Judaism: Religion or Tribal history?

In Christian tradition the Wandering Jew was condemned to a homeless existence until Judgment Day for having mocked Jesus Christ, and in botany the Wandering Jew was a name given to a trailing plant with colourful foliage -- even though its native origin was tropical America rather than the Middle East -- and as silly as these meanings are they are nevertheless apt, in a way, because before and after the Jewish tribes formed the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE, they had both a colorful and a wandering history which is not just reflected in Judaism but forms the basis of it.

Starting with Abraham, he and his extended family had to flee to Canaan from his home in Ur, modern day Iraq, because his beliefs clashed with those of the ruling elites, and his grandson Jacob (later called Israel, the father of twelve sons/tribes) was even called a "wandering Aramaean" because he travelled back to the land of his ancestors to obtain a wife and generally led a transitory life -- as was common in those days, and still is in that part of the world. Traveling to Egypt, however, was a bad mistake for the descendants of Israel because they became enslaved and had to wait for a charismatic leader like Moses to facilitate their freedom c. 1250 BCE.

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites wandering in the desert for a generation until Joshua emerged to lead them in the invasion of Canaan, which they then took as their own.

At that time and place in history, there were several great empires -- the Egyptian, the Hittite, the Babylonian and the Assyrian (a land between the Hittite and Babylonian Empires) -- and vibrant new migrant colonies of Indo-European Sea People at Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon that became known as 'the Way of the Philistines', after the name of the principle tribe.

Constant trouble with the Philistines led the Israelites to form the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE but by then very few of the Israelites were direct descendants of Abraham and true to the Covenant he had made with Yahweh. They were largely of Canaan ethnicity, with a mixture of Hittite, Aramaean and Egyptian, and they practised many faiths. Very much like today's multicultural nations.

By 1010 BCE King David ruled the United Kingdom of Israel and the mythology of the Israelite nation became established. This United Kingdom of Israel lasted until c. 920 BCE when Jeroboam led the revolt of the wealthy northern tribes who were economically better developed than the southern tribes, had better rainfall and agricultural systems. The united kingdom split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South (which had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam).

The northern Kingdom of Israel became more powerful under Omri (c. 885-874 BC) who, with the support of the Phoenician city of Tyre, founded a new dynasty with its capital city at Samaria. Omri's successor, Jehu, linked through dynastic marriage with Tyre, joined other nations to fight and defeat the Assyrian Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC. Twelve years later, with assistance from the Kingdom of Aram, he organised a coup in which his own kin, Ahab and his family, were put to death.

Because the northern Kingdom of Israel was falling under the influence of Damascus, losing all cultural and religious ties with the southern Kingdom of Judah, the Judaeans treacherously appealed to Assyria for intervention and ultimately, in 720 BC, Israel fell and became incorporated into the Assyrian empire. The capital Samaria was destroyed, the ruling elites were deported to other lands in the Assyrian empire and a new nobility was imported by the Assyrians. To avoid captivity or exile, thousands of Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel fled south to the southern kingdom of Judah and it is said that its capital city, Jerusalem, grew in population size by over 500%.

Judah itself fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the Temple was destroyed and its ruling elites taken into captivity to Babylon. Another massive diaspora took place in which the Jews escaped slavery by fleeing to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia.

In 539 BCE the Babylonian Empire fell to Persia under Cyrus and he magnanimously freed the Jews and allowed them to return to Jerusalem -- which was now a Persian province. They were allowed to take with them the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had stolen, and construction of the Second Temple started.

In 331 BCE the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great of Greece, and all was well under Greek rule until 174-163 BCE when Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to Hellenize the Jews which led to the Maccabees's Rebellion, and the rise of John Hyrcanus, Ethnarch and High Priest of Jerusalem, 134-104 BCE, under whom the Jewish nation experienced a resurgence, annexing Trans-Jordan, Samaria, Galilee and Idumea and forcing the Idumeans to convert to Judaism.

