" It has been suggested that similarities between John's Gospel and Gnosticism may spring from common roots in Jewish Apocalyptic literature.

Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians.

* Collins, John Joseph The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature ( The Biblical Resource Series )

The theological universe of 2 Enoch is deeply rooted in the Enochic mold of the Jewish Apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period.

Probably composed between about 70 – 150 AD, it is of Jewish origin and is usually considered to be part of the Apocalyptic literature.

However, it is the Jewish artists, Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka in music and literature that have embraced the theme of angst so highly in their work that they have become synonymous with the term to the point of popular joking and cartoons today.

Some believe that Luke ’ s gospel can be seen to mirror the Jewish apologetic literature of the time which served to “ defend Jews against misunderstanding and persecution .” Acts is said to be a:

" Although his answer is given merely as su eipas ( thou hast said it ), the Gospel of Mark states the answer as ego eimi ( I am ) and there are instances from Jewish literature in which the expression, " thou hast said it ", is equivalent to " you are right ".

Examining Jewish history and rabbinic literature through the lens of academic criticism, Conservative Judaism believes that halakha has always evolved to meet the changing realities of Jewish life, and that it must continue to do so in the modern age.

Siegel believed such change could occur when halakhah and aggadah, the wealth of non-legalistic rabbinic literature that included lessons on Jewish morals, values, and ethics, came into conflict.

According to Howard Schwartz, " the myth of the fall of Lucifer " existed in fragmentary form in Isaiah 14: 12 and other ancient Jewish literature ; Schwartz claims that the myth originated from " the ancient Canaanite myth of Athtar, who attempted to rule the throne of Ba ' al, but was forced to descend and rule the underworld instead ".

There is little Jewish literature on heaven or hell as actual places, and there are few references to the afterlife in the Hebrew Bible.

Halakha constitutes the practical application of the 613 mitzvot (" commandments ", singular: mitzvah ) in the Torah, ( the five books of Moses, the " Written Law ") as developed through discussion and debate in the classical rabbinic literature, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud ( the " Oral law "), and as codified in the Mishneh Torah or Shulchan Aruch ( the Jewish " Code of Law ".

Broadly, the Halakha comprises the practical application of the commandments ( each one known as a mitzvah ) in the Torah, as developed in subsequent rabbinic literature ; see The Mitzvot and Jewish Law.

Within Talmudic literature, Jewish law is divided into the six orders of the Mishnah, which are categories by proximate subject matter: Zeraim (" Seeds ") for agricultural laws and prayer, Moed (" Festival "), for the Sabbath and the Festivals, Nashim (" Women "), dealing primarily with marriage and divorce, Nezikin (" Damages "), for civil and criminal law, Kodashim (" Holy things "), for sacrifices and the dietary laws, and Tohorot (" Purities ") for ritual purity.

In ancient times, the idea of subterranean realms seemed arguable, and became intertwined with the concept of " places " such as the Greek Hades, the Nordic svartalfheim, the Christian Hell, and the Jewish Sheol ( with details describing inner Earth in Kabalistic literature, such as the Zohar and Hesed L ' Avraham ).

In classic Rabbinic literature it differs from " Tzadik "-" righteous ", by instead denoting one who goes beyond the legal requirements of ritual and ethical Jewish observance in daily life.

** Musar literature and other works of Jewish ethics

In rabbinic Jewish literature Joshua is regarded as a faithful, humble, deserving, wise man.

John the Baptist is also mentioned by Jewish historian Josephus, in Aramaic Matthew, in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, and in the Qur ' an.

* Abendana, Jacob in The Jewish encyclopedia: a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day, New York ; London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1901 – 06, volume 1, p 53.

These teachings are thus held by followers in Judaism to define the inner meaning of both the Hebrew Bible and traditional Rabbinic literature, their formerly concealed transmitted dimension, as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances.

Midrashic literature is worthwhile reading not only for its insights into Judaism and the history of Jewish thought, but also for the more incidental data it provides to historians, philologists, philosophers, and scholars of either historical-critical Bible study or comparative religion.

