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The first to attempt to formulate Jewish principles of faith was Philo of Alexandria in the 1st century CE. He enumerated five articles: God is and rules; God is one; the world was created by God; Creation is one, and God's providence rules Creation.
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth [a] of both Judaism and Christianity, [1] told in the Book of Genesis ch. 1–2. While the Jewish and Christian tradition is that the account is one comprehensive story, [2] [3] modern scholars of biblical criticism identify the account as a composite work [4] made up of two stories drawn from different sources.
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures. Jews originated from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah , two related kingdoms that emerged in the Levant during the Iron Age .
The Mesha Stele bears the earliest known reference (840 BCE) to the Israelite god Yahweh. [16]Judaism, the oldest Abrahamic religion, is based on a strict, exclusive monotheism, [4] [17] finding its origins in the sole veneration of Yahweh, [4] [18] [19] [20] the predecessor to the Abrahamic conception of God.
There is a general consensus among scholars that the first formative event in the emergence of the distinctive religion described in the Bible was triggered by the destruction of Israel by Assyria in c. 722 BCE. Refugees from the northern kingdom fled to Judah, bringing with them laws and a prophetic tradition of Yahweh.
Nachmanides (1194–1270) writes: In the first day God created the energy (כח) "matter" (חומר) of all things, and then he was finished with the main creation. After that God created all other things from that energy. [7] Some midrashim state that the "first week" of Creation lasted for extremely long periods of time. [8]
The Jewish people and the religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. [180] However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews. [181]
The term "Torah" is used in the general sense to include both Rabbinic Judaism's written and oral law, serving to encompass the entire spectrum of authoritative Jewish religious teachings throughout history, including the Oral Torah which comprises the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Midrash and more.