What religious belief made the hebrews different from the early societies?

Answer 1

Religious beliefs made the Hebrew people different from the early societies that neighbored them. The Hebrews believed and worshiped only one God.

Answer:

The religion of the Hebrews 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. We've heard (for example) of the Greek mythology and Roman mythology. What not everyone is aware of is that idolatry 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.
Compare that to God, who reveals His attributes in the Torah as wise, kind, holy, and pure. God is One, so the command to imitate His attributes (Deuteronomy 8:6) was (and is) a straightforward matter once one is even minimally familiar with the Torah.
Accordingly, Judaism was:
3) The only ancient religion in which a large percentage of its adherents were literate and scholars.
4) It was the only religion in which the people were ruled by God, with no need for a king, for several centuries (see Judges 8:23 and 1 Samuel 8:4-7).
5) The concept of morality was also the work of the Hebrews' religion, including the dignity and value of a person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through.
6) Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm. Compare this to those societies in which (at most) only mature, land-owning males had rights.
7) Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God. And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).
8) A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike in many other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed.
It is important to note that every one of the above existed in Judaism thousands of years earlier than in other nations. Here's just one example: Aristotle, who was among the greatest of the Greeks, and Seneca, the famous Roman, both write that killing one's young babies is perfectly acceptable.

Answer 2

It was monotheistic (or at least monolatrous, which was a forerunner of monotheism).

Answer:

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. We've heard (for example) of the Greek mythology and Roman mythology. What not everyone is aware of is that idolatry 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.
Compare that to God, who reveals His attributes in the Torah as wise, kind, holy, and pure. God is One, so the command to imitate His attributes (Deuteronomy 8:6) was (and is) a straightforward matter once one is even minimally familiar with the Torah.
Accordingly, Judaism was:
3) The only ancient religion in which a large percentage of its adherents were literate and scholars.
4) It was the only religion in which the people were ruled by God, with no need for a king, for several centuries (see Judges 8:23 and 1 Samuel 8:4-7).
5) The concept of morality was also the work of the Hebrews' religion, including the dignity and value of a person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through.
6) Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm. Compare this to those societies in which (at most) only mature, land-owning males had rights.
7) Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God. And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).
8) A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike in many other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed.
It is important to note that every one of the above existed in Judaism thousands of years earlier than in other nations. Here's just one example: Aristotle, who was among the greatest of the Greeks, and Seneca, the famous Roman, both write that killing one's young babies is perfectly acceptable.

Answer 3

A:The scholarly consensus on early Hebrew belief is reflected in Lang, cited by Keel and Uehlinger (Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel), "In the four and a half centuries during which there were one or two Israelite monarchies (ca. 1020-586 B.C.), there was a dominant, polytheistic religion that was indistinguishable from that of neighboring peoples. Insofar as there were differences between the Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, Tyrian, etc. versions of religion, these beliefs stayed within the framework of Near Eastern polytheism, and each should be interpreted as a local variant of the same basic pattern. The Israelites . . . venerated their own protector god who was there to provide for health and family. But they venerated Yahweh [God] as well, the regional and national god, whose special domain dealt with war and peace issues. Finally, they worshiped gods who performed specific functions, those that were responsible for various special needs: weather, rain, women's fertility, etc."

In other words, there was no major difference between the religion of the Hebrews and the religions of other early cultures such as, for example, the Sumerians and Egyptians. This is not the view that has come down to us in the Old Testament, but we are enjoined not to confuse the minority opinion expressed in the religious literature preserved in the Old Testament with the historic religion of Israel in the pre-Exilic period.

Andrew D. H. Mayes (The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, Sociology and the Old Testament) says it is becoming clear that the presentation of Yahweh as the only God of Israel in the pre-monarchic period is a late construction which runs up against great historical difficulties. He says that the worship of Yahweh alone was the programme of an active pressure group within Israel which came into dominance particularly in times of crisis, and the breakthrough to monotheism was achieved only in the setting of that final catastrophe when the prophetic demand for Yahweh's exclusive worship, with its threat of punishment for disobedience, was vindicated.

In other words, an important difference did emerge late in the monarchic period of Judah and long after the destruction of Israel, or perhaps during the sixth-century-BCE Babylonian Exile. This was the adoption of monotheism. Scholars speculate that there might have been a 'Yahweh-only' cult prior to the reign of King Josiah, but if so they had little support among the common people and would have been at odds with the kings of Judah.

