RELI 1710 Lecture : Jewish Theology and Scripture.docx
17 Feb 2014
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Document Summary
Sacred doesn"t always mean heavenly, but can be local and of human origin. Still sacred: taken seriously and devoutly, engaged in a close manner. Judaism is a scriptural religion, revolving around texts. Torah: law, instruction: made up of a variety of narratives and laws. Genesis tells the story of how the universe came to be into existence: ex nihilo. All created things are good different from mesopotamian and mediterranean worldview creation was chaos. Genesis 1:1 in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth . Vegetation created on the second day, humans on the sixth day. Genesis 2:4 these are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created . Genesis opens with biblical myth, then biblical legend (abraham, moses), then biblical. History (exodus, entry into canaan, tribes, monarchy, etc. ) All of this is mythologized to a certain extent. Also found almost exactly the same in ancient religious sources (gilgamesh)