By 63 BCE, Pompey conquered Jerusalem and it fell under Roman rule. In 66 BCE, the First Jewish-Roman War broke out. The entire Jewish garrison at Yodfat was massacred after a two month siege, and in 70 BCE the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. Those Jews that were not massacred -- or able to flee to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and other countries around the Mediterranean -- were taken to Rome as slaves. By 73 BCE the last Jewish resistance at the mountain fortress of Masada was crushed and 900 defenders committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai escaped from Jerusalem and obtained permission to establish a center of Jewish learning, the Sanhedrin, in the outlying town of Yavneh. At this center, Rabbinic Judaism took root and the Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for the 'wandering Jews'.

In 132 Simon bar Kokhba led a final revolt against the Romans, declaring an independent state in Israel, and was crushed by Rome. Seeking to suppress the Jewish place-names and humiliate the defeated Jews, the Romans renamed the area Palaestina (Latin for the Philistines, the traditional enemies of the Jews) and the Christians went one step further, after they had taken over Roman government, by forcibly disbanding the Sanhedrin in 425 CE and persecuting them forever after.

Like the early Christians in pagan Rome, the Jews went underground and survived -- moving from place to place to escape slavery and persecution, changing their religion to Christianity or Muslim according to whichever elite was in power, but never forgetting their tribal history, their roots and their self-appointed anointment as God's chosen people.

So accustomed had the Jews become to a wandering existence, that even the re-establishment of their homeland in the post WWII period did not attract the expected mass return. As with the earlier United Kingdom of Israel, divisions are appearing between the rich and the poor and the devout and the secular -- and the ancient turf war between the Philistines (Palestinians) and the Jews continues.

Ethnically, modern Jews are now more European than Semitic and it is odd they can lay claim to land on the basis of where their religion was born -- especially since it is based upon a tribal history that would make the Arabs more likely to be the true descendants of Abraham than they are -- but pointing this fact out to an Israeli would be far too confronting.

This article first appeared as Wandering Jews

The United Kingdom of Israel

In Christian tradition the Wandering Jew was condemned to a homeless existence until Judgment Day for having mocked Jesus Christ, and in botany the Wandering Jew was a name given to a trailing plant with colourful foliage -- even though its native origin was tropical America rather than the Middle East -- and as silly as these meanings are they are nevertheless apt, in a way, because before and after the Jewish tribes formed the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE, they had both a colorful and a wandering history which is not just reflected in Judaism but forms the basis of it.

Starting with Abraham, he and his extended family had to flee to Canaan from his home in Ur, modern day Iraq, because his beliefs clashed with those of the ruling elites, and his grandson Jacob (later called Israel, the father of twelve sons/tribes) was even called a "wandering Aramaean" because he travelled back to the land of his ancestors to obtain a wife and generally led a transitory life -- as was common in those days, and still is in that part of the world. Traveling to Egypt, however, was a bad mistake for the descendants of Israel because they became enslaved and had to wait for a charismatic leader like Moses to facilitate their freedom c. 1250 BCE.

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites wandering in the desert for a generation until Joshua emerged to lead them in the invasion of Canaan, which they then took as their own.

At that time and place in history, there were several great empires -- the Egyptian, the Hittite, the Babylonian and the Assyrian (a land between the Hittite and Babylonian Empires) -- and vibrant new migrant colonies of Indo-European Sea People at Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon that became known as 'the Way of the Philistines', after the name of the principle tribe.

Constant trouble with the Philistines led the Israelites to form the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE but by then very few of the Israelites were direct descendants of Abraham and true to the Covenant he had made with Yahweh. They were largely of Canaan ethnicity, with a mixture of Hittite, Aramaean and Egyptian, and they practised many faiths. Very much like today's multicultural nations.

By 1010 BCE King David ruled the United Kingdom of Israel and the mythology of the Israelite nation became established. This United Kingdom of Israel lasted until c. 920 BCE when Jeroboam led the revolt of the wealthy northern tribes who were economically better developed than the southern tribes, had better rainfall and agricultural systems. The united kingdom split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South (which had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam).

