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How did the religion arise?

 

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In ancient times humankind wished to find out the causes and relations of natural phenomenons, people wanted to reveal how the stable laws of nature and the world are managed. Humankind was afraid of incomprehensible powers and phenomenons and began to adore them and worship them. People in ancient times worshiped the sun, the stars, various idols and various mythological gods.

This is how all the pagan religions, idolatry and polytheism arose ¹).
A a lot of years passed till our forefather Avram was born, the Holy Scripture refers to him as
 אברהם העברי Avraham ha-Ivri, it means the Avraham from that side of the river (Euphrates). This means that he left his own home and his father's house and went away into the Land of Canaan by the command of God.


Avram is the first human who realized that there is Only One God ²), the Creator of heaven and earth, and he set himself a target to preach monotheism, as the Holy Scripture informs us: And called upon the name of יהוה. (1M 12:8)

¹) Various forms of idolatry and polytheism are still practiced even at these times, there are nations and tribes that have no idea about monotheism.

²) We are referring to the period after the confusion of languages during the building of the Tower of Babel, till this time the only ones who knew about monotheism were Adam and Noah. After the construction of the Tower of Babel, humankind fell into heresy and idolatry.

Abram was a righteous person, who followed the Creator and who was awarded for his loyalty to God by the revelation of prophecy. God made an eternal covenant בּרית עולם brit olam with Abram and his seed and He commanded him to perform circumsion mila מילה to each male at 8 days old. The circumcision is the physical sign of this covenant. After the formation of the covenant, Abram (already as Abraham) received a promise from God that he and his offspring shall inherit the land of Canaan.

Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Yakov (later Israel) followed the teachings of their father and grandfather, like Abraham they were true believers and God-fearing men. They were also rewarded with the revelation of prophecy and God's protection.

Gradually students should be acquainted with the Bible itself, they should read the verses of Holy Scripture that were mentioned in the lessons.

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The twelve sons of Yakov became the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel ¹).

¹) We assume that students of the Law of God have basic knowledge of the biblical stories and biblical history. 

Yakov was forced to go to Egypt due to a famine in the land of Canaan. His son Yosef was a regent in Egypt. 

220 years passed and the family of Yakov grew from 70 people to a total of 600,000 adult males. The Egyptians began to worry about their own future when they saw that the descendants of Yakov were rapidly growing, so they began to restrict and oppress Yakov's descendants and in the end they forced Israelites into slave labor and they made the midwives kill every Israelite male child.

 

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In this way our ancestors gradually fell into heavy slavery. Enslaved Israelites prayed to the God of their forefathers, to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Yakov for liberation from this unbearable slavery: And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. (2M 2:23-24)

God heard the prayers and the complaints of Israel, and He sent the prophet Moses - our teacher to liberate the descendants of Yakov: And now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me; moreover I have seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth My people the children of Israel out of Egypt. (2M 3:9-10)
 

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At that time Moses appeared before Pharaoh in the name of the Eternal and liberated the Israelite people from slavery through the ten plagues of God  and he led the descendants of Yakov to Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments עשרת הדברים Aseret hadevarim.
 

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From there, God sent them into the land of Canaan, which God promised our forefather Abraham. Before entering the land of Canaan, during the 40-year of wandering in the desert, God gave Moses the other laws contained in the book of the Law of Moses תּורת משׁה Torat Moshe, which consists of five books written by Moses.
 

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The Karaites are descendants of the forefather Abraham and the People of Israel and profess the Law of Moses. The name Karaim is derived from the root of the verb karo קרא to read; the word Karai קראי is a singular form of the word the reader, it means the person who keeps the Holy Scripture, and the word Karaim קראים is a plural for of word the reader, it means readers, those who adhere to the Holy Scriptures. We also call ourselves as בּני מקרא Benei Mikra  - the Sons of the Holy Scripture. Karaites only recognize the Holy Scriptures without any kind of comments, additions or corrections, and we protect the Law of Moses in the form that was known to the People of Israel before the writing of the Talmud. We began to use the word  Karaim קראים at the time of birth of the Talmud, to distinguish ourselves from the Talmudists. Talmudists ​​believe that God gave an oral law on Mount Sinai in addition to the Written law which they call as תורה שׁבּעל פּה tora shebeal peTalmudists ​​claim that these laws were transfered orally from generation to generation. Gradually Talmudists ​​began to be afraid that these oral laws will be forgotten, and for this reason they recorded and codified them under the name משׁנה MishnahLater they added interpretations to the Mishnah called the  - Talmud תלמוד. We call followers of this belief Talmudists. 

Karaites do not believe in these so-called oral laws, because their existence has no support in Holy Scripture, for this reason we also do not accept the work of the Rabbis - Talmud.

The Teaching of the Karaites and Talmudists are dramatically different, these teachings are basically two diverse religions. The large religious differences are the reason why, for example, marriages between Karaites and Talmudists were and are extremely rare.