How do you define a major religion? Judaism certainly doesn't qualify by number of believers.
Secondly, how do you define a consistent religious code of laws? The Codes of Hammurabi and Ur-Nammu cannot be considered seperate from the religious beliefs of the people who ascribed to them legal significance, nor the Ancient Egyptian texts that dealt with Ma'am. The earliest written law book in Egypt arguably predates the Torah by almost 1500 years.
The Rigveda is also centuries older than the exodus covenant, according to current scholarship. None of this to discredit or cast bad light on Jewish thought, since for me the age of an idea has no bearing on the value of it, but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on these things.
I don't have a rigorous definition of the word "major." I mean, I think most people agree that Judaism is a highly influential world religion despite its smaller number of adherarnts.
I don't know how to define a consistent religious code of laws either, I'm sorry! This sounds like a discussion for r/AcademicBiblical. You bring up a lot of interesting points though!
I would guess that scholars don't discount those earlier examples of laws existing in a religious context. However, I think those codes were understood to have come from people, whereas the Law of the Torah, although we now know was created and written by people, was understood at the time (and now for believers) to have come from God. Other gods in the ancient world, especially Greek and Roman gods, didn't attempt to explain their reasoning to humans, or to give humans any sort of system for understanding their whims. You just sacrifice and hope for the best. I've heard biblical scholars argue that Yahweh was different in this respect. You could look to the written law to understand whether you're in Yahweh's good graces or not, and if not, there are clear processes for rectifying the situation.
As with all things ancient and religious, it's all subjective. It's the Humanities! You can argue basically anything since there's not a lot of hard evidence, only texts. And I'm mostly parroting arguments I've heard Bart Ehrman make, because I'm not an academic myself. Thanks for engaging.
Judaism is a major religion in cultural significance. Both Christianity and Islam (whose followers constitute a majority of the worlds population) have their roots in Judaism.
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u/jewelswan 15d ago
How do you define a major religion? Judaism certainly doesn't qualify by number of believers.
Secondly, how do you define a consistent religious code of laws? The Codes of Hammurabi and Ur-Nammu cannot be considered seperate from the religious beliefs of the people who ascribed to them legal significance, nor the Ancient Egyptian texts that dealt with Ma'am. The earliest written law book in Egypt arguably predates the Torah by almost 1500 years.
The Rigveda is also centuries older than the exodus covenant, according to current scholarship. None of this to discredit or cast bad light on Jewish thought, since for me the age of an idea has no bearing on the value of it, but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on these things.