The northern Kingdom of Israel became more powerful under Omri (c. 885-874 BC) who, with the support of the Phoenician city of Tyre, founded a new dynasty with its capital city at Samaria. Omri's successor, Jehu, linked through dynastic marriage with Tyre, joined other nations to fight and defeat the Assyrian Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC. Twelve years later, with assistance from the Kingdom of Aram, he organised a coup in which his own kin, Ahab and his family, were put to death.

Because the northern Kingdom of Israel was falling under the influence of Damascus, losing all cultural and religious ties with the southern Kingdom of Judah, the Judaeans treacherously appealed to Assyria for intervention and ultimately, in 720 BC, Israel fell and became incorporated into the Assyrian empire. The capital Samaria was destroyed, the ruling elites were deported to other lands in the Assyrian empire and a new nobility was imported by the Assyrians. To avoid captivity or exile, thousands of Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel fled south to the southern kingdom of Judah and it is said that its capital city, Jerusalem, grew in population size by over 500%.

Judah itself fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the Temple was destroyed and its ruling elites taken into captivity to Babylon. Another massive diaspora took place in which the Jews escaped slavery by fleeing to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia.

In 539 BCE the Babylonian Empire fell to Persia under Cyrus and he magnanimously freed the Jews and allowed them to return to Jerusalem -- which was now a Persian province. They were allowed to take with them the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had stolen, and construction of the Second Temple started.

In 331 BCE the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great of Greece, and all was well under Greek rule until 174-163 BCE when Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to Hellenize the Jews which led to the Maccabees's Rebellion, and the rise of John Hyrcanus, Ethnarch and High Priest of Jerusalem, 134-104 BCE, under whom the Jewish nation experienced a resurgence, annexing Trans-Jordan, Samaria, Galilee and Idumea and forcing the Idumeans to convert to Judaism.

By 63 BCE, Pompey conquered Jerusalem and it fell under Roman rule. In 66 BCE, the First Jewish-Roman War broke out. The entire Jewish garrison at Yodfat was massacred after a two month siege, and in 70 BCE the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. Those Jews that were not massacred -- or able to flee to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and other countries around the Mediterranean -- were taken to Rome as slaves. By 73 BCE the last Jewish resistance at the mountain fortress of Masada was crushed and 900 defenders committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai escaped from Jerusalem and obtained permission to establish a center of Jewish learning, the Sanhedrin, in the outlying town of Yavneh. At this center, Rabbinic Judaism took root and the Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for the 'wandering Jews'.

In 132 Simon bar Kokhba led a final revolt against the Romans, declaring an independent state in Israel, and was crushed by Rome. Seeking to suppress the Jewish place-names and humiliate the defeated Jews, the Romans renamed the area Palaestina (Latin for the Philistines, the traditional enemies of the Jews) and the Christians went one step further, after they had taken over Roman government, by forcibly disbanding the Sanhedrin in 425 CE and persecuting them forever after.

Like the early Christians in pagan Rome, the Jews went underground and survived -- moving from place to place to escape slavery and persecution, changing their religion to Christianity or Muslim according to whichever elite was in power, but never forgetting their tribal history, their roots and their self-appointed anointment as God's chosen people.

So accustomed had the Jews become to a wandering existence, that even the re-establishment of their homeland in the post WWII period did not attract the expected mass return. As with the earlier United Kingdom of Israel, divisions are appearing between the rich and the poor and the devout and the secular -- and the ancient turf war between the Philistines (Palestinians) and the Jews continues.

Ethnically, modern Jews are now more European than Semitic and it is odd they can lay claim to land on the basis of where their religion was born -- especially since it is based upon a tribal history that would make the Arabs more likely to be the true descendants of Abraham than they are -- but pointing this fact out to an Israeli would be far too confronting.

This article first appeared as Wandering Jews

Wandering Jews

In Christian tradition the Wandering Jew was condemned to a homeless existence until Judgment Day for having mocked Jesus Christ, and in botany the Wandering Jew was a name given to a trailing plant with colourful foliage -- even though its native origin was tropical America rather than the Middle East -- and as silly as these meanings are they are nevertheless apt, in a way, because before and after the Jewish tribes formed the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE, they had both a colorful and a wandering history which is not just reflected in Judaism but forms the basis of it.

