1200 words and three scholarly references

1. In appropriate depth and detail, and utilizing scholarly references, describe the basic characteristics of Judaism, including but not limited to: its history, its primary beliefs, its criticisms, its practices, and its organization.

2. In appropriate depth and detail, and utilizing scholarly references, describe the themes found in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the concept of the “Gospel” that the first Christians sought to spread.

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254 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

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CHAPTER 11

Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

LO1 Explain the meaning of Christianity and related
terms

LO2 Trace how the main periods of Christianity’s history
have shaped its present.

LO3 Outline in your own words essential Christian
teachings as found in the Nicene Creed.

LO4 Describe the main features of Christian ethics.
LO5 Summarize Christian worship and other rituals.
LO6 Explain the variety of Christianity in North America

today.

Encountering
Christianity:

The Way of Salvation
in Jesus Chris

BONNIE VAN VOORST © CENGAGE LEARNING

Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

255

Your Visit to St. Peter’s

in Rom

A
s a part of your visit to Italy, you spend a
day in Vatican City, the world’s smallest
nation, which serves as the headquar-
ters of the Roman Catholic Church

The center of Vatican City is St. Peter’s

Basilica. You’ve seen pictures of this building, and you’ve
seen snippets of religious services there on television, so
you’re eager to see it for yourself.

Your tour guide gives you some advice the night
before your visit: “You should expect the church to be full
of visitors today, as it is almost every day. Not only is St.
Peter’s the center of the Roman Catholic faith, it’s also a
historical building and an important part of art history.
Neither men nor women can wear anything that shows
their shoulders, stomach, or any leg above the knees.
There are guards at the church entrance, and they’re
experts at spotting the tricks that some people use to
enter without appropriate clothing.”

Stepping inside St. Peter’s Basilica, the grandness
of the church itself is stunning. Seeing it from the out-
side gives no indication of how large and impressive it
really is. Like many of the world’s most important reli-
gious sites, the grandeur of this place and what it
means to believers—in this case

Roman Catholic

Christians—brings you a deep sense of respect.
Many people pause after entering the
front door to take it all in. On the
right you see Michelangelo’s life-
size sculpture of Mary the
mother of Jesus holding
the body of her dead son in
her arms after his crucifi x-
ion. So many people want
to see it that it takes a few

minutes to work your way to the front of the group. It
shows an artistic genius that can only be marveled at, but
it also shows the profound Christian faith of Michelangelo.

The natural light coming from above illuminates
the church and spreads a subdued radiance all around,
especially under the dome. Looking up at the dome, you
see the large Latin letters giving the words of Jesus in the
Gospel of Matthew 16:18–19, which the Catholic Church
has always considered the foundation of its organization:
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. I will
give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”

After you go up to the outside of the dome to take
in the magnifi cent view of Rome, you take a guided tour
of the tomb of St. Peter, led by a priest from the Vatican
archaeology offi ce. It’s a few stories below the main altar
of the church, what in the fi rst century C.E. was a cemetery
on Vatican Hill, outside the city limits of Rome. You walk
down an excavated street, past expensive mausoleums,
toward the traditional grave of Peter. When you reach it,

your guide shows pictures of what it used to
look like—very simple, even
humble. You realize that,
for all the grandeur of the
building above, the founda-
tion of it all is the grave of
a humble fi sherman who
was killed near this spot
for his faith in Jesus Christ.

“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” —Jesus Christ, in the Gospel of Joh

< Mosaic portrait in Hagia Sophia Church, Istanbul, Turkey, of Jesus Christ enthroned in heaven. His halo contains a cross, and the Greek lettering is an abbreviation of “Jesus Christ.”

Its universal spread shows that Christianity is the
most culturally adaptable religion in the world.

Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

What Do YOU Think?

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Front of St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome

256 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

Christianity is a monotheistic
religion based on the fi rst-
century C.E. life, death, and res-
urrection of Jesus of Nazareth
in Galilee. Christians believe
that Jesus is the Son of God and
the savior of the world, and his
teaching shows how to live for
God and others.

Christianity

began as a prophetic reform

movement within Judaism, led by
Jesus, in the fi rst century C.E., but it quickly moved out
into the wider world after Jesus’ departure. It has been
from the fi rst a strongly missionary faith, eager to spread
itself and make converts, and it has become the largest
religion in the world. Geographically the most widely
diffused of all faiths—the only religion to be found on
all continents and in every nation, for example—it has
about 2.2 billion adherents today. Christianity has been
a major infl uence in the shaping of Western civilization,
and since around 1500 it has increasingly shaped the
rest of the world. Its three largest groups are the Roman
Catholic Church (which is larger than the two other
groups together), the Eastern Orthodox churches, and
the Protestant churches. In your study of Christianity,
you’ll encounter these unique features:

● Christianity is centered on a person, Jesus Christ.
But it is also strongly concerned with teaching and
doctrine—more than Judaism and Islam, the other
Abrahamic monotheisms, have typically been.

● Because Christianity is centered on Jesus, it takes
seriously his teachings as recorded in the New
Testament. But Christianity is also shaped by the
church’s later teaching about Jesus, which raises
the question: What is the relationship of the teach-
ing of Jesus to Christian teaching about Jesus?

● Christianity shares much with Judaism and Islam,
but with some key differences. It teaches that
the one God exists in three persons—the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit—a mystery and a
paradox. However, modern scholars have located
Christianity fi rmly among the monotheistic reli-
gions of the world.

● When seen from the
outside, Christianity
appears to be quite
unifi ed. However,
when seen from
the inside, it seems
very diverse, even

fragmented, with an estimated nine thousand dif-
ferent church groups. We’ll discuss the variety of
Christianity throughout this chapter, but espe-
cially in the last section, “Christianity in North
America Today.”

LO1 Names

The name Christ originated in the ancient Greek word
Christos (KRIHS-toss), literally “anointed one.” This
word is in turn the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew
word messiah (meh-SIGH-uh), one anointed as a king
or prophet. The earliest Christians came to believe that
Jesus was the promised messiah who would bring God’s
blessings to Israel. When the church moved into the
Greek-speaking world, the term Christ was attached to
the personal name Jesus to produce the longer name
by which he is known to Christians, Jesus Christ. It’s
a common misunderstanding that Jesus is his fi rst
name and Christ is something of a last name, but that’s
incorrect.

Christians was a name given by others,
most likely as a derogatory term that

can be paraphrased “those Christ people.”

Christianity, the religion based on Jesus Christ’s
life and teaching, is built from Christians, those who
belong to the religious movement based on Christ. As
related by the fi rst-century book of early church history,
the Acts of the Apostles, the fi rst Christians themselves
had called their movement within Judaism “the Way,”
by which they probably meant the “Way of Jesus”; they
called themselves “followers of the Way.” Christians
was a name given to them by others, most likely as a
derogatory term that can be paraphrased “those Christ
people.” But they soon accepted Christians as accurate
and meaningful. They transformed this put-down into
an honorable name used by Christians in every time
and place since then.

The term Christendom is sometimes used in con-
nection with Christianity. Most often it refers today to
those nations of the world in which Christianity is the
recognized, predominant religion, whether it is the offi –
cial religion of these nations or not. This term has now
fallen into disuse, and in some circles even disfavor, so
it will be seen mostly in older literatur

Christ Literally, “anointed
one,” or prophet

Christianity The
religion based on Jesus
C hrist’s life and teachin

257T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

LO2 The Christian Present
As Shaped by Its Past

In New York City, a college student who wants to train for the priesthood in the Orthodox Church in North America visits
his bishop, the regional leader of this church, to inquire about
education and expectations for ordination. After a pleasant
conversation about his background and intent, the bishop
off ers the requirements. The student is surprised by the fi rst
and last items mentioned: grow a beard, fi nish college, and
get married—preferably in that order. With these things
accomplished, the student can enter a theological seminary
(graduate school) to prepare more fully for the priesthood. As
the student will soon learn as he travels toward becoming a
priest, these expectations are a part of the ancient tradition
for almost all Eastern Orthodox clergy.

Today’s Christianity has been shaped by a long and sig-
nifi cant history. Christianity is built on the foundation
of Judaism and uses Jewish words and concepts, but
over the fi rst few centuries C.E. it became a separate
religion and started drawing on Greek vocabulary to

express its more complex teachings. From Jesus’ death
and resurrection until today, his teachings have spread
throughout the world. This section will tell the high
points of this story and introduce the teachings, rituals,
and diverse groups of Christianity along the way.

The Life,

Death, and

Resurrection

of Jesus

Christ (ca. 4

B.C.E.–30 C.E.)

The primary sources for
knowledge of Jesus are the
four canonical Gospels—
Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John—in the New
Testament. A number
of noncanonical sources
written in the early 100s,

Symbols of Christianity

The fi sh was an early infor-
mal symbol of Christianity.
It was connected to one of
Jesus’ miracles, multiply-
ing bread and fi sh to feed
a crowd. Later, the fi ve letters in the Greek word for fi sh,
transliterated into English as ichthus (ick-THOOS), became
an acronym for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” The fi sh is
still popular today as a symbol of Christianity, especially
among Protestants; one can often see it in jewelry and on
bumper stickers.

The cross on which Jesus
died is the predominant symbol
of Christianity, but it didn’t appear
as a symbol until sometime in the
300s. It was a fearsome image of
death by torture for most people
in the Roman Empire, which may
have delayed its adoption as a
symbol. Once it became possible
to symbolize Christianity with
the cross, it quickly became its universal symbol. The cross

symbolizes the whole of the faith, but it specifi cally repre-
sents Jesus’ death, which most Christians have believed is
the sacrifi cial basis of their salvation from sin. Many kinds
of symbolic crosses have developed over time. Some have
specifi c religious meaning, and others are culturally associ-
ated with certain groups—the Celtic cross in Irish Roman
Catholic Christianity, for example, or the Russian cross for
Orthodox Christianity there.

The simplest and most-common Christian cross
is the Latin cross with its extended vertical beam. The
empty Latin cross, usually favored by most Protestants,
suggests the resurrection of the crucifi ed Jesus, when
his dead body was made eternally alive by the power of
God. The crucifi x, a Latin cross with a representation of
the body of Jesus on it, favored by Catholic and Orthodox
churches and a few Protestants, is a reminder of Christ’s
sacrifi ce. The Greek cross, with arms of equal length, is just
as ancient as the Latin cross and is found particularly in
Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The ritual action of making
the sign of the cross on one’s head and torso in prayer and
formal worship is one of the most common ritual acts for a
majority of

Christians.

A Closer Look:

resurrection Dead
body made eternally alive
by the power of Go

crucifix Latin cross with
a representation of the
body of Jesus on it

Gospel (GAHS-puhl)
“Good news” of salvation,
the Christian message;
early Christian book telling
the story of Jesus

New Testament The
Christian scriptural canon
consisting of twenty-
seven documents

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

258 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

notably the Gospel of Thomas, contain a few stories
about him and many more sayings attributed to him.
The material about Jesus in ancient non-Christian
sources, both Jewish and Roman, does not add substan-
tially to our knowledge of Jesus.

The chronology of the life of Jesus is slightly uncer-
tain in its details. Matthew places the birth of Jesus at
least two years before Herod the Great’s death late in
5 to 4 B.C.E. Luke connects Jesus’ birth with a Roman
census that probably occurred in 6 to 7 C.E. Most his-
torians incline to Matthew’s dating and place Jesus’
birth around 4 B.C.E. The church, following the Gospel
of John, usually supposes that Jesus had a public minis-
try of three years, but the other canonical Gospels may
portray a one-year ministry. Jesus’ death during the rule

of Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor of Judaea from 26 to
36 C.E., is most often placed
around the years 29 to 30.

Jesus’ encounter with John the Baptizer, the fi ery
Jewish prophet who preached repentance and bap-
tism in view of God’s coming kingdom or kingly rule,
marked the beginning of Jesus’ career. Jesus taught in
vivid parables (short stories about some aspect of life
in the rule of God) and performed miraculous heal-
ings. He traveled through Galilee and became a popu-
lar prophetic fi gure. He gathered twelve male Jewish
followers whom he called disciples, or “students”; the
church later called them apostles, those “sent out” by
Christ to be missionary leaders in the church. Women,
both married and unmarried, were also a prominent
part of his movement, highly unusual for the time.
Jesus’ attitude toward some aspects of the observance
of Jewish law—especially as the strict law-keeping
groups understood it—generated some confl ict with
groups such as the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed
in strict Sabbath rest and not associating closely with

“sinners” or with women not
one’s wife. The ruling Jewish
authorities also began to sus-
pect Jesus, but he probably
didn’t reach the attention of
the Roman rulers.

A triumphal entry to Jerusalem at Passover time
was the prelude to a fi nal crisis. After a last supper
with his twelve closest disciples, he was betrayed by

one of them, Judas Iscariot.
Jesus was arrested by the
Jewish temple authorities
and tried by the Sanhedrin
(Jewish council) and then
by Pilate, who condemned

him to death by crucifi xion, being nailed to a cross to
die an agonizing death. Christians everywhere believe
that three days after Jesus’ death, God raised him from
the dead to live eternally. The earliest church believed
that sometime after the resurrection—the Gospels dif-
fer on the precise timing—the risen Jesus ascended to
heaven, there to stay in power until his return at the
end of time.

Jesus preached the imminent coming of God’s king-
dom (or full rule) to the earth and said that it has both a
future and a present reality. His teachings and miracles
pointed to and explained this kingdom. His disciples
recognized him at some point in his ministry or shortly
after it as the Messiah, although the Gospels indicate
that Jesus did not often call himself that. He was mainly
called “prophet” and “teacher.” Jesus characteristically
used the term Son of Man (though mysteriously in the
third person) when talking about his own suffering
and death, and at other times his role as God’s agent of
judgment at the end of time. This title is derived from
Daniel 7:13 in the Jewish Bible, where “one like a son
of man” represents the oppressed people of God, then
ascends to heaven to be vindicated by God.

Jesus called social and religious

outcastes to repentance and faith, healed

their diseases, and restored them to

membership in the people of Israel.

Jesus’ teaching was critical of both Jewish and
(implicitly) Greco-Roman society, saying that they fell
far short of God’s rule. Jesus encouraged the poor and
oppressed, but rejected violent revolution. To Jesus, the
social and religious outcastes of society (lepers, crimi-
nals, prostitutes, Jews who collected taxes for Rome, and
others) were the special objects of God’s love. He called
them to repentance and faith, healed their diseases of
mind and body, and restored them to membership in the
people of Israel. Jesus taught that God desires the salva-
tion (divine forgiveness leading to restored relationship
with God and the people of God) of the marginalized
more than the righteousness of those who constantly
obey God, a teaching that has proved a continual chal-
lenge for the church. Jesus’ embrace of outsiders also
seems to have included the Samaritans, whom most
other Jews regarded as terrible people. (We’ll consider
Jesus’ teaching more fully later, in “Christian Ethics.”)

apostles Those “sent
out” by Christ to be
missionary leaders in
the churc

259T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

Modern scholarship has delved fully
into the Gospel accounts. Christianity has
attracted a good deal of scholarly analy-
sis by a variety of academic methods, and
scholars have made research into the his-
torical Jesus the largest single enterprise
in religious scholarship. What scholars
call “the quest for the historical Jesus”
has been going strong for more than two
centuries and shows no sign of lessening.
In general, scholars agree on the main
lines of Jesus’ life and teaching. They
are divided over other issues:

● Did Jesus intend to found a
church? Jesus gathered a com-
munity of followers around himself.
This community continued after his
time, regarding itself as the special
gathering of God’s people. But many scholars
doubt that Jesus intended to begin the organiza-
tion that was later called the “church,” with its
formal organization.

● Did Jesus intend his gospel to be addressed to
Jews only? In the Gospels, Gentiles (the Jewish
term for non-Jews) appear only occasionally, but
often in a positive light. Jesus’ choice of twelve
Jewish men as his closest disciples is an indication
that his movement was mainly an inner-Jewish
thing. Because welcoming Gentiles into the church
caused such intense debate less than ten years after
Jesus’ departure, it’s clear that Jesus didn’t speak
about this matter.

● How did Jesus understand his relation
to the coming of the kingdom of God?
Scholars disagree about whether Jesus
merely proclaimed the kingdom/rule
of God, whether he embodied it, or
something in between. To what extent
did the events of his life, death, and
resurrection make the kingdom/rule of
God a reality for his followers?

The Earliest Church

(30 C.E.–100 C.E.)

The earliest church in Jerusalem was ini-
tially composed of those Jews who had
followed Jesus during his ministry, per-
haps one hundred people in all. They saw

themselves as a continuing reform movement within
Judaism. In a few days after Jesus’ departure from
earth, the early church experienced on the Jewish feast
of Pentecost an outpouring of the Spirit of God to
empower it for its continued ministry.

Paul is criticized today by some

Christians for his socially conservative

statements, but in his own time he was

criticized for being too liberal.

Pilgrims at the Stone of Unction, the place where tradition says the
body of Jesus was washed before his burial, in the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher (tomb) in

Jerusale

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“Garden Tomb” in Jerusalem, a favorite location believed by some
Protestants to be the tomb of Jesus

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260 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

Saul—or as he was known after his conversion,
Paul—was a Pharisee who zealously and violently
persecuted the earliest church. Born at Tarsus (TAR-
suhs) in southern Asia Minor (present-day Turkey),
he had come to Jerusalem as a student of the famous
Rabbi Gamaliel and had tried to suppress a Christian
group called by Luke the “Hellenists,” who were led
by Stephen, the fi rst Christian to be killed for the
faith. While on the road to Damascus to persecute
the followers of Jesus, Paul was suddenly, dramati-
cally converted to faith in Christ. In this conversion,
or soon afterward, he came to a conviction that the
Gospel must be spread among the Gentiles without
a requirement that they become Jews as well. Paul
was a controversial fi gure throughout his career.
Although he is criticized today by some for his
conservative statements about women and slaves,
in his own time he was criticized for being far too
inclusivist, even liberal. He gained recognition in
the Jerusalem church for Gentile converts. He saw
clearly that the universal mission of the church to all
humanity, implicit in the coming of Christ, meant a
radical break with many of the rabbinical traditions
in which he had previously lived. Paul worked tire-
lessly as a missionary, founded dozens of churches
in strategically located cities, and became known as
“the Apostle to the Gentiles.”

Because of the preservation of several of his let-
ters to his churches, we know a good deal about
Paul. He didn’t write so much about Jesus’ earthly
life and teaching, but made the death and resurrec-
tion of Jesus the center of his proclamation. The cru-
cifi xion of Jesus was the supreme redemptive act, a
self-sacrifi ce for the sin of humankind. Salvation is a
gift of grace, and in baptism the Holy Spirit comes to
transform the new Christian. Paul linked this doctrine
of justifi cation with his strong view that the Gospel
brings liberation from the Mosaic Law, especially for
Gentiles. Justifi cation brings freedom, not from parts
of the Mosaic Law such as the Ten Commandments
as a whole, but from parts that particularly mark
Jewish identity—for example, keeping Jewish food
regulations, observing the last day of the week for
mandatory rest, and especially by being circumcised.

This created diffi culties at
Jerusalem, where many
followers of Jesus wanted
to see the heritage of
Judaism continued. Once
this struggle was settled,
the radical character of

Paul’s doctrine of justifi ca-
tion began to be forgotten in
the church, where salvation
became a matter of both faith
and obedience to God’s law.

All the Gospels record a special commission of
Jesus to Peter as the leader among the twelve disciples,
but Peter’s life can only be partially reconstructed.
He was a key leader in the earliest Jerusalem church
until James, a close relative of Jesus, became its leader.
We know from Paul’s letters that Peter did mission-
ary work in the Gentile world. Two letters in the
New Testament bear his name, but many scholars are
doubtful about their authorship by Peter, especially
the second letter. According to early tradition, Peter
died in Nero’s persecution in 64 C.E., probably at
the same time when Paul was killed. Later traditions
say that he was crucifi ed, at his request, upside down,
because he wasn’t worthy to die the same way that
Jesus did. Peter was probably buried in a cemetery
on the Vatican Hill across the Tiber River in the out-
skirts of Rome; later, Constantine would build a large
church on the site, a church that was replaced by the
present St. Peter’s Basilica. Rome had gotten the bones
of Peter and Paul, which helped to ensure its leading
role in the Western church.

The Ancient Period

(100–500 C.E.)

Although Christian tradition focuses on Peter and
Paul, it is certain that many other missionaries also
contributed to the growth of Christianity by plant-
ing churches. Some churches, most prominently that
at Rome, seem to have begun without any formal
mission effort. By 100 C.E., Christianity had estab-
lished itself in every large and mid-sized city in the
eastern half of the Roman Empire (see Map 11.1).
In the next two centuries, Christian churches were
founded throughout the whole Roman Empire and
even beyond it. These were all house churches, groups
of Christians who met in private homes (“church”
here refers an association of people, not a building).
Ancient Christianity experienced rapid growth for a
variety of reasons:

● The struggle over whether to allow Gentiles to
join the church without converting to Judaism was
quickly settled for most members of the earliest
churches.

justification Salvation
as being made right with
God, for Paul a gift of God

261T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

30°N

40°N

50°N

60°N

0° 10°E

0°W

20°E 30°E 40°E

50°E

GOTHS

FRISIANS
(690–739)

PICTS
(St. Columba, ca. 521–597)

ANGLO-
SAXONS
(597–670)

IRISH
(St. Patrick, 385?–461?)

LOMBARDS
(5th & 7th cen.)

VANDALS
(409–429)

SAXONS
(787–805)

Whitby

Cologne
Reims

Cannes
Nursi

Athens Ephesus

Chalcedon

Sinope

Nicaea

Antioch

Seleuc

Ctesiphon

Damascus

Jerusalem

Syracuse

Milan

Tarragona

Caesarea

Córdoba

Ligugé

Par

Tours

Narbonne

Rome Constantinople

Hippo
Regius

Naples

Corinth
Tarsus

Cyrene

Alexandria

Memphis

Toledo

Marseilles

Carthage

Lyons
St. Gall

Rou

Iona

Tara

Armagh

Canterbury
Aix-la-

Chapelle

Sic

ily

Crete

Cyprus

Corsica

Sardinia

C A U C A S U S M T S .

THRACE

GERMANY

SPAIN

BRITAIN

GAUL

IRELAND

ARMEN

SYRIA

EGYPT

N O R T H A F R I C A

Elbe R.

Ebro R.

R
hi

ne
R

Don
R.

Dnieper R.

Tigris R.

Euphrates R.

Volga R.

Danube
R.

Nile R.

M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

N o r t h
S e a

B l a c k S e a

Red

Sea

Caspian

Sea

A T L A N T I C
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N T I CA T L A N T
C E A NO C E

Converted to Christianity
(341–381), followed by
migration to Spain and Italy

Christianity introduced in
Britain by Romans in
3rd century, nearly lost
during Anglo-Saxon
invasion

Converted to Islam,
7th century

N
0

0 250 500 M

250 500 Km.

50°N 50°E

Don
R.RR

Dnieii pe er R.RR

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t d t Ch i ti it

Extent of Christianity, ca. 300

Areas Christianized, 300– 600

Areas Christianized, 600–800

Centers of Christian diffusion

(Dates indicate period of conversion to Christianity)

Northern part of Islamic world, ca. 750

E
60°N

● Much of church life was dedicated to making
converts and assimilating them into the close-knit
social structure of the Christian community.

● Christianity offered things that many people
in the ancient world were seeking: a meaning
for life and purpose for living greater than
what Roman religion and philosophy could
provide, happiness in this world, the promise
of eternal life, a higher religious standing for
women and slaves, and a loving social-support
network.

● Unlike other religions in the Roman world,
Christianity made a broad appeal to people of all
ethnicities, classes, and genders, which gave it a
wide fi eld for conversion and growth.

As Christianity spread among Gentiles, it con-
tinued to grow out of its early status as a Jewish
group. By the end of the fi rst century, many Jewish
leaders began to decree that Jews confessing Jesus to
be Messiah should be expelled from synagogues. As
Christians began to outnumber Jews in some cities,
Christian pressure on Jews began, only to increase

2
0

1
3

Map 11.1
The Spread of Christianity to about 800 C.E.
Christianity arose in Palestine in the fi rst century C.E. and gradually gained footholds in parts of western Asia,

North Africa, and southern Europe by 300 C.E. Over the next fi ve centuries, Christianity became the dominant religion in
much of Western and Central Europe, and expanded its infl uence in western Asia and North Africa. By about 750, Islam
had conquered much of the Middle East and all of North Africa and Spain, and Christian populations in most of these
areas were reduced.

262 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

in 313 when the state perse-
cution of Christianity ended.
Thus began a bitter legacy of
Christian anti- Semitism, prej-
udice against the Jewish people

that has haunted the Western
world through our own time. Christianity did not
invent anti-Semitism—it was hundreds of years old
by the time Christianity was born—but it added its
own twist to it. The church understood itself, and was
understood by most Jews, to be Gentile. By around
400 C.E., historians generally agree today, the separa-
tion between Judaism and Christianity was complete.
Judaism and Christianity are sister faiths, but like most
family feuds, their confl ict has been intense and sad.
However, Christianity remains built on the foundation
of Judaism. They share much of the same Bible, mono-
theism, a moral code, and similar patterns of worship.

Judaism and Christianity are sister faiths,

but like most family feuds, their ongoing

conflict has been intense and sad.

As Christianity grew, it also challenged the Roman
Empire. During the fi rst century, this challenge was
muted. But at the end of the fi rst century, with the out-
break of imperial persecutions of Christians, Christianity
challenged the legitimacy of the empire and the Roman
religious ideology with which it was allied. Christians
believed—and acted on the belief—that Jesus, not

Caesar, is the Lord of this
world. This led to even
more Roman persecutions
and the martyrdom of
Christians. Persecution was
sporadic but often fi erce,
especially in the late 200s,
in an effort at times to kill
off all Christians. Romans
also countered Christianity
in an informal, popular way
by charging that Christians
practiced secret cannibal-
ism, were sexually immoral,
and were intolerant of oth-
ers, among other claims.
However, Roman persecu-
tion didn’t stem the rise of

Christianity. As one church
leader at this time remarked,
“The blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church.”

