AHC: Get Judaism to be a major religion

Have Christianity remain being thought of as a sect of Judaism. Presto. Judaism now comprises 33% of the world's population.
 
Or, just butterfly Christianity entirely. According to some sources, Jews comprised 10% of the Roman population around 0 CE and there was a much more active proselytizing movement than today. If Christianity never absorbs the proselytizers, Judaism can appeal to many of the same people as Christianity did, whilst the similar cultural emphasis on law will make it less of a threat to Roman elites.
 
Judaism will need to be a lot more interested in missionizing, a lot more. The "rules" of Judaism, starting with circumcision and kosher are obstacles to conversion, although not as much as some would think - after all Islam has some of the same dietary restrictions and many "rules", less than Judaism but many more than Christianity as it affects the average persons life. Of course for Islam in many areas it followed the sword and pagans had the choice of Islam or the sword frequently. IMHO you'd need to somehow cause Christianity to vanish - it won't be a sect of Judaism long term, one of the key differences was that Christianity specifically said the laws of Judaism were now obsolete.
 
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Have Christianity remain being thought of as a sect of Judaism. Presto. Judaism now comprises 33% of the world's population.

A start would be keeping Jesus' brother James alive. If I understand the doctrinal issues correctly, James saw Christianity much more as a kind of reformation of Judaism than a wholly new religion. His Christianity was much more based on the Hebrew tradition. His death and the subsequent sack of Jerusalem by Vespasian meant that the Christianity that spread around the Mediterranean was the version based on the Septuagint, the Greek Torah created by the Alexandrian Jewish community.

Keep him alive, keep Vespasian from sacking Jerusalem, and he'll be able to exert a lot more influence on how Christianity develops, and may even be able to keep it from budding off from Judaism entirely.

As an interesting butterfly, a Torah-based Christianity rather than a Septuagint-based one would likely have a greatly reduced role for Mary, as her virginal status is based on a difference in word choice in Isaiah 7:14. The Torah refers to an "almah" (young woman) birthing the savior. The Septuagint translated it as a virginal woman. One is obviously quite a bit less miraculous than the other.
 
Make Jews actively proselytize and convert more people to Judaism, while removing the foundation of Christianity and Islam.
 
Aksum doesn't manage to interfere in Yemen, which seems like the best bet to establish a Jewish state. This butterflies away Islam, and one could imagine a timeline where Judaism spreads across the Indian Ocean. In this case, I think one could have a Jewish majority in Yemen, Oman, Somalia, and perhaps also a major Jewish group in Kerala.
 

elkarlo

Banned
Or, just butterfly Christianity entirely. According to some sources, Jews comprised 10% of the Roman population around 0 CE and there was a much more active proselytizing movement than today. If Christianity never absorbs the proselytizers, Judaism can appeal to many of the same people as Christianity did, whilst the similar cultural emphasis on law will make it less of a threat to Roman elites.
Don't have emperors be demigods, and the hellenic Jews would be a serious religion soon enough imho
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Getting the First confederations who formed formed the religion be bigger would help a lot. But yes,the ethnic compositions, culture and the structure of the religion would look very different. But it would be possible.
 

Marc

Donor
Unfortunately, there is that pesky problem of frequent and bloody uprisings by Jews against the Romans - throws a damper on their wider appeal in the Roman Mediterranean world. (There were some serious rebellions as late the mid-4th century).
Back then, Judaism was as much about ethnic politics as it is about theology.
 
Keep him alive, keep Vespasian from sacking Jerusalem, and he'll be able to exert a lot more influence on how Christianity develops, and may even be able to keep it from budding off from Judaism entirely.

For a really interesting POD, somehow have Vespasian convert.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
I can't really imagine that, unless someone confused "Jews" and "semites". Source?
Of course. Semitic peoples would be of a significant number(probably greater than 10pc) but they would include even the Aramaic speaking Assyrian peoples as well along with the Jews. And not all Jews were Semitic even back then probably. The Romanoite Jews would be European and speaking an European language even then. Not to mention the many descendants of Roman Jews.
 
Judaism will need to be a lot more interested in missionizing, a lot more. The "rules" of Judaism, starting with circumcision and kosher are obstacles to conversion, although not as much as some would think - after all Islam has some of the same dietary restrictions and many "rules", less than Judaism but many more than Christianity as it affects the average persons life. Of course for Islam in many areas it followed the sword and pagans had the choice of Islam or the sword frequently. IMHO you'd need to somehow cause Christianity to vanish - it won't be a sect of Judaism long term, one of the key differences was that Christianity specifically said the laws of Judaism were now obsolete.

Have read they were historically a more missionizing faith prior to Rome adopting Christianity (with Romans being interested in Judaism in OTL - notwithstanding the Roman-Jewish Wars), with the absence or screwing of the latter (into an Ebionite / Mandaean like small sect that broke off from Judaism and moved outside of the Roman Empire) it would be interesting to see Rome ultimately adopt Judaism (or possibly at least a Latinized version of Hellenistic Judaism).
 
I can't really imagine that, unless someone confused "Jews" and "semites". Source?

IIRC it was the Jewish Encyclopedia, which hypothesized that there was a large portion of proselytoi throughout the Empire, particularly in the Greek East and in Rome. Certainly there are records from the 1st Century BCE of people like Cicero complaining about the Jews, though here the antisemitism of such speakers might tend to cause them to rhetorically inflate the numbers. Even if it wasn't as high as 10% it seems likely that there was a much higher Jewish population than in most European countries today or possibly even pre-Shoah, and I honestly would not have a hard time believing that the Jews made up 10% or more of the population of the City per se. Don't forget that the Diaspora had already began even if not in earnest; and the mass enslavement of the Jews during the enforced diaspora would have certainly diminished their numbers.
 
If we're talking, "Have some other Hebrew derived religion become massive, rather than Christianity" there are ways you can do that, I'm sure, that are not too hard.

But if we're talking about Rabbinic Judaism, specifically (with the Mishnah and Talmud and halakha, and evolving out of the Pharisees), then that's harder to do as it doesn't really exist until well after Christianity is fairly massive, and anything you do to butterfly Christianity will probably butterfly away Rabbinic Judaism as a religious movement.
 
One idea I've seen is to have Mohammed embrace Judaism, specifically as a proto-Karaite, and have that become the driving religious ideology of the Arab conquests.
 
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