Starting with Abraham, he and his extended family had to flee to Canaan from his home in Ur, modern day Iraq, because his beliefs clashed with those of the ruling elites, and his grandson Jacob (later called Israel, the father of twelve sons/tribes) was even called a "wandering Aramaean" because he travelled back to the land of his ancestors to obtain a wife and generally led a transitory life -- as was common in those days, and still is in that part of the world. Traveling to Egypt, however, was a bad mistake for the descendants of Israel because they became enslaved and had to wait for a charismatic leader like Moses to facilitate their freedom c. 1250 BCE.

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites wandering in the desert for a generation until Joshua emerged to lead them in the invasion of Canaan, which they then took as their own.

At that time and place in history, there were several great empires -- the Egyptian, the Hittite, the Babylonian and the Assyrian (a land between the Hittite and Babylonian Empires) -- and vibrant new migrant colonies of Indo-European Sea People at Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon that became known as 'the Way of the Philistines', after the name of the principle tribe.

Constant trouble with the Philistines led the Israelites to form the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1050 BCE but by then very few of the Israelites were direct descendants of Abraham and true to the Covenant he had made with Yahweh. They were largely of Canaan ethnicity, with a mixture of Hittite, Aramaean and Egyptian, and they practised many faiths. Very much like today's multicultural nations.

By 1010 BCE King David ruled the United Kingdom of Israel and the mythology of the Israelite nation became established. This United Kingdom of Israel lasted until c. 920 BCE when Jeroboam led the revolt of the wealthy northern tribes who were economically better developed than the southern tribes, had better rainfall and agricultural systems. The united kingdom split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South (which had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam).

The northern Kingdom of Israel became more powerful under Omri (c. 885-874 BC) who, with the support of the Phoenician city of Tyre, founded a new dynasty with its capital city at Samaria. Omri's successor, Jehu, linked through dynastic marriage with Tyre, joined other nations to fight and defeat the Assyrian Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC. Twelve years later, with assistance from the Kingdom of Aram, he organised a coup in which his own kin, Ahab and his family, were put to death.

Because the northern Kingdom of Israel was falling under the influence of Damascus, losing all cultural and religious ties with the southern Kingdom of Judah, the Judaeans treacherously appealed to Assyria for intervention and ultimately, in 720 BC, Israel fell and became incorporated into the Assyrian empire. The capital Samaria was destroyed, the ruling elites were deported to other lands in the Assyrian empire and a new nobility was imported by the Assyrians. To avoid captivity or exile, thousands of Jews from the northern kingdom of Israel fled south to the southern kingdom of Judah and it is said that its capital city, Jerusalem, grew in population size by over 500%.

Judah itself fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the Temple was destroyed and its ruling elites taken into captivity to Babylon. Another massive diaspora took place in which the Jews escaped slavery by fleeing to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia.

In 539 BCE the Babylonian Empire fell to Persia under Cyrus and he magnanimously freed the Jews and allowed them to return to Jerusalem -- which was now a Persian province. They were allowed to take with them the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had stolen, and construction of the Second Temple started.

In 331 BCE the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great of Greece, and all was well under Greek rule until 174-163 BCE when Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to Hellenize the Jews which led to the Maccabees's Rebellion, and the rise of John Hyrcanus, Ethnarch and High Priest of Jerusalem, 134-104 BCE, under whom the Jewish nation experienced a resurgence, annexing Trans-Jordan, Samaria, Galilee and Idumea and forcing the Idumeans to convert to Judaism.

By 63 BCE, Pompey conquered Jerusalem and it fell under Roman rule. In 66 BCE, the First Jewish-Roman War broke out. The entire Jewish garrison at Yodfat was massacred after a two month siege, and in 70 BCE the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. Those Jews that were not massacred -- or able to flee to Mesopotamia (Iraq) and other countries around the Mediterranean -- were taken to Rome as slaves. By 73 BCE the last Jewish resistance at the mountain fortress of Masada was crushed and 900 defenders committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai escaped from Jerusalem and obtained permission to establish a center of Jewish learning, the Sanhedrin, in the outlying town of Yavneh. At this center, Rabbinic Judaism took root and the Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for the 'wandering Jews'.