Some groups in the church were labeled

“heretical” because they were too

doctrinally conservative and morally

rigorous—almost too “Christian” for other

Christians.

The church was also challenged from within by
heresy, the church’s characterization of organized inter-
nal opposition. Like most new religions, it took time for
diversity to arise and become controversial. Some alter-
native churches arose in the second century, and in some
areas they outnumbered what was becoming mainstream
Christianity. The movement known as Gnosticism

anti-Semitism
Prejudice against the
Jewish people

martyrdom Death of
Christians for the faith,
especially as an act of
witness to others

heresy The church’s
characterization of
organized internal
opposition

Gnosticism Religious
movement that believed
this world is evil because
it is material

S
K

E
TC

H
F

R
O

M
R

. G
A

R
R

U
C

C
I,

T
O

R
IA

D
EL

L’

A
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TE
C

H
R

IS
T

A
N

IE
P

R
IM

O
T

TO
S

EC
O

LI
D

EL
LA

C
H

IE
SA


P

R
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TO
, I

, 1
8

8
1

.

Graffi to of a Christian youth in Rome saluting a cruci-
fi ed fi gure with a human body and an ass’s head. The
Greek inscription reads, “Alexamenos worships God.”
This anti-Christian drawing from about 200 C.E. may
be the earliest depiction of the crucifi xion of Jesus.

263T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

or Gnostic Christianity believed that this
material world is evil and hostile to the
good. As Christianity defi ned itself in
the second century against Judaism,
Roman imperial religion, Gnosticism,
and other movements, orthodoxy
gradually arose, with its emphasis
on correct teaching of the essentials
of the faith and (to a lesser extent)
correct moral practice. This effort to
achieve and preserve correct teaching
has characterized much of Christianity
ever since. Gnosticism and other dissent-
ing groups within ancient Christianity
used to be viewed and studied as
corruptions of divine truths, but
today historians study them more
objectively as alternative forms
of Christianity. Some “heretics”
were given this label because
they were more doctrinally con-
servative and morally rigorous than
the mainstream church—almost too
“Christian” for other Christians. The most able oppo-
nent of heresy was Irenaeus, the second-century bishop
of Lyon, in modern-day France. Irenaeus defi ned heresy

as a signifi cant departure from
the Bible and the rule of faith,
a move away from the center
of the faith in
Jesus Christ.

Emperor Constantine’s tolera-
tion of Christianity in 312 ushered
in a new era in the faith, one that
many historians view as lasting
until the twentieth century. This
era featured the close associa-
tion of church and state, often
called Constantinianism.
Constantine and later emper-
ors saw religious unity and
peace as important for their
rule; there was one God, one
Church, and one Emperor.
By moving his capital to
Constantinople in north-
ern Asia Minor, Emperor
Constantine created a new
culture that attempted to
preserve the best of ancient
Greece and Rome and yet
transform it through the

Christian faith. The
Eastern Orthodox

branch of
C h r i s t i a n i t y,
and the many
nations it has
shaped, is the
continuation
of this effort.

F i n a l l y ,
this period saw
the beginnings
of Christian
monasticism in
the 200s. It was

modeled on
s c r i p t u r a l
e x a m p l e s
and ideals,
including the life of Jesus, but monas-
ticism isn’t mentioned in the Bible or

based on a direct Jewish precedent. Those
living the monastic life are known by the

generic terms monks and nuns. Monks began by liv-
ing alone, at fi rst in the Egyptian desert. As more peo-
ple took on the lives of monks, they started to come
together and form communities, usually living by the
threefold vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
When the great persecutions ceased with Constantine,

the rigorous self-denials of monasti-
cism, such as celibacy (no sexual
activity), were seen as a substitute
for martyrdom. Monastics gener-
ally dwell in a monastery (monks)
or a convent (nuns). Monks
became the bearers of civiliza-
tion in the Western church. They
preserved the Christian Bible and
the literary and some of the sci-
entifi c heritage of Rome, which
would have perished for lack of
manuscript copying and study.
Unlike the fi rst Christian monks,
they worked in their monasteries
and convents as a part of their
monastic calling to support them-
selves. By the Middle Ages, many
Catholic monasteries enjoyed vast
properties,
w e a l t h ,
and social
power.

orthodoxy Emphasis
on correct teaching of the
essentials of the faith and
(to a lesser extent) moral
practice

Constantinianism
(CON-stan-TIN-ee-uhn-iz-
uhm) Close association of
church and state, named
after Constantine, for the
promotion of religious
and civil unity

monasticism Christian
monks and nuns living in
community

The head of a statue of Constantine,
more than four feet tall, suggests his
importance in Roman history.

Nun in traditional clothing, praying
the rosary

TO
C

K
P
H
O
TO
.C
O
M

/R
A

P
ID

E
Y

E
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

264 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

Byzantine,

Medieval, and

Renaissance

Christianity

(500–1500)

The Eastern Roman Empire,
also called the Byzantine
Empire, with its capital of
Constantinople, lasted for more
than a thousand years from its
creation by Constantine in 330
to the Turkish Muslim con-
quest in 1453. The traditional
power of Byzantine emper-
ors over the church was cur-
tailed after the Iconoclastic
Controversy that began in 726.
This controversy was caused by
the attempt of some emperors to
remove the two-dimensional pic-
tures of Jesus and the saints from churches, ending the
veneration of these icons during worship. The emperors’
iconoclasm was in part an effort to cope with Islam’s
attack on Christianity for what it called idolatrous use of
images. In both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic
Christianity, worship is offered only to God, with vener-
ation for the saints. Muslims did not agree with this dis-
tinction. Leading monks and several empresses resisted
the emperors and their allies in the church, and icons
were eventually restored. The controversy over images
cemented their place as an essential element of the Eastern

Orthodox identity. Today,
every Orthodox church has
an iconostasis, a screen or
wall of icons, between the
people and the altar. To
the Orthodox, icons rep-
resent the reality of God’s
presence in the person of
Jesus Christ and the impor-
tance for the church of the
saints in heaven. When the
controversy ended in 843,
the power of the church
to direct its own doctrine
and worship was strength-
ened. The controversy also
strengthened the tendency
of Eastern Orthodoxy to
defi ne itself by its worship

and devotion rather than, as in Western Christianity
(both Roman Catholicism and the Protestantism to arise
later), by institution and doctrine.

Eastern Orthodox missionaries preserved

indigenous cultures to a degree that

Roman Catholic missionaries didn’t.

Byzantine Christianity also carried out missionary
activity, especially to its north. The peoples of what are
now Bulgaria, Russia, and Moravia were converted
to Christianity in the 800s, Hungary in the 900s, and
Poland in the 900s to the 1100s. Orthodox missions
tried to preserve indigenous cultures. Missionaries
translated the Bible and the rituals of the church into
the language of the peoples. In the Catholic West, Latin
was the main language of the church and the only lan-
guage of the Bible. Slavic Orthodoxy, particularly in
Russia, which thought of itself as “the third Rome,”
was to carry on the Christian heritage of Byzantium
when the eastern Roman Empire fi nally fell to Muslim
forces in 1453.

In the Latin West, the bishop of Rome, the pope, set
the tone for the continuing development of Christianity.
By the end of the ancient period of Christianity, the
popes had already asserted their leadership over much

Iconoclastic
Controversy (eye-con-
oh-CLASS-tick) Struggle
in Eastern Orthodoxy
over removing pictures of
Jesus and the saints from
churches

iconostasis (eye-con-
oh-STAH-sis) Screen or
wall of icons at the front
of Eastern Orthodox
churches, between the
people and the altar

pope Bishop of Rome,
the head of the Roman
Catholic Church

Russian icon depicting Mary and the child Jesus. The abbreviations
are “Mother of God” above and “Jesus Christ” below.

P
H
O
TO

C
O

U
R
T
E
S
Y
P
H
O
TO
S8
.C
O
M
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

265T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

of Christianity. When the western Roman Empire fell in
the fi fth century, the pope came to be the main embodi-
ment of faith and cultural unity for Western Europe.
Over time the pope extended his spiritual and even polit-
ical power over many of the European states. Gradually,
the infl uence of Rome spread across the entire western
half of the European continent. At the same time, the
Western church’s relations with the Eastern Orthodox
churches worsened, until the two formally split in 1054
over doctrinal, cultural, and political issues. This divi-
sion still endures today. Many Christians suppose that
the Catholic-Protestant split in Western Christianity is

the most problematic, but the
split between East and West is
earlier and in many ways more
diffi cult to overcome.

Medieval Christianity in the West expressed itself
not only through the pope, bishop, and priest, but also
through the monk and friar. Medieval reformers within
the Catholic Church, such as Bernard of Clairvaux and
Pope Gregory VII, were friars (members of the new
monastic orders that arose in the twelfth century, as
opposed to the monks in the older monastic orders).
Most of the theologians who systematized and devel-
oped Christian doctrine in the high Middle Ages, such as
Anselm of Canterbury, England, and Thomas Aquinas
(ah-QUIGH-nahs), were monastics. In his major work
from 1265 to 1273, Aquinas made a comprehensive
overview of Christian theology from the vantage point
of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s newly
rediscovered thinking and became the most infl uential
theologian in Roman Catholicism from that point on.
Some of the new movements preached the Gospel to the
people in churches and outdoors. Through this reform,

the life of the whole Catholic Church was
enriched and renewed. Another feature of
the later Middle Ages was the building of
cathedrals, usually one in each large city
throughout Europe, in the new Gothic
style that seemed to soar to heaven.

Both Eastern and Western Christianity
were forced during this period to come
to grips with the rising power of Islam.
From its beginning in 622, Islam spread
rapidly in the Middle East (see pages 295-
299). Soon, almost all the Middle East
and North Africa was Islamic. Christian
minorities lived somewhat peaceably
under Islamic rule, protected by Islamic
law, but they dwindled in number. Islam
continued to press on the Byzantine
Empire until, in 1453, Constantinople

itself became a Muslim city and its cathedral, the
Church of Holy Wisdom (Greek: Hagia Sophia),
became a mosque. The main confrontation of Western
Christianity with Islam was to be in the long period of
the Crusades (1095–1350), when Christian forces from
all over Europe retook Palestine
from the Muslims, an effort
that eventually failed and dam-
aged Muslim-Christian rela-
tions through today.

At the end of the Middle Ages, beginning around
1400, life in Western Christianity began to be renewed
in the Renaissance, the “rebirth” of classical Greco-
Roman cultural ideals in art, architecture, philoso-
phy, and literature. Some Renaissance scholars called
the church back “to the foundations” in the New
Testament and the ancient church. The Renaissance
examined received institutions and teachings, not
trusting in tradition for tradition’s sake or author-
ity for authority’s sake, as had largely been the case
in the Middle Ages. It promoted a more human-
centered view of life—usually a Christian humanism,
but sometimes not—in place of the medieval heaven-
centered view. Renaissance art, for example, more
realistically portrayed saints and ordinary people on
earth. The Christian humanism of Desiderius Erasmus
(DEH-sih-DAIR-ee-uhs er-ASS-muhs) of Rotterdam
(1466–1536), the lead-
ing fi gure of the Northern
Renaissance, prodded the
church (both Protestant
and Catholic) into self-
examination and even-
tual reform. But not every

The 2008 inauguration of Dmitry Medvedev (in background with his wife)
as president of Russia included a ceremony at a Russian Orthodox Church.

W
W

W
.K

R
E

M
LI

N
.R

U
.

friar Member of the new
monastic orders that arose
in the twelfth century, as
opposed to the monks in
the older monastic orders

266 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

aspect of the Renaissance would prove to be positive.
For example, it hastened the rise of nationalism and
ended the medieval Catholic ideal of a Europe united
by a common faith.

Reformation in the Western

Church (1500–1600)

Movements for the reform of church teaching and
practice were prevalent in the later Middle Ages. This
reform usually expressed itself through the other tra-
ditional structures of the Catholic Church. Where
occasionally reform expressed itself outside of or even
against the Catholic Church, as for example in the
cases of John Wycliffe (WIHK-liff; 1329–1384) and
his movement in England and John Hus (1373–1415)
in Bohemia, it was declared heretical and stamped out
by force.

The Magisterial Reformation, or mainstream
reform, began with Martin Luther (LOO-thur). He
led an effective reform movement against the structure
of the traditional church. Luther (1483–1546) was an
Augustinian friar, a priest, and a professor at Wittenberg
University in east-central Germany. Like all would-be
reformers before him, Luther initially saw himself as a
loyal son of the Church. In 1517, he called for a public
debate over reform issues by posting his Ninety-Five
Theses (propositions) on the door of the castle church
in Wittenberg. The immediate complaint Luther had
was the selling of indulgences, certifi cates securing the
forgiveness of punishment in the next world, to raise
funds for the present St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He
found the idea of buying and selling salvation unbibli-
cal, corrupt, and even ludicrous.

Luther soon found himself so at odds with the
Roman Catholic Church that he moved to create an
alternative church that he called the Evangelical (charac-
terized by the Gospel of Christ) Church; after his death,

others began to call it the
Lutheran Church. Popes,
bishops, monks, and nuns
were done away with in
this church. He envisioned
Germany, and probably
other nations as well, as
having its own more indig-
enous forms of Christianity.
He translated the Bible into
German, put hymns and
worship into the language
of the people, and reformed
the Mass. Evangelical

Christians were urged to receive Holy Communion
every week, in contrast to the once-a-year Catholic
practice in the Middle Ages. Luther and his followers
moved to put the Gospel, the essential religious message
of Jesus Christ, at the center of Christianity. Luther saw
the center of the Gospel in the doctrine of salvation by
faith alone. He also stressed the central role of God’s
love and grace; the sole authority of the Bible over the
Church; and the role of the individual Christian’s con-
science. Over time, faith took precedence over moral
activity in Protestantism and still has precedence today.
Reformers devalued the role of the saints and their
power to intercede with God for Christians on earth.
When Luther and his movement were protected and
then promoted by the rulers of several German states,
Protestantism gained a foothold that would enable
it to endure and spread to other parts of Germany.
By 1600, the Lutheran reform
had taken over much of
Germany and all of Scandinavia
(see Map 11.2).

What historians call the Radical Reformation
arose in tandem with the Magisterial Reformation,
during the 1520s in Zurich, Switzerland. Conrad
Grebel (GRAY-buhl) and the Swiss Brethren move-
ment insisted that the mainstream reform of Luther

Magisterial
Reformation
Mainstream Protestant
reform that began with
Martin Luther

Radical Reformation
Branch of the Protestant
Reformation that wanted
radical reforms to
restore “New Testament
Christianity”

A
R

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A

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A
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K
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TO

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267T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

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268 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

and others was inconsistent and halfhearted. They
argued for what they saw as pure “New Testament
Christianity,” including:

● Baptism of adult believers only, after a conversion
experience

● Complete separation of the church from the civil
government

● Pacifi sm, with refusal to be drafted for warfare

● Common ownership of some property

● Strict church enforcement of Christian morality
among church members

They soon became known as Anabaptists, “rebaptiz-
ers,” but over time the name was simplifi ed to Baptists.
In the 1520s, the movement spread through Switzerland
and later found a home in many Protestant lands.
Eventually, the Baptists became the most widespread
Protestant church, even spreading to lands such as
Russia, where other Protestant churches could not pen-
etrate. Anabaptists and later Baptists kept their leading
emphasis on the baptism of believing adults only, but
other Anabaptist groups such as the Mennonites and
Amish preserved pacifi sm and detachment from civil
authority until today.

The Reformed (Calvinist) branch of Protestantism
was, like the Anabaptists, born in the political world of
the Swiss city-republics. (All Protestant churches were
“reformed” from Roman Catholicism, and the movement
is called the Reformation, but the churches born of the
Calvinist branch of the Reformation have called themselves
in particular the “Reformed Church.”) Huldreich Zwingli
(HUHLD-righk TSVING-lee) began the Reformed move-
ment in Zurich, but in the next three decades it shifted
to Berne, Basel, and especially French-speaking Geneva.
There, the Frenchman John Calvin (1509–1564), who
had studied law and theology at the University of Paris,
reformed the city to Protestant ideals. He stressed (in addi-
tion to Luther’s main ideas) such teachings as the sover-

eignty of God over all life
and human responsibility to
live out one’s Christian call-
ing in everyday life. Calvin
carried out social reforms
that became common in
the Western world, such as
levying a tax to support free
compulsory public educa-
tion for all children. Geneva
became a haven for perse-
cuted Protestants from many
places in Europe.

Like Luther, Calvin wrote prolifi cally, and soon his
ideas for reform spread widely. He was known espe-
cially as a systematizer and promoter of Protestant
Christianity. His book The Institutes [Foundations]
of the Christian Religion soon became the most infl u-
ential book of Protestantism. Calvin’s infl uence in the
Reformed movement was so great that it also became
known in later centuries as Calvinism. Calvinist
churches were found by the end of the century not only
in Switzerland, but also in France (where Calvinists were
called Huguenots [HYOO-guh-nots]), the Netherlands,
Germany, Hungary, and Scotland.

The name Puritan has come to mean
“killjoy” or even “self-righteous,” but

Puritanism wasn’t like this.

Reformation came to England by way of poli-
tics. In the 1520s, King Henry VIII opposed the pope
over the king’s right to divorce and remarry. In 1529,
Henry began forming a Church of England under his
control, which was to become a “middle way” between
Catholics and Protestants, especially in worship and
organization. Its doctrine eventually was closer to
the teaching of the Reformers than to that of Rome.
Henry’s daughter Mary tried to bring England back to
the Roman Church by a variety of means, some so vio-
lent that they earned her the name “Bloody Mary,” but
by the reign of Henry’s younger daughter Elizabeth I,
one of the most important monarchs ever to sit on
the English throne, the Church of England was fi rmly
established. English monarchs were made the head of
the Church of England and “Defender of the Faith,”
which explains why in 2011 the wedding of Prince
William (the presumptive eventual heir to the throne)
and Katherine Middleton was held in formal Anglican
style, offi ciated by the head of the Anglican Church.

In 1620, the Reformed movement came to America
via the English Protestants called Puritans, because
they wanted to purify the Church of England from its
continuing Roman Catholic elements. The name Puritan
has come to mean “killjoy” or even “self- righteous,”
but Puritanism wasn’t like this. Of all religious groups,
the Puritans were to have the largest infl uence on
the development of American government. As David
Hall says in his 2011 book, A Reforming People,
Puritanism was the most daring and successful reform

Anabaptists
“Rebaptizers,” members of
the Radical Reformation
group that accepted only
adult baptism

Puritans English
Protestants who wanted
to purify the Church
of England from its
continuing Roman
Catholic elements

269T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

movement in the English-
speaking world during
early modern times.1

The Catholic
Reform was in
the past called
the Counter-
Reformation, and
that term is still
used by some.
When his initial
measures against
Protestants didn’t
prove effective,
the pope fi nally
called a council of
bishops and theo-
logians in 1545
at Trent, Italy, to
consider church reform.
Widespread reforms
of Catholic Church life emerged from Trent, and many
of the more-glaring abuses were removed. With the help
of the new Jesuit order, these reforms were carried out in
nations and regions that were still predominantly Roman
Catholic. Even there the reforms of Trent were subject
to national policy; for example, France rejected them as
too conservative and intrusive, and Spain—which often
viewed itself as more Catholic than the pope—resisted
them as too liberal. For areas that had already become
mostly Protestant, about half of Europe above the Alps,
the reforms of Trent were “too little, too late.” Once
nations became Protestant, they didn’t return to Rome.
Other parts of the Catholic Reformation were a revival
of mysticism, especially in Spain, and a new focus on the
system of Thomas Aquinas as a mighty fortress against
Protestant thought. In all, the Roman Church emerged
from the 1500s severely chastened in numbers and polit-
ical infl uence, but strengthened in spirit.

Meanwhile, events in the New
World were proving a bright
spot in the fortunes of Roman
Catholicism. When Spain and
later Portugal explored and then
colonized the New World in the
Western Hemisphere, Roman
Catholic missionaries accom-
panied them. They conquered

1 David D. Hall, A Reforming People: Puritanism and the
Transformation of Public Life in New England (New York: Knopf,
2011).

together “for God and for gold.” The indig-
enous peoples of Central and South America

were quickly brought into the Christian
faith. Spanish cultural, military, and

religious outposts called missions
were constructed; then thousands

of churches were built for the
indigenous peoples; and even-
tually monasteries and nun-

neries were established for
them. A few priests and
bishops protested the
high cost of coloniza-
tion to the indigenous
peoples, even founding
a “Jesuit state” in what
is now Peru (a story
told in the acclaimed
1985 fi lm The Mission),

but to no avail. Although
the Roman Church lost

many lands in Europe in the 1500s, it gained much in the
Americas, where Roman Catholicism is still strong.

The Early Modern Period

(1600–1900)

Because of the settled and more tolerant situation
after the “wars of religion” ended around 1648, each
Protestant church and the Roman Catholic Church occu-
pied its own parts of Europe, and Protestant teachings
were articulated more fully. Confessionalism, named for
the doctrinal statements called “confessions” issued by
the various Reformation churches, brought a drive for
doctrinal correctness as the most important aspect of
church life. Scholasticism stressed the rational explana-
tion and defense of the various Protestant belief systems.

The reaction against arid confessionalism and scho-
lasticism wasn’t slow in
coming. When the several
dimensions of religion
that we saw in Chapter
1 are reduced to just a
few, reaction will set in.
Pietism arose in the last
half of the seventeenth
century, born with Philip
Jakob Spener’s (SPAY-
ner) Pious Considerations
in 1675. Spener rebelled
against the Protestant

Catholic Reform
Movement that was in the
past called the Counter-
Reformation, spurred on
by the 1545 Council of
Trent

Pietism (PIGH-uh-tiz-
um) Protestant movement
stressing individual
piety, in knowledge and
emotion

Spanish mission in Santa Barbara, California. Today, an active
parish church meets in its chapel (right), and the mission is
one of the largest tourist attractions in Santa Barbara.

/S
A

N
TA

B
A

R
B

A
R

A
M

IS
S

IO
N

270 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

orthodoxy of his day, which he viewed as sterile and
lifeless. He proposed a continuing Reformation to bring
the goals of Luther to fulfi llment: personal Bible study,
mutual correction and encouragement in Christian liv-
ing, spiritual growth for all laity, and stress on emotional
dimensions of faith. Pietists formed separate churches
in many Lutheran and Reformed nations. The leader-
ship of the Lutheran churches tried to suppress Pietism,
but it soon became a major movement. Like Anabaptist
churches before them, Pietism lead to gathered churches,
not state churches to which all citizens belonged. English
Puritanism also had its Pietist aspects, and the Methodist
movement that emerged from the Church of England
was Pietist as well. Even in the Roman Catholic Church,
the Jansenist movement in France and then in North
America promoted personal piety and holy living among
the laity.

In the 1700s, Pietism took on the major goal of
counteracting the infl uence on Christianity of the
Enlightenment, the period of secularization of culture
led by reason and not faith. The Enlightenment’s ratio-
nalism and “free thinking” were easier for the church
to deal with when they were aggressively atheistic, as
in the French Revolution. But when the Enlightenment
led to more-subtle changes in the church itself, such
as the introduction of modern historical sciences and
their application to the Bible and theology, the effect
on Christianity was more profound. Especially in
Protestant faculties of German universities, the accep-
tance of these new methods of scholarship led some to
question the Christian faith. The concurrent discovery
of other religions, especially the ancient religions of Asia,
led to a questioning of the uniqueness and absoluteness
of Christianity, a questioning that continues today. The
Enlightenment’s effort to separate church and state, and
the ideas of religious toleration and the freedom asso-
ciated with it, would succeed throughout Western and
Northern Europe, but most fully in the United States.
Constantinianism was rapidly losing ground.

The nineteenth century saw the challenge of secu-
lar reason continue. Historical scholarship, particu-

larly the historical study
of the Bible, continued
to chip away at some of
the old certainties of the
Christian faith. Even more
challenging to traditional
belief were discoveries in
natural science. The work
of the evolutionary biolo-
gist Charles Darwin called
into question the ancient

Christian beliefs in the special creation of humanity
in the image of God. Although Protestant churches
were more directly and immediately affected by the
Enlightenment and its heirs, which produced both secu-
larism outside the church and doctrinal change inside,
Roman Catholicism later saw its effects in the Catholic
Modernist movement. Not until the twentieth century
would Catholic, Protestant, and (to a lesser extent)
Eastern Orthodox churches come to grips with the
challenges of modern knowledge.

Despite these challenges, nineteenth-century Chris-
tianity was broadly optimistic about the prospects of
the Christian religion. The largest cause for optimism
was the powerful missionary movement that fl ourished
in the 1800s and continues somewhat lessened today.
Most of the churches of the West set out to evangelize
the entire world, or at least the large parts of it not yet
exposed to the gospel. (The Orthodox churches didn’t
participate signifi cantly in this missionary movement.)
In 1800, fewer than one in
four people in the world were
Christian; by 1900, one in three
were Christian. Although the
missionary and the colonial/
commercial agents marched
together, as they had often
done in the past, especially in
the New World, the nineteenth
century saw the beginning of
their separation. Christianity
fi nally became the global reli-
gion that “catholic” implies.

Modern Christianity

(1900–present)

The optimistic hope present in Western culture and the
church at the end of the 1800s went largely unfulfi lled.
The new era was one of severe crisis and challenge. The
carnage of World War I (1914–1918), the worldwide pan-
demic of infl uenza, and then global economic depression
began the movement away from cultural optimism. Then
the rise of aggressive, totalitarian regimes, fi rst in Russia
and then in Italy and Germany, led to the horrors of
World War II (1939–1945), with its massive civilian casu-
alties and the Holocaust. Even the end of the war brought
with it the new uncertainties of nuclear weapons and
the Cold War. All these events were to shake to its roots
Christian optimism in much of Protestantism and in parts
of Catholicism. The result for some was a loss of faith,
but for most a rethinking of the essence of Christianity.
In the United States, fundamentalism arose to oppose

fundamentalism
Movement in reaction
to Protestant liberalism
featuring strictly literal
interpretation of the
Bible and an insistence
on the truth of certain
“fundamental” Christian
teachings

271T H E C H R I S T I A N P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

liberalization of church doctrine. Fundamentalism fea-
tures a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible, an insis-
tence on the truth of certain key Christian teachings (the
“fundamentals” from which the movement takes its
name), and an aggressive attitude toward Christian liber-
alism specifi cally and toward unbelief generally.

