History of the Jewish Religion The Jewish religion has also undergone many transformations over the years. It started off in its earliest years as being animistic, with Hebrews worshipping forces of nature. As a result this religion had a number of practices that concerned magic and animal sacrifices. The Hebrew religion also became polytheistic which involves several gods. Hebrew religion eventually became anthropomorphic, in which God or gods became human individuals and had human characteristics. Eventually most Hebrews concentrated on one main God who they referred to as Yahweh. Yahweh is a mysterious term used in Hebrew that reads YHWY (in biblical Hebrew there were no vowels), and that still to this day its pronunciation is unknown. It is thought to be related to the verb to be and means something like, he causes to be. In English the word Yahweh is translated I am: I am that I am. Yahweh became a figure of worship that could transcend into the human world. Different tribes of Hebrews probably worshipped different gods, nothing is mentioned in Genesis that one universal God existed at this time (http://www.us-israel.org).The big change in Hebrew thought that allowed the religion to come to be as we know it today occurred during the great migration from Egypt, where the Jews were enslaved. The Jewish people believe that they were chosen by Yahweh to unite with the other scattered tribes to become a single nation. Moses (Yahwehs greatest prophet), lead them out of slavery into the promised land. God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai and outlined the basics of the Jewish religion that is known today. God told Moses that He (Yahweh) is God, and no other gods should be worshipped before him. This criticized the traditions of polytheism and animal sacrifices that the Hebrews were currently practicing and marked the beginning of the Mosaic Hebrew religion that we accept as modern day Judaism. At this crucial point in histo...