In 132 Simon bar Kokhba led a final revolt against the Romans, declaring an independent state in Israel, and was crushed by Rome. Seeking to suppress the Jewish place-names and humiliate the defeated Jews, the Romans renamed the area Palaestina (Latin for the Philistines, the traditional enemies of the Jews) and the Christians went one step further, after they had taken over Roman government, by forcibly disbanding the Sanhedrin in 425 CE and persecuting them forever after.

Like the early Christians in pagan Rome, the Jews went underground and survived -- moving from place to place to escape slavery and persecution, changing their religion to Christianity or Muslim according to whichever elite was in power, but never forgetting their tribal history, their roots and their self-appointed anointment as God's chosen people.

So accustomed had the Jews become to a wandering existence, that even the re-establishment of their homeland in the post WWII period did not attract the expected mass return. As with the earlier United Kingdom of Israel, divisions are appearing between the rich and the poor and the devout and the secular -- and the ancient turf war between the Philistines (Palestinians) and the Jews continues.

Ethnically, modern Jews are now more European than Semitic and it is odd they can lay claim to land on the basis of where their religion was born -- especially since it is based upon a tribal history that would make the Arabs more likely to be the true descendants of Abraham than they are -- but pointing this fact out to an Israeli would be far too confronting.

the jewish mission

Accepted by all religions is the fact that the first humans created had no religion, and as such any godly plans for humanity were meant for a unified family, not just limited to a chosen few.

Abraham's revolutionary notion of monotheism, a belief in one God, meant that God was not just a God of the Israelites but of all people. God revealed to Abrahamthat his people were to be messengers chosen to bring universal moral instructions to all humanity, not just the Jews.

The Torah was the revelation and the Mitzvot are the divine commandments defining a godly life, and God chose the landless and powerless Jewsas messengers because humans would be free to accept or reject the message on its merits. It was a message delivered without political and economic coercion.

In return for fulfilling their divine mission, God would make the Jews a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

However, most Talmudic Rabbis do not interpret 'a kingdom of priests' as having universal implications. They believe that the covenant given by God not only provided the core religious content of the message the Jewish people were to convey to humanity but also a separate and distinctcontent designed to force Jews to maintain a separate culture. Being chosen to convey the message implied, to them, a superior position.

By superiority, the Talmudic Rabbis meant that Jews as a separate people were to be a 'light' unto the other nations. In offering the message, they cannot mandate its acceptance. Those who accepted the message choose to become chosen.

The Talmudic Rabbis saw the Jewish mission to convey the message of God, not to convert everyone to Judaism. They did not call for the annihiliation of gentile or non-Jewish religions. They saw salvation as dependent on moral behavior not on accepting Judaism, and accepted that the righteous of all faiths have an equal chance to be saved.

In this sense, the Talmudic Rabbis maintained a separate 'superiority'. They were into delivering the message to all but most certaininly do not believe in wholescale conversions.

However, in the early days of Judaism missionary activity was necessary for the growth of this revolutionary notion of monotheism to take place. In his journey from Haran to Canaan Abraham made many converts. In Deuteronomy 32:10, Abraham is described as so successful a missionary that God became known as King of the earth as well as King of heaven.

However, the word 'convert' is used loosely when referring to Abraham's missionary zeal. The formal notion of religious conversion did not emerge until much later in history. Abraham invited non-Israelites to join the Israelites, as did Isaac and Jacob.

By the time of Moses, the Torah was being expounded in seventy languages, andit provides numerous injunctions to the Jewish people to welcome strangers. It is believed, too, that God exiled Jews from their homeland for only one reason, to increase the number of converts!

Conversions came about through synagogues inviting guests and visitors -- there were thousands of houses of instruction in all towns serving as learning centers for gentiles; Jews were exhorted to personally approach potential converts; gentiles living among Jewish people were invited to assimilate; abandoned gentile children were adopted; and many gentiles converted to Judaism through marriage with a Jew.

