The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator - Saint Catherine's Monastery. The two different facial expressions on either side emphasize Christ's dual nature as both divine and human.^[1][2]

Christ (Greek Χριστός (Khristós) 'anointed') is a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Māšîaḥ), the Messiah, and is used as a title for Jesus in the New Testament.^[3]

Followers of Jesus became known as Christians (as in Acts 11:26) because they believed Jesus to be the messiah (Christos) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible – therefore they often call him Jesus Christ, meaning Jesus the Christos.^[4] The word was originally a title, but later became part of the name "Jesus Christ", yet it is still also used as a title, in the reciprocal use Christ Jesus, meaning "The Messiah Jesus".^[5] In common usage – even within secular circles – "Christ" is generally treated as synonymous with "Jesus of Nazareth".^[6]

Jesus has never been accepted by most Jews as their Messiah.^[7] Even the Canonical Gospels recount some Rejection of Jesus. Nonetheless, Nicene Christians await the Second Coming of Christ when they believe he will fulfill the rest of the Christian Messianic prophecy.

The area of Christian theology called Christology is primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament.^[8]

Etymology and origins[link]

The word Christ (or similar spellings) appears in English and most European languages, owing to the Greek usage of Christós (transcribed in Latin as Christus) in the New Testament as a description for Jesus. Christ has now become a name, one part of the name "Jesus Christ", but originally it was a title (the Messiah) and not a name; however its use in "Christ Jesus" is a title.^[4][5]

In the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible, the word Christ was used to translate into Greek the Hebrew mashiach (messiah), meaning "anointed."^[9][10] Khristós in classical Greek usage could mean covered in oil, or anointed, and is thus a literal translation of messiah.

The spelling Christ (Greek Genitive: τοῦ Χριστοῦ, toú Christoú,; Nominative: ὁ Χριστὸς, ho Christós) in English was standardized in the 18th century, when, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, the spelling of certain words was changed to fit their Greek or Latin origins. Prior to this, in Old and Middle English, the word was usually spelled Crist the i being pronounced either as /iː/, preserved in the names of churches such as St Katherine Cree, or as a short /ɪ/, preserved in the modern pronunciation of Christmas. The spelling "Christ" is attested from the 14th century.^[11]

In modern and ancient usage, even within secular terminology, Christ usually refers to Jesus, building on the centuries old tradition of such use.^[12] Since the Apostolic Age, the use of the definite article before the word Christ and its development into a proper name signifies its identification with Jesus as the promised Jewish messiah.^[13]

Background and New Testament references[link]

First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God".

At the time of Jesus, there was no single, coherent form or order within Second Temple Judaism, and significant political, social and religious differences existed among the Jews.^[15] However, for centuries the Jews had used the term "the Anointed" to refer to their expected deliverer.^[16] A large number of Old Testament passages were regarded as messianic by the Jews, many more than are commonly considered messianic by Christians, and various groups of Jews assigned varying degrees of significance to them.^[15]

The Greek word Messias appears only twice in the Greek Old Testament of the promised prince (Daniel 9:26; Psalm 2:2); yet, when a name was wanted for the promised one, who was to be at once King and Savior, this title was used.^[17][18] The New Testament states that the Messiah, long awaited, had come and describes this savior as The Christ. In Matt 16:16 the apostle Peter, in what has become a famous proclamation of faith among Christians since the first century, said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."^[15]

The opening words in the Gospel of Mark 1:1, namely "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" also identify Jesus as both Christ and the Son of God. The divinity being again re-affirmed in Mark 1:11.^[19] Thereafter Mark never applies Christ to Jesus as a name. Matthew 1:1 uses Christ as a name and Matthew 1:16 explains it again with: "Jesus, who is called Christ". In the Gospel of John, Jesus referred to himself as the Son of God far more frequently than in the Synoptic Gospels.^[20]

