There's quite a bit of writing about this in early Christianity, beginning with the Pauline Epistles, which make up the earliest expression of Christian theology. After Paul's decisive break with the Judaizing elements, it doesn't seem to have been a great problem within the church. Tertullian and Augustine were also massively influential here. Another important influence to account for is that Christian theology came to be expressed through the language of neoplatonism (though there has always been speculation that Greek theories of monotheism were themselves borrowed from Jewish and Egyptian sources).
As a Christian, I never really experienced much anxiety about this. My understanding of Jewish chosenness was always that Jews had this special history *because* they would bring forth this messianic ministry (this is more or less Paul's take). So, Jews are "special" because of Jesus, Jesus was not special for being Jewish. This racial concept is antithetical to Christian theology as I understand it.
I read Pascal's Pensées just this year and he talks about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity extensively. His basic take is that post-Temple Judaism exists to provide independent verification of the messianic prophecies (a nice little irony that resembles God's sense of humor in scripture). But he also divides both Jews and Christians into those "of the flesh" (sinful) and "of the spirit" (redeemed). So, it ends up as kind of a wash. This is all to say that the racial or national aspect of choseness is dropped within one generation, and, where it is encountered later, is generally condemned as a form of idolatry of the flesh. The whole religion is founded upon the rejection of a national Messiah in favor of a universal one.
Your analysis on the inherent genocidal urge of the Hebrew Scriptures seems to be rooted in a lot of the early hypotheses of the 19th century "higher criticism" school which has been widely challenged/discredited, even where some limited insights have been confirmed. There is the alternative possibility that the Scriptures, despite all the limits of its human authors, are coherently divinely inspired and that they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Who, rather than accidentally revolutionary Essene rabbic, might have been Who He said He was. For a thorough analysis of this from a historical-critical scholar--an expert on Second Temple Judaism--you should try out Pitre's recent "Jesus and Divine Christology."
The Book of Revelation clearly isn't just a reiteration of this-worldly messianic revenge fantasies: the protagonist of the apocalyptic text is the "Lamb who was slain" (see esp. the canticle in Chapter 12). The temptation that Christians are warned against is taking up the way of the "Beast" (Chapter 13), which is a thinly-veiled reference to the Roman Empire. Would that the Church had been more attentive in the days of Constantine!
The Messiah triumphed by non-violent love, and all who triumph with Him must "live exactly as he lived" (as in the other Johannine literature). The eschatological "upside-down kingdom" laid out in Revelation (and all of the Scriptures) is the core of what has given the Bible it's unshakeable, transformative, world-historical power. Generation after generation are intrigued and challenged by this Good News, and then convicted by some strange power that it's worth not killing for (like all the "gods of inevitable recurrence"), but dying for as Jesus did. Worth considering at least!
I think you are running into an issue that a lot of people get caught up in when studying ancient history: you have underestimated the crucial importance of textual transmission.
To take a modern example, Beowulf is the most influential Old English text. However, the book was only influential because of 19th century translations and especially because Tolkien was an Old English scholar. The Hobbit and LOTR took many elements from Beowulf and became a world wide foundation for modern fantasy.
Paradoxically, a person who doesn't speak Old English (or even English) today is more likely to know the Beowulf story than actual Old English speakers at the time it was written down. That book only survived in a single manuscript tradition.
While the Hebrew Bible was always a more popular text than that, the transmission has much more to do with not a defeat of Roman religion, but an explicit act of adoption by Romans. The most prevelant form of Roman Religion was The Imperial Cult, which focused on the Emperors and their family as gods or semi divine living rulers deified after death.
The best example of this is how Antinous is the most artistically depicted individual in antique statues, outside of Augustus and Hadrian, and was widely worshiped as a god. Antinous was Hadrian's boyfriend who tragically died at a young age.
The grief stricken Emperor made him a god, agaisnt the will of the Senate and tradition. Such was the power of the Imperial Office to set religious policy.
