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Ancient Near Eastern Influence on Judaism

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Ancient Near Eastern Influence on Judaism
I. Identify the Ancient Hebrew people and their religious belief system

II. Brief Overview of Ancient Near Eastern Religion.

III. Consequences of Ancient Near Eastern influence on the Hebrew people.

IV. Conclusion.

I. Identify the Ancient Hebrews and their religious belief system: The Ancient Hebrew people had their origins in Mesopotamia and Egypt. As a result they were strongly influenced by these not so foreign religious practices. It is because of this influence that we find God’s judgment and wrath being poured out on His chosen people time and time again. We will discuss some of the specifics later. First I would like to identify who the Ancient Hebrews were in the Ancient Near East, and what their belief system consisted of. As I began the initial research of this paper I first encountered an obstacle. This obstacle was identifying the Hebrew people among the different people groups located in and around Mesopotamia and Egypt. After much fruitless searching and many different theories and hypothesis, I have come to the conclusion that we simply have no way of knowing anything about the Hebrew people until we are introduced to Abraham in the Bible. The sole evidence for the existence of Abraham comes from the Hebrew narrative, but many Old Testament scholars now recognize him for his place in the beginnings of Hebrew History. It was interesting to discover that not all Semitic speaking people are of Hebrew descent. The Semitic speaking peoples of the ancient near east were descendants of Shem.The other people groups were descendants of Noah through his other two sons Ham and Japheth. How and why all the different cultures and languages of Mesopotamia and the world derive from one man Noah, requires exhaustive research that is not afforded in this research paper. However I do find it necessary to mention that through the research of this paper I have a new perspective on race. This new perspective is there is no such thing as


Bibliography: Schultz, Samuel J. The Old Testament Speaks: Fifth Edition (HarperCollins Publisher, NY), 30. Vriezen, TH. C. The Religion of Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1967), 12, 13. Ringgren, Helmer. Israelite Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 67 Wood, Leon. A Survey of Israel’s History (Michigan, Zondervan Publishing), 411 Lods, Adolphe The Prophets And The Rise Of Judaism (London: Routledge & Kegan) Albright, William F. YAHWEH AND THE GODS OF CANAAN (NY Doubleday & Company, 1965) Meek, Theophile J. Hebrew Origins (NY, Harper & Brothers, 1960) Renckens, Henry THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL (NY Sheed & Ward, 1965) New American Standard Bible, (Chattanooga, TN: AMG publishers, 1995)
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