This impulse against liberalism in the 1900s was
shared by others who were in no way fundamentalist. The
Swiss theologian Karl Barth (bart), who was to become
the most infl uential Christian theologian of the century,
turned away from liberal, optimistic Protestantism to
reassert the transcendent power of a faith that cannot
be shaped by human culture. The movement that Barth
(1886–1968) sparked came to be called “neoorthodoxy,”
a new assertion in modern times of traditional Christian
theology, especially in its Protestant form. (It has no
formal relationship with Eastern Orthodoxy, however.)
After World War II, this movement came to the English-
speaking world and had a direct effect on its theology
and life, as it still has today. Liberal, progressive theology
has continued in some parts of Protestantism, especially
in the mainstream denominations (Protestant churches
united in a single name and organization, such as the
Episcopal Church or the United Methodist Church),
although reduced in size and chastened in spirit from its
heyday around 1900.

While the theological reassessment occurred, a move-
ment for greater unity among the churches came into
prominence. Ecumenism, a movement for greater under-
standing and cooperation among Christian churches, had
been planted and nurtured in the mission fi elds of the
various Protestant churches, where missionaries learned
to minimize their denominational differences and coop-
erate together in the face of a non-Christian environ-
ment. In the twentieth century, the National Council of
Churches in the United States and a World Council of
Churches would be the institutional bearers of this move-
ment. Ecumenism has changed how theologians concep-
tualize the faith, how the different Christian churches
relate to each other, and how grassroots Christians live
out their faith in worship and
daily life. This spirit of ecumen-
ism also affected the Eastern
Orthodox churches through-
out the world; they’ve partici-
pated fully in the ecumenical
movement from the start.

Never before had any church changed

itself so quickly and so deeply as the

Roman Catholic Church did after Vatican II.

At the same time, a new movement for reform was
gathering in the Roman Catholic Church that would
prove to be the most important Christian event of the
twentieth century. Catholicism had been insulated from
dealing with modern challenges (science, secularism,
religious toleration, and so on) by its sheer size and its
church structure. But when Pope John XXIII convened
the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1966, fresh,
strong winds of reform blew through the church. In
Vatican II, the Catholic Church:

● Recognized the status and role of the laity as
essential to the church.

● Reformed worship by putting masses in national
languages and increasing lay participation.

● Moved the altar from
the front wall of the
church and had the
priest face the people
as the Mass was said.

● Opened ecumeni-
cal dialogue with SA

R
A
W
A
R
E

Assertive, even confrontational, eff orts to spread
the faith are typical of fundamentalism, as shown
by this street preacher outside a football game at

Michigan State University.

ecumenism (eh-KYOO-
men-iz-uhm) Movement
for greater understanding
and cooperation among
Christian churches

272 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

Protestants and the Orthodox, affi rming
that they were in some way legitimate
Christians.

● Affi rmed for the fi rst time religious lib-
erty and toleration for all people.

● Took a new, more balanced view of
non-Christian faiths.

Never before had any church
changed itself so quickly and so
deeply as the Roman Catholic
Church did after Vatican II.
Most Roman Catholics today
don’t remember the way the
Church was before Vatican II,
and it’s hard for them to imag-
ine a form of Catholic Church
life that had existed since the
Council of Trent in the 1500s.

Two liberation movements
in North American Christianity
have become increasingly impor-
tant in the modern period. (We’ll
deal with the charismatic move-
ment, the “Global South” phenom-
enon, and evangelicalism on pages
285–288.) First, feminism has stressed the full emancipa-
tion of women. It recognizes that the church by its teach-
ing and practice has held women down and tried to make
second-class Christians of them. Some feminists have
urged rejection of Christianity, arguing that it is hope-
lessly patriarchal. Most feminists in Christianity take a
more moderate approach, trying to recover the biblical

roots of feminism, stressing the
(admittedly few) women who
have played signifi cant roles in
Christian tradition, and working
toward full liberation of women
within the various Christian
churches. This latter approach is
still the mainstream of Christian
feminism, and it will continue
to be a potent force for years

to come, in culture in gen-
eral and in the church spe-
cifi cally. As the movement
progresses, it is loosening its
European-North American
orientation and will likely
make more of an impact in
the churches of Asia, Africa,
and Latin America.

A second current movement is liberation
theology. The heart of liberation theology is not
theology but practice. This movement stresses
the active Christian mission of delivering the
oppressed from evil social structures and situ-

ations. Using a combination of Marxist
social analysis and the Christian

Gospel, this movement was born
in Roman Catholic theological
circles in Latin America. Some
trace its roots all the way back
to the “Jesuit state” in Peru,
mentioned earlier on page
269. But it has spread widely
and been applied to several
different situations: women’s
liberation, black liberation,
Hispanic liberation, and now
gay liberation. The latter has

been particularly problematic
in mainline Protestant churches
and in the worldwide Anglican
communion, which many

observers think may be breaking
apart over it. (The African American

civil rights movement in the 1950s
and 1960s came before black liberation theology, but
much of the Christian aspect of this continuing move-
ment is now related to liberation theology.) These new
applications of liberation theology are still powerful
infl uences in much of world Christianity, especially in
the West, but the original form of political-social lib-
eration theology in South America is waning.

LO3 Christian Teachings
as Refl ected in the Nicene
Creed

Christian believers in Seoul, South Korea, gather at the Yoido Full Gospel Church, at 1 million members the larg-
est single Christian congregation in the world. This church,
which belongs to the Assemblies of God denomination, has
back-to-back services held from dawn to dusk to accommo-
date the numbers. Protestant Christianity—both mainstream
and independent—has grown so strong in South Korea that
the church has begun to send Korean missionaries to other
parts of the world. The congregation’s size is emblematic of
the world-wide growth and power of Pentecostal, Holy Spirit-
centered Christianity.

Pope Benedict XVI, on a trip to
Brazil in 2007

FABIO POZZEBOM/AGÊNCIA BRASIL

liberation theology
Movement that stresses
the active Christian
mission of delivering the
oppressed from evil social
structures and situations

273C H R I S T I A N T E A C H I N G S A S R E F L E C T E D I N T H E N I C E N E C R E E D

Christian teaching is founded on the doctrine of the
Trinity, one God in three Persons, the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Christians believe that Jesus was the incar-
nation of the eternal Son of God. He suffered, died, was
buried, and was resurrected from the dead to open
heaven to those who believe in him. Jesus founded
a community of his followers; after his bodily
ascension to heaven, the church carried on
the organized, human dimensions of
Jesus’ work by the power and direc-
tion of the Holy Spirit. Jesus rules and
reigns with God the Father until he
will return to defeat evil, judge all
humans (living and dead), and grant
eternal life to his followers.

The Nicene Creed, known
by its revised form completed
in 381, is the most infl uential
of all Christian statements
of belief. Creeds (from the
Latin credo, “I believe”)
are formal statements
of belief meant to be
binding on the church.
All Roman Catholic
and Eastern Orthodox

doctrine is formally rooted
in creeds, as well as that
of most churches origi-
nating in the Protestant

Reformation. Even
m o r e – i n d e p e n d e n t

and fundamen-
tal Protestant

d e n o m i –
n a t i o n s
t h a t

reject the idea of creeds believe
the doctrines taught in the Nicene
Creed. Moreover, changes in

Christian teaching in the history
of the church are changes from
the Nicene Creed. In what fol-
lows, we’ll discuss Christian
teaching in terms of this
creed, under the main head-
ings of Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit. In this discus-
sion, we’ll also deal briefl y
with later Christian for-
mulation and use of these
teachings.

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 381 C.E.

Several English versions of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed have been used in the last fi fty years or so. He is
the “Ecumenical Version” of 1975, the form used by most
Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker
of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son
of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true
God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy

Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was
made man.
For our sake he was crucifi ed under Pontius Pilate;
he suff ered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the
Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right
hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and
the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver
of Life, who proceeds from the Father and
the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and
glorifi ed.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic
Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness
of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come. Amen.

A Closer Look:

Trinity Christian
teaching of one God in
three equal persons, the
Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit

creed Formal statement
of belief meant to be
binding on the church

The Trinity Knot, of Celtic Christian origin, symbolizes
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one. The crown of
thorns tied into it is a symbol of the suff ering of Christ.

274 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

God the Father

Christianity’s teaching about God the Father is unprob-
lematic, and the Christian tradition has rarely had to
debate it. Most of the fi rst article of the Nicene Creed
is drawn directly from Jewish belief about God that
was settled long before Jesus. God is all powerful
(“Almighty”) in heaven and on earth. God is the creator
(“maker”) of heaven and earth, not only of “all things
seen” on the earth, but also all things “unseen” to humans
(in heaven). Nothing is outside of God’s power. That
God is the creator of all physical and spiritual reality—
and that God would become human in Jesus—strongly
implies that the world is a good, or at least a redeem-
able, place. Behind this teaching about God lie other key
Jewish ideas. God is a living being, the “I am who I am”
in Exodus 3:14, not a force or a principle. Christians
believe that God the Father is a personal being just as
fully as Jesus is a person. The decisive aspect of creation
is that God fashioned humans in God’s own image. This
special position of humans in the creation makes them
coworkers with God in the continuation and care of cre-
ation. The incarnation of God in the human being Jesus
is the ultimate validation of the worth of human life.

What’s new in the Christian teaching about God
lies in the fi rst thing the Nicene Creed says about God:
that God is the Father. God was known metaphorically
as a father to Israel in Judaism, but this wasn’t a main
understanding of God. In Christianity, God is fi rst and
foremost the Christian’s Father, but this relationship
derives from and is built on Jesus’ special relationship to
God. Jesus regularly calls God “Father,” especially in the
prayer that he taught his dis-
ciples, known variously as the
“Our Father” or the “Lord’s
Prayer.” Jesus used the Aramaic
word abba (AH-bah) for God;
it was usually employed by
children for their earthly father
and expresses childlike trust
in, and intimacy with, one’s
father. This father-son relation-
ship that Jesus had with God
became a model for the rela-
tionship of Christians to God.

According to the account
of Jesus’ baptism, Jesus
understood his sonship when
a voice from heaven said:
“This is my beloved Son, with
whom I am well pleased”
(Matthew 3:17). In the

Gospel of John, this sonship constitutes the basis for
the self-awareness of Jesus: “I and the Father are one”
(John 10:30). Although scholars disagree on whether
Jesus actually said things like this, Christians believe
it is an authentic insight into who Jesus really is. In
Jesus Christ, God the Father was revealed more fully
to humans, and worked in and through Jesus for the
salvation of the world. Some Christians today dislike
the term Father for its apparent gender reference and
its use of human fathers—who are often fl awed and
sometimes abusive—to explain God. However, the
fact that Christian teaching understands the human
relationship with God to be based on Jesus’ relation-
ship with God helps to ameliorate the weakness of
this metaphor.

God the Son

The fullest section of the Nicene Creed, as with most
Christian statements of belief, is the center section that
deals with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Teachings
about Jesus Christ go back to the faith experiences of
the fi rst disciples. The early church experienced and
recognized the incarnated Son of God in the person of
Jesus, although the Gospels are clear that his disciples
didn’t fully recognize this, much less spread this mes-
sage on their own, until after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus
is the crucifi ed and exalted Lord, and the Son of God.
He sits at the right hand of the Father and will return
in glory to bring in the Father’s rule. Jesus has become
the center of belief and devotion for most Christians.
However, as we saw above, Jesus is an enigmatic fi gure,

Piety toward the death of Jesus: kissing his hand wounded by crucifi xion

P
H
O
TO
C
O
U
R
T
E
S
Y
P
H
O
TO
S8
.C
O
M
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

275C H R I S T I A N T E A C H I N G S A S R E F L E C T E D I N T H E N I C E N E C R E E D

and the church’s teaching about him can’t easily be
reduced to a series of simple sentences.

From the beginning of the church, different inter-
pretations of Jesus have existed, and it took several
centuries for the church to fully articulate its under-
standing of Jesus. The author of the Gospel of Mark,
for example, seems to understand Jesus as the man
upon whom the Holy Spirit descends when he is bap-
tized in the Jordan River and about whom the voice of
God declares from the heavens, “You are my beloved
son” (Mark 1:11). In Matthew and Luke, Jesus’ special
identity begins at his conception in the womb of the
Virgin Mary. The teaching in Mark’s Gospel, and to a
lesser extent in Matthew and Luke, provided the foun-
dation for one of two early schools of thought concern-
ing the person of Christ.

Two “schools,” or types of theology, dominated the
ancient church’s teaching on Jesus Christ. Approaches
to that derived from the theological school of Antioch
in Syria start from the humanity of Jesus and view his
divinity as joined to him by God through the Holy
Spirit. In other words, Jesus’ status as God’s Son is
founded on his humanity. This view is common
among many modern Christians—both Protestants
and Roman Catholics—in the Western world, who
stress Jesus’ humanity while also affi rming that God
was in him in a special way. Another view, adopted
by the school of Alexandria, is a leading theme of
the Gospel of John. This Gospel regards Jesus Christ
primarily as the eternal Son of God become human.
Here, his divinity is fi rst and foundational, and the
humanity of Jesus is joined to it. The divinity of Jesus
is understood as the result of the descent of the divine
Logos—a preexistent heavenly being who is the Son
of God—into the world. This view is common today
among traditional Roman Catholics, doctrinally con-
servative Protestants, and most Eastern Orthodox.
Both the Antiochene and Alexandrian schools had a
wide sphere of infl uence in the ancient church, not
only among the clergy, but also among the monks and
the laity. They were a factor in the Christological con-
troversies of the 300s and 400s.

The Nicene Creed affi rms that Jesus Christ is “the
only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.” In
other words, the divine nature in Jesus is God’s eternal
Son. The Creed stresses this divine nature in Jesus by
poetic repetitions: Jesus Christ is “God from God, Light
from Light, true God from true God.” In his divine
being, he is “of one Being with the Father,” not a differ-
ent, lesser kind of god “made” (created) by the Father.
The Creed then ties the Son of God to God the Father
by stating the Son’s role in creation—“Through him all

things were made”—just as it affi rmed earlier that the
Father made all things. Then the Creed talks at more
length about the incarnation: “For us men [humans] and
for our salvation, he came down from heaven, by the
power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the
Virgin Mary, and was made man.” Eastern Orthodoxy
has stressed more than Western Christianity the mean-
ing of the incarnation for the salvation of humankind;
Western Christians stress the meaning of the death and
resurrection of Jesus for salvation.

Then the Creed skips to the end of Jesus’ life and
emphasizes the reality of his redemptive suffering:
“For our sake he was crucifi ed under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried. On the third day He
rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” Exactly
how Jesus’ death saves humans is often debated: Is it
a sacrifi ce, a defeat of evil (Christ as victor), a moral
example, or all of these and more? Without belief that
Jesus “rose again” in resurrection, it is clear from the
New Testament accounts, his movement would have
ended and Jesus would soon have disappeared into
the mists of time. The fi nal part of the Creed’s sec-
tion on Jesus speaks about his present and future: “He
ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand
of the Father; He will come again in glory to judge
the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no
end.” That Jesus sits on the Father’s “right hand” refers
to his present reign with God the Father. The rest of
this section affi rms the standard Christian expectation
that Jesus will return “in glory” at the end of human
history to bring God’s eternal reign to earth.

Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a common image of
salvation and spiritual direction in Christ.

S
H

A
R
O
N

M
O

LL
E

R
U

S
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

276 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

The Doctrine of the Virgin Mary

The teaching that the Virgin Mary is the “mother/bearer of
God,” or Theotokos, is closely connected to the incarna-
tion. As the church wrestled with articulating its belief in
the identity of Jesus, the mother of the Son of God gained a
special place within the church. To a signifi cant degree, this
was in an eff ort to understand the nature of Jesus, not to
“promote” his mother.

The expansion of the veneration of the Virgin Mary as
the “Mother of God” and the formation of doctrines explain-
ing this are known to historians as one of the most remark-
able occurrences in the ancient church after about 100 C.E.
The New Testament off ers only scanty points of departure
for this development. Although she has a prominent place
in the narratives of the Nativity, Mary soon disappears
behind the fi gure of Jesus. Jesus’ ministry was opposed by
his family, including his mother, who thought he was men-
tally disturbed (Mark 3:21). All the Gospels stress the fact
that Jesus separated himself from his family, and only the
Gospels of Matthew and Luke mention the virginal concep-
tion. The Gospel of John mentions the “mother of Jesus” in a
positive light, but not by name. Both Roman Catholics and
the Orthodox believe that Mary was a life-long virgin; this
serves as example of dedication to God, even of celibacy.
Most Protestants believe that she was virginal only until the
birth of Jesus, and then had other children with Joseph by
natural means.

Despite her earlier doubts, Mary was present as a
believer in the earliest Church, and in the early 200s the
doctrine of the virginal conception of Jesus spread widely
in the church, where it was put together with the doctrine
of the incarnation. The doctrine of the virginal conception
found its way into all Christian creeds, as did mention of
the Virgin Mary herself. Veneration of Mary (not worship)
spread widely in the West and the East, and by medieval
times many churches had special chapels dedicated to the
Virgin Mary. (In England they can still be found in many
Anglican churches, where they are known as the “Lady
Chapel.”) Mary became the chief intercessor for the church
on earth and the Queen of Heaven. She received increasing
prayer (the “Hail Mary”) and devotion, especially in times

of great distress such as the Black Plague in the 1400s.
Devotion to Mary was “throttled back” somewhat after the
Catholic Reform, and it was never as strong in the Orthodox
churches as in Roman Catholicism. In recent times, venera-
tion of Mary has been promoted by certain popes, espe-
cially John Paul II (pope from 1978 to 2005).

In sum, Christian devotion to Mary has been steady
and persistent for most Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox Christians, and many Anglicans as well. For most
Protestants, however, this devotion to the Virgin ended at
Reformation times, and many liberal Protestants today no
longer believe in the virginal conception of Jesus.

A Closer Look:

Modern painting in Byzantine style of Mary and
the child Jesus. This Mother and Child artistic
theme speaks deeply to Christians about the
humanity of Jesus Christ, whatever they may
believe about Mary.

/P
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E
LE

begin with, the name “Holy Spirit” doesn’t evoke mean-
ings such as “Father” and “Son” do. It has been harder
for Christians to conceive of the Holy Spirit as a divine
person in the same way as they think of the Father and
the Son. (Feminists, however, hold that this is a good
thing and point to the feminine aspects of the Spirit.) The

Theotokos (thee-AH-
toh-koss) Virgin Mary
as the “mother/bearer
of God”

God the Holy

Spirit

The Holy Spirit is one of
the most challenging top-
ics in Christian teaching. To

277C H R I S T I A N T E A C H I N G S A S R E F L E C T E D I N T H E N I C E N E C R E E D

foundational view of the Holy
Spirit is sketched in the next
section of the Nicene Creed:
“We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of Life, who
proceeds from the Father and
the Son. With the Father and the
Son he is worshipped and glo-
rifi ed. He has spoken through
the Prophets.” (Historians are
divided about whether the
wording that follows this—
about the church, baptism, and
the rest—is a part of the section
on the Holy Spirit.)

The Creed ties the Spirit
to God the Father and God the
Son in a variety of ways. The
Spirit is called “Lord,” the term
Christians regularly use for the
Father and the Son. Next, the
Spirit is called “the giver of
Life,” which refers not only to
a role at creation, but especially to giving life to believers
now and eternally. The next phrase has been problematic
between the Eastern and Western churches. Originally,
the Creed said that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father,”
just as Jesus (in parallel) is “begotten” by the Father, but
in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church added “and the
Son,” which most Protestant churches then shared. This
was a huge point of contention between the East and the
West, and one of the causes for their formal split in 1054.
Some Western churches omit it today, or put it in brack-
ets. Next, the Creed says that the Spirit is “worshipped
and glorifi ed,” a sign of certain divine status.

The last thing said about the Holy Spirit, that the
Spirit “has spoken through the prophets,” is the most
powerful and problematic of the Nicene Creed’s state-
ments about the Spirit. Although the Holy Spirit is said
in the New Testament to mediate the presence of Jesus
to the church and explain his words, essentially a con-
serving task, the Spirit also is powerful, uncontrollable,
and unpredictable. Prophetic speech in the Spirit is chal-
lenging to the church. Every movement for change in
church history has appealed to the authority and lead-
ing of the Holy Spirit. Opposition to the mainstream
church—through appeal to the Holy Spirit—was found
in Montanism (MAHN-tuh-NIHZ-um) around 150 C.E.
This movement saw itself as the fulfi llment of the prom-
ise of the coming of the Spirit on the fi rst church. In
the 1200s, a movement against the institutional church
was begun by Joachim of Fiore in Italy. He promised

the beginning of the period of the Holy Spirit, in which
the institutional papal church would be replaced by
a community of charismatic fi gures, all fi lled with the
Spirit. This was put down, but it stimulated a number
of revolutionary movements in the medieval church.
The sixteenth-century reformer, Thomas Müntzer
(MOONT-zer), defended his revolution against the
princes and church offi cials with a new coming of
the Spirit. In the twentieth century through today, the
widespread charismatic movement has centered on the
recovery of the experience of the Holy Spirit.

The Conclusion of the

Nicene Creed: Church,

Baptism, and Christian Hope

Finally, the Nicene Creed affi rms, “We believe in one
holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge
one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to
come.” Belief “in the Church” affi rms that the Church,
which is holy, catholic (universal), and apostolic,
is a divine part of God’s plan for human salvation.
Ancient Christians believed that it is the continuing
body founded by Jesus. The Creed then mentions the
importance of “one baptism” for salvation but makes
no mention of the Eucharist or any other church ritual.
Baptism has from the fi rst Christian generation been

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the St. Nicholas Church,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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278 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

the ritual of initiation into
the Christian faith; the
experience of baptism and
the instruction that sur-
rounds it gives guidance
for the moral and spiri-
tual life of the Christian.
The Creed closes with an

affi rmation of “the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come.” Although the Creed doesn’t
mention him explicitly at this point, Jesus is the center
of resurrection and life, just as he was the fi rst to rise
from the dead. He will return in glory to fully bring
in God’s reign, and the “world to come” will be pres-
ent with its full life. This traditional Christian teaching
about the end of the world—the return of Christ, resur-
rection, and judgment with eternal reward and eternal
punishment—has been widely believed in the history of
Christianity, but in modern times many Protestants and
some Roman Catholics have called it into doubt, pre-
ferring to think of an open human future.

Getting back now to the continuing controversy
over Christ’s nature that the Nicene Council did not fully
settle, a new council at Chalcedon (451) fi nally ended
the dispute between Antioch and Alexandria by drawing
from each. It declared: “We all unanimously teach . . .
one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in
deity and perfect in humanity . . . in two natures, with-
out being mixed, transmuted, divided, or separated. . . .
The identity of each nature is preserved and concurs
into one person and being.” At Nicea and Chalcedon,
the church affi rmed a paradox, and continues today to
affi rm it: Jesus is fully human and fully divine, God and
humanity perfectly present in one person. Second, Jesus
Christ is completely human, not only in his historical
life, but after his resurrection and through all eternity. As
Paul wrote, “The whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”
in him (Colossians 2:9). The genius of the Nicene and
Chalcedonian Creeds is that they hold that the mystery
of the person of Jesus Christ could be grasped in a deci-
sive, authoritative formula: two natures in one person.

LO4 Christian Ethics:
Following the Way
of Jesus Christ

A new translation of the New Testament published by the American branch of Oxford University Press causes a
stir around the world. Titled the Inclusive Bible, it features

“thoroughly non-sexist” wording. Some critics deride it as
the “politically correct version” and a dangerous innovation.
However, students of Christianity recognize that this type of
translation has a rich pedigree in America. It can trace its roots
to the infl uential, and even more controversial, Women’s
Bible of 1898, a seminal work in the foundation of the femi-
nist movement. The publication of the Inclusive Bible touches
an important contemporary moral theme in Christianity: the
place of women in the faith.

As an “ethical monotheism,” Christianity’s moral teach-
ing is based on its view of God. God’s self-revelation
shows God to be both radically good and radically lov-
ing. Christians must worship God but also must live
their entire lives according to God’s will. Being God’s
people means following God’s law, which in turn means
walking in the way of God’s truth (Psalms 25:4–5) and
obeying it (Romans 2:8; 1 Peter 1:22). Jesus affi rmed
that the main point of this obedience is to love God and
to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39).

Foundations in the Ten

Commandments, the Sermon

on the Mount, and the

Letters of Paul

Christian ethical teaching has two main biblical foun-
dations: the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1–17;
Deuteronomy 5:6–21) and the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5–7). The Ten Commandments (see above,
page 245) remain valid for Christians, although God’s
laws have been broadened by Jesus Christ. The “fi rst
table” of the Law calls on Christians to worship only
God, not to worship images, and keep the Sabbath day
holy. This Sabbath was changed to Sunday, the day of
the Lord’s resurrection, when Christians around the
world gather in the morning for worship. The “second
table” of the Law tells Christians to honor parents and
abstain from murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and
coveting.

The Sermon on the Mount opens with the
Beatitudes (or statements of blessings), which con-
tain implicit moral directions (Matthew 5:1–12). Jesus
declared that the powers of the imminent Kingdom
of God would enable his followers to witness to this
kingdom before the world, even to be the “light of the
world” (5:14–16). Jesus upheld the value of the Law
of Moses for his followers, but radicalized it in a vari-
ety of ways. He pointed to the necessity of controlling
one’s thoughts and emotions, not just one’s actions;
Jesus called anger murderous and lust adulterous

Chalcedon (KAL-seh-
don) Council in 451 that
defined the relationship
of the human and divine
natures of Christ

279C H R I S T I A N E T H I C S : F O L L O W I N G T H E W AY O F J E S U S C H R I S T

(5:21–22, 27–28). Doing what
is right proceeds from the
inner person, and thus is not
a sham or hypocritical action.
The repeated warnings against
hypocrisy in the Sermon on the
Mount are primarily warnings
to Jesus’ followers, not attacks
on others. Jesus commanded
his followers to “be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is
perfect” (5:48). Human per-
fection is expressed in what
Christian tradition calls the
“Golden Rule,” a summary of
the ethics of the whole Jewish
Bible: “In everything do to
others as you would have
them do to you.” Christians
have believed that taking
the “hard way” (7:13–14)
is possible by virtue of the divine gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus knew that this “hard way” would not be easy
for his followers, and that they would fail in parts of
it every day, as indicated in the daily prayer that he

taught them in the Sermon on
the Mount, which contains a
request for divine forgiveness
for one’s sins (6:12).