After Constantine, the Imperial Cult officially (with the permission of the Senate) switched to Christianity, with Saints and Jesus/God all taking from existing depictions without much change.
That is the root of the Iconoclasm issue, by the way: the art was just too exactly the same for some to tolerate.
Basically the only big difference is that Zeus would never have white hair (red or black only).
After that, you have Justinian's law code and that books enormous influence on modern lawmakers and nationalists.
To sum up, the world wide impact of the Hebrew Bible has more to do with how the Roman Empire adapted it to Roman needs in Late Antiquity, and how the European Empires in modern times used Roman precedents.
Interesting. Yeah, it's obvious that power is necessary to propagate ideas and texts. So I agree. But I think you're also falling into a crude materialist trap if you think power is the only thing that matters here. Ideas and texts and myths do have their internal cultural power, a meritocracy of sorts...this cultural power can be boosted by political power but even the mightiest political power in the world can't make a shitty story good.
Sure, but the level of specificity for the story is a tricky thing to say because of contingent events.
Yes, the Early Jewish/Christian communities had something that was compatible with Roman networks. It was (on an ideal type level) both a highly centralized (Universal ruler), textual and legal/military focused tradition with intermediary holy beings/people for more humble believers.
It also drew on all the previous empires, most explicitly the Achaemenid (the Aramaic), but also the Hellenistic traditions that had the most region wide influence.
But it wasn't the only game in town. Mithra, for example, was super popular in the Army (the most important institution in Rome), and Manichaeism drew as much on Aramaic traditions as the Hebrew Bible did.
Even as late as Heraclius's reign, the Sassanians came this close to ressurecting the full Achaemenid Empire (it was only a destructive civil war within the Sassanian realms that allowed Heraclius's reversal of their fortune, and then later the early Islamic conquests).
It could have been Zoroaster and the Avesta, not Christ and the Old/New Testament.
The "Old Gods" also could have won. The classic example is in South Asia. For many centuries, it looked like Buddhism would dominate all other traditions following Ashoka's decision, much as Christianity and later Islam did in Europe and the Middle East.
But the Brahmins changed their traditions enough to regroup and decisively regain their status.
It would be as if the HRE turned agressively Pagan in the 14th century, or if Polish kings converted to the Lithuanian religion.
Zoroaster and Avesta could have replaced the Roman gods, but it would have been no different than the transition from the Persians to the Greeks to the Romans. The old gods couldn't have created the self-flagellating, endlessly reforming anomaly that was medieval Christendom. The Reformation and the Enlightenment, and all the revolutions that followed, are fueled by co-opting and disjointing various aspects of the utterly unique/insane message of the Gospel: that the last shall be first, that there were no rich or poor among them, that you should love your enemies, etc.
The conflict between all that delicious hippie commie stuff and crushing ones enemies to hear the lamentation of their women (in the name of the lord your god, of course) seems to be the root cause of much of the worst navel gazing drivel in all of human history.
I was going to quibble with the "never" having an empire to back it up for similar thoughts, but if we draw the line at this imperial endorsement as the triumph of a jewish cult (christians) over the greco-roman pantheon, then it makes sense to me, and look back from that point. But I wonder what was it really (the jewish texts or the hawt palestinian wimmin?) that led to this particular cult fleeing lions in the circus getting the endorsement over one of the others? I mean, I guess seeing crazy chi rho shit in the sky could do it, but if it was that simple and vibey, the old scrolls just got lucky.
The fundamentalist penticostals I grew up with, who were already weird and culty tbh (rock music=satanic, sin for men to go without a shirt or wear shorts, etc), have morphed over the years more and more into a LARP of jewish traditions tacked back on to their protestantism. Now they have their services on Saturday and say shabbat shalom to each other with the goat horn on the wall of the sanctuary and every year there's more of this weird fusion. Also rabid Zionists: wizz rail flag in their profiles and on their parade float next to Old Glory, worse than woke Ukraine fanbois. I asked in the early 2010's if what they were doing was like messianic jews (I had seen those temples/churches around but no idea what they were about besides the name) and was low-key rebuffed - uh no, we are not jews, this is NOT that. Hmm, ok. Doesn't look that way.
