Introduction Blog

            Through observing my own cultural identity it has allowed me to take a look at myself from a perspective that I had never thought to do.  I realized what is important to me and the things that build me and my personality to make me who I am.  It is obvious that one of the things that I consider very important in my life is my religion, or my “religious identity.’  Religious identity as described in Intercultural Communication in Contexts by Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama, is a sense of belonging to a religious group.  The religious group I identify with is Christianity or Methodist to be more specific.  With this being close to me I felt that it was necessary for me to expand my knowledge on another religious identity.

            Religion has been the cause of wars and conflict since the beginning of time.  We are fortunate to live in a place that gives you the freedom to practice any religion you choose.  In our culture people identify with many different religions, but in our society most people do identify as Christian.  For this reason, I have chosen to expand my knowledge and find out the history and culture of one of these religions that is practiced by many in our country. 

            The religion I have chosen is Judaism.  I chose Judaism for the fact that it ties into Christianity and also because my knowledge is extremely limited on the subject.  The Old Testament is collection books that was the original Bible before the start of the New Testament.  The beginning of Judaism is described in the first 5 books of the Old Testament.  It describes how God began his relationship with the chosen people who were the Jews.  He also chose Abraham to be the father of these chosen people and lead them according to God’s will.

            With the opportunity of this project to research this subject, I will expand my knowledge on Judaism as well as the Old Testament of the Bible.  I plan to enlighten myself on the history of Judaism as well as their culture in modern society.  My hopes are to be able to apply this project to my own identity and build on the knowledge I am going to gain.

Below is a link to a you tube video I found that was a great introduction for my research:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buhBtLWzSUU&feature=related

References:

Martin, J.N., & Nakayam, T.K. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (5^th Edition ed). New York, NY: McGraww-Hill.

History of Judaism (n.d.). In BBC Religions. Retrieved July 1, 2009, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/history/history_1.shtml