It is said that where mediocre writers borrow, great writers steal. As I am but a poor teenager who has years to go before he can dream of even becoming an OK writer, I happily admit that the main idea of this TL was borrowed from Judith Tarr’s excellent short story Measureless to Man, which in turn borrowed its main idea from Henry Turtledove.
I’d like to think the research I’ve done for this TL is pretty good, but as always feel free to point out any inaccuracies or discrepancies that you see. And above all, COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!!
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
This phrase has been used so many times and in so many ways that it has become a cliché dead of actual meaning; and yet still if the religiously inclined look back across the broad expanse of human history those words ring truer than ever. If a man merely pays attention to the events of his own days, the world he lives in seems chaotic and ungoverned by the laws of logic; yet if he looks back at the days behind him, some small part of the truth snaps into view. The trends and arcs of history become apparent, surprises become obvious, and the obvious becomes surprising; the world gains context…
What is the meaning of this meandering introduction? It is merely to explain the approach to my subject I will be taking. Many who have only taken a cursory glance at the origins of Asiatic Judaism profess incredulity; how is it, they say, that a petty Asian lord converted to a tiny, defeated religion whose followers were scattered across a continent hundreds of miles away, and then made that faith the fourth largest in the history of the world? Surely if this appeared in a work of fiction it would be castigated as a ridiculous fantasy?
While the conversion of Temujin to Judaism was indeed a dramatic left turn of the wheel of history, there was already plenty of grease on the axle. The Mongol peoples had always lived in a state of constant flux, and by the time Temujin reached adulthood his own Khamag Mongols were in a state of crisis, as the mighty Jin Empire to the south had switched its patronage from them to the rival Tatar tribe. The Khamag Mongols and their allies, the Kerait, were desperate for a way to stave off Chinese influence, and of course desperation on a nation-wide scale always leads to religious turbulence. And the pre-existing Mongol religion, however distorted by post facto tampering by Asiatic Jewish historians, does seem to have been in some ways ideal for syncretism with Judaism, with its quasi-monotheistic emphasis on the worship of the Eternal Blue Sky (which in the early days of Asiatic Judaism was declared to be one and the same with God Most High) and the holiness of the mountain Burkhan Kaldun, which provided an excellent justification for Temujin’s chosen status (he was born at its base) and an convenient connection to the story of Moses.
Nor was this momentous shift the work of a single man in a single moment; Temujin may have begun the formation and spread of Asiatic Judaism in earnest (even though he received the basics of the religion ready-made from the Ong Khan), but that religion reached its current size only due to the tireless work of many men spread over four centuries. Shlomo Melech Chonguo*, Khagan Ogedai, the above-mentioned Ong Khan, and even Jochebed the Slave can put forward a case for fatherhood of Asiatic Judaism in some ways better than that of Temujin himself.
But I run centuries ahead of myself. The story of Asiatic Judaism begins its long and crooked tale in the glorious springtime of the year Christians call 1162, in the hilly plains to the north of the Gobi Desert…
*Imagine a bit of Paul of Tarsus, a bit of Constantine the Great, and a bit of OTL Genghis Khan. The name means “Solomon, King of China” in...errr...Hebrew-Mandarin (Hebranderin?). Don’t worry, it’s not actually what he called himself; that’s just the name traditionally used for him in the West.
I’d like to think the research I’ve done for this TL is pretty good, but as always feel free to point out any inaccuracies or discrepancies that you see. And above all, COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!!
Introduction
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
This phrase has been used so many times and in so many ways that it has become a cliché dead of actual meaning; and yet still if the religiously inclined look back across the broad expanse of human history those words ring truer than ever. If a man merely pays attention to the events of his own days, the world he lives in seems chaotic and ungoverned by the laws of logic; yet if he looks back at the days behind him, some small part of the truth snaps into view. The trends and arcs of history become apparent, surprises become obvious, and the obvious becomes surprising; the world gains context…
What is the meaning of this meandering introduction? It is merely to explain the approach to my subject I will be taking. Many who have only taken a cursory glance at the origins of Asiatic Judaism profess incredulity; how is it, they say, that a petty Asian lord converted to a tiny, defeated religion whose followers were scattered across a continent hundreds of miles away, and then made that faith the fourth largest in the history of the world? Surely if this appeared in a work of fiction it would be castigated as a ridiculous fantasy?
While the conversion of Temujin to Judaism was indeed a dramatic left turn of the wheel of history, there was already plenty of grease on the axle. The Mongol peoples had always lived in a state of constant flux, and by the time Temujin reached adulthood his own Khamag Mongols were in a state of crisis, as the mighty Jin Empire to the south had switched its patronage from them to the rival Tatar tribe. The Khamag Mongols and their allies, the Kerait, were desperate for a way to stave off Chinese influence, and of course desperation on a nation-wide scale always leads to religious turbulence. And the pre-existing Mongol religion, however distorted by post facto tampering by Asiatic Jewish historians, does seem to have been in some ways ideal for syncretism with Judaism, with its quasi-monotheistic emphasis on the worship of the Eternal Blue Sky (which in the early days of Asiatic Judaism was declared to be one and the same with God Most High) and the holiness of the mountain Burkhan Kaldun, which provided an excellent justification for Temujin’s chosen status (he was born at its base) and an convenient connection to the story of Moses.
Nor was this momentous shift the work of a single man in a single moment; Temujin may have begun the formation and spread of Asiatic Judaism in earnest (even though he received the basics of the religion ready-made from the Ong Khan), but that religion reached its current size only due to the tireless work of many men spread over four centuries. Shlomo Melech Chonguo*, Khagan Ogedai, the above-mentioned Ong Khan, and even Jochebed the Slave can put forward a case for fatherhood of Asiatic Judaism in some ways better than that of Temujin himself.
But I run centuries ahead of myself. The story of Asiatic Judaism begins its long and crooked tale in the glorious springtime of the year Christians call 1162, in the hilly plains to the north of the Gobi Desert…
*Imagine a bit of Paul of Tarsus, a bit of Constantine the Great, and a bit of OTL Genghis Khan. The name means “Solomon, King of China” in...errr...Hebrew-Mandarin (Hebranderin?). Don’t worry, it’s not actually what he called himself; that’s just the name traditionally used for him in the West.
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