I came from a Catholic worker tradition, somewhat similar to what you'll hear Jeremy Scahill describe for his upbringing, and devout, 12 years formal indoctrination. But I got tired of trying to reconcile so much bullshit, it's exhausting. Once I learned enough about its lineage (rather than stopping at "inspired by god"), among other things, it mostly just makes me cringe now. I still dig the gospels sometimes, but I've long since moved on from looking to that fantasy series for guidance the way I once did.
I wonder how much the intersectionality of the mythic stories in the bible with other adjacent cultures' texts helped it last as long as it did.
Not true at all. It was a massive conflict within the first generation and it was settled decisively in favor of including Gentiles, due to the divine revelations if the accounts in Paul's Letters and the Acts of the Apostles are to be believed. The Gospels recount many non-Jews following Jesus.
Small observation: the biggest hasidic group is Satmer, not Lubovitch. It is quite a bit bigger, I believe. Lubovitch is somewhat distinctive among hasidim in being big into proselytism. The others, not so much.
You know I thought Chabad was a bit bigger but now doing a fact-check I see thy are mostly tied around 100,000 each — unless I'm getting something wrong again. I will say that Chabad seems to be the more globally politically active. The Satmar is very inward.
Mm. Don't get too hung up on past "should-haves" especially if it's hardly your fault for taking another way (I don't see how you could have known at this point).
There's quite a bit of writing about this in early Christianity, beginning with the Pauline Epistles, which make up the earliest expression of Christian theology. After Paul's decisive break with the Judaizing elements, it doesn't seem to have been a great problem within the church. Tertullian and Augustine were also massively influential here. Another important influence to account for is that Christian theology came to be expressed through the language of neoplatonism (though there has always been speculation that Greek theories of monotheism were themselves borrowed from Jewish and Egyptian sources).
As a Christian, I never really experienced much anxiety about this. My understanding of Jewish chosenness was always that Jews had this special history *because* they would bring forth this messianic ministry (this is more or less Paul's take). So, Jews are "special" because of Jesus, Jesus was not special for being Jewish. This racial concept is antithetical to Christian theology as I understand it.
I read Pascal's Pensées just this year and he talks about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity extensively. His basic take is that post-Temple Judaism exists to provide independent verification of the messianic prophecies (a nice little irony that resembles God's sense of humor in scripture). But he also divides both Jews and Christians into those "of the flesh" (sinful) and "of the spirit" (redeemed). So, it ends up as kind of a wash. This is all to say that the racial or national aspect of choseness is dropped within one generation, and, where it is encountered later, is generally condemned as a form of idolatry of the flesh. The whole religion is founded upon the rejection of a national Messiah in favor of a universal one.
Your analysis on the inherent genocidal urge of the Hebrew Scriptures seems to be rooted in a lot of the early hypotheses of the 19th century "higher criticism" school which has been widely challenged/discredited, even where some limited insights have been confirmed. There is the alternative possibility that the Scriptures, despite all the limits of its human authors, are coherently divinely inspired and that they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Who, rather than accidentally revolutionary Essene rabbic, might have been Who He said He was. For a thorough analysis of this from a historical-critical scholar--an expert on Second Temple Judaism--you should try out Pitre's recent "Jesus and Divine Christology."
The Book of Revelation clearly isn't just a reiteration of this-worldly messianic revenge fantasies: the protagonist of the apocalyptic text is the "Lamb who was slain" (see esp. the canticle in Chapter 12). The temptation that Christians are warned against is taking up the way of the "Beast" (Chapter 13), which is a thinly-veiled reference to the Roman Empire. Would that the Church had been more attentive in the days of Constantine!
