How was the Jewish religion different from the religion from other cultural religion?

Answer 1

Abraham, the traditional founder of Judaism, was surrounded by various pagan cults and religions, all of which were polytheistic - they worshiped an array of deities.

Judaism was a radical departure from this. Abraham made an eternal covenant with the God of Israel in which he vowed to stay loyal to the true God. In return, God would protect Abraham and his descendants.

Judaism was the first organised faith to advocate pure Monotheism. This made it different from the religions and cults that surrounded the early Israelites.

And when we say pure monotheism, we mean that Abraham's God was the One and ONLY God, unlike those ancient cultures in which there may have been a "supreme" god, but still many lesser gods. (although some scholars think the ancient Hebrews initially did recognize the existence of other gods, but didn't worship them).

The other, perhaps equally fascinating difference, is that wherever Abraham was, so God was -- unlike gods that were geographically fixed to a specific location.

• Answer:

Judaism differed from other ancient religions in the following ways:

1) It was the only religion in which God spoke to the entire assembled nation (Exodus ch.19) of over two million people.

2) It made a complete break from the surrounding idolatry. Their monotheism (belief in One God) set the Jews apart because other ancient nations did not share it. From Judaism, belief in One God has spread through the Western world. It was unlike idolatry, which had tended to go hand in hand with cruel, licentious and excessive behavior, since the caprices which were narrated concerning the idols were adopted as an excuse to imitate those types of behavior.
Quote:
"I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation ... fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations" (John Adams, 2nd President of the United States).
"Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights, but we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both Divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and of collective conscience, and social responsibility" (Paul Johnson, Christian historian, author of A History of the Jews and A History of Christianity).