The idea of a universal, singular God is perhaps the greatest religious innovations of the Jewish tradition among the world’s historic religious systems. Between 1500 and 500 BCE, the Israelite people of the ancient Near East began to think of a radical new understanding of god. The ancient Hebrews were most likely “polytheistic,” believing in numerous gods. God even had a wife. Eventually, however, early Hebrew prophets began to preach of one God as the creator of all existence, a view we have come to call “monotheism.”
Early Hebrew authors gave God names such as Elohim (Christians point to this as proof of the Trinity) (“gods”), Adonai (“my lord”), and the unpronounceable YHWH, from the same root as the verb “to be,” the etymological source of the name “Jehovah.”
Watch the following video- especially after the two minute mark to see how monotheism developed.
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/sotj14.socst.world.monotheism/monotheism/#
https://drive.google.com/a/friendscentral.org/file/d/0BwJtGlkVK5mkTlA4RGkyeU9mVGs/view?usp=drivesdk
I find it very interesting how they can identify shrines even after they have been beaten down by time.
I learned archeologists could detemrmine where the sacrifice spots were and how they determined there were Jews there, because of the foods sacrificed. They also determined that the David and Goliath was a metaphor to the fighting over land. They are not sure exactly what people put in as religious offerings, but they have found some of the containers.
The TaNaKh is the Torah, the five Books of Moses. It has the laws of Judaism and is often reffered to as the Jewish bible. The Dead Sea scrolls are fragments of the Torah as it was destroyed gradually. God evolves from destroying humans to stopping child sacrifices. God says that his name is “YHWH.” Jobs story teaches us that God will take pity on us if he sees we suffer with others. The book tells us that God is considered male. There were only a few female heroic roles, unfortunately. A diaspora is a grouping of people of common background or origin, like the Jews.
I learned that archeologists could tell if the land belonged to jews by syudying the animal bones near buy. The fact that there were no pig bones let them know that the people there wrer kosher. I found it cool how they could determine history from objects.
I discovered in this video that there is a way to find out which group of people lived in a certain area.
In this video I learned how archeologists are able to tell what regions and areas Jews lived in. Jewish people did not consume pig or any animal they consider to be unclean. Depending on the bones and fossils an archeologist finds he could infer if Jews lived in that area or not.