The use of the definite article before the word "Christ" and its gradual development into a proper name show the Christians identified the bearer with the promised Messiah of the Jews who fulfilled all the Messianic predictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the Rabbis.^[16] In the New Testament e.g. Matthew 1:1, 1:18; Mark 1:1; John 1:17; 17:3; 9:22; Mark 9:40; Luke 2:11; 22:2, the word Christ is preceded by Jesus.^[16]

While the Gospels of Mark and Matthew begin by calling Jesus both Christ and the Son of God, these are two distinct attributions. They develop in the New Testament along separate paths and have distinct theological implications. The development of both titles involves "the precursor", John the Baptist. At the time in Roman Judaea the Jews had been awaiting the "messiah". And many people were wondering who it would be. When John the Baptist appeared and began preaching, he attracted disciples who assumed he would be announced as the Messiah, or "the one" they had been awaiting. But the title Son of God was not attributed to John.

In the Gospel narrative that describe the life of Jesus, the first instance of him being called the Son of God appears during his Baptism by John the Baptist. In the narrative, a voice from heaven called Jesus "My Son". In the Messengers from John the Baptist episode, in Matthew 11:2-6 and Luke 7:18-23.^[21] when John the Baptist was in prison two of his disciples asked Jesus a question on his behalf: "Are you the one to come after me or shall we wait for another?"^[22] indicating that John doubted the identity of Jesus as Christ at that time, see also Rejection of Jesus.

In John 11:27 Martha told Jesus "you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world", signifying that both titles were generally accepted (yet considered distinct) among the followers of Jesus before the Raising of Lazarus.^[23]

Explicit claims of Jesus being the Messiah are found in the Canonical Gospels in the Confession of Peter (e.g. Matthew 16:16) and the words of Jesus before his judges in the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus.^[17][24] These incidents involve far more than a mere claim to the Messiahship; taken in their setting, they constitute a claim to be the Son of God.^[17]

In the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, it might appear from the narratives of Matthew and Luke that Jesus at first refused a direct reply to the high priest's question: "Art thou the Christ?" 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".^[17] The Messianic claim was less significant than the claim to divinity which caused the high priest's horrified accusation of blasphemy and the subsequent call for the death sentence. Before Pilate on the other hand it was merely the assertion of his royal dignity which gave ground for his condemnation.^[17]

In the Pauline Epistles the word Christ is so closely associated with Jesus that it is apparent that for the Early Christians there is no need to claim that Jesus is Christ, for that is considered widely accepted among them. Hence Paul can use the term Christos with no confusion as to who it refers to, and as in 1Corinthians 4:15 and Romans 12:5 he can use expressions such as "in Christ" to refer to the followers of Jesus.^[25] Paul proclaimed him as the new Adam, who restored through obedience what Adam lost through disobedience.^[26] The Pauline epistles are a source of some key Christological connections, e.g. Ephesians 3:17-19 relates the love of Christ to the knowledge of Christ, and considers the love of Christ as a necessity for knowing him.^[27]

There are also implicit claims to being the Christ in the words and actions of Jesus.^[17] Episodes in the life of Jesus and statements about what he accomplished during his public ministry are found throughout the New Testament. Although the Bible never says "Jesus is God", trinity based theology summarily claims: "Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever."^[28]

Pre-existence, Incarnation and Nativity[link]

The Anointing of Jesus, c. 1450.

There are distinct, and differing, views among Christians regarding the existence of Christ before his conception. A key passage in the New Testament is John 1:1-18 where John 1:17 specifically mentions that "grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Those who believe in the Trinity, consider Christ a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or the Word. Other, non-Trinitarian views, question the aspect of personal pre-existence or question the aspect of divinity, or both.