The Messiah triumphed by non-violent love, and all who triumph with Him must "live exactly as he lived" (as in the other Johannine literature). The eschatological "upside-down kingdom" laid out in Revelation (and all of the Scriptures) is the core of what has given the Bible it's unshakeable, transformative, world-historical power. Generation after generation are intrigued and challenged by this Good News, and then convicted by some strange power that it's worth not killing for (like all the "gods of inevitable recurrence"), but dying for as Jesus did. Worth considering at least!
I think you are running into an issue that a lot of people get caught up in when studying ancient history: you have underestimated the crucial importance of textual transmission.
To take a modern example, Beowulf is the most influential Old English text. However, the book was only influential because of 19th century translations and especially because Tolkien was an Old English scholar. The Hobbit and LOTR took many elements from Beowulf and became a world wide foundation for modern fantasy.
Paradoxically, a person who doesn't speak Old English (or even English) today is more likely to know the Beowulf story than actual Old English speakers at the time it was written down. That book only survived in a single manuscript tradition.
While the Hebrew Bible was always a more popular text than that, the transmission has much more to do with not a defeat of Roman religion, but an explicit act of adoption by Romans. The most prevelant form of Roman Religion was The Imperial Cult, which focused on the Emperors and their family as gods or semi divine living rulers deified after death.
The best example of this is how Antinous is the most artistically depicted individual in antique statues, outside of Augustus and Hadrian, and was widely worshiped as a god. Antinous was Hadrian's boyfriend who tragically died at a young age.
The grief stricken Emperor made him a god, agaisnt the will of the Senate and tradition. Such was the power of the Imperial Office to set religious policy.
After Constantine, the Imperial Cult officially (with the permission of the Senate) switched to Christianity, with Saints and Jesus/God all taking from existing depictions without much change.
That is the root of the Iconoclasm issue, by the way: the art was just too exactly the same for some to tolerate.
Basically the only big difference is that Zeus would never have white hair (red or black only).
After that, you have Justinian's law code and that books enormous influence on modern lawmakers and nationalists.
To sum up, the world wide impact of the Hebrew Bible has more to do with how the Roman Empire adapted it to Roman needs in Late Antiquity, and how the European Empires in modern times used Roman precedents.
Interesting. Yeah, it's obvious that power is necessary to propagate ideas and texts. So I agree. But I think you're also falling into a crude materialist trap if you think power is the only thing that matters here. Ideas and texts and myths do have their internal cultural power, a meritocracy of sorts...this cultural power can be boosted by political power but even the mightiest political power in the world can't make a shitty story good.
Sure, but the level of specificity for the story is a tricky thing to say because of contingent events.
Yes, the Early Jewish/Christian communities had something that was compatible with Roman networks. It was (on an ideal type level) both a highly centralized (Universal ruler), textual and legal/military focused tradition with intermediary holy beings/people for more humble believers.
It also drew on all the previous empires, most explicitly the Achaemenid (the Aramaic), but also the Hellenistic traditions that had the most region wide influence.
But it wasn't the only game in town. Mithra, for example, was super popular in the Army (the most important institution in Rome), and Manichaeism drew as much on Aramaic traditions as the Hebrew Bible did.
Even as late as Heraclius's reign, the Sassanians came this close to ressurecting the full Achaemenid Empire (it was only a destructive civil war within the Sassanian realms that allowed Heraclius's reversal of their fortune, and then later the early Islamic conquests).
It could have been Zoroaster and the Avesta, not Christ and the Old/New Testament.
The "Old Gods" also could have won. The classic example is in South Asia. For many centuries, it looked like Buddhism would dominate all other traditions following Ashoka's decision, much as Christianity and later Islam did in Europe and the Middle East.
But the Brahmins changed their traditions enough to regroup and decisively regain their status.
It would be as if the HRE turned agressively Pagan in the 14th century, or if Polish kings converted to the Lithuanian religion.
Zoroaster and Avesta could have replaced the Roman gods, but it would have been no different than the transition from the Persians to the Greeks to the Romans. The old gods couldn't have created the self-flagellating, endlessly reforming anomaly that was medieval Christendom. The Reformation and the Enlightenment, and all the revolutions that followed, are fueled by co-opting and disjointing various aspects of the utterly unique/insane message of the Gospel: that the last shall be first, that there were no rich or poor among them, that you should love your enemies, etc.
