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Religions Judaism Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism

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Period From 7000 BCE1500 BCE1000 BCE500 BCE1 CE5001000150018001900 to To 1 CE50010001500180019001950today

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How Religions Evolved Five traditions over nine thousand years, every date the first surviving evidence, every line a link to the chapter that cites it.

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Judaism

c. 1208 BCE – present 14 chapters · 37 dated firsts · 14 branches and offshoots

chapters dated firsts turning points §1 Out of Canaan, 1250 BCE – 1000 BCE Who the first Israelites were, and what happened to the Exodus and the conquest

§1 Out of Canaan

§2 Yahweh Among the Gods, 1000 BCE – 750 BCE Where Israel's god came from, who stood beside him, and what archaeology says about David

§2 Yahweh Among the Gods

§3 The Prophets and the Yahweh-Alone Movement, 760 BCE – 586 BCE From Amos to Josiah: how the worship of Yahweh became the demand to worship Yahweh alone

§3 The Prophets and the Yahweh-Alone Movement

§4 Exile and the Birth of Monotheism, 597 BCE – 539 BCE How the destruction of Jerusalem produced a God with no rivals

§4

§5 Persian Yehud and the Making of the Torah, 539 BCE – 332 BCE Cyrus, the Second Temple, Ezra and Nehemiah, a temple in Egypt and a temple on Gerizim

§5 Persian Yehud and the Making of the Torah

§6 Hellenism, the Maccabees and the Second Temple Sects, 332 BCE – 70 CE Greek rule, a revolt, a new kingdom, rival schools, and the ideas that would shape Judaism and Christianity

§6 Hellenism, the Maccabees and the Second Temple Sects

§7 Without a Temple: The Rabbis, 70 CE – 640 How a small circle of scholars rebuilt Judaism after Rome destroyed its centre

§7 Without a Temple: The Rabbis

§8 Under Islam, 632 – 1250 The geonim, the Karaites, Saadia, Andalusia and Maimonides: how Judaism took its medieval shape in the Islamic world

§8 Under Islam

§9 Ashkenaz, Sepharad and the Kabbalah, 1000 – 1650 Rashi, the Crusades, the expulsions, the Zohar and the making of two Jewish worlds

§9 Ashkenaz, Sepharad and the Kabbalah

§10 False Messiahs, Hasidism and Their Opponents, 1648 – 1800 From the 1648 massacres and Sabbatai Zevi to the Baal Shem Tov, the tsaddik and the Vilna Gaon

§10 False Messiahs, Hasidism and Their Opponents

§11 Emancipation and the Modern Movements, 1750 – 1900 How citizenship split Judaism into Reform, Orthodox and Conservative, from Mendelssohn's Berlin to the Lower East Side

§11 Emancipation and the Modern Movements

§12 Zionism, the Holocaust and the State of Israel, 1881 – 1974 How a secular national movement, a genocide and a state changed Jewish religion

§12 Zionism, the Holocaust and the State of Israel

§13 Judaism Today, 1967 – 2026 Denominations, women rabbis, the ultra-Orthodox revival, and who counts as a Jew

§13 Judaism Today

Israelite religion: Yahweh among the gods · c. 1208 BCE · consensus The Merneptah Stele names a people called Israel in Canaan; its name contains El, not Yahweh.

Samaritans · temple on Gerizim, mid-5th c. BCE · majority A Yahweh temple on Mount Gerizim above Shechem; destroyed by John Hyrcanus c. 110 BCE. The community keeps its own Torah and survives today.

Samaritans temple on Gerizim, mid-5th c. BCE

Sadducees · 2nd c. BCE – 70 CE · majority The priestly party; rejected resurrection and the Pharisees' oral tradition. Disappears with the Temple.

Sadducees 2nd c. BCE – 70 CE

Essenes and the Qumran community · c. 100 BCE – 68 CE · majority Settlement at Qumran from c. 100 BCE on Magness's dating; the Dead Sea Scrolls are its library and others'.