Mani began preaching at an early age and was possibly influenced by contemporary Babylonian-Aramaic movements such as Mandaeanism, and Aramaic translations of Jewish apocalyptic writings similar to those found at Qumran ( such as the book of Enoch literature ).

The books which later came to form the New Testament, like other Christian literature of the period, originated in a literary context that reveals relationships not only to other Christian writings, but also to Graeco-Roman and Jewish works.

Other early Jewish and Graeco-Roman literature, though far less utilized, is also cited in books that would come to form the New Testament.

The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo in the early 1st century AD wrote about the destruction of Atlantis in his On the Eternity of the World, xxvi.

The visions describe the national crisis that occurred under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Seleucid king who attempted to introduce Hellenistic religious practices, including the worship of idols, into the temple and the Jewish religion more generally, sparking outrage from Biblical authors.

Photius compared Clement's treatise, which like his other works was highly syncretic, featuring ideas of Hellenistic, Jewish and Gnostic origin, unfavourably against the prevailing orthodoxy of the 9th century.

Christianity is characterized by its claim to universality, which marks a significant break from current Jewish identity and thought, but has its roots in Hellenistic Judaism.

Originating in the circumstance of a multicultural church ( primarily Jewish and Hellenistic ), the author addressed issues appropriate to the diverse religious and cultural backgrounds present in the community.

* Therapeutae, Hellenistic Jewish sect in Egypt

Gnosticism was primarily defined in Christian context, e. g., as " the acute Hellenization of Christianity " per Adolf von Harnack ( 1885 ), until Moritz Friedländer ( 1898 ) advocated Hellenistic Jewish origins, and Wilhelm Bousset ( 1907 ) advocated Persian origins.

Hence sectarians and followers of gnosticism were first rejected by the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean ( see the Notzrim 139 – 67 BCE ), then by the Christian communities and finally by the late Hellenistic philosophical communities ( see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism ).

He was aware that the Council of Jamnia, or mainstream rabbinical Judaism, had rejected the Septuagint as valid Jewish scriptural texts because of what were ascertained as mistranslations along with its Hellenistic heretical elements.

Category: Hellenistic Jewish writers

Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher also exonerates Noah by noting that one can drink in two different manners: ( 1 ) to drink wine in excess, a peculiar sin to the vicious evil man or ( 2 ) to partake of wine as the wise man, Noah being the latter.

The Greek word synagogue came into use to describe Jewish places of worship during Hellenistic times and it, along with the Yiddish term shul, and the original Hebrew term Bet Knesset (" House of meeting ") are the terms in most universal usage.

The Israelites (, Standard: ; Tiberian: ; ISO 259-3: ) were a Semitic Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited part of the Land of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods ( 15th to 6th centuries BCE ), later evolving into Jews and Samaritans of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, inhabiting the territories of Judea and Galilee, and Samaria respectively, though a Jewish diaspora had already developed outside of Judea and Galilee.

The success of mass-conversions is however questionable, as most groups retained their tribal separations and mostly turned Hellenistic or Christian, with Edomites perhaps being the only exception to merge into the Jewish society under Herodian dinasty and in the following period of Jewish-Roman Wars.

Tartarus is only known in Hellenistic Jewish literature from the Greek text of 1 Enoch, dated to 400 – 200 BC.

The Hellenistic period of Jewish history began when Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 332 BCE.

In the Hellenistic period, some evidence indicates that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish ; as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse.

Antiochus III resettled 2000 Jewish families from Babylonia into the Hellenistic Anatolian regions of Lydia and Phrygia.

The seminar's reconstruction of the historical Jesus portrays him as an itinerant Hellenistic Jewish sage and faith healer who preached a gospel of liberation from injustice in startling parables and aphorisms.

Category: Hellenistic Jewish writers

They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel, by conquest, which included instances of forced conversion, reducing the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.

Aristotle's fame was not great during the Hellenistic period, when Stoic logic was in vogue, but later peripatetic commentators popularized his work ; it formed the basis of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Medieval philosophy.

The spread of Christianity throughout the Roman world, followed by the spread of Islam, ushered in the end of Hellenistic philosophy and the beginnings of Medieval philosophy, which was dominated by the three Abrahamic traditions: Jewish philosophy, Christian philosophy, and early Islamic philosophy.