Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
Chapter 10, Lesson 1, Early Biblical History (pp. 298-303)
I. The Belief of the Israelites
B. The Torah contains the basic laws of the religion of the Jewish people,
called Judaism.
II. The Origin of the Israelites
B. The descendants of Abraham were called Hebrews.
C. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, is renamed Israel, and his descendants are known as the Israelites.
D. Some Israelites became slaves to the Egyptians, and were led out of
captivity by Moses.
E. After the Egyptian ruler set the Israelites free, they took a long and
difficult journey-called the Exodus-back to their homeland.
III. An Agreement with God
B. The Torah explains that first of God's laws for the Israelites were
written on stone tablets that are also known as the Ten Commandments.
C. The idea of a covenant became the basis for both Judaism and
Christianity, and the Ten Commandments form much of the Western
world's ideas about law and justice.
Lesson at a Glance Outline
A. The Israelites practiced monotheism, the belief only one God, which
was a new idea in the ancient world.
A. According to Genesis, God told a shepherd named Abraham to move from
Mesopotamia to Canaan to establish a new nation.
A. According to the Torah, Moses received a message from God establishing
a covenant, or special agreement, that bound the Israelites to God.
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