What are your thoughts on the suggestion that Judaism has ancient Egyptian origins?

Sidon: What are your thoughts on the suggestion that Judaism has ancient Egyptian origins?
If this is true, then won’t that make both Christianity and Islam, which are also related to Judaism.. Egyptian too?

Answers and Views:

Answer by james
i see no reason to believe an egyptian origin. yes, egyptian culture probably influenced the nearby jewish civilizations, but there is little evidence that the jews came from egypt.

Answer by Cher was here JPA
Egyptian spirituality was very death oriented. Judaism is very life oriented.

Egyptian culture had the classic God-king-ruler. Judaism went the opposite direction.

Torah is claimed to not be old enough based on archeology that claimed camels weren’t around at the time the section was claimed to be written — but more current archeology overturns that and shows the Torah can easily be written in the time periods it claims.

Judaism makes no bones about having passed through Egypt. That’s not the same as “having origins.”

Torah claims earlier roots and there’s no reason to disbelieve that until someone more concrete says otherwise. It is possible to believe Egypt picked up a bit from Israel as Hebrews came through (or not), and that’s about all. Jewish culture has a lot it picks up from Sumerian culture further east, so that can’t be ignored.

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@ME
Nope, the foremost researcher on Zoastorism, places it starting no earlier than judaism, possibly later, and in a very different region.

@ Micardo
Care to give a real source for your rather bizzarre tale, that reads like impossible mystery novel — and doesn’t match any archeology findings. Such as Samaritans have their own version of Torah that’s much older than your reported “finding” of it.

To others: By reducing Judaism, Micardo is following his political agenda of PR to wipe out Israel. Oddly enough, Arabs dealing with Israel have tried to rewrite history in ways that completely ignore all historical records and facts already obtained from Roman, and other ancient sources.

Micardo – Judaism makes no bones about using the name of Gods from before monotheism and the challenges as Jews tried to accept monotheism against the backdrop of their immediate neighbors. Torah itself talks of Josiah (utterly different history) and of assimilation issues.

Answer by Kevin7
It is only Atenism ( a monotheistic faith )that might have a weak connection, no strong case for it so far.

Answer by Joey O
this is totally and completely false. Judiasn was established before the ancient egyptians and like evry other thing the jewish people have been given and worked for the jealous arab bastards try to take away. The jews were enslaved duribg this period in egypt and the egyptians probabky stole ideas from judiasm. Christianity is the true jewish religion, they just can’t accept that jesus is the messiah they are waiting for. And as far as islam goes, it’s a knock off religion and the sole purpose is to exterminate all infadels jewis or not. Fuck islam and all it’s practitioners

Answer by ME
Zoroastrianism is the first mono religion so i guess , jedaism is IRAN 😀

Answer by michardav
Judaism evolved from existing Canaanite religions. El was numero uno. His consort was named Ashera and their son was named Yahweh- one of many children collectively called the Elohim. To see how this gelled together, we are lucky enough to know EXACTLY when it came about. After the fall of Israel to Assyria, the southern more rural kingdom of Judah was flooded with refugees. Combined with this was a very ambitious king name Josiah. One day while repairing the temple, a servant discovered a book- how this book remained hidden in a structure that small is a mystery. Turns out this wasn’t any book- it was the Book of the Law, or “Torah”. Now here’s where it gets interesting, Josiah and his priest don’t recognize any of the book, they are completely unaware of its contents, as are the Judeans and the exiled Israelites. Which makes its discovery highly suspect. In fact up until this time both groups worshipped many gods and part of the temple in Jerusalem was set aside as a brothel. Josiah saw his moment, both to unify his subjects and concentrate power to him and the Yahweh priests, and try to take advantage of a weakened Assyria. Now suddenly we have a book that not only forbids all other gods, but states the only “legitimate” temple to Yahweh exists in Jerusalem; with the king gods anointed. It’s been done before and it’s been done many times since- manufacture a mythos that puts god on your side. Problem is Josiah didn’t reckon that Judah was still basically an Egyptian vassal state, and the Pharaoh had other plans, one of which involved killing Josiah. During the Babylonian captivity, the Torah and Nevi’im were further expanded with some palgiarism of Babylonian myths. Thus the birth of Judaism.
@cher could please tell me how Samaritans had a version of the Torah that predates Josiah? Especially when at the time the area was under Assyrian control. So which items do you take unbrage at? That Hilkiah found the Torah(2 Kings 22:8)? That neither him nor Josiah had any idea what was written there (2 Kings 11-13)? That Josiah made the Yahweh cult the state religion (2 Kings 23)? That there were prostitutes at the temple (2 Kings 23:7)? So far I have only used YOUR holy book as source, and yet you claim it is propaganda. Do you object to what is written in your own holy book? So your turn- where is your source that claims the Samritans have a Torah that predates Josiah? Which would be ridiculous, as Hilkiah and Josiah make it clear by their actions they were unaware of any previous Torah; extremely unlikely as the Israelite refugee had already lived in Judah for about 100 years. And considering the Israelites were polytheists would also point away from any Torah observing Israelites. So where is your source please?
As for archaeologcal finds, you have to be more specific. Which are you disputing? That there were not mulitple temples? That Israelites were not idol worhsippers (again I point out these are confirmed by the Old Testament verses I have pointed out)? Are you saying that the Old Testament can not be trusted?

Answer by Man
I don’t think that is possible.
Remember according to the bible the Israelites lived in Egypt for over 200 years in slavery, that doesn’t mean they originated there.