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Originally Posted by Valon
I believe it would have happened anyways without it.
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History doesnt seem to point in that direction, and anybody can come up with countless theories of alternative history. Hence the major reason why myself refuse to engage in it.
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The racial factor is the determening factor.
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Anthony D. Smith notes that ethnicity, while important, is not the only determining factor. Mere ethnic preservation is not enough, religion is the force that drives mens' passions to struggle for that goal.
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Surely our own religions would have been healthier and the Jews wouldn't have been able to penetrate Europe.
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History saids otherwise.
"By the first century of the Common Era, Rome was undergoing "a 'craze' for Judaism," as historian and biographer AN Wilson puts it in
Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. Curious pagans who attended Jewish services - the so-called God-fearers - were numerous enough that some synagogoes were outfitted with special galleries to accommodate spectators. And the Jews were treated with a marked degree of respect and tolerance when it came to participation in the rituals of emperor worship that had become a kind of loyalty test in the Roman empire - the worshippers of the Only True God were officially permitted to pray for the emperor rather than to the emperor, a theological nicety that reveals something profound about the capacities of both Judaism and paganism to take a step back from rigorism."
--Jonathan Kirsch
God against the Gods pg.90
Jews were well respected under the pagans. The harsh treatments of the Jews by the Romans during the 66 revolt were extremely rare incidents. Julius Caesar for example had great respect for the Jews, and many of his campaigns were financed by Jewish communities in Rome. The pagans were more than willing to incorporate the Jewish god in their pantheon, but the exclusive nature of the Jewish god prevented that possibility. It was only after Constantine's conversion did the status of the Jews began to decline.