PART ONE

From Adam And Eve To 1 Bce

In The Beginning

With that modern day story behind us, let us go on to Judaism’s origins. A rabbi named Yossi ben Halafta, active in the second century, suggested that Judaism’s origins started with Adam and Eve. If true, it behooves us to dissect this era. If you believe in Adam and Eve, then you believe that they were created by God in the Garden of Eden. According to Wikipedia, a 2014 poll reports that 56% of Americans believe that Adam and Eve existed.

The biblical story of Adam and Eve goes something like this: God made Adam by shaping a humanoid figure from ground clay; another version speaks of dust of the earth. When His creation was formed to His liking, God breathed into the shape. Adam’s eyes opened. God placed Adam in a beautiful garden named Eden and gave him the responsibility to look after this new world which God filled with animal and plant life of all kinds. Then he realized that Adam needed a companion, so he made a woman out of one of Adam’s ribs. He named her Eve.

Adam and Eve were happy in each other’s company. God gave them the caretaker role of their new home. He blessed them and told them that it was their responsibility to look after their beautiful new surroundings. He also gave them one warning, All of this is yours to sustain and care for. Never touch that single beautiful tree in the center of the garden. It gives knowledge of good and evil and if you eat of its fruit you will lose immortality, and death will be your lot. Apparently, God wanted them to know only about good and not evil.

They followed this rule until, one day, a serpent in the garden spoke with them. He asked if God told them they could eat the fruit growing within the Garden. Eve answered, Yes, but not from the tree in the center which God said was the Tree of Good and Evil.

How silly, said the serpent, Eating of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will teach you what is right and wrong, and do you not believe that you should have that right? Here we see the first temptation affecting mankind.

The attractiveness of the fruit on the tree and the thought that Adam and eve would now be able to discern right and wrong made them both partake of the fruit. But once they did, they started to feel that they had done something wrong, and they became fearful of God. As it turned out, God lamented the fact that Adam and Eve disobeyed Him. He ordered them out of the Garden telling them that they were on their own now, would have to sustain themselves by their own efforts, will experience pain during childbirth, and be subjected to an inevitable death.

So, this Adam and Eve theory of the origin of man on earth remains to this day, and, as mentioned before is accepted by 56 percent of humanity.

Those who do not accept that Adam and Eve tell the story of the beginning of man on earth have to rely on an alternate theory which states that mankind evolved in a slow evolutionary process for which there is considerable, but perhaps conflicting evidence. This theory suggests that human life evolved, along with apes, from an apelike ancestor of antiquity along two different evolutionary pathways—animal (primate) and man.

Charles Darwin championed these theories in his famous The Origin of the Species (1859), written while sailing around the world for five years aboard his famous HMS Beagle in the 1830s. He postulated that man has, from time immemorial, continued to pass on mutations via the genetic sequence. These mutations result from reproductive errors and various environmental changes brought on by radiation or chemicals. In the natural selection process, the fittest members of a species are able to pass on their genetic information while the unfit die off. This all occurs over millions of years.

So, what we have are two alternate theories of how man multiplied and populated the earth: one, via Adam and Eve, and two, via Darwinian natural selection. Take your pick.

What does all this have to do with Judaism? As man evolved by whatever route you choose, and as intellectually they developed increasing capacity to think, the concept of religion entered their minds which they championed and promoted over time. They needed this development perhaps because of the snake that caused Adam and Eve to bite that apple resulting in evil, as well as good, now permeating the earth. I leave it to the reader to decide if religious development was a good trend. In support of the thesis that it was a good trend, and from the standpoint of the development of a moral code over time with rules of behavior, necessary because there were none, it clearly evolved from moral thinkers of the primitive evolving ancient communities who had to fight for their beliefs against unbelievable odds. Multiple religions did indeed become established eventually, but the religious wars, which ensued throughout history, added a negative element to the argument between good and bad. Anyhow, now there are religions entrenched in our world. Why was it necessary? Let us see how and why they evolved. Who were its moral and ethical pioneers?

Noah

Noah was tenth in the line of ascendancy from Adam. God noted that Noah was one of the righteous in a world of evil. So much so that God states that man was evil and redemption was not an option. The evil had risen to a point that God says in Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

God decided to rectify this evil by destroying human life on earth. He would cause a great flood to engulf the earth, but at the same time would save Noah and his family by causing them to build an ark within which they would bring pairs of animals who would inhabit the earth. Noah would become heir to the good life that comes with a life of righteousness and pass it on ad-infinitum to all of future humanity. It was a moral teaching God would impress upon the world: one could be righteous and thrive, or unrighteous and die. The life of Noah was to be used as a lesson from which mankind could learn that the path of righteousness was the path to a good life—hopefully the future pioneers of religious thought would understand as they developed their precepts of religion—but would they?

The Start

As regards the history of religious development, there are some ancient forms of worship known as shamanism, and animism. Shamanism involves practitioners who become trancelike, and while in this state practice divination and healing; predicting future events. Animism practitioners believe natural phenomena and objects, even including the universe, possess souls. These two religions date back 300,000 years BCE.

Religions did flourish over time. This was all in an effort of humankind to develop a moral code—a code to rules of behavior and relationships between an increasing number of diverse human beings; people only interested in asserting their own authority come hell or high water. Religion evolved in an effort to change this mind-set. This evolution is a daunting task whose success or failure remains controversial even 4000 years after its original thought.

