Day 7 Jewish Texts

• The laws and principles of Judaism are described in several sacred texts or writings.

• Among the main texts are the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, and the Commentaries. 

• The ancient Jews recorded most of their laws in five books. Together these books are called the Torah, the most sacred text of Judaism.

• In addition to laws, the Torah includes a history of the Jews until the death of Moses. 

• Readings from the Torah are central to Jewish religious services today.

• Nearly every synagogue (SI-nuh-gawg), or Jewish house of worship, has at least one Torah.

• Out of respect for the Torah, readers do not touch it. They use special pointers to mark their places in the text, called the Yad.

• The Torah is the first of three parts of a group of writings called the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh (tah-NAHK).

• The second part is made up of eight books that describe the messages of Jewish prophets.

• Prophets are people who are said to receive messages from God to be taught to others. 

• The final part of the Hebrew Bible is 11 books of poetry, songs, stories, lessons, and history.

• For example, the Book of Daniel tells about a prophet named Daniel, who lived during the Babylonian Captivity.

• The Jews tell this story to show the power of faith. 

• Also in the final part of the Hebrew Bible are the Proverbs, short expressions of Jewish wisdom.

• Many of these sayings are attributed to Israelite leaders, especially King Solomon.

• Psalms are poems or songs of praise to God.

• Many of these are attributed to King David. One of the most famous psalms is the Twenty-third Psalm. It includes lines often read today during times of difficulty:

• For centuries scholars have studied the Torah and Jewish laws. Because some laws are hard to understand, scholars write commentaries to explain them.

• Talmud (TAHL-moohd), a set of commentaries and lessons for everyday life.

• The writings of the Talmud were produced between AD 200 and 600. Many Jews consider them second only to the Hebrew Bible in their significance to Judaism. 

• Besides the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, and the Commentaries, many other documents also explain ancient Jewish beliefs.

• Among the most important are the Dead Sea Scrolls, writings by Jews who lived about 2,000 years ago. 

• Until 1947 no one knew about the

  Dead Sea Scrolls.

• Young boys looking for a lost goat near the Dead Sea found a small cave. One of the boys went in to explore and found several old jars filled with moldy scrolls. 

• Over the next few decades, searchers found several more groups of scrolls. 

• A careful study revealed that most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written between 100 BC and AD 50.

• The scrolls included prayers, commentaries, letters, and passages from the Hebrew Bible. These writings help historians learn about the lives of many Jews during this time. 

Because Jews lived all over the Western world, people of many cultures learned of Jewish ideas. In addition, these ideas helped shape the largest religion of Western society today, Christianity. Jesus, whose teachings are the basis of Christianity, was Jewish, and many of his teachings reflected Jewish ideas. These ideas were carried forward into Western civilization by both Jews and Christians. Judaism also influenced the development of another major religion, Islam. The first people to adopt Islam believed that they, like the Hebrews, were descendants of Abraham.