Compare And Contrast Jewish Culture And Other Mesopotamian Cultures

Question: Compare and contrast Jewish culture and other Mesopotamian cultures? Why do you think that Judaism (with the fewer followers than Christianity or Islam) is still widely studied and discussed today?
Answer: The primary significance of the Ancient Judaic civilization was that it developed a monotheistic culture, they only worshipped one God. The other Mesopotamian cultures were polytheistic, all aspects of their civilizations were geared towards appeasing multiple gods that required sacrifices, and they were cold and irrational gods. The Mesopotamian cultures respected representations of their gods, for instance the Sumerians made sculptures of Gods with large eyes so they could feel the cold stare of their gods upon them at all times.
However, these laws followed lex talionis: an eye for an eye, where the punishments are scaled to fit the crime. People were not equal under the law; slaves and the lower classes were subjected to harsher and cruel punishments. On the other hand, everyone was judged equally under the Jewish Law. Punishments were just, people had to either work off their debts or help those they wronged; this instilled a greater sense of community. Monotheism affected the way society functioned and it solidified people’s moral values. Government, especially the king was accountable to a higher authority. The prophets of Israel never hesitated to point out when the kings were not practicing God’s moral code. The rule of morality prevented social instability, the king was kept in check and the people had no cause to
Judaism remains a strong spiritual force today, because the Jewish people remain strong in their traditions; they follow the tenets of their religion to the letter of the law, they try to make all aspects of their daily life holy. Jewish culture was so strong that the Romans themselves had difficulty in ruling them, they would refuse to pay taxes and they were exempt from worshipping the Roman Gods. They support each other and remain united despite differences in doctrine, unlike the Christians and Islam that are fragmented by factionalism. Judaism gave Christianity and Islam the template from which to build their own faiths; both the Christian Bible and the Koran contain the Jewish Old Testament as a preamble. Many of the main rules of Islam such as daily prayers, ablutions and the abstention from pork are essentially the same as the Jewish rules. Under the Umayyad empire in Iberia, all three religions coincided together in peace, there was an unspoken understanding that they all came from the same God and were