The concept of Christ as Logos derives from John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the original Greek, Logos (λόγος) is used for "Word," and is often used untranslated. In the Christology of the Logos, Christ is viewed as the Incarnation of the "Divine Logos", i.e. The Word.^[29]

Saint Paul viewed the Nativity of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which by the Incarnation of Christ brought forth a new world of harmony to undo the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. St. Paul's eschatological view of the birth of Jesus as the Christ counter-positions him as ushering in the new world of order that leads to salvation, unlike Adam, whose disobedience caused a rift with God.^[5][30]

In the 2nd century, with his theory of "recapitulation", Saint Irenaeus connected "Christ the Creator" with "Christ the Savior", relying on Ephesians 1:10 ("when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ") to gather together and wrap up the cycle of the Nativity and Resurrection of Christ.^[31]

Christ and salvation in Christianity[link]

Mosaic of Christ Pantocrator with the Christogram IC XC.^[32]

In Colossians 1:15-16 Apostle Paul viewed the Nativity of Jesus as an event of cosmic significance which changed the nature of the world by paving the way for salvation.^{[34][35][36][37]}

Christian teachings present the Love of Christ as a basis for his sacrificial act that brought forth salvation.^[38][39] In John 14:31 Jesus explains that his sacrifice was performed so: "that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do."^[39] Ephesians 5:25 then states that: "Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it".^[38]

In the 2nd century, Church Father Saint Irenaeus expressed his views of salvation as in terms of the imitation of Christ and his theory of "recapitulation". For Irenaeus the imitation of Christ is based on God's plan of salvation, which involved Christ as the second Adam. He viewed the Incarnation as the way in which Christ repaired the damage done by Adam's disobedience. For Irenaeus, salvation was achieved by Christ restoring humanity to the image of God, and he saw the Christian imitation of Christ as a key component on the path to salvation.^[40] For Irenaeus Christ succeeded on every point on which Adam failed.^[41] Irenaeus drew a number of parallels, e.g. just as in the fall of Adam resulted from the fruit of a tree, Irenaeus saw redemption and salvation as the fruit of another tree: the cross of crucifixion.^[40]

Following in the Pauline tradition, in the 5th century Saint Augustine viewed Christ as the mediator pf the New Covenant between God and man and as the conqueror over sin. He viewed Christ as the cause and reason for the reconciliation of man with God after the fall of Adam, and he saw in Christ the path to Christian salvation.^[42] Augustine believed that salvation is available to those who are worthy of it, through faith in Christ.^[43]

In the 13th century Saint Thomas Aquinas aimed to recapture the teachings of the Church Fathers on the role of the Holy Trinity in the economy of salvation.^[44] In Aquinas' view angels and humans were created for salvation from the very beginning.^[45] For Acquinas the Passion of Christ poured out the grace of salvation and all its virtues unto humanity.^[46]

Martin Luther distinguished the history of salvation between the Old and the New Testament, and saw a new dimension to salvation with the arrival of Christ.^[47]

The focus on human history was an important element of the biblically grounded 16th century theology of John Calvin. Calvin considered the first coming of Christ as the key turning point in human history. He viewed Christ as "the one through whom salvation began" and he saw the completion of Christ's plan of salvation as his death and Resurrection.^[48]

Symbols[link]

The Chi-Rho.

The use of "Χ," derived from Chi, the Greek alphabet initial, as an abbreviation for Christ (most commonly in the abbreviation "Χmas") is often misinterpreted as a modern secularization of the term. Thus understood, the centuries-old English word Χmas, is actually a shortened form of CHmas, which is, itself, a shortened form for Christmas. Christians are sometimes referred to as "Xians," with the 'X' replacing 'Christ.^[49]

A very early Christogram is the Chi Rho symbol formed by superimposing the first two Greek letters in Christ ( Greek: "Χριστός"), chi = ch and rho = r, to produce ☧.^[50]

See also[link]

Look up Christ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Anointing of Jesus
• Antichrist
• Knowledge of Christ
• Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament
• Perfection of Christ

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Cullmann, Oscar. The Christology of the New Testament. trans. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1980. ISBN 0-664-24351-7
• Fuller, Reginald H. The Foundations of New Testament Christology. New York: Scribners, 1965. ISBN 0-684-15532-X
• Greene, Colin J.D. Christology in Cultural Perspective: Marking Out the Horizons. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-8028-2792-6
• Kingsbury, Jack Dean. The Christology of Mark's Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989.