Jesus affi rmed the summary of God’s will given in
Judaism, to “love the Lord your God” with all your
being and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This love
is possible because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrec-
tion. When the Christian commandment of love was
connected to Christ’s person and work, the demand of
love for the neighbor becomes a “new commandment”:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another; even as I have loved you, that you also love
one another” (John 13:34). The followers of Jesus are
to have this love: “By this all men will know that you
are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John
13:35). All this might imply that Christian love is given
only or mostly to other Christians, but the Christian
commandment of love has never been limited to fellow
Christians. On the contrary, the Christian ethic crossed
social and religious barriers and saw a neighbor in every
suffering human being, especially the innocent and help-
less. This is why, for example, Christians in the ancient
world rescued infants left in remote places or garbage
dumps to die. Jesus himself explicated his understand-
ing of the commandment of love in the parable of the
Good Samaritan, who followed the commandment of

love and helped a person in need whom a priest and a
Levite had chosen to ignore (Luke 10:29–37).

The Apostle Paul often drew on the Ten
Commandments to shape the moral life of Christians.
Because his churches were made up mostly of Gentiles,
they needed basic instruction in the Jewish basis of
morality. Paul’s letters also stress the moral virtues
of the Christian life: trust in God, hope in the future
God will bring, peace in one’s heart and in the church,
and especially love for all people. More than any other
New Testament author, Paul grounds the ethical life
of the Christian in the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus. For Paul, the indicative (who Christians are by
virtue of God’s action) serves to ground the impera-
tives of moral attitude and behavior. The believer has
“died with Christ” in baptism and will be “raised with
Christ” at the end of time, and in the meantime must
“walk in newness of life.” The moral dimension of the
Christian faith is a struggle; in an image drawn from
clothing, one must constantly “put on Christ” and “put
off” sin and self-centeredness. The presence of the Spirit
in the individual and in the church gives both direction
and empowerment for spiritual living. Summing up his
ethic, Paul says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers
and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bod-
ies as a living sacrifi ce, holy and acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of
your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God,
what is good, and acceptable, and perfect” (Romans
12:1–2).

In a scene from the 2003 fi lm The Passion of the Christ, the dead Jesus
is lowered from the cross. Identifi cation with the death of Jesus is
foundational in Christian ethics.

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280 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

The Enactment

of Moral Life

in the Church

Christian social ethics are foun-
dational for the community of the
faithful. As the church took in all
sorts of people, certain occupations
were deemed incompatible with a
Christian life of love toward others.
Thieves, brothel-keepers and pros-
titutes, workers in pagan temples,
actors, charioteers, gladiators, soldiers,
magicians, astrologers, and fortune-
tellers could not keep their trades when
they became Christians. (Slave owning, however,
was still mostly tolerated, and the church often allowed
slaves who were forced to engage in these forbid-
den trades to be church members.) Moral instruction
for catechumens, those preparing for baptism, and
many ancient sermons reveal that preachers regularly
explained Christian morality and urged their audiences
to keep it. In the Middle Ages and Byzantine times,
moral instruction centered on the Ten Commandments,
the Beatitudes, and the lists of virtues and vices drawn
from the New Testament. The ritual act of reconcilia-
tion (as it is now called), in which individuals confessed
their sins in the “confessional” to a priest in order to
receive direction and assurance of forgiveness, helped

to shape individual character
and conduct. At least in the
West, people leaving church in
the Middle Ages would typi-
cally see a painting of the Last

Judgment over the doors, to remind them of the rewards
of doing good and the penalty for evil.

Beside this inner-church sphere of morality the
“conversion of the empire” in the 300s permitted
bishops to begin infl uencing the personal and political

affairs of government and
the wider life of society.
Soon canon law, the legal
system that codifi es ethical
and other matters in the
Roman Catholic Church,
arose to guide the overall
moral life of the church.
Canon law is still today an
important foundation of
moral refl ection and deci-
sion making by priests and

bishops in the Church of Rome.
In the Protestant churches, dif-

ferent patterns of social ethics
emerged based more directly
on the Bible. One of the most
powerful and controversial

explanations of Protestant
ethics is Max Weber’s book

The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism, which

argued for a strong relationship
between Protestant (specifi cally,

C a l v i n i s t )
morality and

the development
of capitalism in

the West.
Modern times have seen a decline in the direct

institutional role of the churches in society, as church
leaders can no longer directly infl uence rulers with
whom they share authority. Instead, church leaders
advise the shaping of public laws and policies, seek-
ing to guide not only the members of their churches
but also the whole common life of nations. In Roman
Catholicism, this has occurred at the global level
through the so-called social encyclicals of popes,
from Leo XIII in 1891 to today. These teaching docu-
ments deal with a variety of topics in social ethics,
and almost every pope has issued them. At times,
these encyclicals have been highly controversial, as
when Pope Paul VI in 1968 used one (Humanae Vitae,
“On Human Life”) to forbid the use of all artifi cial
birth control among Roman Catholics. In Eastern
Orthodoxy, the fall of communist rule has presented
particular problems and opportunities to help guide
public life. Protestant denominations have typically
made pronouncements and initiated programs on
their own and through ecumenical agencies to which
they belong.

The World Council of Churches, a fellowship of
Christian churches founded in 1948, has created “mid-
dle axioms” (the notion of a “just society,” for exam-
ple, or “the care of creation”), which were intended
as common ground on which Christian churches and
governments could meet for thought and action. Now,
they are common ground for cooperating with people
of other religions, especially today on environmental
issues. The rise of Christian social organizations such as
Church World Service, Catholic Relief Services, Bread
for the World, World Vision, Habitat for Humanity, and
many others is particularly notable. In the developing
world, Christian organizations are among the largest

catechumen (KAT-
uh-kyoo-men) Individual
preparing for baptism in
a period of doctrinal and
moral instruction

canon law Legal system
that codifies ethical,
organizational, and other
matters in the Roman
Catholic Church

281C H R I S T I A N W O R S H I P A N D R I T U A L

nongovernmental organizations
working for human and social
development. Individual Chris-
tians have also had an impact
here—for example, the lead
singer of the rock band U2,
Bono, advocates tirelessly
for justice for Africa. He has
become known almost as much
for his advocacy of justice as
his music.

LO5 Christian Worship
and Ritual

In Rome, the Congregation for Divine Worship, the Roman Catholic department responsible for guiding the Church’s
religious services, presents to Pope John Paul II a report
entitled “Authentic Liturgy.” It states that language used
in the Mass is to avoid many of the features of inclusive
language, because they obscure the meaning of the text.
For example, where the original language of Scripture or
the Mass book says “brothers,” expressions such as “broth-
ers and sisters” or “friends” may not be used. This document
stirs up a controversy in European and North American
Catholic churches, which have gotten used to more-
inclusive language. This controversy shows how issues
of inclusive/exclusive language have become an impor-

tant issue in the contemporary
churches, both Roman Catholic
and Protestant.

In this section, we’ll discuss
the rise of Christian worship
in history. Christian worship
emerged from, and then gradu-
ally separated from, the wor-
ship practices of Judaism. The
Acts of the Apostles relates
that the fi rst Christian believ-
ers worshiped in the Jerusalem
Temple, as Jesus had. They wor-
shiped in synagogues as well.
But the church also had from
the fi rst its own meetings for
worship that drew on Jewish
precedents, especially the kind
of worship in the synagogue.
After Constantine, worship and
the church buildings in which it
was held became more formal.
The Roman Catholic Church

built itself around seven sacraments, rituals believed to
be a special means of grace, and the Eastern Orthodox
Churches made its worship in its various branches more
unifi ed. In the Protestant Reformation and Catholic
Reform, and again in Vatican II, worship was reformed
by being made more the work of the people, the liturgy.
Since around 1950, the ecumenical movement has
brought a consensus of worship style and content.

Christian Worship before

Constantine

Christian worship and ritual varies widely throughout
the world, but its common foundation can be traced to
the fi rst centuries of the church and before this to the
Jewish synagogues. As in the worship of the synagogue,
public prayer and praise to God are a constant in the
church. So too are the reading and explanation of a por-
tion of Scripture. Christian
churches, especially in the
eastern half of the Roman
Empire, adapted the
lectionary system of the
Jewish synagogues and
added readings from the
New Testament. Changes
from synagogue worship
were introduced as well.
The weekly day for wor-
ship went from the Jewish
Sabbath on the last day of
the week to Sunday.

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LE Bono and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speak at a conference
on poverty and climate change.

sacrament Ritual
believed to be a special
means of grace

liturgy Literally, “work
of the people” in worship;
pattern of worship in
Christian churches

lectionary Systemic
schedule of reading the
Bible in worship

282 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

An Ancient Christian Service

As a part of his defense of Christianity in sections 65–66
of his Apology, Justin briefl y describes a Christian service
from about 150. This is the earliest description of Christian
worship that we have. It has the same basic elements and
almost exactly the same order as almost all Christian wor-
ship since: gathering as a community, reading of scripture,
prayer, sermon, Holy Communion, and dismissal. Singing
hymns isn’t mentioned here, but we know from other
sources that it was common.

After thus washing [baptizing] the one who has
been convinced and signifi ed his assent, we lead
him to those who are called brothers, where
they are assembled. The memoirs of the apostles
or the writings of the apostles are read, as long
as time permits. When the reader has ceased,
the presiding leader instructs and exhorts us to
imitate these good things. Then we rise together

and pray. We pray that we may be made worthy,
having learned the truth, to be found good
citizens and keepers of what is commanded, so
that we may be saved with eternal salvation. On
fi nishing the prayers we greet each other with
a kiss.

Then bread and a cup of wine mixed with
water are brought to the one presiding. Taking
them, he gives praise and glory to the Father of
the universe through the name of the Son and the
Holy Spirit, and off ers thanksgiving at some length
that we have been deemed worthy to receive
these things from him. When he has fi nished the
prayers and the thanksgiving, the whole congre-
gation assents by saying, “Amen.” Those whom we
call deacons [assistants] then give a portion of the
consecrated bread and wine to all those present,
and they take it to the absent.

A Closer Look:

The basilica type of building was used by

Christians for the first church buildings,

and has been the most common pattern

of churches since.

Baptism replaced circumcision as the main rite of
initiation into the faith, and it was preceded by instruc-
tion and fasting. Persons about to be baptized renounced
evil, and after they declared their faith, they went into
the water. They then received by anointing with oil and
by the laying on of hands the gift of the Holy Spirit,
just as the Spirit had descended on Jesus at his baptism.
Only the baptized were admitted to the Eucharist, and
weekly participation is this ritual meal took the place of
both the Passover meal and Jewish sacrifi ces. Baptism
has been the rite of entry, but the Eucharist is the regu-
lar ritual of food for the body and soul.

Worship after Constantine

After Christianity became permitted and then offi cial
in the 300s, almost every element of worship became
more elaborate. Formal church buildings were erected,

and church offi cials dressed
for worship in special
vest ments modeled after
Roman government garb.
The church developed a
liturgical calendar with sea-
sons of self-denial, such as
Advent and Lent, and sea-
sons of celebration, such as
Christmas and Easter.

Before about 350 C.E, almost all worship was in
private homes. (A religion almost constantly persecuted
by the government isn’t able to put up its own build-
ings.) The service was held in the largest room of the
house, usually the central atrium in a middle- or upper-
class house. When church buildings became common
around 350, they were designed for the community.
The rectangular basilica with a long nave (main area
for the congregation) and an apse (semicircular area at
the front), which had been used for Roman law courts,
was particularly suitable for Christian worship. This
architectural layout of the church building has been
the most common pattern of church buildings ever
since. Many Byzantine churches had mosaic pictures on
their fl oors. Old Testament/Jewish heroes of faith also
appear in the earliest Christian art in both the East and
West. The artists adapted conventional pagan forms:
the shepherd carrying a sheep, the praying person with

basilica Building with
a long rectangular area
for the congregation and
a semicircular area at the
front for clergy, adapted
by early Christians from
Roman courts for Christian
church architecture

283C H R I S T I A N W O R S H I P A N D R I T U A L

hands uplifted, various birds and animals. Symbols of
the Eucharist and baptism were especially common.
The exteriors of these churches were simple, but inside
they were often richly ornamented with marble and
mosaic. The decoration was designed to represent the
angels and saints in heaven with whom the church on
earth was joining for worship, saints whose presence
was suggested by icons in the East and statues, paint-
ings, and then stained glass in the West. The oldest
church buildings to survive largely intact are from early
medieval and early Byzantine times: Hagia Sophia at
Constantinople (which became a mosque and is now a
museum) and San Vitale at Ravenna in Italy. Worship
in churches became more impressive and formal for a
greatly enlarged and now offi cial religion, but much of
the earlier intimacy that was a part of house churches
was necessarily lost.

In the early Middle Ages, Catholic worship became
centered on the sacraments and has stayed centered
on them ever since. These are, the Catholic Catechism
says, “effi cacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ
and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is
dispensed.” The sacraments are necessary for salvation,
because they were instituted by Christ as the means
through which God communicates grace. Christ bestows
a particular grace through each sacrament, such as

baptism’s joining one to Christ and the Church, confes-
sion/reconciliation’s forgiveness of sins and amendment
of life, and the Eucharist’s feeding body and soul with
the mystical food of Jesus’ body and blood. A sacrament
works ex opere operato (ehks OH-puh-reh OH-puh-
RAH-toh), Latin for “by the working of the work.”
In other words, they are effective just by being admin-
istered, regardless of the personal holiness of the one
administering them. However, the holiness of the recipi-
ent does make a difference; lack of a proper spiritual
attitude can thwart the effectiveness of the sacrament.
These seven sacraments are known today as baptism,
confi rmation, the Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of
the sick, ordination (to holy orders), and marriage. The
Eastern Orthodox Church also has seven sacraments
but hasn’t organized its worship so fully around them.

Other worship practices also began in post-
Constantinian times. One of the more signifi cant
was the cult of the saints, the veneration of saints in
shrines, churches, and other places (This “cult” has
no connection with the
more modern use of the
word to designate some
new religious move-
ments.) Shrines were
erected in honor of local

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Iconostasis inside a Greek Orthodox church

cult of the saints
Veneration of saints in
shrines, churches, and
other places

284 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

holy men and women, especially those Christians who
had worked miracles and those who had suffered for
the faith. Usually shrines were found in churches and
contained a relic or the entire body of the saint. Until
modern times, most Christian saints weren’t recognized
by the whole church but were known and venerated
regionally. The saints were recognized as intercessors
with God for the faithful on earth and were thought
to be vehicles for God’s miraculous power. The shrines
became the focus of religious pilgrimage. Some of the
most popular shrines today are dedicated to the Virgin
Mary, particularly the places where she is believed
to have appeared: Lourdes, France; Medjugorje in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Guadalupe, Mexico.

The pattern of the
Eucharistic liturgy was basi-
cally set by the year 400, but
different forms existed in dif-
ferent areas. Especially varied
was the main, long prayer of
Holy Communion, which the
Orthodox called anaphora
(uh-NAH-fohr-uh), or “offer-
ing,” and the Romans called
canon, “prescribed form.”
The canon of the Latin Mass
in the 500s was basically
similar to the form it has
kept through today. (Most
Protestant forms for Holy
Communion were adapted

from the Roman Catholic ver-
sion.) Earlier beliefs that Jesus
Christ was somehow pres-
ent in the celebration of Holy
Communion, especially in the
bread and wine, were greatly
developed in the Middle Ages.
The Roman church offi cially
adopted the teaching of tran-
substantiation, that the bread
and wine were changed in all
but appearance into the sub-
stance of Christ’s body. Music
also became elaborate after
Constantine, with chanting
in Gregorian style of Psalms,
hymns, and service music, and
plainsong with several voices
unaccompanied by instru-
ments. Eastern Orthodox

chanting, like the liturgy in general, was richer, more
sonorous and soaring than Gregorian plainsong.

The Protestant Reforma-
tion carried out an immedi-
ate reform of worship along
with theology. In general, the
Lutheran churches kept some
distinctly Roman Catholic features such as crucifi xes
and altars, the Calvinist churches kept a few (kneel-
ing in services, baptismal fonts), and the Anabaptist
churches discarded everything they didn’t fi nd in the
Bible. In general, the worship of churches in the Baptist
tradition is non-liturgical, not bound to a set form of

Roman Catholic pilgrims stream into the pilgrimage
site in Lourdes, France, dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

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Hands of priests celebrating the Roman Catholic Mass,
a formally dignifi ed service of Holy Communion.

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

285C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N N O R T H A M E R I C A T O D AY

worship or rituals—embracing spontaneous,
informal prayer rather than written prayer, for
example—but other Protestant churches tend
to be liturgical, with set forms. Worship in
the Church of England remained the most
Catholic of all the breakaway churches.

All Protestant churches shared a few
important new features of worship. First,
the Bible was restored to what the Reformers
considered a more central place. Preaching the
Bible in sermons was emphasized, as was private
reading of the Bible in homes. Second, the sac-
raments were generally reduced to the two that
had been founded by Jesus: baptism and Holy
Communion. Most Reformers made frequent
communion the rule for all laity, and denied the
Roman Catholic doctrine of
transubstantiation in favor
of other understandings of
the spiritual meaning of com-
munion. Third, all services were
put completely into the lan-
guage of the people, and the

liturgy became literally
the “work of the people”
again. Music, especially hymn
singing, was done by the peo-
ple as well as trained musi-
cians. The Catholic Reform in
the 1500s and Vatican II in the

1960s brought the Roman church into line with many
of these changes, but its theology remained the same.

Some observers have estimated that

between one-fourth and one-third of all

Christians today “speak in tongues.”

In the years since the Reformation, Christian
worship has become more diverse. The stron-
gest impact on worship has been the charismatic
movement stressing supernatural “gifts of the Holy
Spirit,” a movement also known as Pentecostalism.
These two names are a bit tricky—charismatic usu-
ally refers to groups inside the Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, and mainline Protestant churches.
Pentecostal usually refers to Protestant churches
such as the Assemblies of God where these practices

are the norm, whether these churches have
“Pentecostal” in their formal name or not.

“Gifts of the Holy Spirit” are called in
Greek charismata. These gifts are used
primarily in worship. The Pentecostal

movement began in 1906 in an
African American church in
Los Angeles. Over time it
has moved into mainstream
Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism as well. Today,
the charismatic movement
has spread throughout the
Christian world. “Speaking
in tongues,” an emotional
outpouring of prayer in
human sounds but in no
human language, is its pri-
mary activity, but others are
often seen as well: interpre-
tation of tongues, prophecy,
healing, and so forth. The
charismatic movement has
often been divisive and con-
troversial when it appears in

non-Pentecostalist denomina-
tions, but it has brought new
life and an emphasis on spiri-
tuality. Some observers have
estimated that between one-
fourth and one-third of all
Christians—about 600 million
people—are charismatics.

LO6 Christianity in North
America Today

A group of Old Order Amish has met in a home for
worship in Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania. As their horses
and buggies wait outside,
they conduct a two-hour ser-
vice of hymns, prayers, scrip-
ture readings, and sermon,
all in their own “Pennsylvania
Dutch” language, which is
actually a Swiss dialect of
German. No cleric conducts

Reading the Bible regularly is a distinctive
practice for many Christians.

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charismatic
movement
(Pentecostalism)
Modern Christian
movement stressing use
of supernatural “gifts
of the Holy Spirit,” a
movement also known as
Pentecostalism

286 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

the service, for in their religious life the men are all equal. Their
worship and lifestyle continues the same pattern of “coming
out from the world and being separate” that their Anabaptist
ancestors practiced at the dawn of the Reformation. The Amish
have been oppressed in many parts of the world, but they’ve
found a happy haven in the United States and Canada, where
they are widely respected for their consistent witness for peace.

Christianity is the largest and most popular religion
in the United States, with 78 percent of those polled
identifying themselves as Christian in 2009. About
62 percent of those polled reported that they were
members of a church congregation. With around 240
million Christians, the United States has the largest
Christian population on earth. In Canada, the church
has slightly less of a presence, but more than 60 percent
of Canadians identify themselves as Christians. As
a result of immigration, widespread importation of
European (and now African and Asian) churches, and
new denominations springing up in the United States,
Christianity is more internally diverse—for better and
for worse—in North America than anywhere else in the
world. This poses a challenge and an opportunity for
the study of Christianity.

Overview

Protestant denominations account for about 50 per-
cent of North Americans, Roman Catholicism about
25 percent, and Eastern Orthodox less than 1 per-
cent. Roman Catholics are by far the largest single
church group, and the Roman Catholic Church in
the United States is growing in size with Hispanic
immigration. The Eastern Orthodox population is
relatively tiny, making up only about 0.04 percent
of North Americans, due largely to smaller immi-

gration from most Orthodox
nations, recent diffi culties in
“Americanization,” and the
persistence of twenty-six dif-
ferent ethnic-based denomina-
tions within Orthodoxy.

Christianity came to the Americas when it was fi rst
colonized by Europeans beginning in the 1500s. The
vast majority of colonists were Christians, and over time
a majority of Native Americans became Christians as
well. Today, most Christian denominations and congre-
gations are mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant,
or Roman Catholic, or the various denominations of
Eastern Orthodoxy. Sociologists of religion distinguish
the mainline Protestant churches from the evangelical
Protestant churches. The authoritative Association of

Religion Data Archives (ARDA) estimates 26 million
members of mainline churches versus about 40 million
members of evangelical Protestant churches. Good
evidence suggests a sizeable shift in membership from
mainline denominations to evangelical churches since
about 1950. Then, most Protestant Christians belonged
to mainline churches, and evangelical churches were
comparatively smaller.

The Different Churches:

Roman Catholic

and Protestant

At the time the United States was founded, only a small
fraction of the U.S. population were Catholics, mostly
in Maryland. As we saw above, the number of Roman
Catholics has grown dramatically in recent years. The
United States now has the fourth-largest Catholic pop-
ulation in the world. The Church’s main national body
is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
made up of all bishops and archbishops of the United
States, although each bishop has independent power in
his own diocese, responsible only to the pope. Although
many other nations have a Roman Catholic primate, or
lead bishop, there is no primate for the United States.

Although Protestantism is divided into mainline
and evangelical groups, as we saw above, the distinc-
tion between them is not easy to maintain. Mainline
Protestant denominations are those brought to North
America by its historic immigrant groups. The largest
are the Episcopal (English, from the Anglican Church),
Presbyterian (Scottish), Methodist (English and Welsh),
and Lutheran (Scandinavian and German) denomina-
tions. They are generally more open to new ideas and
social changes than are evangelical Protestants and
Roman Catholics. For example, they’ve been increas-
ingly open to the ordination of women and equal-
ity in church and society for gay and lesbian persons.
Mainline churches belong to organizations such as the
National Council of Churches and the World Council
of Churches. Mainline Protestant groups were domi-
nant in North America for more than two centuries, up
until the 1960s.

The experience of conversion that

most evangelicals see as necessary for

salvation is called being “born again.”

287C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N N O R T H A M E R I C A T O D AY

Evangelicalism is the modern movement that seeks
to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, giving people an
opportunity to convert. The experience of conversion
that most evangelicals see as necessary for salvation is
called being “born again.” Although it became strong
in the past two centuries, it has roots that reach into
the earliest decades of the Reformation. It arose with
the Anabaptist movement in the 1500s, moved into the
mainstream Reformation with Pietism in the 1700s,
and became stronger in the late 1800s, especially as a
result of the world mission movement of the time. The
most famous evangelical of the twentieth century was
the Southern Baptist (U.S.) evangelist Billy Graham,
who held mass meetings that ended with a call to come
forward to “accept Christ as your personal Lord and
Savior” and be “born again.” There is a good deal of
variety in evangelicalism. Most evangelicals tend to
be politically conservative, but an increasing number
today—especially younger evangelicals—are politically
moderate or liberal. Probably the most infl uential mod-
ern voice in the evangelical movement was C. S. Lewis
(1898–1963), the University of Oxford professor of
medieval literature and a traditionalist Anglican who
ironically did not call himself an “evangelical.” Lewis
wrote popular religious works such as Mere Christianity
and The Screwtape Letters, which are still best sellers
for their clear, creative presentation of the faith. He also
wrote the popular children’s novels The Chronicles of

Narnia, which are full of traditional Christian themes
but not overtly Christian.

The black church—or, more commonly today,
African American church—in North America are
those churches that are mainly African American in
membership. Most African American congregations
belong to African American denominations such as
the National Baptist Convention or a variety of other
Baptist or Methodist groups, although many black con-
gregations belong to predominantly white denomina-
tions. The fi rst black congregations and churches were
formed before 1800 by freed slaves in the South and
especially in the North. After slavery ended, African
Americans continued in separate congregations and
denominations, creating communities and styles of
worship that were culturally distinct from those of their
white counterparts. They continued a unique, power-
ful form of Christianity that adapted African religious
practices in preaching, music, and congregational life.
For example, matriarchal traditions from Africa have
led to some women having a much higher status, even
authority, in African American churches than in white
churches. Many African American congregations have
“mother boards” composed of older women who
are real power-brokers in their churches. Segregation
of the races discouraged and, especially in the South,
prevented African Americans from belonging to the
same churches as whites, thus helping to preserve the

distinctive patterns of African
American Christianity.