The conflict between all that delicious hippie commie stuff and crushing ones enemies to hear the lamentation of their women (in the name of the lord your god, of course) seems to be the root cause of much of the worst navel gazing drivel in all of human history.
I was going to quibble with the "never" having an empire to back it up for similar thoughts, but if we draw the line at this imperial endorsement as the triumph of a jewish cult (christians) over the greco-roman pantheon, then it makes sense to me, and look back from that point. But I wonder what was it really (the jewish texts or the hawt palestinian wimmin?) that led to this particular cult fleeing lions in the circus getting the endorsement over one of the others? I mean, I guess seeing crazy chi rho shit in the sky could do it, but if it was that simple and vibey, the old scrolls just got lucky.
I think it would always be one of the contenders, but the other guys could have won, so to speak.
Like Linux and Windows, you know.
The fundamentalist penticostals I grew up with, who were already weird and culty tbh (rock music=satanic, sin for men to go without a shirt or wear shorts, etc), have morphed over the years more and more into a LARP of jewish traditions tacked back on to their protestantism. Now they have their services on Saturday and say shabbat shalom to each other with the goat horn on the wall of the sanctuary and every year there's more of this weird fusion. Also rabid Zionists: wizz rail flag in their profiles and on their parade float next to Old Glory, worse than woke Ukraine fanbois. I asked in the early 2010's if what they were doing was like messianic jews (I had seen those temples/churches around but no idea what they were about besides the name) and was low-key rebuffed - uh no, we are not jews, this is NOT that. Hmm, ok. Doesn't look that way.
I came from a Catholic worker tradition, somewhat similar to what you'll hear Jeremy Scahill describe for his upbringing, and devout, 12 years formal indoctrination. But I got tired of trying to reconcile so much bullshit, it's exhausting. Once I learned enough about its lineage (rather than stopping at "inspired by god"), among other things, it mostly just makes me cringe now. I still dig the gospels sometimes, but I've long since moved on from looking to that fantasy series for guidance the way I once did.
I wonder how much the intersectionality of the mythic stories in the bible with other adjacent cultures' texts helped it last as long as it did.
this is beautiful. thank u for the comment. and…shabbat shalom, my brother in christ. it shabbat after all.
@Yasha
Some light entertainment may be in order: "Apocamon", the book of revelation as manga? First chapter, there are at least four available...
https://www.electricsheepcomix.com/apocamon/episode1.html
For quite a long time, only Jews were allowed to be Christians. Gentiles were excluded.
Not true at all. It was a massive conflict within the first generation and it was settled decisively in favor of including Gentiles, due to the divine revelations if the accounts in Paul's Letters and the Acts of the Apostles are to be believed. The Gospels recount many non-Jews following Jesus.
Small observation: the biggest hasidic group is Satmer, not Lubovitch. It is quite a bit bigger, I believe. Lubovitch is somewhat distinctive among hasidim in being big into proselytism. The others, not so much.
You know I thought Chabad was a bit bigger but now doing a fact-check I see thy are mostly tied around 100,000 each — unless I'm getting something wrong again. I will say that Chabad seems to be the more globally politically active. The Satmar is very inward.
I think you and Evgenia would enjoy this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credo_(card_game)
You can try to keep the Judaizing rules in the official beliefs!
(I've had this game since it first came out; it's a blast [especially when, so I'm told, you're half stoned].)
i'm embarrassed to be unaware of that, it looks great
It is. There's nothing like having a secular official in your church so you can drive opponents' patriarchs into exile!
But why should you be embarrassed?
discovering things I really should have encountered decades earlier is inevitably humbling, but I can always use a healthy dose of humble
Mm. Don't get too hung up on past "should-haves" especially if it's hardly your fault for taking another way (I don't see how you could have known at this point).