The Jewish mission of conversion was also codifed in laws. It is not clear when these legal rules developed, but they most certainly existed after the destruction of the Second Temple when there was a need for clear religious rules to maintain the Jewish identity. So, from 400- 500 AD the existence of these laws indicates that converts were allowed, welcomed and had specific rites to undergo in their conversion.

As expected, conversions were increased during important periods of Jewish history. The Jews grew from 150,000 in 586 BC to more than eight million by the first century of the common era and, in the case of the conversion of the Idumaeans and the Ituraeans, force was uncharacteriscally used.

So widespread was Jewish missionary activty that Greek, Roman, and Christian authors wrote disparagingly about it. In Rome, for example, Tacitus, a rhetorical historian, Cicero, a lawyer, and Juvenal, a satirist, are bitter and serious about denouncing Jewish proselytizing activities, and Horace makes fun of them.

The most famous Christian comment came from Matthew 23:15 in which competition for converts became nasty: "Alas for you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte and anyone who becomes one you make twice as fit for hell as you are."

By the onset of the Christian era, 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish and had the Romans and Jews not fought -- the Romans destroying the Temple in 70 AD, crushing the Bar Kochba rebellion in 135 AD and ultimately expelling the Jews from Jerusalem -- the Jews would have succeeded in winning more converts than the Christians and historywould have followed a different path.

While Jewish conversion efforts continued, the stateless and powerless Jews were restricted by Roman, and later Christian and Muslim laws regarding proselytism. In 131 AD, Hadrian prohibited circumcision and public instruction in the Jewish religion. In 198 and 199 the Emperor Severus passed laws forbiddinggentiles from embracing Judaism, and in 335 Constantine re-enacted Hadrian's law, forbidding Jews to circumcise non-Jewish slaves.

Cumulatively, these restrictions not only reversed the general Jewish attitude toward welcoming converts but also produced deep psychological change in the Jewish psyche. By the time of Constantine, many Jews would have embraced Christianity and those that remained faithful to Judaism became insular and messiahanic -- waiting for a messiahto raise them from a miserable existence made more miserable by the triumphant Christians accusing the Jews of Deicide -- killing Jesus -- and setting them up for mockery and persecution.

Christians took over the Jewish mission to welcome converts and transformed its meaning. Salvation was no longer dependent on moral behavior but on accepting Christ.The faiths of others were belittled, eternal rewards were promised for converting andeternal damnation was threated for refusing to convert. Bribery, threats, and ultimately violence and murder were used to expand the Christian faith. However, Christians did make it easier for pagans to convert by relaxing the Jewish need for male circumcision and the obligation to obey Jewish law.

Persecution and fear led, over time, to the transformation of the Jewish understanding of its mission. Spreading God's word came to be seen as against Jewish law.

(This article first appeared as god's chosen people, the jews and is reprinted with permission.)

god's chosen people, the jews

Accepted by all religions is the fact that the first humans created had no religion, and as such any godly plans for humanity were meant for a unified family, not just limited to a chosen few.

Abraham's revolutionary notion of monotheism, a belief in one God, meant that God was not just a God of the Israelites but of all people. God revealed to Abraham that his people were to be messengers chosen to bring universal moral instructions to all humanity, not just the Jews.

The Torah was the revelation and the Mitzvot are the divine commandments defining a godly life, and God chose the landless and powerless Jews as messengers because humans would be free to accept or reject the message on its merits. It was a message delivered without political and economic coercion (unlike Christianity after the Roman Emperor Constantine embraced it).

In return for fulfilling their divine mission, God promised his chosen people that he would make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

However, most Talmudic Rabbis do not interpret 'a kingdom of priests' as having universal implications. They believe that the covenant given by God not only provided the core religious content of the message the Jewish people were to convey to humanity but also a separate and distinct content designed to force Jews to maintain a separate culture. Being chosen to convey the message implied, to them, a superior position.