African Americans con-
tinued to form separate con-
gregations and denominations
during the 1900s. This separa-
tion continues today despite
the decline of segregation
and the rising occurrence of
integrated worship. African
American churches are usu-
ally the centers of their com-
munities, opening schools in
the early years after the Civil
War, and pursuing other social
welfare efforts. As a result,
they have founded strong com-
munity organizations and pro-
vided spiritual and political
leadership, especially during
the civil rights movement, seen
most clearly in its leadership by
the African American Baptist
pastor Martin Luther King Jr.RIC

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The Eagle and Child Pub in Oxford, England, where C. S. Lewis and other
Oxford-based Christian writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles

Williams met regularly to discuss their writings

288 C H A P T E R 1 1 E N C O U N T E R I N G C H R I S T I A N I T Y : T H E WAY O F S A LVAT I O N I N J E S U S C H R I S T

Another broad trend in North American Protes-
tantism is Restorationism. This refers to the belief held
by various religious groups in that the Christianity of
the fi rst century C.E. is the purest form of the faith; it
can and should be restored. (It was a strong impulse in
the United States in the 1800s.) Such groups typically
claim that their group is that restoration. They teach
that restoration is necessary because other Christians
before them introduced defects into Christian faith
or lost a vital element of genuine Christianity.
Restorationist denominations include the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Churches of Christ.

Several groups that emerged
in the Restorationist impulse
from American Protestant
denominations eventually
became new religious move-
ments. The Latter-day Saints

Church founded by Joseph Smith, more commonly
called the Mormons, is the most notable. Visitors to
the Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, can
view the hour-long movie Joseph Smith: Prophet of the
Restoration. Another major Restorationist religion is
that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s estimated that in
the United States, 1.9 million adults identify themselves
as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Like the L.D.S. Church, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses reject many teachings of the Nicene
Creed and view themselves as the only true church.

Finally, perhaps the single most important fac-
tor in the present and future of Christianity in North
America comes from outside North America. For
most of its history, Christianity has been strongest in
the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Europe and
North America. Now, Christianity is shifting to the
Southern Hemisphere, where most Christians live and
where Christianity is growing quickly as the number of
Christians in the Northern Hemisphere declines. These
“Global South” Christians with their more traditional
interpretations of the Bible and the creeds sometimes
present a challenge to older churches. For example, the
African Independent Churches, a dynamic adaptation
of Christianity by European mission churches in Africa,
is now spreading to North America. To cite another
example, the Anglican churches in Africa, where more
people in Uganda or Nigeria attend Anglican religious
services on a typical Sunday than in all of Great Britain,
strongly oppose efforts in the Church of England and
the Episcopal Church in the United States to approve
of same-sex relationships and ordain gay and lesbian
clergy. Mark Noll has written in his 2009 book, The
New Shape of World Christianity: How American
Experience Refl ects Global Faith, that Global South
Christians are less concerned about historic patterns
of church government and doctrine, things impor-
tant in the North, as they are about spiritual war-
fare between good and evil
today and the continuing gulf
between the wealthy North
and the “Majority World.”2 The
future of Christianity in North
America may well be shaped by
Christianity from outside it.

2 Mark Noll, The New Shape of World Christianity (Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic, 2009).

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Choir singing is an important part of worship
in African American churches, as here in

Jacksonville, Florida.

“With the aesthetics of the textbook, like that of a magazine, it
was very easy to focus on what I was reading and abstain
from distractions. Opposed to many standard textbooks
that are filled cover to cover with black and white, this
textbook offers colorful pictures on almost every page.
The text itself is written in an easy-to-read format. A
person reading from this is engaged with the text and
lesson. It almost does not even feel like something
that would fall under the classification of ‘work.'”

– Crystal Wells, student, University of West Florida

RELG was built on a simple principle: to create a new
teaching and learning solution that reflects the
way today’s faculty teach and the way you learn.

Through conversations, focus groups,
surveys, and interviews, we collected
data that drove the creation of the
version of RELG that you are using
today. But it doesn’t stop there—in
order to make RELG an even better
learning experience, we’d like you
to SPEAK UP and tell us how RELG
worked for you.What did you like
about it? What would you change?
Are there additional ideas you
have that would help us build better
tools for next semester’s world
religions students?

Speak Up! Go to
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224 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

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CHAPTER 10

Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

LO1 Explain the meaning of Judaism and related terms.
LO2 Summarize how the main periods of Judaism’s

history have shaped its present.

LO3 Outline the essential teachings of Judaism in your
own words.

LO4 Describe the main features of Jewish ethics.
LO5 Summarize Jewish worship, the Sabbath and

major festivals, life-cycle rituals, and the Kabbalah.

LO6 Outline the main features of Judaism in North
America today.

Encountering
Judaism:

The Way of God’s
Chosen

People

BONNIE VAN VOORST © CENGAGE LEARNIN

225

Your Visit to the Western

Wall in

Jerusalem

I
n your hotel the evening before you visit the
Western Wall, your tour guide gives you instruc-
tions for the next day’s events. “Everyone is wel-
come at the Wall,” she says. “But you must wear
modest clothing—no one in shorts, sleeveless

tops, or jeans is allowed. Men must wear a hat or other
head covering. Women must wear clothing that cov-
ers their shoulders and knees; they can borrow shawls
at the entrance. Proper behavior is a must—be respect-
ful of others.” All this is pretty standard stuff , you think,
and applies to most important religious sites around the
world. But there’s one item that’s unique to a visit to the
Western Wall: People are allowed to put a paper note with
a prayer written on it into a seam between the stones,
where (many Jews believe) God will pay special attention
to one’s prayer. Most people write out their prayer before
coming to the wall.

Almost everyone in Israel calls this place
simply “the Wall.” But your guide gives you a
warning: Don’t call it “the Wailing Wall.” This
term is often used today, but many residents
of Jerusalem fi nd it off ensive. “Wailing” is sup-
posed to refer to mourning for the destruction
of the temple in 70 C.E. There is typically no
wailing here, so the term is indeed misleading.

Despite the preparation you’ve done for
visiting the Wall, some things still surprise
you during your visit. First, long-established
Jewish rules apply here, so women must go
to their own section and not stand with the
men and boys. Even in the women’s section,
they may not read aloud from Jewish scrip-
tures or wear Jewish prayer shawls. There’s
some murmuring in your tour group over

this, but the women do have access to the wall itself and
can place prayer notes in it. Second, when you ask an offi –
cial about what happens to your prayer, you learn some-
thing surprising. More than a million notes are left in the
Wall each year, and you see that the cracks between the
stones are jammed with papers. Twice a year the notes
are collected and buried on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives.
Third, most surprising of all is how emotionally moved you
are. The closer you get to the Wall, the more it towers over
you. The prayerful piety of others at the site impresses you

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is One.” —The Shema

< A Jewish man wearing a prayer shawl blows a ram’s horn to herald the Jewish New Year holy day.

Judaism is the best example in world religions
of “ethical monotheism.”

Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

What Do YOU Think?

Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem

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226 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

and helps to explain why this is
for most Jews the holiest place in
the world.

Judaism is a monotheistic religion that believes that
the world was created by an all-knowing, all-powerful
God and that all things in the world were designed to
have meaning and purpose as part of a divine order.
God called the Israelites to be a chosen, special people
and follow God’s law, thus becoming the means by
which divine blessing would fl ow to the world. God’s
law guides humans in every area of life; it is a gift
from God so that people might live according to God’s
will.

The main infl uence of Judaism stems directly from
its strong devotion to God over more than 2,500 years.
Some of the impact of Judaism has been lost in the
modern world, and Judaism itself is more fragmented
in the modern world than ever before. Its deep infl uence
on everyday life and on patterns of Western culture is
still clearly visible, however. The belief that there is only
one God, now self-evident for believers in all Western
religions, is the main gift of Judaism. The idea that the
world is a real and mostly good (or at least redeemable)
place has shaped Western religion and thought. Our
seven-day week with its rest on the weekend originates
in Judaism as well. The convictions that all people are
equally human before God, each other, and the law;
that the human race is one family; and that each indi-
vidual can fully realize the meaning of life regardless of
social or economic class have also come to the Western
world from Judaism.

Key teachings and values of Judaism

have spread in Christianity and Islam to

over half of all the people of the world.

In your study of Judaism, you’ll encounter and
study in some depth these unique features:

● For a relatively small religion, about fi fteen mil-
lion adherents today, it has had a big impact. The
teachings and values of Judaism have spread in

Christianity and Islam,
which are closely related
to Judaism, to over half
the people of the world.
However, Islam and

Christianity have often been rivals of Judaism as
well.

● The world has had a mixed attitude to Judaism
for more than two thousand years. The Jews’
strong, clear monotheism and morality have been
infl uential, but Jews have drawn near-constant
opposition as well. Prejudice against them, often
leading to violent persecution, has sadly been a
recurrent feature in Jewish life.

● Judaism is both geographically scattered and cen-
tered. Since about 300 B.C.E., most Jewish people
haven’t lived in the traditional Jewish area now in
modern Israel. Instead, they’ve lived in the wider
Middle East, Europe, and North America. In fact,
more Jews now live in the United States (about
5.2 million) than live in Israel (about 4.9 million).
Still, Israel is an essential part of Judaism for most
Jews today.

L01 The Name Judaism
and Related Terms
Judaism is commonly and correctly defi ned as the
historic religion of the Jewish people. This name
comes from the ancient tribe of Judah, one of the
original twelve tribes of Israel. When the leaders
of the southern kingdom of Israel came back from
exile in Babylon in the 530s B.C.E., the name of their
larger tribe became the name of the political area
(Judah) and the people who lived there became the
Judahites (JOO-duh-ights), or Jews (jooz) for short.
In time their religion became known as Judaism, a
term derived from the ancient Greek language. For
most of the history of the Jewish people, to be Jewish
was to practice Judaism in some way. But around
1800 C.E., it became possible in Europe to give up
Judaism and still call oneself Jewish. Jewishness then
became for many Jews a matter of ethnic status and
cultural identity, not of religion. Other Jews replied

Judaism [JOO-dee-
ihz-um] Historic religion
of the Jewish people

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

227T H E N A M E J U D A I S M A N D R E L AT E D T E R M S

that only by keeping Judaism do Jews stay Jewish.
Although these two positions cannot be completely
separated, this chapter will focus on Judaism as a
religion.

Before 500 B.C.E., the ancestors of the Jews went
by other names. The fi rst was Hebrews (HEE-brewz),
the name of the people during patriarchal times through
the Exodus (1800–1200 B.C.E.). This name is from
Habiru (ha-BEE-roo; also spelled “Hapiru”), a word for
nomads that is found in many languages in the ancient
Fertile Crescent and seems to have been attached to
the descendants of Abraham while they lived in Egypt.
When they settled in Palestine after the Exodus and
became a nation there, they became known as Israelites
(IS-ray-ehl-ights), a name derived from the ancient patri-
arch Israel (whose original name was Jacob). Historians
speak generically of their religions during this period as

“Hebrew religion” and
“Israelite religion,”
not as “Judaism.”
A more recent twist
adds some confu-
sion to these names.
The modern nation
of Israel, founded in
1948, calls itself by
the same name as that
of ancient Israel, but
the people of mod-
ern Israel (whether
Jewish by religion or
not) are called Israelis
(ihz-RAIL-eez), not
Israelites.

Hebrews [HEE-brewz]
Name of God’s people during
patriarchal times through the
Exodus

Israelites [IS-ray-ehl-ights]
Name for God’s people during
the period of the Judges and
during the First Temple Period

Israelis [is-RAIL-eez] Name of
people who live in the modern
nation of Israel

menorah [men-OHR-uh]
Large candelabra in the
Jerusalem temple, today a
common symbol of Judaism

Symbols of Judaism

Several symbols have served Judaism over time, and we
will begin with the lesser-used ones.

Chai
Chai (chigh, with a throat-
clearing initial sound), a
symbol of modern origin,
popular and fashionable
in jewelry today, is the
Hebrew word for “living.”
Some say that it refers to
God, who alone is perfectly
alive; others think it comes from the common Jewish toast
“Le chaim” (leh CHIGH-ihm), “To life!” More likely, it refl ects
Judaism’s general focus on the importance of life. It is a
symbol of their Jewish faith for many people who wear it.

Menorah
The oldest symbol of the Jewish
faith is the menorah, a large
usually seven-branched candela-
bra. It was a prominent accessory
in the Jerusalem temple, and one
sees it today in many Jewish homes
and houses of worship. It’s especially

prominent during the celebration of Hanukkah, when a
nine-branched menorah is used for the nine days of this
festival. For many Jews, the menorah is a symbol of Israel’s
mission to be “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). It is fea-
tured today on the coat of arms of the state of Israel.

Star of David
The six-pointed Star of David is the
symbol most commonly associated
with Judaism today, but it isn’t
nearly as old as the menorah. A
symbol of two overlaid equilateral
triangles was a common symbol of
good fortune in the ancient Near
East and in North Africa. It appears
occasionally in early Jewish artwork from as far back as the
fi rst century C.E., but not as a symbol of Judaism. In the
1600s it began to be used to mark as Jewish the exteriors of
some Jewish houses of worship in Europe and then began
to be associated with the ancient King David. The Star of
David gained popularity as a symbol of Judaism when it
was adopted in 1897 as the emblem of the Zionist move-
ment to resettle Palestine. Today it is a well-recognized
symbol of Judaism, particularly because it appears on the
fl ag of the modern state of Israel.

A Closer Look:

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

228 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

LO2 The Jewish Present
As Shaped by Its Past

An American college professor leads his class on European religious history through the Dachau (DAHK-ow) concen-
tration camp outside Munich, Germany. They walk through
the gate, and the professor explains the macabre meaning of
its inscription, Arbeit macht frei (“Work makes [you] free”). He
explains, as they walk by, the barracks for prisoners and the
other buildings around the site. They see the gas chamber
disguised as a shower room and then inspect the cremato-
rium. This is all a somber experience, but the full horror of this
site doesn’t really register on the students until they go into
its museum, with exhibits of what went on here. A suspicion
and hatred of “alien” groups, especially the long history of
hatred of the Jewish people, reached a horrifi c outcome in
dozens of camps such as this. Everyone in the class is in tears
as they leave, including the professor, who has been here
before and isn’t an emotional person. He brings his students
here for this searing experience so that they’ll never forget
the evil humans can do, and the courage it takes for perse-
cuted groups to continue on in life.

The Jewish people have a long, storied history that includes
both tragedy and triumph. In Judaism today we can
see important beliefs and practices from the entire four-
thousand-year sweep of Jewish history. The periods of this
history that we will consider here are: from the creation of

the world to

Abraham (ca.

2000 B.C.E.); the emergence
of Israel (ca. 1200–950
B.C.E.); the First Temple
Period (950–586 B.C.E.); the
Second Temple Period (539
B.C.E.–70 C.E.); revolts
and rabbis (70 C.E.–ca. 650
C.E.); Jews under Islamic
and Christian rule (ca. 650–
1800 C.E.); emancipation
and change (1800–1932);
and the Holocaust and its
aftermath (1932–present).

From the

Creation to

Abraham (ca.

2000 B.C.E.)

Chapters one through
eleven of the fi rst book of
the Bible, Genesis, span

the creation of the universe to the time of Abraham,
father of the Jewish people (ca. 2000 B.C.E.). It nar-
rates and provides a religious perspective on the cre-
ation of the world, the rebellion of the fi rst humans
against God and their expulsion from the Garden
of Eden, the wide dispersal of people, Noah and
the fl ood, and other topics. These stories echo the
earlier mythology of Mesopotamia and provide
an Israelite alternative to them. The rest of Genesis
(Chapters 12–50) covers just four generations of one
family of the patriarchs and their wives: Abraham
and Sarah, their son Isaac and his wife Rebekah, their
son Jacob (Israel) and his wives Rachel and Leah, and
Jacob’s twelve sons who founded the twelve tribes of
the nation of Israel. The Israelite and then the Jewish
people emerged from these tribes. Scholars debate the
meaning and historical accuracy of the early biblical
story, but they don’t doubt the role that it played in

shaping Judaism.

Scholars debate the early biblical

story, but not the role that it played in

shaping Judaism.

Genesis 12 begins by narrat-
ing the migration of Abraham
from Ur in Mesopotamia to the
land of Canaan, a journey com-
manded by God. God makes
a covenant with Abraham in
which God promises to be with Abraham, be the
God of his many descendants, and bless the world
through these descendants. In return, God demands
that Abraham follow him faithfully. Abraham then
carries out, on himself and all the males in his clan,
the ritual of circumcision, cutting off the foreskin of
the penis, which is the perpetual sign of the covenant.
Abraham’s son Isaac marries Rebekah; she secures the
line of succession for her younger son Jacob. Jacob’s
simultaneous marriages to Leah and Rachel produce
twelve sons, who are the origins of the twelve tribes.
Genesis 37 to 50 tells the story of Joseph, the young-
est of Jacob’s twelve sons. Joseph is betrayed by his
jealous brothers, who sell him to slave traders on their
way to Egypt, but Joseph rises to great power under a
sympathetic pharaoh. All Abraham’s descendants then
move to Egypt and prosper there until a later pharaoh
enslaves the Israelites.

patriarchs Hebrew
founding family of the
later Israelites and Jews:
Abraham and Sarah, their
son Isaac and his wife
Rebekah, their son Jacob
(Israel) and his wives
Rachel and Leah, and
Jacob’s twelve sons who
founded the twelve tribes
of the nation of Israel

covenant Agreement
God made with Abraham
in which God promised
to be with Abraham
and be the God of his
many descendants and
Abraham promised to
follow God

circumcision Ritual of
the covenant, removing
the foreskin of the penis

229T H E J E W I S H P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

The Emergence of Israel

(ca. 1200–950 B.C.E.)

The book of Exodus contains the story of Israel’s enslave-
ment in Egypt, God’s call to Moses to lead his people
out of Egypt, Pharaoh’s stubborn resistance, and the
Israelites’ escape through the parted waters of the Red
Sea. Moses leads the Israelites to Sinai, a mountain in the
wilderness where they enter into a covenant relationship
with God. The Israelites agree to live by all the teachings
and commandments, the Torah, conveyed to them by
Moses. In keeping the Torah, they will live out their call-
ing to be God’s chosen people. After a forty-year journey
through the wilderness, a new generation of Israelites
arrives at the Jordan River, where they prepare to cross
over and occupy the land
promised to them. The books
of Joshua and Judges relate the
story of the Israelites’ conquest
of Palestine, its division among
the tribes, and the fi rst hun-
dred years of settlement.

The focal center of early
Israelite religion during this period
was the movable tent-shrine

housing the Ark
of the Covenant,
a sacred box con-
taining two tablets
inscribed with the
Ten Command-
ments, Moses’ staff,
and a pot of manna,
with angels on the
top. This tent, called
the tabernacle, is
where the fi rst formal
worship of ancient
Israel took place,
with sacrifi ce, prayer,
and praise to God.
Unlike the nations
around it, Israel had
no national government;
the twelve tribes were
bound together in a tribal
confederacy under their

covenant with God. When Israel’s
enemies threatened, the tribes would act together under charis-
matic leaders, some of them women. Israel changed its form of
government from a tribal confederacy to a monarchy. Saul was
anointed king around 1025 B.C.E. Israel’s second monarch,
David, consolidated the monarchy over all Israel. The Bible
celebrates the reigns of David and his son Solomon as a golden
age, but it doesn’t gloss over their considerable failings.

The First Temple Period

(950–586 B.C.E.)

Solomon’s construction of a temple to God in Jerusalem
(ca. 950) inaugurated the First Temple Period, which
lasted until the temple was destroyed in 586. The royal

An eight-day-old Jewish boy undergoes
circumcision

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Torah [TOHR-uh]
Teachings and
commandments
conveyed by Moses,
particularly in the first five
books of the Bible

Ark of the Covenant
Sacred box in the
tabernacle and then
the Temple

First Temple Period
Era of Israelite history from
ca. 950 B.C.E. until the
destruction of Jerusalem
in 586

Modern replica of the Ark of the Covenant, the holiest object
in ancient Israel

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230 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

prophets Mostly men and
some women who spoke for
God to ancient Israel to call
them to greater obedience

court became increasingly lavish as the power
and size of the state increased. So did the tax
burden on the lower classes. Many viewed
the increasing social and economic divisions,
with “the rich getting richer and the poor
getting poorer,” as a violation of God’s will.
Over the next centuries, a line of prophets,
mostly men and some women who spoke for
God, denounced the leaders of Israel for their
greed, exploitation of the poor, and other
social injustices and immoralities. They also
criticized the leaders’ faith in alliances with
other nations and not in God’s power to pro-
tect the nation. Today, prophets are those
who can see the

future, but prophets in Israel were much

more “forth-tellers” of God’s will than foretellers of
the future. The importance of prophets to Israelite and
Jewish religion is indicated by the fact that the books of
the prophets are the largest section of the Bible. (We’ll
consider the formation and use of the Bible below, at the
beginning of “Essential Teachings of Judaism.”) As con-
temporary Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel wrote, the
prophets portray the righteousness of God and God’s
“pathos” (anguish) over Israel’s disobedience.1 The pro-
phetic tradition that demands justice in God’s name
for the poor and oppressed is one of the great gifts of
Judaism to the world.

Today prophets are said to see the

future, but prophets in Israel were much

more “forth-tellers” of God’s will than

foretellers of the future.

When Solomon died in 922 B.C.E., the people
of God divided into two different nations—Israel,
comprised of ten tribes in the north, and Judah, com-
prised of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the
south, each with its own king (see Map 10.1). Each

1 Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, study edition (Peabody, MA:
Hendricksen, 2007).

nation claimed to be the true successor of the united
kingdom of Saul, David and Solomon. Sometimes the
two kingdoms warred with each other, and at other
times they cooperated against common enemies. But
two centuries later the northern kingdom of Israel
was wiped out by the Assyrian Empire in 722. Its ten
tribes would never appear again, becoming in Jewish
lore the “ten lost tribes.” The southern kingdom of
Judah was crippled at the same time by the Assyrians,
who conquered several Judean cities and deported
their citizens. Judah was fi nally conquered in 586 by
the Babylonian Empire. The temple in Jerusalem was
destroyed and the population decimated by death and
exile. The First Temple Period had ended with a disas-
ter, and Israelite religion was poised to disappear into
the mists of time like the religions of so many other
conquered peoples.

Exile and return provides “the structure

of all Judaism.” —Jacob Neusner

The exiles carried off to Babylon were mostly
members of the Judean ruling class and skilled crafts-
men. Although some exiles probably assimilated into
Babylonian religion, others viewed recent events as
confi rmation rather than disproof of the sovereignty of
Israel’s God. The warnings of the prophets, remembered
in the exile, helped Israel interpret what had happened
to them as God’s punishment for repeated violations of
the covenant. In the ancient world, military defeat and

Judean captives from the town of Lachish on their way into exile in
Assyria; a relief from the palace of King Sennacherib, Nineveh

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231T H E J E W I S H P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

SYRIA
CYPRUS

EGYPT

Byblos

Sidon

Tyre

Samaria

Jerusalem

Damascus

SINAI

Mt.
Sinai

Mediterranean
Sea

Dead Sea

Red Sea

Jordan R.

100 200 Miles0

0 100 200 300 Kilometers

Philistines

Kingdom of Judah

Kingdom of Israel

Phoenicians

Beersheba

Lachish

Gaza

Jaffa

Rabbat-Ammon

2
0

1
3

exile usually spelled the end of a particular ethnic group,
as it already had for the northern kingdom of Israel.
Despite the disaster of 586 B.C.E. and even larger disas-
ters to come, Israelite religion survived and emerged
from the ancient world into the medieval and modern
periods with a continuous religious identity now called

Judaism. The
pattern of exile
and return
would provide
a historical and
religious pat-
tern that a lead-
ing scholar of
Judaism, Jacob
Neusner, calls
“the structure of
all Judaism.”2

The Second Temple

Period (539 B.C.E.–70 C.E.)

In 539 B.C.E. the Babylonians were defeated
by Cyrus (SIGH-rus) of Persia, a Zoroastrian
whose empire covered almost the whole
Near East (see Chapter 9). Cyrus autho-
rized the rebuilding of the Jewish temple of
Jerusalem. The exiles would be allowed to
return to Judea and live as a subject state in
the Persian Empire. In Judea, the new lead-
ers Ezra and Nehemiah zealously promoted
a renewed commitment to the Mosaic cov-
enant. Increasingly, community life was
organized around the Torah, which was now
in written form as the fi rst fi ve books of the
Bible. The Second Temple was completed
between 521 and 515, and the Second
Temple Period would extend until 70 C.E.,
when the Romans destroyed the Second
Temple. During this time another permanent
feature of Jewish life arose: the Diaspora,
or “dispersion,” of Jews outside the ancient
territory of Israel. Many, perhaps most, of
the Jews in Babylon stayed there when oth-

ers returned to Jerusalem in the 530s. Within
a hundred years or so, there would be more
Jews living outside the territory of Israel than
inside it. Large Jewish communities could be
found in Alexandria, Egypt, and in Antioch,
Syria, and smaller ones in hundreds of cities in
what would become the Roman Empire. This

Diaspora situation became per-
manent in Judaism and endures
even today.

2 Jacob Neusner, “Judaism,” in Arvind Sharma, ed., Our Religions
(New York: HarperOne, 1994), 314.

Second Temple
Period Era of Jewish
history from ca. 539 B.C.E.
to 70 C.E., when the
Romans destroyed the
Second Temple

Diaspora [dee-ASS-
pohr-uh] Dispersion of
Jews outside the ancient
territory of Israel

Map 10.1
The Monarchies of Israel and Judah, 924–722 B.C.E.
The northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of

Judah had expanded beyond the traditional areas of the twelve tribes,
especially at times when neighboring kingdoms and empires were
relatively weak. The kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrian Empire in
722 to 721 B.C.E.