v t e Titles of Jesus in the New Testament Bread of Life · Christ · King of the Jews · Lamb of God · Light of the World · Logos (The Word) · Lord (Kyrios) · Rabboni/Rabbi · Second Adam · Son of God · Son of man Christianity

Paul Washer
Nationality	American
Education	Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Occupation	Founder/Director, Missions Coordinator, Pastor
Religion	Christian (Calvinistic Baptist)
Spouse	Charo Washer

Paul David Washer (born 1961) is the Founder/Director & Missions Coordinator of HeartCry Missionary Society which supports indigenous missionary work.^[1] He is also a Southern Baptist itinerant preacher. Washer's sermons tend to have an evangelistic focus on the gospel and the doctrine of the assurance of salvation, and he frequently speaks against practices such as the sinner's prayer, and a focus on numerical church growth.

Biography[link]

Washer had a born again experience while studying to become an oil and gas lawyer at the University of Texas. Upon graduation, he attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and achieved a Master of Divinity degree. He then moved to Peru to become a missionary for 10 years, after which he returned to the United States. Washer resides in Radford, Virginia,^[2] where he lives with his wife and three children.

Washer's sermons often focus on the character of Christ and how a person is saved from hell. According to Washer, a person is saved through faith alone, but the evidence of a person's repentance is by walking with Jesus. Washer claims that most people who profess a belief in Christianity aren't truly saved. Washer blames preachers, as he claims many preachers often say a person is saved without looking for evidence of repentance in that person's life.

Washer cites Thomas Watson, R.C. Sproul, John F. MacArthur, George Muller, John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Leonard Ravenhill, John Wesley, A.W. Tozer and Martyn Lloyd-Jones among others, as influences.^[3] He has frequently appeared on Christian radio to discuss how people are saved.^[4]

Books[link]

• Washer, Paul (2004). The One True God. HeartCry Missionary Society. ISBN 978-0-9770234-0-0. 
• Washer, Paul (2009). Truth About Man. Granted Ministries Press. ISBN 978-0-9817321-1-4. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• HeartCry Missionary Organization Official site of Washer's organization.
• Shocking Message Transcript: http://www.scribd.com/doc/789/The-Truth-About-Christianity
• Regeneration vs. Idolatry of Decisional Evangelism: http://adidab.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/paul-washer-transcript-01-regeneration-v-the-idolatry-of-decisional-evangelism/
• Ten indictments video & transcript: http://adidab.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/paul-washer-transcript-03-ten-indictments/
• Truth About Man Workbook: http://www.heartcrymissionary.com/resources/online_books
• Brief Washer Biography: http://www.hcmissions.org/about/staff/2
• Paul Washer Bible Study Video Series Studies: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8872D3C0103E8568
• Paul Washer Biography on Theopedia: http://www.theopedia.com/Paul_Washer
• Paul Washer en Español: http://salvacioneterna.com/pwasher.html

Jews
Hebrew: יהודים‎ (Yehudim)

Total population
13,428,300 [1]
Regions with significant populations
Israel 5,703,700 [1]
United States 5,275,000 [1]  France 483,500 [1]  Canada 375,000 [1]  United Kingdom 292,000 [1]  Russia 205,000 [1]  Argentina 182,300 [1]  Germany 119,000 [1]  Australia 107,500 [1]  Brazil 95,600 [1]  Ukraine 71,500 [1]  South Africa 70,800 [1]  Hungary 48,600 [1]  Mexico 39,400 [1]  Belgium 30,300 [1]  Netherlands 30,000 [1]  Italy 28,400 [1]  Chile 20,500 [1]
Languages
Predominant spoken languages: Hebrew · English · Russian · the vernacular languages of other countries in the diaspora Historical languages: Yiddish · Ladino · Judeo-Arabic · others Sacred languages: Biblical Hebrew · Aramaic
Religion
Judaism

