JS Midterm

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Stony Brook University *

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397

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Arts Humanities

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Apr 3, 2024

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Elliot Bae Dr. Rueben 3/20/23 Part One: Definitions Answer 10 of the following in 1-2 sentences) Be specific. Your answer should include who, what, why (importance for the History of Judaism), where, when. 30 Pt. (No extra credit for more definitions) Enuma Elish Jeremiah Scribes Essenes Canaanite Matrix Babylonian Exile Alexander the Great Hillel the Elder B’rit Cyrus Antiochus IV Yohanan ben Zakkai Idolatry Apocalypse Judah Maccabee Rabbi Akiva Ritual Purity Ezra Hasmoneans Rabbi Judah haNasi Deuteronomy Wisdom literature Pharisees Babylonian Talmud Enuma Elish: The Enuma Elish was an ancient babylonian creation story dating from around 2 millennium B.C.E. This myth speaks of the gods and how the earth came to be and is what many scholars believe the early jewish people used to form the genesis creation story Idolatry: Idolatry is the worship of other beings and idols. Brought up famously in the ten commandments Idolatry was a direct sin and act of betrayal to God. Jeremiah: Jeremiah was a prophet who began his journey under the reign of King Josiah during the 600s B.C.E. He sympathized with the Deuteronomic reforms and during the Babylonian conquest believed it was caused by God. Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy is the 5th book of the bible, attributed to a speech given by Moses just before his death around the seventh century B.C.E. Deuteronomy speaks about what it is like to love God and to worship Him. Canaanite Matrix: The Canaanite Matrix refers to the cultural and social context in which the Israelites emerged as a distinct people and developed their own religious and cultural traditions dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C.E to the 12th century B.C.E. The Israelites were deeply influenced by Canaanite culture until eventually they developed their own beliefs and traditions which evolved into Judaism. Cyrus: A Persian king who reigned from 559-530 BCE. He conquered many nations including Babylon. Under his rule, he established a tolerant policy which allowed Jews to return to their homeland; he even gave them the funds to rebuild the temple. Alexander The Great: The Macedonian king who hellenized Jerusalem. From 334-323 he conquered most of the known world. He quickly spread greek culture throughout many nations which also heavily affected Judaism and Jerusalem. Antiochus IV: The Greek king of the Seleucid Empire reigning from 175-164 B.C.E. He persecuted Judaism in 167 B.C.E which is unlike many hellenistic views. Most hellenistic views were tolerant of the Jews and other local religions.

Judah Maccabee: Coming from a small family of priests, Judah Maccabee helped lead the 167 B.C.E revolt against Antiochus. This victory set the stage for the first holiday celebrating a victory, a tradition normally attributed to Greek culture. Pharisees: The Pharisees were a Jewish religious group that emerged in the late Second Temple period, roughly between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. Primarily made up of middle class citizens, they devoted their lives to religious law and believed that to be necessary to keep the culture alive. Part Two: It’s complicated Discuss the meaning of one of the following phrases and its significance for the history of Judaism in 2 paragraphs. (30 Points) Eighth century revisionist movement (Hendel) Documentary Hypothesis (Friedman) Anachronism (Fredriksen) Kavvanah (Hoffman) The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory proposed by biblical scholars to explain the composition of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Torah. According to this theory, the Torah was not written by a single author, but was instead composed over several centuries by multiple authors or groups of authors. Julius Welhausen states how he agrees with Varke’s and Graf’s ideas that the religion of Israel developed over 3 different stages and that the documents have been written in three distinct periods. With this in mind, Welhausen puts two and two together and argues that after examining the biblical stories and laws, they reflect the way of life of the nature/fertility stage of religion. He then states how the laws of Deuteronomy represent the life of the spiritual/ethical stage, and the priests derived from the priestly legal stage. Overall the Documentary Hypothesis was a revolutionary perspective in this field of trying to find out who wrote the first books of the bible. “Until the past generation there were orthodox Christian and Jewish scholars who contested the Documentary Hypothesis in scholarly circles. At present, however, there is hardly a biblical scholar in the world actively working on the problem who would claim that the Five Books Of Moses were written by Moses” (Friedman 28). This hypothesis was widely accepted by many and it reached many other scholars around the world and it became the model everyone bases their arguments on. Part Three: Text study Analyze two of the following. Choose on from the Biblical section and one from the post-Biblical section. Discuss the author (if known), the meaning of the passage, its historical context, and its significance for the History of Judaism in 2 paragraphs. (40 points) Biblical “If you offer Me burnt offerings – or your meal offerings – I will not accept them; I will pay no heed to your gifts of fatlings. Spare Me the sound of your hymns, and let Me not hear the music of your lutes. But let justice well up like water, Righteousness like an unfailing

