Gonna quibble on the stone age bit. I don't know if it's a 1500 year old rabbinical invention or a tradition from the Khazars, but it's not "Jewish", meaning the tribe of Judah. Israelites were profoundly, fundamentally patriarchal.
Fair, I threw that in colloquially without much thought, but its not quite stone age.
Looking it up, without a deep knowledge of the Hebrew Bible itself, it seems to have its most direct calling out as an issue in the Book of Ezra which is from around 500-450 BC though they claim it also comes from Genesis itself with one of Abraham's wives being the Jewish line and the other not.
Now, adherence to it might be less spotty as much of the reading I did brought up many times in the Bible where its not adhered to and they just waved it off as "the conversion was obviously implied." Which means its not blood lineage sometimes, but it wouldn't be Jews without dancing around their own rules nonsensically.
The Old Testament itself is very explicitly patralinneal. Time after time it gives long lists of fathers and the sons they begat, generally not bothering to mention the womenfolk. And Abraham had only one wife and one legitimate son. The other, illegitimate son came from his wife's maid. Maybe rabbinic tradition says otherwise, but that's just talmudic fanfiction.
If you read into their "proof" for the belief its a lot of stuff that is "its implied" from the text. Even the Ezra one, which is the only real direct one, they say that the way he says it means its obviously been in practice for far longer before it was written.
So it sounds like some oral tradition they had that they added to their religion and then they went back to pull a bunch of proof out of places it wasn't.
Like all things, its very Jewy and nonsensical. I'd say its their religion to do what they want with, but they don't follow it in any form that makes sense either.
Gonna quibble on the stone age bit. I don't know if it's a 1500 year old rabbinical invention or a tradition from the Khazars, but it's not "Jewish", meaning the tribe of Judah. Israelites were profoundly, fundamentally patriarchal.
Fair, I threw that in colloquially without much thought, but its not quite stone age.
Looking it up, without a deep knowledge of the Hebrew Bible itself, it seems to have its most direct calling out as an issue in the Book of Ezra which is from around 500-450 BC though they claim it also comes from Genesis itself with one of Abraham's wives being the Jewish line and the other not.
Now, adherence to it might be less spotty as much of the reading I did brought up many times in the Bible where its not adhered to and they just waved it off as "the conversion was obviously implied." Which means its not blood lineage sometimes, but it wouldn't be Jews without dancing around their own rules nonsensically.
The Old Testament itself is very explicitly patralinneal. Time after time it gives long lists of fathers and the sons they begat, generally not bothering to mention the womenfolk. And Abraham had only one wife and one legitimate son. The other, illegitimate son came from his wife's maid. Maybe rabbinic tradition says otherwise, but that's just talmudic fanfiction.
If you read into their "proof" for the belief its a lot of stuff that is "its implied" from the text. Even the Ezra one, which is the only real direct one, they say that the way he says it means its obviously been in practice for far longer before it was written.
So it sounds like some oral tradition they had that they added to their religion and then they went back to pull a bunch of proof out of places it wasn't.
Like all things, its very Jewy and nonsensical. I'd say its their religion to do what they want with, but they don't follow it in any form that makes sense either.