Pls help!!!!!! How have Jewish laws influenced Western civilization?
Answers
Judaism has played a significant role in the development of Western culture because of its unique relationship with Christianity, the dominant religious force in the West. Although the Christian church drew from other sources as well, its retention of the sacred Scriptures of the synagogue (the Old Testament) as an integral part of its Bible—a decision sharply debated in the 2nd century CE—was crucial. Not only was the development of its ideas and doctrines deeply influenced, but it also received an ethical dynamism that constantly overcame an inclination to withdraw into world-denying isolation.
the modern world, while the influence of Jews has increased in almost every realm of cultural life, the impact of Judaism itself has diminished. The reason for this is not difficult to find. The Gentile leaders who extended emancipation to the Jews at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th were eager to grant political equality, but they also insisted that certain reforms of Judaism be accepted. With the transformation of Judaism into an ecclesiastical institution, largely on the model of German Protestant churches, its ideas and structures took on the cast of its environment in a way quite unlike what had ensued in its earlier confrontations with various philosophical systems. Indeed, for some, Judaism and 19th-century European thought were not merely congruent but identical.