World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 42 стр.

                                  The covenant                                               You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain…
     The combined emphasis on justice and on history which marks Israelite re-               Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor;
ligion shows itself especially in the fact that the relationship between the He-        and do all work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God…
brew people and their God Yahweh was described in terms of a legal contract, a               Honor your father and your mother…
solemn agreement which binds both parties in justice. According to this con-                 You shall not kill.
tract, the Hebrew people and the obligation to observe the law which Yahweh                  You shall not commit adultery.
would give them. Yahweh, in his turn, obligated himself to increase their num-               You shall not steal.
ber, and to give them possession of the land of Canaan or Palestine. The cove-               You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
nant was not a contract between equals, but of the sort, which a ruler might im-             You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your
pose on his subjects or a conqueror on the conquered (rather like the agreement         neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his
which the victorious United Nations armies imposed upon Iraq after the Persian          ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s”.
Gulf war of 1990).                                                                       In addition to these ten (which are recorded in the Bible in two slightly dif-
     The terms of the contract were set forth initially by Yahweh to Abraham,       ferent versions, in Exodus 20, the one given here, and Deuteronomy 5), God
the legendary father of the Hebrew people, on the occasion when, having com-        gave many other laws to Moses for the Hebrew people. The traditional count is
manded him to sacrifice his son Isaac, he revealed that this had been only a test   613. These laws cover a wide variety of subjects, including the sacrifices to be
of faith.                                                                           carried out, the feast days to be observed, the penalties to be inflicted for vari-
         “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a         ous crimes such as murder and robbery, sexual conduct, the obligations of ritual
    multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name         purity, the forgiveness of debts, etc. These laws are not restricted to the purely
    shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.     religious sphere, but also include many that regulate the civil life of the com-
    I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and       munity. In effect, the Mosaic Law provides a sacred constitution for the nation
    kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between       of Israel.
    me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations               The central activity of the religion was the offering of animals, grain, and
    for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants af-       fruits in sacrifice to Yahweh. The Law prescribes rituals for carrying out several
    ter you. And I will give to you, and to your descendants after you, the land    different kinds of sacrifice, including the sacrifice of praise, the peace offering,
    of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession;      the sin offering, the guilt offering, and the sacrifices to be offered on the various
    and I will be their God”.                                                       holy days and holy occasions. The feast days prescribed by the Law are de-
     This contract was renewed and enlarged by God with Moses. After rescu-         scribed in the following section on Rabbinic Judaism.
ing the people from the Egyptians, God had Moses lead them to Mount Sinai
(the location of which has proved impossible to identify), where amid thunder                                          The Torah
and lightning he gave them his complete Law.                                             The Law of Moses can be found in five books written in Hebrew: Genesis,
                                                                                    Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Together these books make up
                            The Law of Moses                                        the Pentateuch (the “Five Scrolls”) or Torah. Genesis contains the story of the
    The most celebrated part of the Law given by God to Moses is the Ten            creation of the world, and the histories of the fathers of the Hebrew people, in-
Commandments, the classic summary of man’s duties towards God and his               cluding the first covenant with Abraham. Exodus tells the story of the rescue of
neighbor:                                                                           the people out of Egypt. Leviticus contains the main provisions of the Law.
                                                                                    Numbers gives a variety of further ordinances and stories, and Deuteronomy is
         And God spoke all these words, saying,                                     a summary of the material in the preceding books.
         “I am the Lord your god, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,              Scholars have found that these books are largely composed of earlier
    out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.            documents that have been rearranged and edited. The book of genesis, for ex-
         You shall not make for yourself a graven image… you shall not bow          ample, is compiled from sections taken from three main sources, a document
    down to them or serve them.                                                     scholars call J, which refers to God by the name Yahweh, one called E, which
                                       83                                                                                    84