Answer:Jewish tradition is that, from the beginning of its history 3800 years ago, it has always been monotheistic (and that is what made it different from the beliefs of others). This is agreed upon by Christians and Muslims. Though there were Israelites who fell into idolatry in ancient times (and The Bible doesn't hide that fact), there were always the loyal ones who served the One God. Their names, dates and teachings are quoted verbatim in the Hebrew Bible and the Oral Tradition; and they include all the kings who "did what was right in God's eyes": Asa (1 Kings 15:11), Yehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:43), Yehoash (2 Kings 12:3), Amatziah (2 Kings 14:3), Azariah (2 Kings 15:3), Yotam (2 Kings 15:34), Hizkiah (2 Kings 18:3), and Josiah (2 Kings 22:2).And every one of the Prophets.

Answer 4

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. We've heard (for example) of Greek mythology and Roman mythology. What not everyone is aware of is that idolatry tended to go hand in hand with cruel, licentious and excessive behavior, since the caprices which were narrated concerning the pagan gods were adopted as an excuse to imitate those types of behavior.

(See: cruelties of the polytheists)

Compare that to God, who reveals His attributes in the Torah as wise, kind, holy, and pure. God is One, so the command to imitate His attributes (Deuteronomy 8:6) was (and is) a straightforward matter once one is even minimally familiar with the Torah.

(See: What do Jews believe God is like?)

Accordingly, Judaism was:

3) The only ancient religion in which a large percentage of its adherents were literate and scholars.

4) It was the only religion in which the people were ruled by God, with no need for a king, for several centuries (see Judges 8:23 and 1 Samuel 8:4-7).

5) The concept of morality was also the work of the Hebrews' religion, including the dignity and value of a person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through.

6) Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, poor person, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm. Compare this to those societies in which (at most) only mature, land-owning males had rights.

7) Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God.

(See: What was the role of the Israelite prophets?)

And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).

8) A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike in many other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed (Roman Twelve Tables of Law, 3:10).

It is important to note that every one of the above existed in Judaism thousands of years earlier than in other nations. Here's just one example: Infanticide was practiced in classical European nations until Judaism and its daughter-religions put a stop to it.

Answer 5

Until the seventh-century religious reforms of King Josiah of Judah, the Hebrew religion was remarkably similar to that of the ancestral Canaanites. The Hebrews worshipped more or less the same gods and goddesses, but also the God Yahweh (Hebrew: YHWH, or in modern Hebrew: YHVH). Even YHWH is believed by some scholars to have originated with the Midianite storm god, YHW.

With King Josiah came change. The Book of Law (Deuteronomy) was supposedly found in the Temple during renovations, leading to religious reform, based on just one God alone. Josiah removed all the other gods from the Temple and centralised worship of God in the Jerusalem Temple. It seems that these reforms were only partly successful, and some level of polytheism continued right through to the Babylonian Exile but, by the time of the return from Exile, the biblical evidence is that monotheism had taken firm root among the Jews. The only other religion anywhere in the ancient Near East to teach the worship only one god was Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persian benefactors of the Jews.

Answer 6

Hebrew beliefs 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. We've heard (for example) of the Greek mythology and Roman mythology. What not everyone is aware of is that idolatry 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.
Compare that to God, who reveals His attributes in the Torah as wise, kind, holy, and pure. God is One, so the command to imitate His attributes (Deuteronomy 8:6) was (and is) a straightforward matter once one is even minimally familiar with the Torah.
Accordingly, Judaism was:
3) The only ancient religion in which a large percentage of its adherents were literate and scholars.
4) It was the only religion in which the people were ruled by God, with no need for a king, for several centuries (see Judges 8:23 and 1 Samuel 8:4-7).
5) The concept of morality was also the work of the Hebrews' religion, including the dignity and value of a person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through.
6) Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm. Compare this to those societies in which (at most) only mature, land-owning males had rights.
7) Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God. And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).
8) A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike in many other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed.
It is important to note that every one of the above existed in Judaism thousands of years earlier than in other nations. Here's just one example: Aristotle, who was among the greatest of the Greeks, and Seneca, the famous Roman, both write that killing one's young babies is perfectly acceptable.

Answer 7

They were monotheistic (or at least monolatrous, which is an early form of monotheism).

Answer 8

The Ancient Hebrews were monotheistic, worshipping One God only. All of the other peoples at the time had a panoply of gods.

Answer 9

Belief in One God.