I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that Judiasm was originally multiple gods. They got the idea for monotheism from the Egyptians during the brief period where a pharaoh actually tried to have monotheism.

The Jews adopted that even tho the Egyptians reverted relatively quickly to multiple gods under King Tut. Mostly because the priests of all the various gods that had been shut down wanted power back.

From Judaism, monotheism spread to Christianity and Islam and some might say in some minor form to some variants of eastern religions/philosophies.

> "I was under the impression that Judiasm was originally multiple gods."

There's only speculation, nothing really concrete (at least not that I've ever found.)

Judaism does directly reference several Egyptian concepts. Both Genesis 1 and the plagues in Exodus draw heavily on the Egyptian pantheon (in a negative way -- explicitly rejecting Egyptian gods, calling them weak or stating that they are mere created objects.) But I don't know of anything that links Jewish monotheism to Egyptian monotheism.

Heh, my fault - I simplified it a little forgetting this is HN :D

To answer your point - the answer is yes, and no.

Ultimately it is next to impossible to be sure (assuming we can take the critical rather than the religious view of the history) when/where/how Judaism appeared.

At the time pretty much every country had their own God or gods and considered them superior to the others (though, ironically, appear to have been accepting of the other gods - just considered them inferior). General thinking simply says that at that time one particular country believed in one God - they were imprisoned for the Babylonians for a long while but the religion survived very devoutly.

I'm not sure what the common thinking is about why Judaism survived beyond that and grew to be so important.

Then, yes, Judaism influenced or started pretty much all of the modern religions.

EDIT: I find the birth of religions a fascinating subject, but I'm still churning through the birth/development of Christianity so not back to Judaism yet. All my knowledge above comes from a wonderful book called "A Little History of the World" which touches on the subject briefly.

> Then, yes, Judaism influenced or started pretty much all of the modern religions.

If by 'all the modern religions,' you just mean the 'big 3.' [namely: Christianity, Islam, Judaism] I've never seen claims that any of the 'Eastern' religions were influenced by Judaism.

The Jews never worshipped multiple gods, but there is evidence that at one point, they believed other gods existed (but they did not worship them, they only worshipped the god of the Hebrews, now known as G-d).

There's also virtually no evidence that Jewish monotheism was influenced by Atenism, the Egyptian monotheism founded by Akhenaten. It's a fun theory but not one that most scholars give credence to.

2,500 years ago, Jews were slaughtering goats and offering them as burnt offerings on altars in order to absolve themselves of sin.

Modern Judaism is distinctly different than what was practiced two millenia ago.

To my knowledge, the religious decree about slaughtering goats is the same today in judaism as it was 2,500 years ago.

The reason it's not practiced today is 'just' because the decree also states that you have to perform the sacrifice at the great temple on temple mount. That poses a technical problem, since: 1. The temple was destroyed 2k years back, and there's a pretty famous mosque standing in its place. 2. Religious jews have to do a special kind of purification in order to even be on temple mount, and this purification is impossible at the moment, again for weird technical reasons (they need a red cow, don't ask).

BUT, if there was a temple, and there was a purification rite, religious jews would, in all likelihood, be happily burning offerings 3 times each year.

In short, not as different as you may think.

I was under the impression that a most of the religious classes/castes (other than the Rabbis) in Judaism were wiped out by the Romans (or someone) and that some of those were the ones that were supposed to perform certain ceremonies. I may be wrong though, I can't find anything about this in a quick Wikipedia search.

Rabbis aren't a caste, they're just a profession.

There is a priestly caste, the kohanim. The kohanim have various obligations and duties, most of which are moot in the modern world, and one of which involves the hand gesture made famous by Leonard Nimoy.

There is another caste, the Levites, but they have no remaining duties.

That's a very problematic argument for a few reasons.

Firstly your now considering early Judaism unenlightened. However the core beliefs are still very much the same; and many customs from contemporary Norse times are still observed by some sects.

Secondly that's the practice of religion; which is very different from a belief itself. It is possible to believe in God or a set of gods without following the practices of the organisations themselves. The difference between then and now is that a) you were "sold" the practices as an inherent part of belief in XYZ God and b) to believe without practising them was dangerous. As a result the actual belief in the Abrahamic God is somewhat irrelevant to the practices.