The name given to the confessional statement found in Deut 6:4-5:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
The name comes from the first word of the statement. Jews regard it as the most important of all the biblical commandments, an attitude that Jesus affirms (Mk 12:29). It is one of the first biblical passages that a Jewish child would learn.
Resources:
☰ Tan Kim Huat. "The Shema and Early Christianity," Tyndale Bulletin 59 (2008): 181-207.
☰ Martin Feltham, "1 Timothy 2:5-6 as a Christological Reworking of the Shema," Tyndale Bulletin 68 (2017): 20.
☰ K. Kohler & J. D. Eisenstein, s.v., Jewish Encyclopedia. Online.
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