Jesus was born a Jew, and he remained a practicing Jew his entire life. In order to understand Christianity, it is important to understand the Judaism from which it came. Theology and history were joined in the Jewish mind. The imperative of trust in the Lord, and fear of the Lord, dominated Jewish life. A divine summons had been given to the Jews to recognize God’s sovereignty over the world, and to aid in the realization of his purpose to bring peace and justice to the world. How do two religions, so similar in basic ideology, become so different?
             It is difficult to pinpoint when Judaism came to exist, but most agree that various forms of religion came together to form Judaism sometime between 1200 and 300 B.C.E. And most scholars, when telling of the beginning, will mention a man names Mosheh, or Moses. Mosheh was the leader of the Israelites who were working as slaves for the Egyptians before they escaped through the Sinai peninsula. They conquered the land of Canaan in the name of the new religious ideology of commitment to one God, whom they called Yehweh. Even today, observant Jews toward God show deep obeisance by the avoidance of mentioning the “divine name”, as it is considered to be too holy to be spoken by mere humans. The name is written in the Hebrew equivalents of the letters: YHWH.
             Mosheh is depicted as having escaped dealth as a baby by being put in a boat of reeds. Found by the Pharoh’s daughter, he was brought up a court prince. He later struck and killed an Egyptian for oppressing an Israelite worker, and had to flee into the region beyond Egypt. He lived there with a priest of Midian and worked as a shepherd until he was about 80 years of age. At this time Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews, commanded Moses to lead his people out of bondage in Egypt. This would later become known as the Exodus (Greek for “departure”). It was under Mosheh’s leaderships, in conjunction wit...