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The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎‎ ISO 259-3 Yhudim Israeli pronunciation [jehuˈdim]), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and an ethnoreligious group, originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation.^[2][3][4] Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The modern State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and Israel's Law of Return states: "Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh."^[5] Israel is the only country where Jews are a majority of the population. Jews achieved political autonomy twice before in ancient history. The first of these periods lasted from 1350^[6] to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, most Jews have lived in diaspora.^[7] A minority in every country in which they live (except Israel), they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that has fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

As of 2010^[update], the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.4 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank,^[1] or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. According to this report, about 42.5% of all Jews reside in Israel (5.7 million), and 39.3% in the United States (5.3 million), with most of the remainder living in Europe (1.5 million) and Canada (0.4 million).^[1] These numbers include all those who consider themselves Jews, whether or not they are affiliated with a Jewish organization. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are halakhic disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably.^[8]

Name and etymology[link]

The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, a loan from Old French giu, earlier juieu, ultimately from Latin Iudaeum. The Latin Iudaeus simply means Judaean, "from the land of Judaea". The Latin term itself, like the corresponding Greek Ἰουδαῖος, is a loan from Aramaic Y'hūdāi, corresponding to Hebrew: יְהוּדִי‎‎, Yehudi (sg.); יְהוּדִים, Yehudim (pl.), in origin the term for a member of the tribe of Judah or the people of the kingdom of Judah. The name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob.^[9]

The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced [jehuˈdi], with the stress on the final syllable, in Israeli Hebrew, in its basic form.^[10]

The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio (sg.); ג׳ודיוס, Djudios (pl.); Yiddish: ייִד Yid (sg.); ייִדן, Yidn (pl.).

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Yahoud"/"Yahoudi" (Arabic: يهود/يهودي‎) in Arabic language, "Jude" in German, "judeu" in Portuguese, "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, "joodse" in Dutch, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" (Persian: عبری/عبرانی‎)) and Russian (Еврей, Yevrey).^[11] The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə], the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish".^[12] (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000):

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.^[13]

Origins[link]

According to their tradition, the Jewish people originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations^[14] (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

Judaism[link]

Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life,"^[15] which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world,^[16] in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah),^[17] in Islamic Spain and Portugal,^[18] in North Africa and the Middle East,^[18] India,^[19] and China,^[20] or the contemporary United States^[21] and Israel,^[22] cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.^[23]

Who is a Jew?[link]

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used.^[24] Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion.^[25]

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish husband] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children.^[26][27] Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.^[28]

At times, conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. In the first century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from four to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.^[29]

Ethnic divisions[link]

Ashkenazi Jews of late 19th century Eastern Europe portrayed in Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur (1878), by Maurycy Gottlieb

Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.^[30]

Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Spain/Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, and Portuguese, base). The Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although they are sometimes termed Sephardi for liturgical reasons.^[31]

Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to, Indian Jews such as the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italian Jews ("Italkim" or "Bené Roma"); the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.^[32]

The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities that are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are sometimes termed Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Egyptian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, Iranian Jews and various others. The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions.^[32]

Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, with at least 70% of Jews worldwide (and up to 90% prior to World War II and the Holocaust). As a result of their emigration from Europe, Ashkenazim also represent the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents, in countries such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, and Brazil. In France, emigration of Jews from North Africa has led them to outnumber the Ashkenazim .^[33] Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.^[34]

Languages[link]

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed l'shon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea.^[35] By the third century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek.^[36]

For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe. Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.^[37]

For over sixteen centuries Hebrew was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath.^[38] Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times.^[35] Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.^[39]

The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English and Russian. Some Romance languages, such as French and Spanish, are also widely used.^[37] Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language,^[40] but it is far less used today, after the Holocaust and the adoption of Hebrew by the Zionist movement, then Israel.

