TOPIC 5

Topic 5 was about Judaism. First, what is Judaism all about? Judaism was originally
from Hebrew which includes religion, culture, philosophy, and the way of life of Jewish
people. It is an ancient monotheistic religion, or the belief in the existence of one God. It is
considered a religious Jews, to be the express for the alliance relationship that God
established with the Children of Israel. Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between
the study of philosophy and the theology. The major Jewish philosophers namely Solomon
ibn Gabirol, Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Gersonides. The major changes
occurred in response to the enlightenment, which leads to the post-Enlightenment Jewish
philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox
oriented philosophy. Among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler,
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and Yitzchok Hutner. The well-known non-Orthodox Jewish
philosophers namely Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Mordecai Kaplan, Abraham Joshua
Heschel, Will Herberg, and Emmanuel Lvinas.
There are four sectors of Judaism namely: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and
Zealots. The Pharisees is a social movement and a school of thought in the Holy Land during
the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple, they beliefs
became the foundational, liturgical and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism which refers
form of Judaism today. The Sadducees were a sect of Jews that was active in Judea during the
Second Temple period, starting from the second century BCE through the destruction of the
Temple. The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of
Judean society. The sect fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles, including
maintaining the Temple. The Sadducees are often compared to other contemporaneous sects,
including the Pharisees and the Essenes. Their sect is believed to have become extinct

sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem. The conflicts between
Pharisees and Sadducees took place of much broader and long standing of social and
religious conflicts among Jews. Second conflict was about their cultural, between those who
favored Hellenization (the Sadducees) and those who resisted it (the Pharisees). Third conflict
was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Second Temple
with its rites and services, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic Laws.
A fourth conflict was about religious.
Essenes is the combination of the Pythagoreans and Stoics. With a spiritual
knowledge of the divine law by an aspiration after ideal purity rather than by any special code
of doctrines. All things were held in common, without distinction of property and special
provision was made for the relief of the poor. Zealots were a political movement in 1st
century which sought the people of Judaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and
expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms.
The biblical canon or canon of scripture is a list of books to be considered in
authoritative scripture by a particular religious community. The term was first coined to
scripture by Christians, but the idea is said to be Jewish. These canons have been developed
through debate and agreement by the religious authorities of their respective faiths. Believers
consider canonical books to be inspired by God or to express the authoritative history of the
relationship between God and his people.