Jewish theology studies God’s nature and divine laws in Judaism through canonized religious texts and past authorities. It includes written and oral law, and scholars analyze past works to produce reasoned arguments for religious questions. Different schools of thought can lead to different answers and movements within Judaism.
Jewish theology is the study of the nature of God and the meaning of divine laws within Judaism. This involves studying Judaism’s canonized religious texts for both explicit and implicit indications from God, as well as studying the writings and commentaries of past Jewish religious authorities. Theology is a branch of philosophy, so theologians use these resources, in addition to their own reasoning, to answer questions about religious practice and the daily conduct of Jews.
The major religious texts of Judaism can be broadly divided into written law and oral law. The written law takes the form of the five books of Moses, also known as the Torah, which Judaism believes to be the literal text that God gave to the Hebrew prophet Moses at the top of Mount Sinai. According to Jewish tradition, in addition to giving Moses the written law, God told Moses how to interpret the text. What God said to Moses is called oral law, and it remained an oral tradition of stories and sayings until it was later codified in the Talmud. The writings of major and minor prophets accompany the Torah and Talmud in the canonized texts of Jewish theology.
Jewish scholars treat Jewish theology the same way any academic treats their area of study: an ongoing conversation between scholars of the present and scholars of the past. In seeking answers to questions of Jewish religious life and practice, they read the major religious texts of Judaism and seek passages that address the questions for which they seek answers. These scholars then look for common threads and themes connecting the sometimes contradictory passages they find. Jewish scholars also read and analyze the works of Jewish scholars who have researched and written on similar topics in the past. They then take their own insights into the textual evidence they find, as well as the arguments of past scholars on the subject, to produce a reasoned argument for why a particular answer answers a particular religious question.
These answers and topics combine to create a collection of knowledge about Judaism that educates Jews about the nature and practice of their religion. This knowledge can address highly practical questions, such as what Jews can and cannot do on the Sabbath. It also addresses abstract and intellectual aspects of Judaism, such as the Jewish conception of the nature of God.
Part of Jewish theology is the approach scholars of certain schools of thought take when interpreting the textual evidence and insights of past scholars. Conservative Jewish schools of thought produce Jewish scholars who believe in a literal interpretation of the textual evidence and writings of past Jewish scholars, and scholars who belong to more liberal schools of thought believe that religious evidence and arguments should be reinterpreted accordingly. light of changing times and philosophical trends. These different schools of thought will produce the same answers to some religious questions but different answers to other religious questions. These different answers to religious questions can lead to different movements and branches within Judaism.
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