232 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

In the 330s B.C.E., Alexander of Macedon (in
northern Greece) began conquering and amassing the
largest empire yet seen, taking Israel in his conquest. In
Alexander’s time tens of thousands of Greeks migrated
to all parts of his vast empire. Greek culture in Palestine
extended until the rise of Islam in the 600s C.E., because
many Jews in Palestine were signifi cantly Hellenized
in culture while keeping to Judaism. The two centu-
ries after Alexander’s conquests saw the formation of

Jewish movements with
diverse understandings of
Judaism. The Sadducees
were a priestly movement
who accepted only the ear-
liest books of the Bible as
authoritative and cooper-
ated with the Romans. The
Pharisees were a lay move-
ment of Torah teachers who
later became religious lead-
ers and developed the oral
traditions of the Torah. The
Essenes (ESS-eenz) prob-
ably began the separat-
ist ultra-Torah-observant
community at Qumran
on the Dead Sea. Various
prophetic or messianic

movements also arose within Judaism from time to time,
including one led by Jesus of Nazareth (4 B.C.E.–30 C.E.)
that would later become the Christian religion.

Alexander’s successors had a signifi cant impact
on Judea and Judaism. After gaining control of Judea
in 198 B.C.E., the Seleucid (sell-YOO-sid) dynasty
of Greek rulers that controlled most of the Middle
East rewarded the pro-Seleucid faction of Jews. But a
struggle soon arose over the offi ce of high priest. The
Seleucid king suspected a revolt, captured the city, and
plundered the Temple in 168 B.C.E. The Temple was
rededicated to the Greek high god Zeus, and pagan
sacrifi ces were made there. Many Jews were outraged,
and when foundational Jewish observances such as cir-
cumcision and Sabbath observance were forbidden on
pain of death, the Maccabean Revolt broke out. The
revolt was led by Judas Maccabeus, of the Hasmonean
clan, and his sons. The Seleucid armies were defeated,
and the Temple was liberated and rededicated to God
in December, 164 B.C.E., an event commemorated by
Jews to this day in the winter festival of Hanukkah.
Before and during the revolt, many devout Jews were
tortured and killed, leading to the fi rst written accounts
of Jewish martyrs. Their example would echo strongly
through Jewish history until now. In 142 B.C.E., inde-
pendence from the Seleucids was secured, and the
Hasmonean family ruled the small kingdom of Judea
for several generations. The Hasmoneans ruled until
the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem in
63 B.C.E. and took Judea into the Roman Empire.

King Herod ruled Israel by Roman appointment from
37 to 4 B.C.E. He undertook extensive and ambitious
building projects, including a complete rebuilding of the
Temple in Jerusalem, making it one of the most magnifi –
cent temples in the Roman Empire. However, he was hated
by many Jews not only for cruelty and his loyalty to Rome,
but also because many Jews doubted if he really was Jewish
by birth. Relations between
the Jews and their Roman
overlords steadily deteri-
orated, and Rome appointed
its own governors of the area
after Herod died.

Revolts and Rabbis

(70 C.E.–ca. 650)

In 66 C.E., a full-scale Jewish revolt broke out against
Rome. Although it began well, with the Romans
being chased out, it ended very differently than the
Maccabean Revolt. Rome summoned all its military

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A modern model of the Second Temple in its
Jerusalem setting

Pharisees [FAIR-uh-
seez] Lay movement of
Torah teachers who later
became religious leaders
and developed the oral
traditions of the Torah

Maccabean Revolt
Rebellion against
Hellenistic Greek rulers led
by Judas Maccabeus and
his sons

Hanukkah [HAHN-
uh-kuh] Winter festival
commemorating the
rededication of the
Temple in 164 B.C.E.

233T H E J E W I S H P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

might to crush the revolt, engaging in massive slaughter
of combatants and noncombatants alike. It destroyed
the Temple in 70 C.E., and a permanent transforma-
tion of Judaism resulted. The Temple had been the
only place that represented the whole nation to God
and was the location of great religious events such
as Jewish festivals and the Day of Atonement. It was
also the only place where sacrifi ces could be offered to
God. In addition, the Temple was a forum for Jewish
teachers and the location of the high council of reli-
gious leaders that governed Judaism. The destruction
of the Temple was a disaster for Judaism, and the end

of the revolt against Rome
brought the end of every
group in Judaism except the
Pharisees, who would even-
tually take over the religion’s
leadership.

Jewish hopes for independence and Roman heavy-
handed tactics continued in the ensuing decades, cli-
maxing in a revolt in 130 led by messianic claimant
Simon Bar Kochba. This revolt was also crushed by
Rome. The Jewish population had now been hit hard
by two wars of their own making in only sixty years.
Yet during this period a small and peripheral group
connected to pre-70 C.E. scribes and Pharisees pre-
served a Torah-centered, lay-led Judaism. It would be
at least two centuries before these teachers, or rab-
bis, would begin to win broader infl uence and judi-
cial authority over Judaism. In the 300s and 400s,
the rabbis gradually became spiritual leaders in local
Jewish communities, the synagogues.

When Christianity became
the offi cial faith of the Roman
Empire around 400 C.E., Jews
were allowed to survive but not
thrive. From about 100 to 400
C.E., Christianity and Judaism
had been in the process of
separation, and mutual hostil-
ity was often strong. The Code
of Justinian in 527 C.E. con-
tained discriminatory legislation
against the Jews and Judaism
that was to infl uence European
legal systems for centuries and
contribute to anti-Semitism,
prejudice and discrimination
against the Jewish people.
Anti-Semitism isn’t

Christian

or even European in origin or
expression. Its oldest forms can

be traced to 500 B.C.E. in Egypt, and today the stron-
gest forms of it are found in the Muslim Middle East.
Despite these hardships, or perhaps because of them,
many Jews chose to form their communities around
synagogues. The local synagogue became the chief orga-
nization of Jewish life in late antiquity and remained so
until the modern period.

The single most important Jewish community from
about 600 to 1500 C.E. was in Babylonia, outside the
sphere of Greek, Roman, and then Christian power. As
we’ve seen, Israelites arrived in Babylonia during the
time of their exile in 586 B.C.E. In later periods there
was some immigration
from Palestine, but schol-
ars didn’t made their way
to Babylonia and estab-
lish a home there until
the persecutions after the
Bar Kochba revolt in the
130s C.E. Over the next
centuries the status of the
Babylonian Jewish com-
munity grew in prestige,
and immigration increased.
Although the Babylonian
Jewish community con-
fronted problems and
occasional persecution, its
freedom from Christian
government and from the
hardships that prevailed
in Palestine enabled it to

Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, showing
trophies from the Jewish temple

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rabbis [RAB-ighz]
Teachers of the law
and successors of the
Pharisees who eventually
gained influence and
judicial authority over
Judaism

synagogue [SIN-uh-
gawg] “Gathering” of local
Jews in a congregation for
worship and community
life, a term later applied to
a building

anti-Semitism [SEHM-
ih-tihz-um] Prejudice and
discrimination against the
Jewish people

234 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

develop into a vibrant center of Jewish intellectual and
cultural life. By 600, it had surpassed the Palestinian
community in its leadership of world Judaism.

All modern forms of Judaism are built

on, or react to, the foundation of the

Babylonian Talmud.

The work of the rabbinic academy in Babylon
centered fi rst on the Mishnah, a collection of primar-
ily legal traditions on all aspects of the Torah—what
we today would call civil, criminal, and religious law—
produced in Palestine and brought to Babylonia in the
early third century C.E. Generations of Babylonian rab-
bis discussed the Mishnah and related teachings, adding
to them and ultimately producing a huge legal work
known as the Babylonian Talmud. Rabbinic Judaism
is the Torah-centered way of life that fi nds expression
in the vast sea of materials produced by Palestinian and
Babylonian rabbis from 70 to 630 C.E., most promi-
nently the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud achieved
a remarkable degree of power in Jewish communities
worldwide, a power that withstood serious challenges
well into the early modern period. Almost all forms of

Judaism in the medieval and
modern ages are built on, or
react to, this foundation of the
Talmud as interpreted by the
rabbis.

Jews under

Islamic and

Christian

Rule (ca.

650–1800)

Jews in the medieval period
lived under either Muslim
or Christian rule. Muslims
guaranteed religious tol-
eration as long as the Jews
recognized the suprem-
acy of the Islamic rule.
They had a second-class
but protected status. On
the whole, Jews adapted
well to the Islamic regime

and the political, economic, and social changes that it
brought. They lived predominantly in major Arab cit-
ies; worked in commerce, banking, and the learned pro-
fessions; and participated in cultural life, even adopting
Arabic as their everyday language.

Some rabbis from these Sephardic Jewish com-
munities, which centered in the Middle East, North
Africa, and Spain, were interested in the philosophi-
cal clarifi cation of religious beliefs and the system-
atic presentation of their faith, just as Muslim and
Christian theologians were doing. The most promi-
nent medieval Jewish philosopher was Rabbi Moses
ben Maimon (1135–1204), known as Maimonides
(my-MAHN-uh-deez). He addressed his Guide for
the Perplexed to a student whose education in phi-
losophy left him confused about his religious faith—a
common situation for many students from a religious
background! Maimonides was a brilliant legal scholar
whose fourteen-volume work on Jewish law became
almost instantly authoritative. In modern editions of
the Talmud, his views are often cited.

Jews were outsiders in medieval Christian society in
western, central, and eastern Europe where they called
themselves Ashkenazi Jews, as distinguished from
Sephardic. Rulers granted them permission to live in
specifi ed neighborhoods. In these neighborhoods, Jews
ran their own affairs and maintained their own institu-
tions, such as social-relief funds, schools, a synagogue
led by a rabbi, a council and court for religious affairs,
a bathhouse for ritual cleansing, kosher meat shops,
and so on. They developed their own language, Yiddish,
a combination of Hebrew and German that originated
in Germany but spread to almost all European Jews.
Most Jews in Western and Central Europe lived in
cities. Many of those in Eastern Europe (Poland and
Russia) lived in small villages centered on farming, the
kind of society depicted in an 1894 collection of short
stories by Sholem Aleichem
(SHOH-luhm uh-LIGHK-
uhm), which became the basis
of the Broadway musical and
fi lm Fiddler on the Roof.

In the 1200s, decrees by the Roman Catholic
Church after the Fourth Lateran Council altered the
life of European Jews. Christians were now forbidden
to lend money at interest, so Jews were free to move
into banking, which they did with great success. Direct
restrictions on Jews arose at this time: wearing distinc-
tive clothing (especially hats) or a yellow badge alert-
ing others to their presence; exclusion from most crafts
and trades by guilds that controlled access to training
and jobs; exclusion from the new universities being

Babylonian Talmud
[TALL-mood] Jewish law
code, a compilation of the
“oral Torah”

Sephardic [seh-FAR-dik]
Jews in medieval and
modern times living in the
Middle East, North Africa,
and Spain

Ashkenazi [ash-kuh-
NAHZ-ee] Jews in
medieval and modern
times living in Western,
Central, and Eastern
Europe

235T H E J E W I S H P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

founded in Europe; restriction to Jewish neighbor-
hoods called ghettos; and special permission required
to work outside the ghetto. The rising view of Jews as
dangerous was fueled by envy, irrational suspicions,
and even hatred, which led to repeated expulsions and
massacres. Jews were expelled from France in 1182
and 1306 and from England in 1290. The most devas-
tating massacres were in Germany in 1298, wiping out
140 Jewish communities, and in 1348 to 1349 when
the Black Plague was falsely attributed to Jews poison-
ing wells. In 1492 Spain expelled all Jews, estimated
to be between 100,000 and 150,000. Many of them
fl ed to temporary safety in Portugal, some of whom
eventually went to The Netherlands—one of the few
relatively safe havens for Jews in Europe. One reac-
tion of European Jews to this continued persecution
was the development of Jewish mystical piety, par-
ticularly the Kabbalah (kah-BAHL-uh), which we will
consider below in the section “Jewish Worship and
Ritual.” The Protestant Reformation in the 1500s was
a mixed blessing to the Jews of northern Europe. In
some places such as The Netherlands and England,
Protestant reformers treated them with some toler-
ance. But in Germany, the Protestant reformer Martin
Luther continued some aspects of anti-Jewish senti-
ment, in ways that would echo through later German
history.

Emancipation and Diversity

(1800–1932)

Around 1800, mostly under the infl uence of the
Enlightenment, many Western European nations began
to drop their restrictions on Jews. No longer did Jews
have to live in their own neighborhood, be subject to

the local rabbi, or dress and talk like Jews
had in Europe for more than a thousand
years. In less than a century, many Jews rose
to become some of the leading fi gures in sci-
ence, medicine, education, commerce, and
banking. (This astonishing level of achieve-
ment continued in the twentieth century,
when one-quarter of all Nobel Prize win-
ners were Jewish.) Their emancipation
prompted many nineteenth-century Jews
to wonder why they should continue to
be Jews when they could be citizens of
European states. Many modern Jews chose
to assimilate, which sometimes included
conversion to Christianity. Some—for
example, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx—
even began systems of thought, science, and

government that rationalized God out of existence and
opposed religion in general and particularly Judaism.

Many other Jews responded that Jewish identity was
not primarily ethnic or national, but religious. One could
be a loyal citizen of a European nation, but still keep the
Jewish religion. They urged not assimilation, but accultur-
ation, that is, taking on the culture of one’s nation while
retaining Jewish religious faith. Just as Christians could
practice their religion as citizens of different nations, so
too should Jews. The German-Jewish intellectual Moses
Mendelssohn (MEN-dul-sohn; 1729–1786) was an
infl uential example of those who made embraced moder-
nity while staying Jewish. He urged Jews to participate
in European culture and to continue in Judaism, what he
called the “double yoke” placed on them by God.

Many Jews questioned why they should

shoulder a “double yoke” of being both

Jewish and European—why not just

assimilate completely?

However, many Jews in the early 1800s began to
question why they should shoulder this “double yoke”—
why not just assimilate completely? This questioning, and
doubts about some elements
of traditional Judaism that
looked increasingly odd to
many modern Jews, sparked
controversies among mostly
German Jews in the mid-
1800s that eventually led

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Street scene in the medieval Jewish quarter
of Lublin, Poland

emancipation Jewish
freedom from Christian
and state control in
Europe after 1800

236 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

to the three main branches
of Judaism today:
Reform, Orthodox, and
Conservative. The Reform
movement, led by Abraham
Geiger (GIGH-gehr; 1820-
1874), was the fi rst new

form of Judaism to arise. Geiger wanted to change Judaism
into a modern religion with patterns of worship and devo-
tion similar to German Protestant Christianity. Synagogues
were renamed “temples,” and services were no longer con-
ducted in Hebrew, but German. Sermons by the rabbi and
music by trained choirs were introduced; candles were put
at the front of remodeled synagogues that now resembled
Christian churches; and the ethnic and national aspects of
Judaism were no longer mentioned. Reform Judaism gave
up kosher food regulations, Jewish dress and hair codes,
the Yiddish language, and most other traditional aspects.
It ended beliefs and practices it considered not a part of
the spiritual essence of Judaism. Of course, this entailed
an almost complete rejection of the Talmud. The Reform
movement quickly spread through much of Europe and
North America.

Traditionalist Jews condemned these reforms
as a betrayal of Judaism. They viewed their form
of Judaism as the only legitimate continuation of
Rabbinic Judaism and biblical Israel. The leader of
modern Orthodoxy was Samson Raphael Hirsch
(hersh; 1808–1888). Hirsch urged a combination of
most traditional Jewish religious practices and selec-
tive appreciation of European civilization. He criti-
cized the Reform movement for diminishing Judaism
for the convenience and contentment of modern Jews.
Instead, he urged the Orthodox movement to elevate

Jews to classical Judaism in a fresh and vigorous way.
The Orthodox movement has several different internal
groups, some of them now called (especially in Israel)
the “ultra-Orthodox.” Because of their high birth-
rate and ability to keep their children in the faith, the
Orthodox continue to grow in numbers in Europe and
North America.

A third main branch of Judaism, originally called
“Positive-Historical” in Germany, came to be known
in North America as Conservative Judaism. It was led
by the German-Bohemian rabbi and scholar Zecharias
Frankel (FRAHN-kul; 1801–1875). It claimed the mid-
dle ground between Reform and Orthodoxy. In that
sense, “moderate Judaism” would be a better name for
it than “Conservative Judaism,” but the latter name
stuck. (In Israel and Europe today, this movement is
known as Masorti [mah-SOHR-tee], “traditionalist.”)
It opposed Reform’s sweeping changes by affi rming
the positive value of much of past Judaism in which
the voice of God could be discerned. It opposed the
Orthodox movement by asserting the historical evo-
lution of the Judaic tradition, which Orthodoxy
denied with its claim that the whole Law of God—the
written form that became the Bible and the oral form
that became the Talmud—was revealed to Moses on
Mount Sinai.

Although many European Jews modernized rapidly
in the 1800s and were optimistic about the future of
Judaism, a wide outbreak of hostility toward the Jews
in the 1870s and 1880s cast a dark shadow on their
sunny optimism. For example, in France the Dreyfuss
affair, in which a Jewish army offi cer was falsely
accused of crimes, stirred up wide anti-Jewish feelings.
In Russia, the czar’s secret police authored a vile book

entitled the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
that purported to relate how rich and pow-
erful Jews were plotting to take over the
world. Modern anti-Semitism was a back-
lash against Jewish success in Europe, a sign
that Jews were still considered outsiders. In
earlier times, anti-Semitism had a mostly
religious basis, but in modern Europe it was
mainly based on ethnicity.

In the light of this revived anti-Semitism,
and in a time of rising European national-
istic movements that formed new nations
such as Germany and Italy, Jewish move-
ments sprang up emphasizing newfound
Jewish nationalism. Most important was
Zionism, so called after an ancient Hebrew
name for Jerusalem, which aimed for large
Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine.
In 1897, Theodor Herzl (HURT-zuhl;

A modern Reform synagogue

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Zionism Modern
movement for large
Jewish immigration into
Palestine

237T H E J E W I S H P R E S E N T A S S H A P E D B Y I T S PA S T

32°E 36°E

28°E

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Sea
of Galilee

Dead
Sea

Suez
Canal

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S e a

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ulf of Suez G

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Haifa

Beirut

Tel Aviv

Gaza

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Port Said

Amman

Damascus

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Sharm
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Jerusalem

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S I N A I
P E N I N S U L A

ARAB-ISRAELI
CONFLICT

H if

Be
L E

Jewish state after UN partition
of Palestine, 1947

Israel after War of 1948–1949

Area controlled by Israel after
Six-Day War, 1967

Israeli-occupied area after
Yom Kippur War, 1973

1860–1904) organized the First Zionist Congress in
Basel, Switzerland, which called for an internation-
ally recognized Jewish national home in
Palestine. The Zionist movement was
largely secular in orientation. With con-
tinued anti-Semitism in Europe, increas-
ing numbers of Jewish immigrants settled
in Palestine and began to set up the social
infrastructure of a modern nation. The
quest for a Jewish nation free from the
threats of anti-Semitism was well on
its way. In 1917 the British government
issued the Balfour Declaration giving
British support for a national home for
the Jewish people in Palestine.

The Zionist slogan was “a land without a people for
a people without a land,” but the Jewish settlers there
found that Palestine wasn’t really a land without a people.
Palestinian Arabs in the tens of thousands, both Muslims
and Christians, had been living in that small territory for
more than a thousand years. Moreover, Palestinians were
among the most culturally advanced Arabs in the Middle
East, and still are today. As the numbers of Jewish set-
tlers increased, friction grew with the Arab population.
Freedom for European Jews would come at the expense
of a future confl ict between Israeli Jews and Arabs, in
which they would be locked in a long struggle for a land
they both considered holy. Islam had been tolerant of
Judaism for 1,300 years but now became mostly intoler-
ant, largely because of Muslim resistance to non-Muslims
taking their holy land. Several wars were fought between
Israel and its Arab neighbors from 1948 through today,
all of them won by Israel, sometimes at a high cost (see
Map 10.2). A few peace treaties have been signed, but
the confl ict continues. Jewish settlement in Israel grew
quickly after the events of World War II, especially after
Germany’s extermination of most European Jews. We
now turn to a brief examination of this horrifi c story.

The Holocaust and Its

Aftermath (1932–present)

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party won offi ce in the 1932
German national elections, and in 1933 Hitler quickly
moved toward totalitarian power with a variety of

repressive measures. Some of them pursued Nazi ide-
ology to “purify” Germany in a series of anti-Semitic

laws gradually introduced between 1933
and 1938. Germans who had just one
grandparent who was Jewish by ethnic-

ity—on a synagogue roll, for example, or a
member of a secular Jewish organization—
were deemed to be Jewish, whether or not

they thought of themselves as Jewish.
Jews had to wear a yellow star in pub-
lic for identifi cation. Marriage and sex-

ual relations between Jews and so-called
Aryan Germans were banned, and by
1938 all German Jews had been stripped
of their citizenship, most civil rights, and
some from their professional jobs. Some
Jews fl ed as these laws were passed, but

most stayed, hoping that each new law would be the last.

Badge worn by all Jews
in Nazi Germany. Jude

(pronounced YOO-deh) is
German for Jew.

PHOTO COURTESY PHOTOS8.COM

Map 10.2
Arab-Israeli Confl ict, 1947–Present

By Egyptian-Israeli agreements of 1975 and 1979, Israel with-
drew from the Sinai in 1982. By 1981 Israel annexed the Golan
Heights in Syria. Through negotiations between Israel and the
PLO, Jericho and the Gaza Strip were placed under Palestinian
self-rule, and Israeli troops were withdrawn in 1994. In 1994
Israel and Jordan signed an agreement opening their borders
and normalizing their relations.

The Zionist slogan was “a land

without a people for a people

without a land.”

238 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

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The Nazi aim in the “Final Solution” was

to make not only Germany, but all

of Europe, “Jew-free.”

These hopes were in vain. When World War II
began, Hitler ordered a “Final Solution” of the “Jewish
Question.” The term Holocaust (literally, a “completely
burned” sacrifi ce) came after the war, used to describe the
Nazi genocide of Jews and other groups; the Hebrew term
Shoah (SHOW-uh, “destruction”) is also used. When the
war in the East broke out, “special assignment groups” of
German troops held mass executions of hundreds of thou-
sands of Jews who lived in villages and towns in newly
conquered territory. But this soon proved “ineffi cient.”
In 1942, the German government erected concentration
camps in western Germany and occupied Poland, after the
model of the fi rst camp in Dachau. The purpose of these
camps was not to “concentrate” Jews, but to kill them
with all the effi ciency of state-run mass murder. Jews from
Germany and Poland were brought by train to be killed by
poison gas or to work as slave laborers in adjoining facto-
ries. Then Jews from every other nation in Nazi-occupied
Europe—especially Russia, Hungary, The Netherlands,
and France—were hunted down and brought by train to
the camps. The Nazi aim in the “Final Solution” was to
make not only Germany, but all of Europe, “Jew-free.”
Approximately six million Jews perished, almost three-
quarters of Europe’s Jewish population.

Relatively few Germans dared—or cared—to risk
almost certain death by opposing the actions of their
government. Among the most famous examples of those
that did are the Roman Catholic indus-
trialist Oskar Schindler, who protected
1,200 Jewish workers from death, and the
Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(BAHN-haw-fuhr), who spoke out against
anti-Semitism and Nazi control of the
German churches. He also participated in
a failed plot to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer was
hanged by the Nazis shortly before the war
ended; when Schindler died in 1974, he
was buried with great honors in Jerusalem.

Holocaust [HAUL-oh-
caust] Nazi genocide of
Jews and other groups in
World War II

Liam Neeson (center) as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s
List, walking through lines of his Jewish workers, whom
he saved

The Holocaust brought a
crisis of faith to Judaism like no
event before it. To adapt Jacob
Neusner’s phrase, it was an
“exile” from which “return” was
extremely diffi cult. Orthodox Jews in general explained
the Holocaust as punishment for recent Jewish sins, as
a test of faith, or even as an opportunity to die for the
faith. For many other Jews, it shook the foundations of
Judaism. Some Jews, such as Richard Rubenstein, said
that the only possible valid response to the Holocaust was
the rejection of God. If God could allow the Holocaust,
then there was no God. Many Jews agreed with this, and
the abandonment of traditional beliefs and practices of
Jewish religion begun in the Jewish emancipation accel-
erated. On the other hand, Emil Fackenheim and oth-
ers insisted that the Holocaust did not show that God
was dead. To reject Judaism’s God, Fackenheim said,
was to aid Hitler in the accomplishment of his evil, even
demonic goal to destroy Judaism.

Whatever the best response to the Holocaust—not yet
a settled question in Judaism—the fi eld of religious studies
has given it a large and important place in teaching and
research. Holocaust museums have sprung up in several
major North American cities. Popular literature and fi lm
have also dealt extensively with the Holocaust. The Diary
of Anne Frank, authored by the Dutch Jewish teenager
who wrote about her life in hiding, has become required
reading in secondary schools all over the world. The works
of Holocaust survivors such as Elie Wiesel (EHL-ee vee-
ZEHL), particularly his moving novel Night, are widely
read. Hollywood fi lms on the Holocaust—Schindler’s List,
Sophie’s Choice, Life Is Beautiful, and many others—have
portrayed it in especially powerful ways.

239E S S E N T I A L T E A C H I N G S O F J U D A I S M

“Most Israelis don’t belong to a

synagogue, but the synagogue they don’t

belong to is Orthodox.” —Israeli quip

We should close this sec-
tion with a consideration of
Judaism in Israel today. The
Orthodox movement is the
only movement legally rec-
ognized in Israel. Until about
2000, only Orthodox Jews
could serve on religious coun-
cils. Today, only Orthodox rab-
bis may perform marriage and
conversion and grant divorce
in Israel. Orthodox men are

exempt from military service, and some of them receive
lifelong stipends from the government in order to
devote themselves to full-time Torah study. Some non-
Orthodox Israelis bristle at this preferential treatment.

Most Israelis today don’t formally identify with the
three movements known in North America. Instead,
they describe themselves in terms of their degree of
observance. More than half of all Israelis call themselves
“secular.” About 15 to 20 percent describe themselves
as “Orthodox.” Most of the rest in the wide middle are
“traditionally observant.” However, the secular and the
traditionalists (Masorti) of Israel tend to be more obser-
vant than are their counterparts in Europe and North
America. For example, many secularists in Israel observe
some traditional practices, such as lighting Sabbath can-
dles on Friday evening, limiting their activities on the
Sabbath day of rest, having a full Passover home ritual,
or keeping some Jewish dietary laws (avoiding pork, for
example). These practices are almost nonexistent among
American Jews who call themselves “secular.” An Israeli
quip on this combination of secularism and observance
runs, “Most Israelis don’t belong to a synagogue, but
the synagogue they don’t belong to is Orthodox.”

