Judaism

Judaism, the oldest surviving monotheistic religion, traces its origins to the cultic practices and rites of ancient Israel. According to its scripture, the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, the nation of Israel consisted of descendants of the patriarch Abraham the Hebrew and was then led from bondage in Egypt to the land of Canaan by the prophet Moses to whom the Torah (Pentateuch), the Law, was revealed by God at Mount Sinai. Although relatively little is known about the development of its practices until 70 CE when the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome, Ancient Judaism subsequently evolved into what is now known as Rabbinic Judaism whose oral and written traditions were eventually composed and redacted in the Mishnah (ca. 220 CE) and the Talmud (ca. 500 CE). The Tanakh, Mishnah, and Talmud remain the three core canonical texts of Jewish law, or halakhah, although they have been supplemented and enriched through the centuries by a wealth of later commentaries, codes, and legal compilations.