Belief
Practice
Community (and what defines community?)
What is permeable or negotiable?
What is the relationship between religion and culture?
Changes beginning with the Babylonian Exile
Ethnic group → Ethnic group
Sovereign nation → political subjects
Geographically unified → diaspora
National culture → minority religion
Everything is absolutely true, God wrote every word
The Bible is a reliable guide in matters of faith and morals, God inspired the main ideas, human authors and editors chose the words (Catholic view)
The Bible is an important and influential human literary achievement, but no more inspired than other great works of literature
Beyond the textbook, which picks up from the existence of the tribes and nation of Israel
The Israelites told stories of their origins from one family (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), slavery in Egypt, Exodus to Mount Sinai, and conquest of the land of Canaan
Legend, not history in the modern sense of the word
Scholars today believe that Israelite identity emerged gradually out of Canaanite society
It never ceases to amaze me that some people’s religious beliefs mean so much to them that they are willing to fight over it or be treated as outcasts as with the Babylonian Exile.
about every 200 years either they were in controlled by either another leader or under rule by another empire
The Israelites were saying that the Babylonian Exile was God's plan all along. They had more faith then I would cause I would've been questioning the whole time if God was around or watching why would this be happening.
If someone says God spoke to them, how do we know it was not intution or sub-conscious?
Is it really God talking to us or are we telling ourselves something based on deep rooted ideas or feelings that come to us by nature or by things that have been imbedded in us growing up?
My only concern is how the word of God is being translated. I feel there could be a lot of misinterpretation that could lead it to not be the word of God, but a single entity looking to gain power over others.
How much of the Bible is supported by archaeology?
Israelites and Jews
Jews and Christians
Jews and Israelis
Conflict between Israel and Palestine