This research examines the major beliefs of Judaism and provides a historical overview of the major leaders throughout its history, to the time of the founding of Israel as a secular nation-state. The research will set forth a foundation for positioning the Jews and Judaism in history and then discuss how, over the expanse of time in which the Judaic belief system has flourished as a major religion, its most significant religious and institutional leaders have shaped the content and perception of the faith by its adherents.
Whatever else is true about the history of Judaism is that it achieves resonance not only with individuals who identify with its religious content but also with those who recognize its importance as one of the principal strands of thought that run throughout the history of western civilization. As Johnson explains, the codification or record of early Indo-European development was accomplished in large measure by literate Jewish priests. This suggests that Jewish identity implies a nexus with the earliest civilizing forces: "All the great conceptual discoveries of the intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift" (Johnson 585).
Campbell points out that various "renditions of the holy text were miraculously identical," although he adds that "not all the [Hebrew] People were of one mind; nor were all, by any means, in Palestine. There were communities in Egypt, Babylon, Syria and Anatolia, in the Greek isles, and in Rome (Campbell 273), and ancient documents survive from each community. The Greek histories (e.g., Herodotus) are predated by centuries by the Hebrew texts. Thus they were "the only people in the world today who possess a historical record, however obscure in places, which allows them to trace their origins back into very remote times" (Johnson 7).
A difficulty with identifying Juda...