HISTORY, BELIEFS AND DENOMINATIONS OF JUDAISM

Abstract

As it is known, there are many religions existing in the world. In turn, all of them are subdivided into monotheistic and polytheistic ones. Despite the fact that historians of religion keep to the idea of evolution of human beliefs into monotheism, the religious scholars are inclined to believe that monotheism was formed with the advent of the first man the prophet Adam and only then
polytheism arose. However, we will not consider the issue of the emergence of religions in the article. We will definitely concern the history of Judaism, that is the first of three monotheistic religions. The basic issues of the foundations of belief, the holy books, the prophets, etc. are to be considered in present article. The aforementioned religion, having gone through the difficult path of historical stages since its inception up today, has deep ancient roots. Judaism has accumulated in itself both the previously existing polytheistic religions, and the monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam that subsequently arose. According to researchers, the influence of all these religions is reflected in the holy books of Judaism. Being a national religion, Judaism has its own understanding of God and the foundations of belief. Considering himself to be the descendant of God, this people, in order to confirm its thoughts, refers to its sacred books while denoting them to be evidence. As well as in other monotheistic religions, the belief system of Judaism contains the concepts of Salvation, Doomsday, Messiah, Punishment and Reward.