How did the Hebrews' history affect their belief?

Answer 1

A:Traditional belief and scholarship has assumed that Hebrew history affected their beliefs because God guided the Patriarchs and Moses, then Joshua, the Judges and kings in ways that were meant to sustain them as his chosen people.

With progress in Archaeology and biblical exegesis, scholars now realise that it was Hebrew beliefs that affected their concept of history. Jews came to believe that their ancestors had been monotheistic from the time of the legendary Abraham, so they developed a history that demonstrated this, although historians now know that the people of Israel and Judah were polytheistic until at least the late monarchy. They saw themselves as quite distinct from the neighbouring Canaanites, so developed a history in which their ancestors were enslaved in Egypt for over four hundred years, until an Exodus led them to conquer the land of the Canaanites. This contrasts with the view of almost all serious scholars that the Israelites were themselves Canaanites who migrated peacefully from the region of the rich coastal cities into the hitherto sparsely populated hinterland.

We are only now beginning to know the real history of the Hebrew people, and this history has little bearing on their later beliefs. The written histories of the Jews were based on belief, rather than the other way around.

Answer 2

The history of the Israelites consisted of interaction with God. When they obeyed the Torah which God gave them (Exodus ch.19 and 24:12), there was prosperity, and when a sufficient number of them strayed from the Torah, there was calamity (Judges ch.2), exactly as the Torah had predicted (Leviticus ch.26). This, in addition to the miracles of the Exodus (ch.14), strengthened their belief in God and in His ways. Even among wayward Israelites, there was never any doubting of the events described in the Torah, for three thousand years (i.e. until a couple of centuries ago).

See also:

Timeline

Jewish beliefs