LO3 Essential Teachings
of Judaism

A Jewish woman enters her home in Los Angeles. Just before she goes through her front door, she looks at a
small box fastened to the right frame of the door. It contains
a small scroll with three short passages from the Hebrew

Bible, especially the key words of Deuteronomy 6:4–9: “Take
to heart these instructions. . . . Recite them when you stay at
home and when you are away, when you lie down and when
you get up. . . . Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house
and on your gates.” She touches this box reverently as a
reminder to remember God and keep God’s teachings within
her home. This little ritual act displays a key characteristic of
Judaism: that it is a religion of action more than a religion of
refl ection.

Judaism as a whole has no offi cial statement of its essen-
tial teachings. Unlike many other religions, it has rarely
argued over doctrine to the point of division. The clos-
est it came to a confession was the Thirteen Articles of
Maimonides, but this was never widely accepted as a
formal statement of Jewish teaching, in its time or later.
Persons are Jewish whether they hold a system of tra-
ditional Jewish teachings, have simple beliefs associated
with rituals such as the Passover meal, or even don’t
hold to any traditional Jewish teachings at all. This situ-
ation arises largely because actions in accordance with
the Torah, not beliefs, are the most important aspect of
Jewish religious life. Today, Jewish describes a people
and a culture as well as a religion, so some who call
themselves Jewish have little
interest in any Jewish religious
practices and even less in the
teachings of Judaism.

Foundation of Jewish

Teachings: The Tanak

The foundation of Jewish teaching and ethics is the
Jewish Bible, commonly called the Tanak. This name
is an acronym formed from the fi rst letters of the three
divisions of the Bible: the Torah (instruction, law); the
second division, called the Nevi’im (prophets); and the
third, the Kethuvim (writings). The Jewish scriptures
arose over a period of more than a thousand years, and
the Tanak was fi nalized only at the beginning of the
fi rst century C.E. Around the second century B.C.E., a
translation into Greek was made in Egypt for Jews who
had lived so long in the Diaspora that they had lost
their knowledge of the
Hebrew language. In the
consolidation of Judaism
that occurred after the
Jewish revolt, the status
of this Greek translation,
called the Septuagint (sep-
TOO-uh-jint), fell. Soon
only the Hebrew Bible

Tanak [TAH-nahk] Name
for the Hebrew Bible, an
acronym formed from
the first letters of Torah
(the law), Nevi’im (the
prophets), and Kethuvim
(the writings)

240 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

Shema [sheh-MAH,
or shmah] Basic
statement of faith from
Deuteronomy 6 that
begins “Hear, O Israel, the
Lord our God is One”

P
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Observant Jews wear kippahs out
of reverence for God.

was used in synagogues, even though many Jews could
not understand it.

Even more important than the particular docu-
ments of the Bible is the authority that most Jews have
invested in the biblical canon. These documents are said
to be the written revelation of God—they are God’s
very words. The Bible is especially authoritative in
expressing what God expects the Jewish people to do in
response to the divine self-revelation. They express and
shape the faith and action of Jews through all times.
Jews have debated the meaning of the Bible, have often
strongly disagreed about it, and in modern times have
studied it with modern scholarly methods, but most
Jews accept the Bible as their special book in some sig-

nifi cant sense. The Jewish use
of their scriptural canon has
deeply infl uenced the forma-
tion, contents, and use of scrip-
ture in Christianity and Islam.

Despite this lack of primary emphasis on teaching,
the Bible and Talmud contain a great deal of teaching
about God, humanity, and the meaning of life. Jewish
history has seen signifi cant theological and mystical
inquiry into religious concepts. We’ll consider three
main teachings: one God, the chosen people, and life
after death. (We’ll consider other foundational teach-
ings, the notions of obedience to God’s will in the Torah
and the concept of ethical monotheism, below in the
section “Essential Jewish Ethics.”)

One God

Judaism is a monotheistic faith, meaning that Jews
believe that only one God exists. Hebrew and Israelite
religion acknowledged the possible existence of other
gods, but only one God for Israel. This henotheism—
the belief in one God while accepting that other gods
may exist—seems to have been prevalent in ancient
Israel. For example, Canaanite gods were worshiped at
Israelite holy places shortly after Israelite settlement in
their promised land, King David named some of his chil-
dren after Canaanite gods, and Solomon built a shrine
to a Canaanite fertility goddess outside Jerusalem.

Full, formal mono-
theism seems to have
come in the Babylonian
exile in the 500s B.C.E.
As we saw above, the return
from Babylon featured a
strict enforcement of mono-
theism, and Judaism has
continued in it ever since.

Israel’s God is eternal, holy, all-knowing, all-present,
all-powerful. God is a divine being, not a principle or
a force. God guides not only those who know him, but
also the nations and human history. God is transcen-
dent, far above the world and human ability to compre-
hend God; but God is immanent as well, present in the
world and in each human being. Because God is holy
and just, God punishes humans for their disobedience,
particularly those who know the Torah; but because
God is merciful, God forgives and renews relationships.

How individual Jews choose to relate to God has
varied in different times and places. Some have related
to God by studying and keeping the Torah, by formal
worship in the two Temples and in synagogues, with
piety and emotion, even with mysticism such as the
Kabbalah. An important part of Jewish piety relating
to monotheism is the Shema, a basic statement of faith
from Deuteronomy 6 that begins “Hear, O Israel: The
Lord our God is One.” Some Jews today even relate
to God by denying God’s exis-
tence, but ironically this too
has become a Jewish option.

Judaism’s names for God
are an important aspect of its
teaching about God. The most sacred name of God,
as God revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus, is
YHWH. This name seems to be built on the Hebrew verb
to be and means either “I am” or “I will be.” YHWH is
sometimes referred to as the tetragrammaton (TEH-trah-
GRAM-mah-tahn), from the Greek for “four lettered.”
When vowels were added to Hebrew in the Middle Ages,
this name was considered too holy to be changed, so
we don’t know its original pronunciation. The common
word Jehovah (jeh-HOH-vuh), however, is incorrect as a
vocalization. A more grammatically correct spelling and
pronunciation, one used by scholars, is Yahweh (YAH-
weh). Nevertheless, this discussion is irrelevant to most
Jews, because they don’t pronounce God’s name. When

241E S S E N T I A L T E A C H I N G S O F J U D A I S M

the Torah is read aloud, Adonai (ad-oh-NAI), mean-
ing “Lord,” is read in place of YHWH. This practice is
refl ected in most English translations, including in the
Christian Bible, in which YHWH is rendered as “Lord.”

Many traditionalist Jews also refer to God as
Hashem (hah-SHEHM), “the Name,” understanding
that God, not just God’s name, is meant. The prohi-
bition against pronouncing God’s name expresses a
profound human reverence for God. Some modern
Orthodox Jews carry this reverence for God’s name one
step further. They refrain from writing the word God,
replacing it instead with G-d. Other branches of mod-
ern Judaism do not follow them in this practice, saying
that God is a generic noun, not a biblical name.

The Jews As God’s Chosen

People

Most religions that believe in gods have seen them-
selves as having a special relationship with their gods,
a relationship that makes them “chosen” or otherwise
special. The Jews believe that they are God’s “chosen
people,” chosen to be in a covenant with God. They
didn’t choose God; God chose them. The Jewish idea
of being chosen is fi rst found in the Torah and is elabo-
rated in later books of the Tanak. This status carries
both responsibilities and blessings, as described in the
biblical accounts of the covenants with God.

According to the Tanak, Israel’s character as the
chosen people goes all the way back to Abraham and
the eternal covenant God made with him: “I will estab-
lish my covenant between me and you and your descen-
dants after you in their generations, for an everlasting
covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after
you” (Genesis 17:7). Being chosen as God’s people
brings a call to be holy and a realization of how amaz-
ing this is: “For you are a holy people to YHWH your
God, and God has chosen you to be his treasured people

from all the nations that are on the face of the earth”
(Deuteronomy 14:2). This choice is grounded in God’s
love and faithfulness to the covenant promises made to
Abraham, not on Israel’s own qualities: “The Lord did
not set his love upon you or choose you because you
were more in number than any people, for you were
the fewest of all people. It was because the Lord loved
you, and because he would keep the oath which he had
sworn unto your ancestors” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8).

Jews throughout history have found that

being God’s chosen people is mostly a

blessing, but sometimes a mixed blessing

that brings trouble.

The “fl ip side” of this chosen status is demanding,
even ominous at times. Alongside the positive things
said about being chosen, there is the necessity of obedi-
ence: “If you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my
covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me
above all people” (Exodus 19:5). The obligation, even

The tetragrammaton, or name for God in Hebrew,
YHWH (Hebrew reads from right to left)NA

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Jewish clothing, hair styles, and the hidden
sign of circumcision have helped to defi ne
Jewish status as a chosen people. Here a
young Orthodox Jew stands behind his
father in Jerusalem.

/L
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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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242 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

threat, that this demand for obedience entails is empha-
sized by the prophet Amos: “You only have I singled
out of all the families of the earth; therefore will I pun-
ish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Despite
their status as a part of the chosen people, the ten tribes
of the chosen people were wiped away in 721 B.C.E.
because they disobeyed God continually. Jews through-
out history have found their belief in being God’s cho-
sen people mostly a blessing, but sometimes a mixed
blessing that brings troubles with both God and other
people. One of the most wry expressions of this mixed
blessing is in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, when
Tevye, the main character beset by diffi culties, prays,
“I know we are the chosen people. But once in a while,
can’t you choose someone else?”

Throughout its history, Judaism has usually linked
being the “chosen people” with a mission or purpose,
such as being a “light to the nations,” a “blessing to
the nations,” or a “kingdom of priests” between God
and the world. This special duty derives from the cov-
enant God made with Abraham and was renewed at
the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Through the
long history of Judaism and Israelite religion before it,
the idea of being God’s chosen people sustained many
Jews throughout military defeat and exile, discrimi-
nation, persecution, even the Holocaust. In modern
times, more secular Jews have understood it to mean
that their human abilities should be put to use for the
good of all humankind. Even among secularized Jews
there is a continuing feeling for the special status in
having a Jewish heritage. In sum, the British historian
Paul Johnson once wrote that historians cannot deal
well with the religious claim that God actually chose
the Jews and guided their history, but it can be affi rmed
that “The Jews believed that they were a special people
with such unanimity and passion, and over so long a
span, that they became one.” 3

Life after Death?

As the Hebrew Bible book of Job (johb) puts it, “If
mortals die, will they live again?” (Job 14:14). Most
religions of the world address this question, because
clarity on the issues of life after death means a great deal
to how they think about life before death. However,
the Tanak has little to say about what happens after
death, and Judaism as a whole today doesn’t dwell on
it. This may seem surprising to non-Jews, because the
sacred texts of Christianity and Islam, both of which

3 Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper and Row,
1987), 587.

have their foundations in Judaism, speak often about
life after death. But with Judaism’s focus on actions
more than beliefs, it is actually to be expected that
it not speculate about the world to come. Because
many religions, including Judaism’s sister faiths of
Christianity and Islam, rely in part on fear of the fi res
of hell and the hope of heaven to motivate good con-
duct in their adherents, it is remarkable that Judaism,
with its strong emphasis on morality, hasn’t usually
done the same.

An early common theme in the Bible is that death
means joining one’s ancestors in the land of the dead—
being “gathered to one’s people” (Genesis 25:8, 25:17,
35:29, 49:33; Deuteronomy 42:50). Another image
emphasizes the reality of mortality. God made humans
from the dust of the ground, and because of their sins they
die and return to dust (Genesis 3:19). Most Jews take this
literally—they regularly today use wooden coffi ns that
over time allow the body to rejoin the ground. The most
common biblical image of the afterlife is as a shadowy
place called Sheol (SHEE-ohl), which is similar to the
Greek conception of Hades. Sheol is a shadowy under-
world, a place of darkness (Psalms 88:13; Job 10:21, 22)
and silence (Psalms 115:17). Good and evil people alike
go there, and God isn’t present there. These early bibli-
cal descriptions of death indicate a belief that the person
continues to exist in some way after death, but not with
a full or happy life. Much later in the biblical tradition
the concept arises of the resurrection of the dead and a
fi nal judgment leading to either a blessed or a damned
life. Daniel 12:2 declares, “And many of them that sleep
in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting
life and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.”

Fully developed concepts of the resurrection of the
dead and eternal life came into much of Judaism around
200 B.C.E. When rabbinical Judaism—based largely on
the earlier Pharisees—took over, belief in resurrection
was near-universal in Judaism all the way to the Jewish
Enlightenment in 1800. The resurrection of the dead is
one of the Thirteen Articles by Maimonides, and a prayer
said regularly in traditionalist synagogues from medi-
eval times through today affi rms the resurrection. One
early rabbi, Hiyya ben Joseph, suggested that the dead
will travel through the ground and rise up in Jerusalem;
the unrighteous will arise naked and ashamed, and the
righteous will rise up clothed and happy (Babylonian
Talmud, Ketubot 111b). The hope of being raised in
Jerusalem has led to large cemeteries there, especially on
the Mount of Olives. Despite belief in a divine judgment
that separates those whose deeds are on balance good
from those whose deeds are not, some rabbis held that a
middle group of people of more mixed accomplishments

243E S S E N T I A L J E W I S H E T H I C S

will go into hell for an eleven-month period of purifi ca-
tion and then enter heaven (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh
Hashanah 16b-17a, Eduyot 2.10). This belief is prob-
ably connected to the Jewish practice of eleven months
of mourning deceased loved ones.

Most Jews have believed that one need not be
Jewish to enter heaven. Because God judges actions and
not beliefs, those who do what God commands will
be rewarded. Maimonides, for example, wrote that all
good people of the world have a portion in the next
world. Those who are “righteous among the Gentiles”
(non-Jews) by virtue of their deeds, even if they belong
to a different religion, will enter heaven. Heaven is typi-
cally called the “Garden of Eden,” a place of joy and
peace that recaptures the original home of humanity
on earth. The Babylonian Talmud’s imagery of heaven
includes sitting at banquet tables (Taanit 25a), enjoying
lavish banquets (Baba Batra 75a), and even enjoying
heavenly sex with spouses (Berachot 57b). A few rabbis
didn’t like this imagery and held that there will be no
eating, drinking, or sex in heaven—or if there is, they
won’t be so enjoyable. Instead, the blessed will enjoy
heaven in a purely spiritual way (Babylonian Talmud,
Berachot 17a). For example, despite his affi rmation of

the resurrection in the Thirteen Articles, Maimonides
held that there is no material substance in heaven at
all, only souls of the righteous without bodies (Mishneh
Torah, Repentance 8). This purely spiritual view of
heaven never became a mainstream Jewish teaching,
because Judaism had long held that “soul” and “body”
belong together. Both Islam and Christianity give much
more importance to the teaching of resurrection and
eternal life.

“I don’t believe in [an afterlife]. I believe

this is it, and I believe it’s the best way

to live.” —Natalie Portman

As stated above, this Talmudic teaching on the
afterlife prevailed in virtually all of Judaism from about
400 to 1800 C.E. Today, Orthodox Jewish movements
still teach the resurrection of the dead, judgment by
God, and life in heaven or hell. Reform Judaism, on the
other hand, rejected these doctrines as binding. Instead,
its members are allowed to form their own opinions
on life after death. The general view in Reform, drawn
from Enlightenment ideas, is that even if there is a life
after death, we can’t know much about it here, so it
shouldn’t play a large role in how people live. Human
immortality, Reform Jews hold, is mostly in one’s chil-
dren and the spiritual legacy one leaves behind. As a
result, many Reform Jews and secular Jews have no
belief in life after death. For example, when the Israeli-
American actress Natalie Portman, who was raised
“Jewish but not religious,” was asked about her con-
cept of the afterlife, she said, “I don’t believe in that. I
believe this [life] is it, and I believe it’s the best way to
live.” The Conservative movement, between Orthodoxy
and Reform on most teachings, holds to the continued
importance of the main lines of traditional teachings
on this topic, but notes its historical conditioning and
interprets its more vivid imagery as symbolic.

LO4 Essential Jewish
Ethics

In Grand Rapids, Michigan, a short controversy breaks out in the press over the religious implications of a museum
exhibit called “Bodies Revealed.” This exhibit, which has
played in several other North American cities, shows fourteen
full human bodies and “hundreds of organs” in various states

Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives facing
the former site of the Temple, now occupied by

the Dome of the Rock mosque

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Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

244 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

of dissection. The museum’s website says it has anticipated
the controversy that has followed this exhibit as it travels, so
it has consulted ethical and religious experts on bringing the
exhibit to town. Although it’s a popular exhibit with excellent
ticket sales, some controversy does break out in the open.
The most articulate examination is in a newspaper column by
a local rabbi, David Krishef, leader of the local Conservative
synagogue. Rabbi Krishev examines the good that can come
from the exhibit but, he asks, at what cost? He raises the

traditional Jewish moral command
to honor the bodies of the dead,
not to display them to the public
for profi t, entertainment, or even
education.

The moral life of the Jewish people, of all branches
today, rests on biblical foundations. God created the
world as a good place, to refl ect God’s own glory
and goodness. God created the world as a place for
human culture in all its fullness. When human beings
rebelled against God, God went in search of them, call-
ing Abraham to live in covenant with God. But God
not only searches and redeems humans; God also
commands them to follow his way. For the rabbis of
antiquity and the Middle Ages, and for Orthodox and
most Conservatives today, the moral code of the Bible
is composed of laws that demand obedience—they
are indeed commandments, not general moral guide-
lines. In their understanding, God didn’t give the “Ten
Suggestions.”

God didn’t give the “ Ten Suggestions.”

Ethics in the Image of God

Jewish morality and ethics rest on the foundation of
ethical monotheism. Not only is God one and the only
God, but God is perfectly right and righteous. Holiness
is at the center of God’s nature; God is good, just, and
compassionate. The good world that God made, espe-
cially the people in it, are created to live in conformity
with God’s nature and will. The Torah given by God
enables people to know more exactly what God’s will
is, but a basic notion of God’s will is written in every
human heart. In contrast with other religions of the
ancient Near East, evil is not built into the structure
of the universe but is the product of human choices.
Humans are free moral agents.

A fundamental Jewish teaching shared by almost
all Jews today (except those who reject the existence of

God, of course) is that human beings are created in the
“image of God.” Israelites and Jews never took this to
mean that humans somehow physically look like God,
because God is a spirit and invisible to the human eye.
Although the Bible doesn’t explain the “image of God”
in detail, Jews have interpreted it to mean that humans
can think rationally and have a moral sense to know
what is right. Because humans are created in God’s
image, humans have the ability to know and even act
like God. The “image of God” is related to the human
mind and spirit, but it means that humans are like God,
not that a part of them is God.

The good impulse and the evil impulse

are like having an angel on one shoulder

and a devil on the other, each urging a

particular course of action.

The early rabbis taught that God built two moral
impulses into each human being: the “good impulse”
called the yetzer hatov (YAY-tser ha-TOHV) and the
“evil impulse,” the yetzer hara (YAY-tser ha-RAH). The
good impulse is the moral conscience that reminds a
person of God’s law and creates an urge to follow it.
The evil impulse is the urge to satisfy one’s own needs
and desires. Despite its name, there’s nothing intrinsi-
cally evil about the evil impulse, because it was cre-
ated by God and is natural to humankind. The “evil”
impulse, acting with the good impulse, drives us to eat,
drink, procreate, and make a living—all necessary and
good things. However, it can easily lead to sin when
not held in check and balanced by the good impulse,
and this is why it is called “evil.” Eating, drinking, pro-
creating, and making a living can be taken to extremes
and destroy human life. The good impulse and the evil
impulse are like the modern image of a person who
has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other,
each urging a particular course of action. Some rabbis
have been uncomfortable about talk of a created “evil”
impulse and have preferred to speak of one impulse
that can be used in two different ways.

The Torah

The Torah, the fi rst fi ve books of the Bible but in a wider
sense the whole teaching and law of Judaism, is this
religion’s most important text. It contains stories and

245E S S E N T I A L J E W I S H E T H I C S

commandments that teach about
life and death. The rabbis enu-
merated 613 commandments
(mitzvot): 248 positive com-
mandments (“You shalls”) and
365 negative commandments
(“You shall nots”). Moreover,
all the commandments are held
to be binding and more or less
equal. Some Jews in the modern
age would make a distinction
between the “moral law” and
the “ceremonial” and “ritual
law.” This isn’t found in the Bible
and Talmud, but history seems
to have ratifi ed it, because some
of the 613 commands cannot be
fulfi lled now that the Jewish temple is gone. All com-
mandments come from God, the ancient and medieval
rabbis said, so all are binding forever. Today, all Jews
consider the Ten Commandments to be the most impor-
tant commandments in the Torah, though not all Jews
adhere to the 613 mitzvot, forming one of the main dif-
ferences between the different branches of Judaism.

The Ten Commandments run as follows, with short
explanations in brackets:

1. I am the Lord your God [not a commandment in
grammatical form, but the basis of the people’s
relationship with God].

2. You shall not recognize any as god beside Me
[the root of monotheism].

3. You shall not take the Name of the Lord your
God in vain [God’s name, symbolic of God’s
essence, must be respected].

4. Remember the day of Sabbath, to keep it holy
[the Sabbath is a day of rest and rededication to
God].

5. Honor your father and your mother [parents are
to be respected as long as they live].

6. You shall not murder [not all killing is murder, but
unlawful killing is].

7. You shall not commit adultery [breaking marriage
vows breaks marriage].

8. You shall not steal [other people’s property is to
be respected].

9. Do not give false testimony against your neighbor
[lying in legal settings undermines justice].

10. You shall not covet the possessions of others
[desiring to have things that others have].

The rest of the Torah’s legal mate-
rial is based on these Ten
Commandments. The rabbis of

the ancient world compiled
the Mishnah and the Gemara,
fi nally combining them into
the Talmud, expanding on
these commandments and
bringing them into every
aspect of the life of the Jewish
people. Judaism’s emphasis on
justice and love in community,
rather than on just the letter

of the law, has enabled it to keep to
its moral tradition while adapting
to changing circumstances in life.

General Jewish Ethics

Beside these Torah-based commands that originate with
the Hebrew Bible, the biblical tradition also has broad
legal injunctions, wisdom narratives with moral lessons,
and prophetic teachings. These other teachings became
important in the fi rst millennium B.C.E., although the
Torah commands remain central and foundational. In
modern times, as the Torah commands became prob-
lematic for many Jews, the more-general ethical prin-
ciples became paramount for them.

The biblical prophets exhorted their audiences to
lead a life that honored their covenant with God. They
pointed primarily to obedience to the Torah, but they
also spoke of more-general moral duties: kindness to
the needy, benevolence, faith, relief for the suffering, a
peace-loving disposition, and a humble spirit. Civic loy-
alty and obedience, even to a foreign ruler, is urged as a
duty (Jeremiah 29:7). This was also important in later
times, as Jews lived under non-Jewish governments.
What the prophets viewed as the end-time is uncertain,
but the moral vision was clear: the end-time will be one
of peace and righteousness (Isaiah 2:2).

In early rabbinic Judaism, the oral Torah both
interpreted the Bible and delved afresh into many other
ethical topics. Jewish morality, encompassing both com-
mandments and general ethics, is known to Jews today as
halakhah, literally “walk” of life. God has a way for the
chosen people to walk in.

The best-loved and most infl uential rabbinic text
on ethics is the Mishnah
tractate of Pirke Avot
(PEER-kay ah-VOHT), the
“Sayings of the Fathers,”
often translated as “Ethics

The Ten Commandments in Hebrew, in their
shorter form. Writing on stone suggests
the permanence and seriousness of the
commandments.

halakhah [hah-luh-KAH]
“Walk” of life, the way of
moral obedience to God

246 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

of the Fathers.” The Pirke Avot traces the transmission
of the oral Torah from Moses to the second century
C.E., when the Mishnah was compiled. Throughout
this work, the word Torah refers especially to the oral
Torah, a “fence around the [written] law,” the body of
legal opinions developed by the rabbis and codifi ed in

the Mishnah. The idea behind
this “fence” is that by keep-
ing it one would also be keep-
ing the written Torah that it
protects.

Modern Jewish Ethics

In the modern period, Jewish ethics sprouted many off-
shoots, due to developments in modern secular ethics
and to the formation of Jewish branches, each needing
clarity on ethical teachings. The nineteenth-century and
early twentieth-century Reform movement promoted the
idea of Judaism as pure ethical monotheism. Since about
1900, liberal Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis have
fostered novel approaches to Jewish ethics—in the work
of Eugene Borowitz, for example. Also in these centuries,
Orthodox rabbis have often engaged in applied ethics by
interpreting the Talmud for bioethics: end-of-life issues,
in vitro fertilization, genetic therapy, and other topics.

Perhaps the most infl uential work of Jewish social
ethics is I and Thou by Martin Buber (BOO-buhr;
1878–1965). In this profound work, which is reputed
to have changed the lives of many of its readers, Buber
uses two pairs of words to describe two fundamentally
different types of relationship between one’s self and the
world: “I-It” and “I-Thou.” For I-It relationships, the
“It” refers to other people as objects. It objectifi es and
devalues them. In other words, the “I” looks upon others
as “Its,” not as people like oneself. Buber held that most
human problems are caused by I-It attitudes. By con-
trast, the “I” in an I-Thou relationship doesn’t objectify

any “It” but has a living, mature
relationship with others. It rec-
ognizes that the “Thou” is a
whole world of experience
within one person, just as one’s
“I” is. Buber taught that God is
the “eternal Thou” known by
direct encounter with God and
indirect encounter with God as
one develops I-Thou relation-
ships with other people.

