Judaism

Judaism is the Religion of the Jewish people and the world’s oldest monotheistic Religion. It is one of the three great monotheistic Religions in the world along with Christianity and Islam.
The Holy Text of Judaism is the Hebrew Bible also known as the Tanakh. The Holy City of Judaism is Jerusalem and its Holy Temple was the Second Temple of Jerusalem until its destruction in 70 CE.

The Tanakh, also known as the Masoretic Text or the Hebrew Bible, consists of 24 Books written in Hebrew.
The word Ta-na-kh is an acronym made from the first two letters of each of the three sections.

The Torah (Teaching):
- also known as the Pentateuch, meaning ‘the five books’, which are the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
The Nevi’im (Prophets):
- Eight Books: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve minor Prophets
The Ketuvim (Writings):
- Eleven Books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job (The Poetic Books), Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Book of Esther (The Five Scrolls), Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles. (Other Books).

The Talmud is the text which forms the basis for all Jewish religious law and is the central guide to the Jewish way of life.

Rabbis are spiritual leaders and religious teachers who have qualified after studying the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, the text of Jewish religious law.

The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar that begins in 3,761 BCE, the date of Creation.
There are 12 lunar months of 29 or 30 days in a solar year of 354 days.
During a 19 year cycle, extra months are added at set times to complete the 365 day solar year.

The First Temple of Jerusalem was King Solomon’s Temple, which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish population was taken captive during the Babylonian Exile (608 or 587 to 539 BCE) in Babylon, Mesopotamia.
After 70 years, the Jewish population was allowed to return under Darius the Great.
They built the Second Temple of Jerusalem between 521-516 BCE. It was later rebuilt by Herod the Great between 20-18 BCE.
The First Jewish-Roman War resulted in the Destruction of the second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and only the Wailing Wall remains today.

Pompey conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE and began Roman Rule of Judaea.
Between 66-135 CE, a series of Revolts by the Jews against Roman Rule occurred which resulted in Hadrian (117-138 CE) deporting the population and sending them around the Empire, with 30,000 being deported to Carthage according to Josephus.

Jerusalem