Essenes and the Qumran community

Karaites · c. 760s · majority Anan ben David breaks with the rabbinic leadership in Baghdad: Scripture without the Oral Torah. A small community survives.

Karaites c. 760s

Sabbateans · 1665 · consensus Sabbatai Zevi proclaimed Messiah at Gaza; converts to Islam in 1666. Secret followers persist: the Dönme of Salonica (1683) and the Frankists in Poland (1756).

Sabbateans

Hasidism · 1740s–1760s · consensus The Baal Shem Tov's circle at Międzybóż becomes a movement under the Maggid of Mezeritch (d. 1772); the tsaddik as mediator.

Hasidism 1740s–1760s

Chabad-Lubavitch · 1796 · consensus Shneur Zalman of Liadi's Tanya (1796); arrested by Russia in 1798 and 1800. After Schneerson's death in 1994 part of the movement proclaimed him Messiah.

Chabad-Lubavitch 1796

Reform Judaism · 1810 · 1818 · consensus Jacobson's service with organ and German sermon at Seesen (1810); the Hamburg Temple (1818) and the rabbinic ban that answered it.

Reform Judaism 1810 · 1818

Conservative Judaism · 1845 · 1886 · consensus Zacharias Frankel walks out of the Reform conference of 1845; the Jewish Theological Seminary opens in New York in 1886.

Conservative Judaism 1845 · 1886

Reconstructionist Judaism · 1922 · 1968 · consensus Mordecai Kaplan's Society for the Advancement of Judaism (1922) and Judaism as a Civilization (1934): Judaism as an evolving civilization. Its own seminary opens in 1968.

Reconstructionist Judaism 1922 · 1968

Modern Orthodoxy · 1851 (Hirsch) · 1928 · consensus Strict observance with secular learning: Hirsch's 'Torah with worldly culture' in Frankfurt is the model; in America, Yeshiva College (1928) and Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Modern Orthodoxy 1851 (Hirsch) · 1928

Zionism · 1897 · consensus The First Zionist Congress at Basel, led mostly by secular Jews; most Orthodox and Reform rabbis opposed it at first.

Zionism 1897

Religious Zionism (Mizrachi) · 1902 · consensus Founded in Vilna by Rabbi Reines; Rav Kook reads the secular pioneers as unwitting agents of redemption; Gush Emunim follows in 1974.

Religious Zionism (Mizrachi) 1902

Humanistic Judaism · 1963 · consensus Sherwin Wine's congregation near Detroit, with services that omit God.

Humanistic Judaism 1963

c. 1208 BCE: A people called Israel, named for El. Israel appears as a people in Canaan, not yet a kingdom; its name contains El, the Canaanite high god, not Yahweh. Source: Merneptah Stele: "Israel is laid waste, his seed is not". Confidence: consensus.

c. 1208 BCE A people called Israel, named for El

12th–10th c. BCE (debated): Yahweh as a god who comes from the southern deserts. Some of the oldest poems in the Bible have Yahweh march out of Seir, Edom and Teman; the date of the poems is disputed. Source: Judges 5:4–5 (the Song of Deborah); Deuteronomy 33:2; Habakkuk 3:3. Confidence: contested.

12th–10th c. BCE (debated) Yahweh as a god who comes from the southern deserts

c. 840 BCE: Yahweh named as a god. The earliest certain mention of Yahweh comes from Israel's enemy; an Egyptian "Shasu of Yhw" c. 1370 BCE may be related. Source: Mesha Stele: the king of Moab takes "the vessels of Yahweh" from Nebo. Confidence: consensus.

c. 840 BCE Yahweh named as a god

c. 800 BCE: Asherah paired with Yahweh. Blessings invoke Yahweh and "his asherah"; whether that meant the goddess or a cult symbol of hers is debated. Source: Kuntillet ʿAjrud: "Yahweh of Samaria and his asherah"; Khirbet el-Qom. Confidence: majority.