LO5 Jewish Worship
and Ritual

In London, a prominent Jewish rabbi criticizes pop singer Madonna’s practice of Jewish mysticism known as the
Kabbalah. Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of London’s Mill Hill
Synagogue strongly objects to Madonna’s use of the
Kabbalah, arguing that it tarnishes Judaism when people who
don’t observe Jewish law engage in Jewish mysticism. Rabbi
Schochet and many other traditional, observant Jews are
particularly upset by the tattoo on Madonna’s right shoulder
of the ancient Hebrew name for God, which most Jews regard
as so holy that they don’t use it. (They forbid permanent
tattoos as well, so this is a double fault.) Madonna’s interest
in the Kabbalah began with her 1998 Ray of Light album,
was strengthened by her 2007 visit to the Kabbalah center in
Jerusalem, and continues today. Public fascination with her
use of the Kabbalah also remains
strong, and she has become the
leading celebrity voice of the
Kabbalah.

Because Judaism is a religion of practice, it has a full
set of rituals for synagogue worship, home practices,
and community-based religious festivals. We’ll begin
with synagogue worship, then consider the Sabbath
and the main festivals; the major life-cycle rituals of
circumcision, bar/bat mitzvah, and funerals; and fi nally
the Kabbalah.

Worship in the Synagogue

The main synagogue service takes place on either Friday
evening or Saturday morning, both of which fall on the
Sabbath day. In Orthodox synagogues, males and females
sit separately; in Conservative and Reform, they may sit
together. A minyan (MIHN-yahn), or minimum number
of men to have a service (usually ten), is necessary. We’ve

Reading glasses on the Torah suggest the importance
of knowing the scriptures as a basis of Jewish morality.

247J E W I S H W O R S H I P A N D R I T U A L

already discussed, in “The Jewish Present As Shaped by
Its Past,” language and music differences between these
three branches. But the three branches all share the same
basic structure of service: gathering into the main syna-
gogue room; hymns and prayers often lead by a cantor,
or singer; and readings from scripture.

In synagogue worship, the readings themselves are
very musical. The worship leader chants the words in
Hebrew, guided by marks written in the Hebrew text
and also employing traditional Hebrew melodies. The
place where the Torah scrolls are kept is the ark, a ref-
erence to the Ark of the Covenant. It is a special closet
or recess in the synagogue wall on the side nearest
Jerusalem and is usually the focal point of the syna-
gogue. The scrolls themselves are typically covered with
richly embroidered cloth, and the upper ends of the
wooden rollers are adorned with gold and silver deco-
rations. Their use follows a prescribed ritual:

● When a scroll is removed from the ark during the
service, everyone in the synagogue stands and a
special song is often sung.

● The scroll is placed on a reading desk.

● The readers use a special pointer, often made of
solid silver, to keep track of their place in the text
and avoid touching it with their hands.

● When the reading is complete, the scroll is rolled
up, its covers are put back on, and it is returned to
the ark with great solemnity.

Then the rabbi sometimes preaches a short sermon
based on the texts that were read, especially the Torah
reading.

The Sabbath

One of the Ten Commandments orders that the
“Sabbath” (seventh) day of the week be kept holy. This
day begins at sunset on Friday and concludes on sunset
on Saturday. Sabbath usually begins at home, with a
festive meal for which the whole family is present. The
meal leads off with the lighting of the Sabbath candles.
At least eighteen minutes before sundown on Friday,
the mother and daughters light candles, usually on the
dining table, to welcome the Sabbath. In many mod-
ern Jewish households the candle blessing is performed
together as a family. After the candles are lit, this bless-
ing is recited over them: “Blessed are You, Eternal One
our God, Ruler of the Universe, who makes us holy
with mitzvot [commandments] and gives us this mitz-
vah of lighting the Sabbath lights.”

The command goes on to say that no work may be
done on the Sabbath. This rest from work is connected
to both the creation of the world and the giving of the
Torah. The Talmud interprets this strictly; that is why tra-
ditional Jews have tended to live within walking distance

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Reading the Torah scroll in a synagogue A Jewish mother and daughter light the
Sabbath candles.

248 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

of the synagogue, because
to walk too far is consid-
ered work.

Jewish Annual

Festivals

The Jewish year has several annual festivals. Most of
them have both a historical reference and a contemporary
meaning to build faith and obedience in those who cel-
ebrate them. We can deal with them quickly here. Rosh
Hashanah (rohsh ha-SHAH-nah) is the Jewish New Year,
in September or October, depending on how the Jewish
lunar calendar matches the solar calendar. It begins a ten-
day solemn period of repentance and self-examination.
This period ends on Yom Kippur (yohm kip-PUHR), the
“Day of Atonement” that is the holiest day in the year.
Sukkot (SOOK-koht) is the festival of “tabernacles” or
“booths,” a seven-day harvest celebration linked to the
wandering of the Hebrews after the Exodus; people often
live in special outdoor huts during this time. Passover cel-
ebrates the escape of the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery.
A special meal, called the seder (SAY-duhr), with various
foods including unleavened bread (matzoh), is the high-
light. Hanukkah we have explained above. Purim (POOR-
eem), “lots,” recalls the Queen Esther story in which
Persian Jews were saved from genocide when the drawing
of lots exposed that evil plan. Costumes and plays, as well
as special foods, are featured. Finally, Shavuot (SHAHV-
oo-oht), meaning “weeks,” comes
fi fty days after Passover; it cel-
ebrates the giving of the Torah.

Kosher Food

Kosher means “fi tting or proper,” not
(as is often read) “pure or clean.” A body
of ritual Jewish law deals with kosher:
what foods can and cannot be eaten, and
how those foods must be prepared and
consumed. Contrary to popular opin-
ion, rabbis don’t “bless” food to make it
kosher, but they do inspect it and its pro-
cessing to assure kosher consumers that the

food is kosher. All sorts of
ethnic foods can be kosher;
in fact, kosher Chinese res-

taurants can often be found
in Jewish neighborhoods.

Leviticus 11 gives a
list of clean and unclean
foods, and the Talmud
treats them in detail.
The types of unclean

animals specifi ed are
(1) four-footed animals that

do not chew the cud and have a
split hoof (pigs, for example); (2) meat-eating

birds; (3) insects with wings; (4) water animals without
fi ns and scales, for example shrimp; and (5) small creep-
ing (“swarming”) animals. In order to be kosher, accept-
able animals must be butchered in a humane way and
prepared for sale in a clean way. Also, kosher food must
be served and eaten according to kosher regulations (for
example, no mixing of dairy products and meat in cook-
ing or serving). In general, raw vegetables are always
kosher, and so are cooked vegetables as long as they are
cooked and eaten correctly.

Kosher rules are observed at all times, but addi-
tional kosher restrictions come during Passover. Some
foods that are kosher for year-round use are not kosher
for Passover, because they have leaven in them. A bagel,
for example, can be kosher for regular use but is cer-
tainly not kosher for Passover.

Kosher food is so closely linked with Jewish identity
that the misconception has arisen that it’s only for Jews.
In fact, in 2009 almost 85 percent of kosher meat sales
were to non-Jews, who appreciate the quality of the meat
and its general healthfulness. (If you like hot dogs, for
example, and are concerned more about taste and health
than about price, a kosher hot dog is for you.) In 2010,

kosher food was
served for the fi rst
time at the Super
Bowl, and it almost
sold out.

Circumcision, the Sign

of the Covenant

Circumcision is the most important life-
cycle ritual in Judaism and probably the
one most universally observed among
Jews. Its most common name is the
bris milah (brihs MIL-luh), Yiddish for

SLGCKGC

Even though its beef may be
kosher, the cheese on this
burger makes it not kosher.

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kosher [KOH-sher]
Body of ritual Jewish law
dealing with what foods
can and cannot be eaten,
and how those foods
must be prepared and
consumed

Seder plate with special Passover foods; the
Hebrew word is Pesach, meaning “Passover”

249J E W I S H W O R S H I P A N D R I T U A L

“covenant of circumcision” and usually called “bris”
for short. Most secular Jews who observe no other part
of Judaism regularly practice this rite; to be Jewish is
to be circumcised. Orthodox Jews affi rm the Talmudic
view that a person of Jewish descent who is not cir-
cumcised will not enter heaven. A few Reform and
Reconstructionist leaders oppose circumcision today,
but they’re in the extreme minority.

As we have already seen, the commandment to cir-
cumcise is given fi rst in Genesis 17:10–14 as an essen-
tial part of God’s covenant with Abraham. According
to God’s command to Abraham, circumcision is per-
formed only on males as the sign of the covenant and
membership in God’s people. (Some Reform Jews argue
that circumcision is sexist, so they have a “naming cer-
emony” for baby girls, with most of a circumcision
ritual except for the actual cutting.) Circumcision is
often perceived by Reform and Conservative Jews to be
a hygienic measure. Orthodox Jews disagree and cor-
rectly point out that this rationale isn’t found in the
Torah. Instead, circumcision is a religious measure:
It is an outward physical sign of the eternal covenant
between God and the Jewish people. It is done not for
any health benefi ts, but because God commands it.

Circumcision is performed on the eighth day of a
child’s life. If this falls on the Sabbath, circumcision is
still done then, even though the drawing of blood is
ordinarily forbidden as work. Circumcision (from the
Latin for “cut around”) involves surgically removing
the foreskin of the penis. The circumcision is performed
in a home or synagogue by a mohel, a respected Jewish
man educated in the relevant Jewish laws, skilled in
hygienic practices, and possessed of a steady hand.
While the cutting is done, an honored man holds the
baby still on his lap. Blessings of God are recited, and
a drop of wine is placed in the baby’s mouth. He is
then given a formal Hebrew name. As with most Jewish
rituals, circumcision is a joyous, celebrative occasion
(except for the baby, of course) and is followed by
refreshments or more often a festive meal.

Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah

A Jewish young man in a coming-of-age ceremony
becomes a bar mitzvah, which literally means “son of
the commandment.” A young woman becomes a bat
(or bas) mitzvah, “daughter of the commandment.”
The singular mitzvah (“commandment”) is used here
even though the Torah as a whole is meant. Although
these terms literally refer only to adult standing in the
Jewish community, they are also commonly taken to
mean the ceremonies themselves, for example in the

expression that someone is “having a bar mitzvah.” In
Reform and Conservative Judaism, the ritual for females
is the same as for males. In all Orthodox practice, women
are not permitted to participate in rituals such as these,
so a ceremony is usually little more than a modest party
to mark a female’s thirteenth birthday, if it is held at all.

What does it mean to become a bar/bat mitzvah?
In Jewish law, children are not obligated to obey the
Torah, although they
are encouraged to do
so. (Like any religion
passed through the
generations, Judaism
raises its children in
the faith, as the Shema
commands. Moreover,
historic Jewish teach-
ing knows nothing
of the modern con-
cept of “teenage”
years between child-
hood and adulthood;
when one comes near
to puberty, one is an
adult.) When they are

mohel [MOI-uhl, rhymes with
oil] Jewish man who officiates
at a circumcision

bar mitzvah [bahr MITZ-vuh]
“Son of the commandment,”
the assumption of responsibility
before God for keeping the
Torah

bat (bas) mitzvah [baht
(bahs) MITZ-vuh] “Daughter
of the commandment,” the
assumption of responsibility
before God for keeping
the Torah

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At a bar mizvah ceremony, a young man
carries the Torah scroll with pride and joy.

250 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

at an “age of understanding” to know the difference
between right and wrong and choose between them—
traditionally thirteen for boys and twelve for girls—
children become obligated in God’s sight to obey the
Torah. The bar/bat mitzvah ceremony marks the begin-
ning of that obligation, but it doesn’t create it. Now the
young people gradually begin to assume the privileges
and responsibilities of Jewish adults. They help to lead
religious services, count in a minyan, enter binding con-
tracts, and may even marry (although most marriages
are not carried out until later).

The bar/bat mitzvah is an innovation of the last few
centuries, to mark the passage into Jewish adulthood in
a ritual way. In its earliest, most basic form, it is the cel-
ebrant’s fi rst participation in leading a service. During a
Sabbath service or a weekday service, the young person
is called up to the Torah scroll to recite a blessing over
the weekly reading. The common practice today for one
becoming a bar/bat mitzvah is to do more than the bless-
ing. The celebrant learns the entire Torah reading for
the day in its chanted form and recites it during the ser-
vice. He or she sometimes reads the entire weekly Torah
portion, leads part of the service, or leads the congrega-
tion in certain important prayers. The celebrant is also
generally required to make a short speech, which tra-
ditionally begins, “Today I am a man/woman.” All this

requires a good deal of training
by the rabbi, often over some
months. The father tradition-
ally recites a blessing thanking
God that his child has become
an adult. The often-elaborate
post-ceremony parties that are
commonplace today in North
America arose around 1900
among more-prosperous Jews.

Marriage

Judaism strongly encourages marriage and family life.
If asked what the fi rst commandment in the Torah is,
an observant Jew will reply, “Be fruitful and multiply”
(Genesis 1:28), which is indeed God’s fi rst command
to the human race. Among Ashkenazi Jews, monogamy
has been the rule since the 900s C.E. Among Sephardic
Jews, whose rules refl ect the Bible and Talmud more
closely on this point and have been infl uenced by the
Muslim context, polygamy was permitted until the
1950s, but still wasn’t common. For both groups, Jews
married only Jews. But in the last century, intermarriage
has become more common. This has posed a problem
for Reform and Conservative Jews, because Jewish

identity is traced through the mother, not the father,
and intermarriage leads more often to assimilation of
the Jewish spouse to the Gentile world than it does to
the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse to Judaism.
Lately, Reform Jews have urged, and sometimes insti-
tuted, either matrilineal or patrilineal descent for mem-
bership in the Jewish people.

Jewish marriage has engagement (sometimes pre-
ceded by the work of matchmakers), rings, a vow or
a document certifying marriage obligations, and a
grand celebration to follow. Ceremonies are often held
outdoors or in hotels, not in the synagogue, as long
as there is a rabbi to offi ciate and a canopy called a
chuppa (CHUP-uh, with a guttural ch). But the Jewish
ceremony has something unique. As the last part of
the wedding, the groom crushes under his foot a glass
wrapped in a cloth, a reminder in a time of great joy
of the sorrow that came to Judaism when the Temple
of Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 C.E. Then there are
loud cries of “Mazel tov!” (MA-zul tahv)—literally
“Good luck,” but in celebratory situations with more a
nuance of “Congratulations”—and the wedding recep-
tion begins.

Funeral Rituals

Jewish practices relating to death and mourning have
had two purposes, primarily to comfort the mourn-
ers and secondarily to help, as much as possible and
appropriate, the deceased into the next world. In what
follows, we will deal with long-established Jewish prac-
tices that go back hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
years. Some variations to this pattern will be found
among Conservative/Masorti Jews today, and more
among the Reform.

After a person dies, burial must be carried out
in less than forty-eight hours. The body is never left
alone. In the past, most Jewish communities had an
organization to care for the dead; these societies are
now making something of a comeback as a replace-
ment for more-conventional funeral home arrange-
ments. Autopsies are forbidden as a desecration of the
body, but they are permitted where civil authorities
require it. Embalming of the body is strictly forbid-
den as desecration, and organ donation is likewise not
done. However, some contemporary Jewish ethicists
have argued that organ dona-
tion is permitted, even meri-
torious, if the recipient’s body
is buried at death.

Both the dress of the body
and the coffi n are simple, so

251J E W I S H W O R S H I P A N D R I T U A L

that all people are equal in death. The upper body is
wrapped in a prayer shawl with its fringes cut short.
The body is never viewed at funerals; open-casket cere-
monies are forbidden by Jewish law. The body must not
be cremated, but buried in the earth. If coffi ns are used,
which is common in the Western world, they must be
made of wood, and must rest directly in the earth. Some
Orthodox groups go so far as to poke holes in the bot-
tom of coffi ns to facilitate the process of “dust to dust.”

Jewish mourning practices have periods of
decreasing intensity. When a person fi rst hears of the
death of a close relative, it is traditional to express the
initial grief by tearing one’s clothing, or sometimes
a piece of cloth that is then worn on one’s clothing.
During the fi rst two days after death, the family is
usually left alone to allow for the full expression of
their grief. The next period of mourning is known
as shiva (SHIHV-uh), the Hebrew word for “seven,”
because it lasts seven days, beginning on the day of
burial. This process is often called “sitting shiva.”
Shiva is observed by the entire family of the deceased
in the deceased’s home. They wear the clothing they
had on when they tore it in mourning. Mourners sit
on low stools or the fl oor. They don’t wear leather
shoes, shave their faces or cut their hair, wear cosmet-
ics, work, or do things for comfort, entertainment, or
pleasure.

After shiva, lighter mourning of eleven months
continues for the immediate family. Kaddish, a prayer
of faith and petition, is to be said every day. After the
period is complete, the family of the deceased is not
permitted to continue formal mourning. Jewish law
requires that a tombstone be prepared. Many Jewish
communities delay putting it up until the end of the

twelve-month mourning
period. Where this custom is
followed, a formal unveiling
ceremony for the tombstone
is usually held at the cemetery.

The Kabbalah

While offi cial rabbinic Judaism preoccupied many
middle- and upper-class Jews who had the leisure to
study the Talmud, unoffi cial folk religion grew in the
medieval period to become a permanent feature of
Judaism. The intense rationalism of medieval Jewish
philosophy and Talmudic studies was countered by
the rise of Jewish mysticism, emphasizing the immedi-
ate, personal, and nonrational experience of God. In
twelfth-century France and thirteenth-century Spain,
mystical forms of Jewish religiosity would combine

with mainstream Judaism to produce the Kabbalah.
The rabbis strongly condemned such practices, but
they grew nonetheless.

The Kabbalah pictured God not as a simple unity
but as a structured Being with an inner confi guration of
ten attributes. Evil is believed to be provoked by human
sin and set right by good deeds, fulfi llment of the com-
mandments, prayer, and mystical contemplation. Other
Kabbalistic beliefs have included the transmigration of
souls and the practice of sexual intercourse as a mir-
ror of the union among the divine attributes. Many of
these ideas are found in the Zohar, the leading book
on Kabbalah by Moses de Leon (1250–1305). The
Kabbalah spread quickly, and in the sixteenth cen-
tury, Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572 C.E.) reformu-
lated this esoteric system in a manner that emphasized
messianic redemption. Another offshoot of Kabbalah
arose around an itinerant folk healer named Israel ben
Eleazar (1700–1760)—known as Baal Shem Tov (bah-
AHL shehm tohv), or “Master of the Good Name.”
This was Hasidism, a Jewish mystical movement that
stresses joyful emotion. Hasidism soon attracted Jews
in Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The mes-
sage of the Hasidic masters was that God is present
and directly accessible in the world, that God is best
experienced and worshiped in joy, that even the most
evil persons and events are capable of redemption, and
that each Jew has an essential role to play in making
the world holy. The new Hasidic pietism drew on the
Kabbalah in a way that overcame its esoteric character.

Rabbinic authorities opposed Hasidic movements,
criticizing their fervor and their ecstatically emotional
worship. They disliked the Hasidic fi gure of the char-
ismatic man holding strong religious authority in his
movement. But Hasidism soon became established in
the Jewish communities of Poland and the Ukraine. It
split into smaller groups, and by the early 1800s Hasidic
dynasties had formed that still exist today. In Lithuania,
Lubavich (LOOB-uh-vich) Hasidism emphasized a dis-
tinctive blend of Kabbalistic speculation and rabbinic
learning. Despite Hasidism’s anti-traditionalist origins
and history, it has ironically come to represent ortho-
doxy, even so-called “ultra-orthodoxy,” in the modern
world, especially to non-Jews. Hasidism is strong in
North America and Israel.

At the end of the twentieth century, the Kabbalah
was popularized and
spread beyond Juda-
ism. Its psychological
and social aspects
were emphasized,
and its Torah-related

Hasidism a Jewish mystical
movement that stresses joyful
emotion that arose in the 1700s

252 C H A P T E R 1 0 E N C O U N T E R I N G J U D A I S M : T H E WAY O F G O D ’ S C H O S E N P E O P L E

and messianic elements were muted. This is controver-
sial among many observant Jews, but today there are

hundreds of Kabbalah centers,
conferences, books, and other
sources of information about
Kabbalah practice, almost all of
them catering to non-Jews.

LO6 Judaism in North
America Today

On a Friday night in Chicago, a Jewish family gathers in their home to welcome the Sabbath with a traditional ritual
meal. As the sun is just about to set, the wife, assisted by her
daughter, lights two Sabbath candles on the dining room table.
It has been set for dinner, and on its white tablecloth are a wine
cup and two loaves of challah (soft braided bread), covered
with a special cloth. The father blesses each of his children and
then recites a prayer of blessing over the wine, remembering
how God rested on the seventh day of creation and hallowed
the Sabbath day. Everyone around the table has a sip of the

wine, and then all leave the table to wash their
hands ritually. Gathered around the table again,
they recite a blessing of God for the gift of food.
Each receives a slice of the bread to eat, and the
main meal begins. At the end of the meal, special
Sabbath songs are sung by all, and the meal is
concluded with a prayer. This Sabbath ritual is so
meaningful in Judaism that it is practiced in much
the same way by Orthodox and Conservative
families in North America. It is even making
something of a comeback in Reform Judaism.

Jews have been in North America as early as
the 1600s, settling fi rst in New Amsterdam
(modern New York City). For almost two
hundred years, most North American Jews
were Sephardics of Spanish and Portuguese
ancestry. The fi rst American synagogue was
established in 1677 in Touro, Rhode Island,
a colony that was a center of religious toler-
ation. Although they couldn’t hold offi ce or
even vote in most colonies, Sephardic Jews
became active in their civic communities in
the 1790s. Until 1830, Charleston, South
Carolina, had the largest Jewish community
in North America. Large-scale Jewish immi-
gration, however, didn’t take place until
the mid-1800s, when Ashkenazi Jews from
Germany, many of them secularized, arrived
in the United States, primarily becoming

merchants and shop owners. There were approximately
250,000 Jews in the United States by 1880.

Jewish immigration to North America increased
sharply in the early 1880s, mainly as a result of per-
secution in Russia and Eastern Europe. Most of the
new immigrants were Yiddish-speaking and religiously
observant Ashkenazis from the poor rural areas of these
lands. They came to America seeking freedom and a
better life. Over 2 million Jews arrived between about
1880 and 1924, when the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924
and National Origins Quota of 1924 all but ended
immigration from Eastern Europe. Many settled in the
New York metropolitan area, particularly the Lower
East Side of Manhattan, establishing what became one
of the world’s major Jewish population centers.

Around 1900, newly arrived Jews began to build
many synagogues and community associations.
American Jewish leaders urged speedy integration into
the wider American culture, which most Jews quickly
accomplished. After World War II, in which almost
half a million American Jewish men fought against
Germany and Japan, younger Jewish families joined the

I n 2004, pop star Madonna and then husband Guy Ritchie
visit the grave of Kabbalist author Rabbi Jehuda Ashlag.

R
E
U
T
E
R

S/
D

A
V

ID
F

U
R
S
T

G
C

M
/T

W
Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

253J U D A I S M I N N O R T H A M E R I C A T O D AY

American trend of settling in new suburbs.
There they became increasingly
assimilated as previous anti-
Semitic discrimination began
to lessen. For example, in
the 1950s many leading
American universities
and colleges began
to drop their quota
systems that held
Jewish enrollment
to very small lev-
els. Enrollment in
Jewish religious
schools doubled
between 1945
and 1955, and
synagogue affi lia-
tion jumped from
only 20 percent of Jews in 1930 to 60 percent in 1960.
Reform and Conservative congregations experienced
the most rapid growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, waves
of Jewish immigration from Russia largely joined the
mainstream American Jewish community. However,
most of these immigrants had been secularized by gen-
erations of Soviet Communist rule and anti-Semitic
pressures.

Today, approximately 5.5 million of the world’s
15 million Jews live in North America. Three major
movements are found in North America: Reform,
Conservative, and Orthodox. A fourth movement,
the Reconstructionist movement, is more liberal than
Reform and is substantially smaller than the other
three. Orthodoxy has several different groups: the mod-
ern Orthodox, who have integrated into modern North
American society while strictly keeping the Jewish law
from the Talmud; Hasidic Jews, who live in their own,
separate neighborhoods and dress distinctively; and
the Yeshiva Orthodox. They all believe that God gave
Moses the whole Torah at Mount Sinai, including both
the “written Torah” that became the fi rst fi ve books of
the Bible and the “oral Torah,” an oral tradition inter-
preting the written Torah that became the basis of the
Talmud. The Orthodox believe that the Torah contains
613 mitzvoth (commands), binding upon Jews but not
upon non-Jews. A survey of American Jews in 2000
found that 10 percent identify themselves as Orthodox.
The Orthodox tend to have large families and resist
assimilation, so their overall numbers are growing.

Reform Judaism doesn’t believe that the Torah is
divinely written or inspired. It views the entire Bible as
a record of Jewish religious experience.

Reform Jews don’t believe
in observance of most tradi-

tional commandments,
but they attempt to
preserve much of
what they consider the
spiritual essentials of
Judaism, along with
some selected Jewish
practices and culture.
A recent survey found
that 35 percent of
American Jews identify
themselves as Reform.
Approximately nine
hundred Reform syna-
gogues are found in
the United States and
Canada.

Conservative Judaism grew
out of the tension between
Orthodoxy and Reform at
the end of the 1800s, and its
efforts to mediate between
them is an American impulse.
Conservative Judaism main-
tains that the truths found
in Jewish scriptures and the
Talmud come from God but
were transmitted by humans
and contain a human component. It generally accepts
the binding nature of Jewish law but believes that law
should change and adapt, absorbing aspects of the pre-
dominant culture while remaining true to Judaism’s
values. Because Conservative Judaism occupies the
large middle ground between Orthodoxy and Reform,
there’s a great deal of variation among Conservative
synagogues. This fl exibility is
deeply rooted in Conservative
Judaism. Twenty-six percent
of American Jews identify
themselves as Conservative.
There are approximately 750
Conservative synagogues in the
world today, most of them in
North America.

All told, the varieties of
Judaism in North America all
attempt, in their widely diverse
ways, to continue the mission
of God’s chosen people to be a
“light to the nations.”

D
A

V
ID

K
IN

The oldest synagogue in America, the
Sephardic congregation in Touro, Rhode
Island; the building dates to 1763.

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