Judaism may have been influenced by outside views in the diaspora?

Answer 1

Yes, especifically though ashkenazi Judaism, and mostly in the United States. In the same way that with Christianity the "rules were relaxed a little" the same thing happened with Judaism, leading to the birth of labels such as;

Orthodox

Conservative

and finally Reform, which is the most liberal of the three.

In Europe, prior to the early 20th century, most European Jews were somewhere between Orthodox and Conservative, that is very serious about the religion, but not to the point of fanaticism like modern Orthodox Jews.

Moreover, while philosophical schools sprung up as Rabbis studied differening philosophies, the Rabbis maintained a "do not touch" attitude towards the Hebrew Bible. What I mean is, some Rabbi in Europe somewhere could develop this theory or that due to the influence of Descartes or Kant, or whatever scholar, maybe even the influence of Carl Jung, be they philosopher or scientist, said world view could affect their interpretation of Judaism. However, having interpretation affected by a given academic view and altering the Torah are two totally different things.

There are interpretation writtings, and then there are untouchable religious writtings.

So, how can philosophies alien to Judaism, affect interpretation?

Here is one of many possible ways;

In The Bible it is written, that the consequence of sin, of doing evil against your fellow man, does not imply consequences only for you, God warns "I will punish your children, and your children's children down the generations."

Seems a bit unfair right?

Well, consider this; the Psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory, that the human genetic code carries more than just the information to make a new human body, up until the time of conception at least, it carries the MEMORIES of the persons involved in the conception.

In other words, if American society is still racist, it could be atributed more to genetic memory, than upbringing. Jungian theory, seems to work in line with the Biblical warning "I will punish your children, and your children's children, down ten generations," at the risk of sounding like a Bible thumping fundamentalist, common sense dictates since it is God who made us, obviously God already knew about that whole genetic memory deal, and the reason God punishes not just you, but later generations is precisely because of that.

In a spiritual sense, they say that a human being, is made with two pieces of two souls. A small piece of the man's soul, and a part of the woman's, to create a new person. There is an extra-biblical, universal ancient semitic belief that says, that a man's daughter is a reflection of his own soul. If a woman is hideously, even grotesquely ugly, it only means her father is not a good man. Consider for a moment, the feminist movement, the countless ugly women involved, and how they almost all cite traumatic childhoods involving an uncaring father.

There may be truth to that semitic belief; the United States and Britain has an overbundance of ugly women, because, its got an overabundance of despicable men, its that simple.

Memory, as Jung theorized, may in fact be carried both genetically, as well as spiritually, generation after generation of "doing evil, wickedness" may make a people so corrupt, generations of children can be born outright deformed.

Did you know for example that in ancient times, the Roman invaders of Britain stated, British women were the most beautiful in all of Europe?

Its true; Roman writers said, of the ancient British woman "in the whole of Europe, their like is not seen; only the goddesses posses greater beauty."

Look at the reputation of British women NOW; if there is truth to that ancient semitic belief then, I don't think the British people are aware of just how far they have fallen. The ancient Briton, was courageous, noble, honest, and strong, even honorable. Modern Britons are hated the world over. If there is truth to the semitic belief then, far from being higher, Britain has fallen very far.

Just an example on how it can be interpreted; I am not an enlightened Buddha, or Prophet, or Daoist Immortal, so, my interpretation should not be taken seriously. I do not even hold a masters in divinity or theology so I do not posses academic authority just trying to be helpful and to try to make you understand one of many possibilities. Because of the myriad of possibilities the list of Rabbis who have written commentaries on the Torah is literally endless, some interpretations are more popular than others, and they range from claims that Judaism is philosophically superior to Socrates, to a Rabbi named Ariyeh Kaplan who wrote the "Zefer Yetsirah."

I don't know if I spelled his first name right, however, I know that Kaplan held a degree in Physics, and he tended to view the Hebrew Bible, and Kabalistic lore from a Physicists perspective as a matter of fact, the Rabbi was influential in Physics circles because he developed a theory that Quantum Physics and the spirit world are in fact connected, and that the existence of God may in fact be proven by Quantum Physics. The fourth dimension, operates by different laws. The universe is governed by only two basic fundamental laws, namely gravity and magnetism.

Gravity's "source," is in fact not truly of this world, and we know this, because the intense gravity of a black hole bends the very fabric of space and time. This means that whatever exists in the Quantum universe whatever forces, are far more powerful than any that exist on our world, and if there are intelligent beings there, they posses power beyond our understanding. A mere micron of anti-matter for example, is enough to coat the entire earth in a "cocoon" of energy, that would anihilate all life on this planet. Why does such a small amount posses so much power? Again, anti matter is extra dimensional, the theoretical fourth dimension, because it is, more or less the "source" of everything, means that any material or being from it is composed raw compressed energy.

The most powerful weapon, is not a nuclear bomb, the most powerful weapon is the ability to control anti matter. All that stuff you read in comic books about teleportation? Quantum Physics can make it possible.

In fact, a quantum weapon "fired" at a given military, could render any and all military hardware worthless. Anti matter, because it can bend time itself could for example be used to accelerate the half-life of the plutonium in a nuclear missile, rendering it worthless. Whatever nation masters anti matter technology, can potentially become not just the strongest military superpower, but the most powerful super power in all of human history.

So you see, the Jewish Messiah prophecies of Judaism, are not that far fetched; a single man would posses enough power, to rule the whole world, and the current military powers of the world would have no say in the matter either.

Of course, to develop anti matter technology you would need a society where the AVERAGE I.Q. was 200, particularly gifted people scoring at 500 or higher. You need to understand that with particle physics involved it requires an understanding of numbers that can interpret the dynamic nature of the fundamental forces of gravity and magnetism. Math, is a way to interpret the fundamental forces of the universe, simple in nature and yet, the human mind needs complex mathematics to grasp it.

See? Yet another possibility; the list of writting that "justifies" the existence of Judaism, based on arguments from extra-Judaic academic sources is literally endless. Moreover there are just as many arguments from atheist Jews as to why Judaism shouldn't exist.