Ancient Judaism is a work by Max Weber published around 1917 - 1918 . This is his fourth work in religious sociology after The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Confucianism and Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
Ancient Judaism is devoted to the analysis of early forms of Judaism , but the scope of the problems considered in it is wide - in the next work Weber tried to interpret the primary differences between the religions of the East and West. He contrasted the asceticism of the inner world developed in Western Christianity, which allows participation in worldly work, with mystical contemplation, which is characteristic of Eastern beliefs. Weber noted that some features of Christianity did not allow adherents to come to terms with the shortcomings of reality, but forced them to take over the world and change it . Weber found the origins of this claim in ancient Jewish prophecy .
Weber tries to explain the “combination of circumstances” which, according to him, has made Western and Eastern forms of religiosity fundamentally different. These differences are especially remarkable when comparing the secular asceticism of Western Christendom and the mystical contemplation that developed in India . Weber notices, among other things, the tendency of Christianity to conquer and transform the world rather than turning to its own imperfections to correct them. This fundamental characteristic of Christianity is anchored in the prophecy of ancient Judaism .
Weber begins his monograph by writing that the Jews have, historically, been considered a "pariah people", that is to say a people on a perpetual journey. He particularly analyzes the berith, that is to say the covenant made by God with the people of Israel in the Torah , and the emergence of a discourse which he calls “prophecy of doom”. Weber also analyzes the links between the Puritans Protestants and ancient Judaism. He thus notes that "the Jewish scriptures express a rationalism of an ethical, pragmatic and cosmological order which is immediately popular and which in the essential passages precisely is formulated in such a way that a child can grasp it".
