancient Israelite monolatry]] fused at least two [[Canaanite religion|Canaanite deities]]; the supreme god of the pantheon [[El (deity)|El]] and the warrior-god [[Yahweh]].<ref name="Cohen, Charles L 2020. p. 9">Cohen, Charles L. The Abrahamic religions: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, USA, 2020. p. 9</ref> They understood their relationship with that deity as a covenant and that the deity promised Abraham a permanent homeland.<ref name="Cohen, Charles L 2020. p. 9"/> Recognizing one supreme deity, however, did not transform it to a [[universal religion|universal one]].<ref name="Cohen, Charles L 2020. p. 9"/> While the [[Book of Genesis]] speaks of [[Elohim|multiple gods]] (''ʾĔlōhīm''), comparable to the [[Enūma Eliš]] speaking of various gods of the Canaanite pantheon to create the earth, at the time of the [[Babylonian captivity]], Jewish theologians attributed the six-day narrative all to Yahweh, reflecting an early conception of Yahweh as a universal deity.<ref>Burrell, David B., et al., eds. Creation and the God of Abraham. Cambridge University Press, 2010. p. 14-15</ref> The monolatrist nature of [[Yahwism]] was further developed in the period following the [[Babylonian captivity]], eventually emerging as a firm religious movement of monotheism.<ref>{{harvp|Edelman|1995|p=19}}; {{harvp|Gnuse|2016|p=5}}; {{harvp|Carraway|2013|p=66|ps=: "Second, it was probably not until the exile that monotheism proper was clearly formulated."}}; {{harvp|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|p=234|ps=: "The idolatry of the people of Judah was not a departure from their earlier monotheism. It was, instead, the way the people of Judah had worshiped for hundreds of years."}}</ref><ref name="BBC Did God Have a Wife">{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zw3fl |title=BBC Two – Bible's Buried Secrets, Did God Have a Wife? |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=21 December 2011 |access-date=4 July 2012 |archive-date=15 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120115173447/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zw3fl |url-status=live}} Quote from the BBC documentary (prof. Herbert Niehr): "Between the 10th century and the beginning of their exile in 586 there was polytheism as normal religion all throughout Israel; only afterwards things begin to change and very slowly they begin to change. I would say it [the sentence "Jews were monotheists" – n.n.] is only correct for the last centuries, maybe only from the period of the Maccabees, that means the second century BC, so in the time of Jesus of Nazareth it is true, but for the time before it, it is not true."</ref><ref name="Center for Online Judaic Studies 2008">{{cite web |first=Christine |last=Hayes |title=Moses and the Beginning of Yahwism: (Genesis 37- Exodus 4), Christine Hayes, Open Yale Courses (Transcription), 2006. |website=Center for Online Judaic Studies |date=3 July 2008 |url=http://cojs.org/moses_and_the_beginning_of_yahwism-_-genesis_37-_exodus_4-_christine_hayes-_open_yale_courses_-transcription-_2006/ |access-date=17 August 2022 |quote="Only later would a Yahweh-only party polemicize against and seek to suppress certain… what came to be seen as undesirable elements of Israelite-Judean religion, and these elements would be labeled Canaanite, as a part of a process of Israelite differentiation. But what appears in the Bible as a battle between Israelites, pure Yahwists, and Canaanites, pure polytheists, is indeed better understood as a civil war between Yahweh-only Israelites, and Israelites who are participating in the cult of their ancestors." |archive-date=17 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817010524/http://cojs.org/moses_and_the_beginning_of_yahwism-_-genesis_37-_exodus_4-_christine_hayes-_open_yale_courses_-transcription-_2006/ |url-status=live}}</ref> With the [[Fall of Babylon]], under influence of the [[First Persian Empire|Persian]] religion [[Zoroastrianism]], Judaism adopted many later prominent concepts, such as messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven and hell, angels and demons, among others, into their belief-system.<ref name="TJE1906">{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15283-zoroastrianism|title=Zoroastrianism ("Resemblances Between Zoroastrianism and Judaism" and "Causes of Analogies Uncertain")|date=1906|author1=[[Kaufmann Kohler]]|author2=[[A. V. Williams Jackson]]|encyclopedia=The Jewish Encyclopaedia|access-date=3 February 2022}}</ref><ref name="SecondPersian">{{cite book |last=Grabbe |first=Lester L. |author-link=Lester L. Grabbe |date=2006 |title=A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period (vol. 1): The Persian Period (539-331BCE) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1cPeBAAAQBAJ |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |pages=361–364 |isbn=9780567216175}}"there is general agreement that Persian religion and tradition had its influence on [[Second Temple Judaism|Judaism]] over the centuries" and the "question is where this influence was and which of the developments in Judaism can be ascribed to the Iranian side as opposed to the effect of the Greek or other cultures".</ref><ref name="BlackRowley_1982_607b">{{harvnb|Black|Rowley|1982|p=607b}}.</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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