stream. Did you offer sacrifice and oblation to Me those forty years in the wilderness, oh house of Israel? Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Eternal is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. “The hand of the Lord came upon me. He took me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the valley. It was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many of them spread over the valley, and they were very dry, He said to me, “O mortal, can these bones live again?” I replied, “O Lord God, only You know.” And he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! Thus said the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live again . . . O mortal, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone, we are doomed.” Prophesy therefore and say to them: Thus said the Lord God, I am going to open your graves and lift you out of the graves, O My people, and bring you to the land of Israel.” Postbiblical But Mattathias answered and said in a loud voice: “Even if all the nations that live under the rule of the king obey his commandments, every one of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, I and my sons and my brothers will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors. Far be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances. We will not obey the king’s words by turning aside from our religion to the right or to the left.” For the Instructor: The Rule of the War. The first attack by the sons of light will be launched against the lot of the sons of darkness, against the army of Belial, against the company of Edom and of Moab. . . and those who assist them from among the wicked] who violate the covenant. The sons of Levi, sons of Judah and sons of Benjamin, the exiled of the desert, will wage war against them. . against all their companies, when the exiled sons of light return from the desert of the peoples to camp in the desert of Jerusalem. And after the war, they shall go up from there . . of the Kittim in Egypt. And in his time, he will go out with great rage to wage war against the kings of the North, and his anger will exterminate and cu of the horn . . . There will follow a time of salvation for the people of God and a period of rule for all he men of his lot and of everlasting destruction for all the lot of Belial. . . Rabban Johanan sat and watched in the direction of the wall of Jerusalem to learn what was happening there, even as Eli sat upon his seat by the wayside watching [I Sam. 4:13]. When R. Johanan b. Zakkai saw that the Temple was destroyed and the heikhal burnt, he stood and rent his garments, took off his tefillin, and sat weeping, as did his pupils with him" (ARN2 7, 21). The cessation of the Temple service, one of the three things on which the world is based (Avot 1:2), led to a movement of excessive abstinence (Tosef., Sot. 15:11) and to a despair of the possibility of atoning for sins. Johanan took it upon himself to give guidance to the bewildered: "Once when R. Johanan b. Zakkai was leaving Jerusalem, R. Joshua was walking behind him and saw the Temple in ruins. R. Joshua said, 'Woe is us that this has been destroyed, the place where atonement was made for the sins of Israel.' 'No, my son, do you not know that we have a means of making atonement that is like it? And what is it? It is deeds of love, as it is said [Hos. 6:6]: "For I desire kindness, and not sacrifice"'" (ARN1 4, 21).

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1. The passage “If you offer Me burnt offerings – or your meal offerings – I will not accept them; I will pay no heed to your gifts of fatlings. Spare Me the sound of your hymns, and let Me not hear the music of your lutes. But let justice well up like water, Righteousness like an unfailing stream. Did you offer sacrifice and oblation to Me those forty years in the wilderness, oh house of Israel? “ comes from the book of Amos. Amos was a shepard from the Judean town of Tekoa. Although not an official Prophet he was still said to have the spirit of God. Amos delivers this message from God, which is a rebuke to the Israelites. God is telling them that their religious rituals, such as burnt offerings and hymns, are meaningless to him if they are not accompanied by acts of justice and righteousness. He reminds them that he did not ask for sacrifices during their time in the wilderness, but instead he wanted them to live justly and righteously. After the recent split of the nation Amos was prophesying to the northern kingdom of Israel. At the time, Israel was experiencing a period of relative prosperity, but this was accompanied by corruption, oppression of the poor, and a neglect of God's commandments. Amos was warning the Israelites that their disobedience would lead to their downfall, and that they needed to turn back to God's ways of justice and righteousness. This passage is significant to the history of Judaism because it emphasizes the importance of ethical behavior and social justice over religious rituals. It is a reminder that God's commandments are not just about external acts of worship, but about how we treat each other and live our lives. 2. The passage "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Eternal is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day" is a central affirmation of faith in Judaism known as the Shema. It appears in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and is recited by observant Jews twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. These words, although believed to have been given by Moses on top of Mount Sinai, Scholars believe it was written during the Babylonian Exile. This was especially important when the Jewish faith was challenged during this exile The meaning of the passage is twofold. First, it affirms the monotheistic nature of Judaism and the belief in one God who is eternal and all-powerful. Second, it instructs Jews to love God with all their heart, soul, and might, emphasizing the importance of a personal relationship with God and a wholehearted commitment to His commandments which is to love nothing more than God. The significance of the Shema to the history of Judaism cannot be overstated. It is a central affirmation of faith that has sustained the Jewish people through centuries of persecution and hardship. It has also served as a unifying force that has helped to preserve Jewish identity and culture in the face of assimilation and cultural influence from other societies.

JS Midterm

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