Any reasonably intelligent person would never even think to mention them in the same breath during a conversation. Mormons, after all are Christians, and Jews, well, they"re Jews. Everyone knows that they are two different worlds completely unrelated. Or are they really? During this semester our world history class has discussed communities in large detail. We have studied several distinct communities in some particular. We have tried to define them, compare them, separate them, and understand them all in hopes to better comprehend the world at large, and how we fit into it, and what our place is in it. Two of these communities that have greatly stood out to me are the Mormons and the Jews. As we have studied these two communities their differences obviously stood out, but what was even more intriguing to me is that their similarities became more apparent than ever before. The focus of this paper is to discuss how the similarities in the cosmovisions of the Mormons and the Jews, (made up of their histories, religious beliefs, encounters with other communities, and cultural aspects) are also the cause for their resulted differences.
Each of the sections making up the cosmovisions of these two communities is severely intertwined and directly related to each other. The history of the Jews is the base from which flows the other conditions forming their cosmovision. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people of God. They are the House of Israel, the seed of Abraham, the covenant people of the Lord. We learn this from the Bible. The genealogy of the Jews can be traced back to Jacob, who was the father of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. .
Their history as a people, as a community is nararated throughout the course of the Old Testament. They believe that through their portrayal in this body of Holy Scripture their history and indeed their future is set and secure in the eyes of God.