By superiority, the Talmudic Rabbis meant that Jews as a separate people were to be a 'light' unto the other nations. In offering the message, they cannot mandate its acceptance. Those who accepted the message choose to become chosen.

The Talmudic Rabbis saw the Jewish mission to convey the message of God, not to convert everyone to Judaism. They did not call for the annihilation of gentile or non-Jewish religions. They saw salvation as dependent on moral behavior not on accepting Judaism, and accepted that the righteous of all faiths have an equal chance to be saved.

In this sense, the Talmudic Rabbis maintained a separate 'superiority'. They were into delivering the message to all but most certainly did not believe in wholesale conversions.

However, in the early days of Judaism missionary activity was necessary for the growth of this revolutionary notion of monotheism to take place. In his journey from Haran to Canaan Abraham made many converts. In Deuteronomy 32:10, Abraham is described as so successful a missionary that God became known as King of the earth as well as King of heaven.

However, the word 'convert' is used loosely when referring to Abraham's missionary zeal. The formal notion of religious conversion did not emerge until much later in history. Abraham invited non-Israelites to join the Israelites, as did Isaac and Jacob.

By the time of Moses, the Torah was being expounded in seventy languages, and it provides numerous injunctions to the Jewish people to welcome strangers. It is believed, too, that God exiled Jews from their homeland for only one reason, to increase the number of converts!

Conversions came about through synagogues inviting guests and visitors -- there were thousands of houses of instruction in all towns serving as learning centers for gentiles; Jews were exhorted to personally approach potential converts; gentiles living among Jewish people were invited to assimilate; abandoned gentile children were adopted; and many gentiles converted to Judaism through marriage with a Jew.

The Jewish mission of conversion was also codified in laws. It is not clear when these legal rules developed, but they most certainly existed after the destruction of the Second Temple when there was a need for clear religious rules to maintain the Jewish identity. So, from 400- 500 AD the existence of these laws indicates that converts were allowed, welcomed and had specific rites to undergo in their conversion.

As expected, conversions were increased during important periods of Jewish history. The Jews grew from 150,000 in 586 BC to more than eight million by the first century of the common era and, only in the case of the conversion of the Idumaeans and the Ituraeans, was force used in an uncharacteristic manner.

So widespread was Jewish missionary activity that Greek, Roman, and Christian authors wrote disparagingly about it. In Rome, for example, Tacitus, a rhetorical historian, Cicero, a lawyer, and Juvenal, a satirist, are bitter and serious about denouncing Jewish proselytizing activities, and Horace makes fun of them.

The most famous Christian comment came from Matthew 23:15 in which competition for converts became nasty: "Alas for you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over sea and land to make a single proselyte and anyone who becomes one you make twice as fit for hell as you are."

By the onset of the Christian era, 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish and had the Romans and Jews not fought -- the Romans destroying the Temple in 70 AD, crushing the Bar Kochba rebellion in 135 AD and ultimately expelling the Jews from Jerusalem -- the Jews would have succeeded in winning more converts than the Christians and history would have followed a different path.

While Jewish conversion efforts continued, the stateless and powerless Jews dispersed throughout the Roman Empire and beyond were heavily restricted by Roman, and later Christian and Muslim laws regarding proselytism.

In 131 AD, Hadrian prohibited circumcision and public instruction in the Jewish religion. In 198 and 199 the Emperor Severus passed laws forbidding gentiles from embracing Judaism, and in 335 Constantine re-enacted Hadrian's law, forbidding Jews to circumcise non-Jewish slaves.

Cumulatively, these restrictions not only reversed the general Jewish attitude toward welcoming converts but also produced deep psychological change in the Jewish psyche.

From Constantine's time onwards -- when Christianity became the state religion -- many Jews would have converted to Christianity and those who remained faithful to Judaism became insular and messianic -- waiting for a messiah to raise them from a miserable existence made more miserable by the triumphant Christians accusing the Jews of Deicide -- killing Jesus -- and setting them up for mockery and persecution.

The Christians who laid the basis of early western civilization were mostly converted Jews and, in taking over the Jewish mission to welcome converts, they transformed its meaning.