c. 800 BCE Asherah paired with Yahweh

early 8th c. BCE: Yahweh dominates personal names. Names built on Yahweh outnumber those built on Baal, though a notable minority honour Baal. Source: Samaria ostraca; Hebrew inscriptions and seals. Confidence: majority.

early 8th c. BCE Yahweh dominates personal names

c. 760–750 BCE: Prophecy collected in books. Prophecy was common across the Near East; what is new is that these prophets' sayings were collected and edited into books. Source: Amos; then Hosea, Isaiah and Micah. Confidence: majority.

c. 760–750 BCE Prophecy collected in books

c. 750–725 BCE: Yahweh alone: a demand for exclusive worship. Worship of Yahweh only, without yet denying that other gods exist: monolatry, not monotheism. Source: Hosea 13:4: "you know no god but me". Confidence: majority.

c. 750–725 BCE Yahweh alone: a demand for exclusive worship

622 BCE: One sanctuary and a book of the law. Josiah's reform centralises sacrifice in Jerusalem and purges Baal and Asherah from the Temple; how far it reached is debated. Source: 2 Kings 22–23; the core of Deuteronomy. Confidence: majority.

622 BCE One sanctuary and a book of the law

6th c. BCE: Sabbath and circumcision as signs of the covenant. Without temple, king or land, portable practices become the marks of belonging; both existed earlier, but not as identity markers. Source: Priestly texts: Genesis 17; Exodus 31:12–17. Confidence: majority.

6th c. BCE Sabbath and circumcision as signs of the covenant

c. 550–539 BCE: No god but Yahweh: explicit monotheism. The first statements that other gods do not exist at all come from the exile, after the fall of Jerusalem. Source: Isaiah 45:5–7; Deuteronomy 4:35, 39. Confidence: majority.

c. 550–539 BCE No god but Yahweh: explicit monotheism

c. 520 BCE: "The satan", an accuser in God's council. Still a role with a definite article, not a name: the accuser acts with God's permission. Source: Zechariah 3:1–2; Job 1–2. Confidence: majority.

c. 520 BCE "The satan", an accuser in God's council

5th c. BCE: Yehudim: "Jews" as the name of a dispersed people. "Judahite" becomes the name of a people defined by descent and practice, living far from Judah. Source: Elephantine papyri; Esther. Confidence: majority.

5th c. BCE Yehudim: "Jews" as the name of a dispersed people

5th–4th c. BCE: The Torah as a finished, authoritative book. The Torah reaches roughly its final form and is read aloud to the people; the Elephantine Judeans of the 5th century show no trace of it. Source: Nehemiah 8; the shared Samaritan Torah; later the Septuagint. Confidence: majority.

5th–4th c. BCE The Torah as a finished, authoritative book

4th c. BCE: Satan as a proper name. An act the older text gives to Yahweh, inciting David's census, is moved to "Satan", now without the article. Source: 1 Chronicles 21:1 against 2 Samuel 24:1. Confidence: majority.

4th c. BCE Satan as a proper name

3rd c. BCE: Fallen angels as the source of evil. Two hundred angels descend and corrupt humanity: evil comes from them, not from Adam. Source: The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36). Confidence: majority.

3rd c. BCE Fallen angels as the source of evil

246–221 BCE: A Jewish prayer house (synagogue). The earliest dated synagogue is in Egypt; buildings in Judea and Galilee follow in the 1st c. CE. Source: Schedia inscription, dedicated for Ptolemy III. Confidence: consensus.

246–221 BCE A Jewish prayer house (synagogue)

c. 165 BCE: Resurrection and judgment of the dead. The first clear biblical promise that the dead will rise; Daniel is also the first biblical book to name angels, Michael and Gabriel. Source: Daniel 12:2. Confidence: consensus.

c. 165 BCE Resurrection and judgment of the dead

December 164 BCE: Hanukkah. The rededication of the Temple, kept as an eight-day festival; the oil miracle is first recorded in the Talmud. Source: 1 Maccabee