The Gift of the Jews

Thomas Cahill in “The Gifts of the Jews” states:

The Jews gave us a whole new vocabulary, a whole new Temple of the Spirit, an inner landscape of ideas and feelings that had never been known before. Over many centuries of trauma and suffering they came to believe in one God, the Creator of the universe, whose meaning underlies all His creation and who enters human history to bring His purposes to pass. Because of their unique belief - monotheism - the Jews were able to give us the Great Whole, a unified universe that makes sense and that, because of its evident superiority as a world-view, completely overwhelms the warring and contradictory phenomena of polytheism. They gave us the Conscience of the West, the belief that this God who is One is not the God of outward show but the “Still, small voice.” of conscience, the God of compassion, the God who “Will be there,” the God who cares about each of His creatures, especially the human beings He created “In His own image,” and that He insists we do the same.