The Canon · No. 014
Judaism
Yahadut; the religion of Israel
c.1200 BCE (emergence) – present · Abrahamic · Living · Israel, Europe, North America, worldwide
III. THE AXIAL AGE — c.900 – 200 BCE
How many
About 14.8 million (Pew, 2020) — roughly 0.2% of humanity, and still below the pre-1939 figure of around 16.6 million.
Who began it
No single founder in the way Buddhism or Islam has one. Tradition names Abraham as the first monotheist and Moses as the lawgiver at Sinai. Historically, Israelite religion emerges out of Canaanite religion (entry 009) in the highlands of the Levant around 1200 BCE and becomes strictly monotheistic over centuries, with the decisive turn during and after the Babylonian exile.
What it is for
To be a people in covenant with one God, and to sanctify ordinary life by law. Judaism is less a system of belief than a system of obligation; the operative question is not what you hold true but what you are commanded to do.
What it worships
YHWH, one, indivisible, without body or image, whose name observant Jews do not pronounce, substituting Adonai or HaShem. Maimonides' Thirteen Principles state the unity and incorporeality as binding.
What it holds
Covenant (brit) — a binding two-sided agreement, first with Abraham, then Moses at Sinai. Torah as divine instruction. 613 mitzvot, commandments, traditionally counted, covering diet, business, sex, agriculture and speech. Chosenness understood as responsibility, not privilege. A messianic age of universal peace, this-worldly rather than otherworldly. Tikkun olam, repair of the world. Belief is comparatively unpoliced: a Jew who doubts God but keeps the commandments is in better standing than the reverse, which is close to the opposite of the Christian emphasis.
What it does
Shabbat from Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall, with thirty-nine categories of forbidden work. Kashrut, dietary law: no pork or shellfish, no mixing meat and dairy, ritual slaughter. Brit milah, circumcision on the eighth day. Bar and bat mitzvah at 13 and 12. Daily prayer three times, in a quorum of ten (minyan) where possible. Mezuzah, tefillin, tzitzit. Festivals: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur (fasting and atonement), Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover with the seder, Shavuot, and Tisha B'Av mourning the destroyed Temples.
After death
Strikingly underdeveloped and deliberately so. The Hebrew Bible barely discusses it; the dead go to Sheol, a shadowy pit, without moral sorting. Bodily resurrection appears late, in Daniel 12, in the Persian and Hellenistic period. Rabbinic Judaism developed Olam Ha-Ba, the world to come, Gan Eden and Gehinnom — but Gehinnom is a purgative process capped at twelve months for almost everyone, not eternal torment. Judaism has never fixed a binding doctrine on this, and the tradition's own instruction is to concentrate on this world. Compare the Christian and Islamic treatments and the difference in emphasis is the clearest single contrast between the three.
Its texts
Tanakh — Torah (five books), Nevi'im (prophets), Ketuvim (writings). The Talmud: Mishnah (compiled c.200 CE) plus Gemara, in Babylonian (c.500 CE, authoritative) and Jerusalem recensions. Midrash. Codes: Mishneh Torah (Maimonides, 1180) and Shulchan Aruch (Karo, 1565). Mystical: the Zohar (c.1280).
Its branches
Orthodox (Modern Orthodox, Haredi, Hasidic), Conservative/Masorti, Reform/Liberal, Reconstructionist, Karaite (rejects the Talmud), Samaritan (a separate ancient branch — entry 030), Beta Israel of Ethiopia.
Of note
Judaism is the parent of Christianity and Islam, which between them account for over half the human race, while itself remaining numerically tiny. No other religion has that ratio of influence to size except Zoroastrianism.
Its timeline
- c.1200 BCE Israelite settlements appear in the Canaanite highlands; the Merneptah Stele (c.1208 BCE) gives the earliest extrabiblical mention of Israel.
- c.1000 BCE Traditional dates for David and Solomon; the scale of the united monarchy is archaeologically contested.
- 722 BCE Assyria destroys the northern kingdom of Israel.
- c.622 BCE Josiah's reform centralises worship in Jerusalem and suppresses local shrines.
- 587/586 BCE Babylon destroys the First Temple; the exile begins. Under exile the religion reorganises around text, sabbath and circumcision rather than sacrifice.
- 538 BCE Cyrus permits return; Second Temple built.
- 167–160 BCE Maccabean revolt against Antiochus IV; Hanukkah.
- 70 CE Rome destroys the Second Temple. Sacrifice ends permanently. Yohanan ben Zakkai's academy at Yavneh converts Judaism into a religion of study and prayer — the pivot that lets it survive.
- c.200 CE Mishnah compiled by Judah ha-Nasi.
- c.500 CE Babylonian Talmud completed.
- 1096, 1290, 1391, 1492 Rhineland massacres; expulsion from England; Spanish massacres; expulsion from Spain.
- 1648–49 Khmelnytsky massacres in Ukraine.
- 1700s Hasidism begins with the Baal Shem Tov; the Vilna Gaon leads the Mitnagdim against it.
- 1810s–1840s Reform Judaism in Germany; Orthodox and later Conservative Judaism form in response.
- 1897 First Zionist Congress, Basel.
- 1939–1945 The Holocaust. Approximately six million Jews murdered — around two-thirds of European Jewry, and about a third of all Jews alive.
- 1948 State of Israel founded.
- 1972 Sally Priesand ordained as the first American woman rabbi (Reform).
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.