Genetic studies[link]

Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations; however, most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.^[41] While DNA tests have demonstrated inter-marriage in all of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years, it was substantially less than in other populations.^[42] The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded entirely by local populations that adopted the Jewish religion, devoid of any actual Israelite genetic input.^[42]

DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years.^[43] This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world.^[43] The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Kohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple.^[44] They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.^[44] The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.^[44] These Jews belong to the haplotypes J1e and J2a. However, more recent research has shown that many ethnic groups in the Middle East and Mediterranean area also share this genetic profile.^[45]

Although individual and groups of converts to Judaism have historically been absorbed into contemporary Jewish populations, it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Jewish groups, and much less that they represented their genesis as Jewish communities.^[41][46]

Biologist Robert Pollack stated in 2003 that one cannot determine the biological "Jewishness" of an individual because "there are no DNA sequences common to all Jews and absent from all non-Jews".^[47] A 2009 study was able to genetically identify individuals with full or partial Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry.^[48]

Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA[link]

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora".^[41] Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.^[41]

Other Y-chromosome findings show that the world's Jewish communities are closely related to Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians.^[43][49] Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin".^[43] According to another study of the same year, more than 70% of Jewish men and half of the Arab men (inhabitants of Israel and the territories only) whose DNA was studied inherited their Y-chromosomes from the same paternal ancestors who lived in the region within the last few thousand years. The results are consistent with the Biblical account of Jews and Arabs having a common ancestor. About two-thirds of Israeli Arabs and Arabs in the territories and a similar proportion of Israeli Jews are the descendants of at least three common ancestors who lived in the Middle East in the Neolithic period. However, the Palestinian Arab clade includes two Arab modal haplotypes which are found at only very low frequency among Jews, reflecting divergence and/or large scale admixture from non-local populations to the Palestinians.^[50]

A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al.^[41] found that the Y chromosome of some Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews contained mutations that are also common among Middle Eastern peoples, but uncommon in the general European population. This suggested that the male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced mostly to the Middle East. The proportion of male genetic admixture in Ashkenazi Jews amounts to less than 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, with "relatively minor contribution of European Y chromosomes to the Ashkenazim," and a total admixture estimate "very similar to Motulsky's average estimate of 12.5%." This supported the finding that "Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors." However, when all haplotypes were included in the analysis, m (the admixture percentage) increased to 23% ± 7%. In addition, of the Jewish populations in this cluster, the Ashkenazim were closest to South European populations, specifically the Greeks.^[41]

In Jewish populations, Haplogroup J1 (defined by the 267 marker) constitutes 30% of the Yemenite Jews^[51] 20.0% of the Ashkenazim results and 12% of the Sephardic results.^{[51][52][53][54]} However, J1 is most frequent in Yemen (76%),^[55][56] Saudi (64%),^[57] Qatar (58%).^[56] J1 is generally frequent amongst Negev Bedouins (62%^[58]). It is also very common among other Arabs such as those of the Levant, i.e. Palestinian (38.4%),^[52] Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%).^[59][60] In Europe, higher frequencies have been reported in the central Adriatic regions of Italy: Gargano (17.2%),^[61] Pescara (15%),^[61] in the Mediterranean Paola (11.1%)^[61] and in South Sicilian Ragusa (10.7%).^[62] Fairly high frequencies have also been reported in other nearby Mediterranean areas: Crete (8.3%),^[63] Malta (7.8%), Cyprus (6.2%),^[64] Greece (5.3%).^[63]

Haplogroup J2 which is found in the Sephardic Jews (29%)^[65] and Ashkenazi Jews (23%),^[65] or 19%.^[66] is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus,^[67] Anatolia, the Balkans, Italy, the Mediterranean littoral, the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and South Asia.^[65] More specifically, it is found in Iraq,^[68] Syria, Lebanon,^[69] Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula,^[61] and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7%,^[70] Lebanese 25%,^[71] Palestinians 16.8%,^[65] Syrians 22.5%,^[72] Kurds 28.4%, Saudi Arabia 15.92%,^[73] Jordan 14.3%, Oman 10–15%,^[74] UAE 10.4%, Yemen 9.7%,^[56] in Israel,^[65] in Palestine,^[65] and in Turkey.^[75]