Judaism

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

one of the most important faiths in the world, which Christians, as well as Jews, consider to have been revealed by God. Ancient Judaism. - The earliest form of the Jewish faith was patriarchal. On the night of the Israelitish departure from Egypt an essential part of Judaism, in its second or more developed form, was begun by the institution of the passover (Exod. xii., xiii.). At Sinai two tables of stone were given containing the 10 commandments. Subsequently there was revealed to Moses, to be by him communicated to the people, a complicated system of ceremonial observances, interspersed with judicial enactments. A splendid tabernacle-i. e., a tent on a divine model, was erected as the habitation of Jehovah, in the journeyings through the wilderness, to be in due time followed by a temple, when the people were permanently settled. A hereditary priesthood was consecrated, and a theocratic form of government maintained, the supreme civil ruler, whether lawgiver, r, military leader, judge, or king, being regarded as the vice-gerent of God. Ancient Judaism was the precursor of Christianity and the germ from which it sprang; and Christians generally believe that all the ceremonies, sacred personages, etc. of the older economy were types and shadows of the life and sufferings of Jesus Christ (Heb. ix., x., etc.). Modern Judaism. - After the Jews lost their independence, and especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, the judicial regulations of the Mosaic law ceased to be observed. In the latter half of the 4th century arose the Jerusalem, and in Vol. V-Cyc-S Vol the 6th the Babylonian Talmud, containing the rules, constitutions, precepts, and gent interpretations intended to supplement those of the Old Testament. See HE- BREWS: JEWS. one of the 12