The Gift Of Jews

6 Pages 1603 Words

The book I'm reading is called "The Gift of the Jews", written by Thomas. Basically, his writing style is such that both the believer and non-believer can be satisfied with his prose, without becoming unduly offended. He brings out points and events that most archeologists and/or biblical scholars agree on, but he does so in a way that tends not to offend. This includes the Reed Sea vs. the Red Sea, Hebrew as a written language was not developed until around 1000-800 BCE, Abraham and his descendants believed in other, less powerful Gods other than Jehovah, etc. He often puts himself in a given era and tries to portray what the people of that time probably thought and believed. For me, it was not an easy read, but a good way to better understand the Old Testament, the beginning of the Jewish, and how Jewish philosophy evolved over 2000 years, and became the basis for much of the Western World's philosophy about the human condition. When I say that, I'm not talking about Socrates or Aristotle or the other Greek and Roman scholars. I think that they gave us the basis for rational, logical thinking. The Jewish culture, on the other hand, gave us the idea that life is a journey, not a cyclical repetition of past events, that we are all individuals, that we can all experience fullness of life, that justice is for all that humans have certain inalienable rights, and that we can all have a personal relationship with God. All of these concepts were completely foreign to the civilized world before the Jews came to be. When I think of the Tanach, the Jewish Bible, I think of it mostly as the source of guidance and identity for the Jewish people. The Bible is full of mitzvoth, commandments, both ethical and ritual, and also of the recounting of the events which created us as a Jewish people. The Bible is part of what holds us together as Jews of different nationalities and religious persuasions. It is the source of our common referents and our sens...