Older religions that are still practiced today are Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Taoism, and the first one: Judaism. Their sites of origin are: Buddhism in Nepal, Hinduism in India, Janism in Nepal, Taoism in China, and Judaism in an area now known as Israel. Before we zero in on the first religion, Judaism, the subject of this book, we will introduce the first four briefly.

Buddhism evolved from the mind of Siddhartha Guatama, a prince of a Nepalese tribe. Nepal is a landlocked Himalayan country. In approximately 560 BCE, at the age of 29, Guatama left his home, took years of Yoga training, studied the extensive suffering he felt was rampant in the world, meditated, and eventually became a Buddha, or enlightened one, who founded the religion of Buddhism. Its five main principles are:

1. Never take a life of anything living.

2. Only take something freely given.

3. Never engage in sexual misconduct.

4. Never lie.

5. Never lose mindfulness (keep the mind intact to deal with problems by avoiding any form of intoxication that impairs rational and ethical thought processes).

There are 300,000,000 Buddhists world-wide.

Hinduism evolved over time with no single founder or group of individuals given credit for its development. There are one billion adherents making it the third largest religion in the world after Christianity and Islam (more on these last two later).

Hinduism has four tenets

1. Pursue prosperity through hard work, and also perform civic and governmental service.

2. Pursue exercise and passion, but not hedonistically.

3. Pursue scholarship through study and meditation.

4. Live in cooperation with your fellow humans.

Jainism is an offshoot of Hinduism and Buddhism. Originating in India, it has a small number of adherents numbering 4,000,000. It does not believe in a Creator God, but rather accepts the universe as an aspect of matter. They believe in Ahimsa which means that one’s spirit, body, and mind cannot possibly think violently. It was this philosophy that supported Ghandi in his efforts to free India from Great Britain.

Taoism Principally in China where there are only 2.7 million adherents. The smallness of their numbers, in comparison to their population of more than a billion, is understandable in a Communist country where religion has been deemphasized. Adherents believe in a sovereign divinity, a heaven, and venerate their ancestors whom they worship.

Origin Of The Jew

Before we get to a discussion about Judaism’s history over time, it should be known that the current world population totals 7.5 billion. If one couples this with the Jewish world population of 14.5 million, it means that Jews represent 0.53 percent of the world’s total population. The United States and Israel combined constitute 83 percent of the Jewish world population, and the remaining 17 percent are scattered in 98 other countries. Israel is the only country in the world with a Jewish majority.

It was more than 100 years ago when Mark Twain was quoted as follows: if the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of smoke lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contribution to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning, are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, and has done it with his hands tied behind him. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality? Remember, this comment was written in more modern times.

Unbeknownst to a youngster named Abram, he would be considered the conceiver of a religion that gradually, in the distant future, would come to be known as Judaism. When he commenced his activities, which over much time would evolve into the Jewish religion with its adherents known as Jews, he was a young boy confused by what he considered the irrational activity of his father. Abram (his future name would be Abraham) was born in Ur, Babylonia. His father was Terach, an idol merchant, who sold idols to the citizens so that they could worship and pray to them. This was anathema to young Abram who considered that idol worship was ridiculous. He would teach his father a lesson. He smashed all the idols with a hammer except for the largest one, and then placed the hammer in the hands of the largest idol. As the story has been told, when Abram’s father returned he was aghast at what happened and asked for an explanation from his son. Abram calmly answered that the idols all got into a fight and the largest one smashed the smaller ones. Abram’s father answered incredulously that Idols can’t do that. Then why do you worship them? answered Abram.

God must have gotten wind of this advanced thinking of the time, because he called to Abram and asked if he would leave his home and family, and go on the road acting as God’s messenger to make a great nation in God’s name.

It was an offer Abram could not refuse. He travelled through what is now known as the land of Israel for many years. He married Sarai. His ambition and drive to excel was a trait that he would instill in Jews of the future. God promised Abram that he would make of him and his wife, Sarai, a great nation. But to this point in time, Sarai, Abram’s wife, was infertile; no children emanated from the marriage.

Sarai had an Egyptian handmaiden named Hagar who was a helper to Sarai in managing affairs of the family. This time in history, and in accordance with legal codes of the time, it was not considered unusual for a barren wife to suggest that her husband impregnate another woman whose child would belong to the barren wife and her husband. This was a way of a barren woman acquiring a child. Abram agreed.

Genesis 16:3 states And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, her Egyptian maid, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Genesis 16:4 states And he went into Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Sarai, of course, recognized what had happened. Tension reigned supreme in the household. Nothing but trouble would be the future consequence for the world from this point on.

Genesis 16:5 states And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee. I have given my maid into thy bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived I was despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee. In essence, Sarai was asking her husband Abram to solve this dilemma. Genesis 16:6 states, but Abram said unto Sarai, "Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee." In essence, Abram turned the problem back to Sarai, who did indeed take control. She dealt harshly with Hagar who fled from her face. And the angel of the LORD found Hagar nearly dying of thirst in the desert and saved her by giving her water. Genesis 16.8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? And wither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel suggested that she was putting her life at risk in the hot desert and she should go back to her mistress and continue under her service. Genesis 16:9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.

Now recognizing her risk, Hagar did indeed agree to return. Genesis 16:10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. Hagar gave birth to a son. He was named, Ishmael.

When Abram