Salvation was no longer dependent on moral behavior but on accepting Christ. The faiths of others were belittled, eternal rewards were promised for converting and eternal damnation was threatened for refusing to convert. Bribery, threats, and ultimately violence and murder were used to expand the Christian faith. However, Christians did make it easier for pagans to convert by relaxing the Jewish need for male circumcision and the obligation to obey Jewish law.

Persecution and fear led, over time, to the transformation of the Jewish understanding of its mission. Spreading God's word came to be seen as being against Jewish law.

how much do religions borrow from each other?

It is no coincidence that the basics of Judaism - and through it both Christianity and Islam - derive from Sumeric literature as well as its legal and moral codes.

Judah, born c.1740 BC (the son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac and great-grandson of Abraham), was the founder of Judaism and lived during the times of Hammurabi (the great king of Babylon in the civilization of Sumer situated in modern Iraq).

Abraham was born c. 1860 BC in Ur, in southern Iraq, to a wealthy family who had lived in that area for generations. The family was forced to flee to Haran in Canaan when Abraham aroused the king's wrath - but through the generations, the family of Abraham never lost touch with its homeland.

When the Hammurabi Code was proclaimed by the king of Babylon, Hammurabi, in 1750 BC, Judah was about 10 years old and he - and his father Jacob - cannot have been ignorant of it, or any of the many Sumeric codes of law that date back to c. 2250 BC under king Ur-Nammu.

The Hammurabi Code of 1750 BC (inscribed on a black stone pillar which is now located in the Louvre, Paris) is the best preserved and the most extensive of the Sumeric codes. It contains close to 300 laws - covering everything imaginable from military matters to minute personal matters - all of which, of course, are commanded by the gods, in this case the sun-god Shamash, and carry terrible punishments for non-compliance. Hammurabi collected the laws from Babylon's past rulers which, according to the Bible, started with Nimrod - the great-grandson of Noah of the Flood.

Substitute the many gods of the Sumerian civilization with the one God of the Israelites, Christians and Moslems, and there is a basic similarity between the Hammurabi Code and the Old Testament, Torah and Koran.

Furthermore, the story of Adam and Eve of Eden - depicted in Judaic-Christian literature - is influenced directly by the story of Enki and Ninhursag of Dimun in Sumeric literature. The biblical deluge story of Noah is also influenced by the story of Ziusudra in Sumeric literature; and the magnificent Sumeric epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu - a homosexual love story - underlies a great deal of what the developing religions were all about.

The ideas of heaven and hell, resurrection, an 'eye for an eye' and taking care of widows and orphans - matters that concerned the later Prophets - all came from the Sumerian civilization. The Sumeric word for hell is Kur, meaning a 'foreign land', and considering that Sumer was protected from menacing neighbors by mountains and a river, it is easy to see how hell came to be related to crossing a river and meeting a terrible fate.

Basically, Judaism took everything it wanted from the Sumeric literature and laws and left the rest; Christianity took everything it wanted from Judaic literature and laws and left the rest; Islam took everything it wanted from Judaism, Christianity and the eastern religions and left the rest; and that is why - despite the unique features they added - they have so many similarities.

Furthermore, since the earliest known evidence of deity worship was a shrine found in northern Spain, in the El Juyu cave, c. 12,000 BC - 8,500 years before the commencement in c. 3,500 BC of the Sumerian civilization - who is to say how much of their religious rites, laws and creation stories the Sumerians borrowed from the European tribes migrating to warmer southern lands after the Ice Age ended?

Between the final recession of the Ice Age in 12,000 BC and establishment of the first civilization - the Egyptiac in c. 4000 BC - vast trade and migration routes had been opened up, and with the European migrants and traders came ideas that were far in advance of anything known elsewhere.

Before writing, which the Sumerians invented, everything was necessarily passed on from generation to generation orally - usually in the form of stories to make them easier to remember; and there is plenty of evidence, too, that early art forms are attempts to convey the culture and laws of those who drew them - either as adjuncts to the stories or as stand-alone truths.