"Living Religions"

Paper Summary:

This paper introduces the book, "Living Religions" by Mary Pat Fisher, and specifically explains how and why Judaism evolved into separate groups from its original foundation. It looks at how the Jewish religion is one of the oldest on earth, and from its beginnings, there have always been different groups of Jews who believed in different ways. It examines how the Jewish religion has split into many factions over the years, including Christianity, and how, because of this, the Jewish religion may be one of the most important and essential religions still practiced today.

From the Paper:

"As the author notes, the Jews, who had lived in many different cultures and under many different foreign rulers, including Hellenistic (Greek) Alexander the Great, also "became somewhat open to cross-cultural religious borrowings." Some of the beliefs of others became accepted by the some of the Jews, but not all of them, and so another basis for different believing groups was established. As Fisher writes, "?and the rationalistic, humanistic influences of Hellenism led many wealthy and intellectual Jews, including the priests in Jerusalem, to adopt a Hellenistic attitude of skepticism rather than unquestioning belief." They called these two different groups the "traditionalists" and those who "embraced the Greek ways," and the two groups had trouble getting along together."

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