Question Details

It can mean that you come from a Jewish family.

It can mean that you have faith in God of Israel

It can mean that you are a member of any Jewish religious denomination.

It can mean that you are married to a Jewish woman.

It can mean that you converted to Judaism.

Sadducees

Pharisees

Essenes

Samaritans

Zealots

1978.

1948.

1928.

1945

1939.

Torah is also called the “Pentateuch” because it consists of the first five books of Tanakh.

Tanakh consists of Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim.

Tanakh and the Christian Old Testaments are the same books in terms of content.

Nevi’im is the Prophets.

All original books of the Hebrew Bible are written in Aramaic which is the language of ancient Babylon.

Exegesis is a theological method to find answers for only ethical issues based on the biblical text.

Since the 2nd-century Rabbi Akiva argued that Moses gave two versions of Torah: the Pentateuch (the written Torah) and Mishnah (the oral Torah), the two types of Torah have been used.

Mishnah contains detailed instructions about ethical living, thus how to interpret Mishnah has become the center of Jewish theological ethics.

It can be said that Jews live with Tanakh and Talmud. Talmud is the second major text of Jewish faith and consists of the oral Torah, Mishnah, and rabbis’ commentaries on Mishnah, Gemara.

Jewish theology consists of two parts: halakha and haggadah. Halakha meaning “proper conduct” is the theologians’ exegetical practice to find answers directly from the Torah, while Haggadah meaning “non-legal decision” is the decision made by theologians when they cannot find answers directly from the Bible and thus resort to resources other than the biblical text such as prudence, traditional practices, etc.

The covenant exists only between Abraham and God.

The covenant is a contract made between the Jewish people and God.

The covenant includes ethical purity and ritual observances.

The covenant lasts until the human party dies.

The covenant involves the human party’s entire selves.

Romans destroyed the Jewish temple and reduced Jerusalem and all Judean towns to ruin.

Seleucids introduced apocalyptic literature, which caused the Jewish people to lose faith in their God.

Jews came to believe that the Messianic age would begin in the city of Goshen.

The Great Revolt occurred as the Jews began to protest the heavy taxation imposed by the Roman government and attacks on Roman citizens.

Essenes gained control of the temple, forcing the priests to re-establish themselves in Jericho.

The messiah means God’s anointed one.

The messiah leads people into the renewal of the covenant with God.

The messiah saves people from their sins.

The messiah is sent in God’s appointed time when the Jews are being punished for their violation of the covenantal terms.

The messiah saves people from a political turmoil.

Jews are not allowed to call God as “God.”

The Jews are God’s slaves.

God is considered the Father of His children, Jews.

God is a Transcendental being and host of all things.

God is also called “Adonai” the Lord.

The kosher is a Jewish ceremonial dietary rule, so Jews are not allowed to eat certain foods when they are in religious ceremonies.

Fish without scales and fins, like eels and catfish, are considered unclean and thus not to be consumed for food.

If you eat meat, you should wait at least for 3 hours to eat dairy because meat and dairy cannot be mixed.

Animals without divided hooves such as pigs, camels, hares, are considered “unclean” and thus not allowed to eat.

Creatures like shrimps and lobsters cannot also be consumed for food.

The contemporary Judaism practiced is called “Rabbinic Judaism.”

The Rabbinic Judaism emphasizes studying and reading the Tanakh as opposed to worships and sacrifices.

The Rabbinic Judaism is the outcome of a thousand-year-old collaborative work between rabbis, the teachers, and the Jewish priests.

The Rabbinic Judaism emerged as rabbis, teachers of Torah, began playing an important role after the destruction of the first Temple.

Rabbis’ reading of Tanakh and teaching at synagogues on every Sabbath displays what Rabbinic Judaism is.

The origin of Sabbath is in Genesis 2:2-3, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”

The Jews believe that the Seventh Day on which God rested is Saturday, so Sabbath is observed on Saturday.

Pushing an elevator button on Sabbath is considered work because it operates an electrical switch, so it is forbidden.

You cannot drive cars or walk more than a certain distance or carry anything on Sabbath because it is considered work.

“Eruv” is what contemporary Jews call a “magic circle or home” created by hidden wires so that they can cook or walk freely as if they were at home on Sabbath.

King Solomon built the first Jewish Temple.

The Jews could build the second Jewish Temple thanks to King Darius’s edict while they were under the Persian Rule.

The Jews were able to build their Third Temple after they established the modern state of Israel.

The Romans destroyed the second Jewish Temple in the 1st century CE.

The first Jewish Temple was destroyed in the 6th century BCE by the armies of the Babylonian King, Nebuchadnezzar II.

Joseph is Jacob’s 11th son who sold into slavery by his brothers but later became a prime minister of Egypt.

Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for lentil soup.

Isaac succeeded to the headship of Abraham as the patriarch and his mother was Sarah and his stepbrother was Ishmael, who later became the leader of Arab.

Jacob was able to marry his cousin, Rachel, after working 14 years for Rachel’s father, Laban.

Judah succeeded to Jacob’s headship even though he was Jacob’s third son. The Jacob’s family got united under Judah’s rule.

Sukkot.

Rosh Hashanah.

Yom Kippur.

Pesach.

Shabbat.

The Passover is the Jewish holiday when Jews commemorate the event that the Angel of Death “passed over” the homes of the Israelites without taking their first-born sons’ life.

On the Passover, the Jews recall the story of Exodus in the Tanakh.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year’s Day.

Hanukkah is the day when liberal Jews celebrate the birth of Jesus along with their Christian brothers.

Purim commemorates the event that the Jews were saved from annihilation as Mordecai outwitted the evil scheme of Hama when they are in the foreign exile.

The three main Jewish denominations are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.

Conservative Jews deny the idea that Jews lived or live in exile from their true home in Zion though they appreciate the Zionist movement that helped build the State of Israel.

Reform and Orthodox branches, among the three mainline sects, are contrasted with each other, as they represent the opposite ends, Jewish liberalism and conservativism.

Orthodox Judaism focuses on law and tradition.

Conservative Jews focus on tradition and try to maintain the middle ground between the Reform and Orthodox.

Reconstructionist Judaism denies the idea of Jews as the Chosen People of God.

Reconstructionist, Humanist, and Reform Jews strive for equality of gender and sexual orientation.

In the State of Israel, the only legitimate Jewish denomination is Orthodox Judaism.

Humanism is called “atheist Judaism” due to their slogan doing good without God.

Kabbalah is a Jewish spiritual movement which originated in 13th century Spain where the Aramaic book The Zohar was used as the spiritual manual. Thus, it is new to most Jews nowadays and not popular because Jews are not interested in spirituality.

It can be said that Messianic Jews are Christians because they accept Jesus as their Savior of their soul.

Messianic Judaism is a relatively new movement since it emerged in the 1960s.

Messianic Jews accept the Trinity and see Jesus as the second person of the Trinity.

Messianic Jews believe that following the Jewish laws or customs does not lead to personal salvation, the salvation of a human soul.

Messianic Jews deny that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah because Jesus is the Messiah for all humanity.