Alternatives to Christianity in a world without Rome

[LostInNewDelhi]

what proselytizing religion could spring up in Judea under the Parthian Empire, spreading throughout it as Christianity spread throughout Rome.

So the question is
- how would Second Temple Judaism without much of an onerous foreign yoke still manage to polarize or alienate a group of Jews into breaking out of the insular world of... Judah and friends, Palestine, whatever
- and, what would the adjacent populations-- take your pick of Arab and other Semitic caravan traders in the inland, coastal Greeks or Hellenophones, Aramaic peoples of western/northern Syria and Iraq, Parthian and Persians in Iraq, and the Egyptians-- actually derive from that?

Were a dispute in Judaism to become acrimonious enough (I guess it would involve disputes over the king's powers) to produce a minor tradition of martyrs/charismatic leaders, I could see the appropriation of this authority being useful for groups similar to those behind the Palmyrene Empire (or more likely a second attempt after an initial failure and suppression), with Aramaic being useful as a language of communication. In fact this is the only thing we can say for sure-- Aramaic would occupy the role of Greek in any such religion

 

[Harshavardhana]

A world with no Christianity? I am not that knowledgeable but maybe Buddhism or specifically an established version of Sogdian Buddhism becoming popular in Russia or something using the Central Asian nomads 🤷‍♂️.

 

[Gloss]

In this timeline, Rome was destroyed by Gauls in 387 BC. As a result, the Parthians control the Levant and Egypt. Christianity is butterflied away because:
1. Jesus was killed by the Romans
2. Centuries of oppression of Jews by Greeks and Romans led to Jews looking for a messiah. The Parthians were tolerant towards the Jews, so it would not be a messianic religion.
3. Christianity takes elements from various religious practices in the Roman Empire, including but not limited to ritualized dining, the imperial cult (Christians say Christ is king for a reason), Constantine’s solidifying of Christian doctrine, Latin and Greek as liturgical languages, Christmas being celebrated on the same day as a holiday dedicated to Sol Invictus, and the generation of saints, which evolved from Greek pagan hero cults.
4. Due to the POD being 387 BC and the butterfly effect, there is very little change that Jesus or Paul the Apostle are born.
5. Due to the Parthians’ religious tolerance, there would not be a fixation on martyrdom.

What would a religion that, as Christianity would spread around the Roman Empire, spread around the Parthian Empire, look like?

Parthians wouldn't necessarily conquer the Seleucids if Rome doesn't exist.
2) Christianity arose before the Jewish-Roman wars, so it wasn't Roman oppression that created it.

I don't think there would be any exclusive faith that would spread instead of Christianity, Hellenistic mediation and influence could encourage people from different regions to take up foreign cults or find compromises or similarities between various divine figures or religious practices but beyond that I don't think it would be that different from what happened historically under Rome.

 

[PecuTheGreat]

Zoroastrainism or Pharoanic religion reforms and expands into the West. Simple as.(Or maybe something from Assyrian Paganism, I forget what that's called)

 

[PecuTheGreat]

Zoroastrainism or Pharoanic religion reforms and expands into the West. Simple as.(Or maybe something from Assyrian Paganism, I forget what that's called)

You can also just have alt-Christianity, AKA a different religion with similar heavy Aramao-Jewish and Hellenic influences while also having a distinct identity, especially from Hellenism. like the Hellenized Jews In Alexandria, I forget his name, that was basically a pseudo-Church father to Christians.

 

[omnidirectional]

I think in this world, the big religious upheavals would be some kind of cult in Carthaginian territory that rejects and opposes human sacrifice, and some kind of religious dispute in the Celtic world between the Druids wanting to keep everything oral and unwritten and Celtic aristocrats and tribal leagues adopting Greek writing and science and cities somewhat, and wanting to curb the Druids or have things written down.

I think Judaea being under the Parthians/Persians means they're tolerated and not too unhappy and take a different course that avoids Christianity entirely. I think the Persian part of the world could see some tension if Buddhism starts spreading into traditionally Zoroastrian areas, but the Persian empire weren't big on religious wars. I think the Punic and Celtic areas would be more religious tension powder kegs in this scenario.

 

[Tyler96]

Zoroastrainism or Pharoanic religion reforms and expands into the West. Simple as.(Or maybe something from Assyrian Paganism, I forget what that's called)

Isn't the Pharaonic religion pretty tied into the Pharaoh and Egyptian state?

 

[PecuTheGreat]

Isn't the Pharaonic religion pretty tied into the Pharaoh and Egyptian state?

Eh, Hellenes like it and took alot of ideas from it, that's how ISIS spread, so maybe I shouldn't have called it Pharoanic religion. Ancient Egyptian outgrowth religion? Isisism?.

 

[SlyDessertFox]

Worth noting is that it’s likely we’d still see the Jews spread out across the continent - but now they lack the protection the Catholic Church afforded them.

I mean they also lack the reason they were specifically targeted for antisemitic attacks and shunned from mainstream European society. Hating Jews is not some default position of European commoners, it has a very specific relationship to Christianity and the historical belief among many Christians, developed from the Bible, that Jews were "Christ Killers."

EDIT: Also, not sure about a world without Rome, but in a world without Christianity, @Practical Lobster explored something like this in To Ourselves, To New Paganism

 

[Metempsychosis]

Zoroastrainism or Pharoanic religion reforms and expands into the West. Simple as.(Or maybe something from Assyrian Paganism, I forget what that's called)

Western Europe tho.

I mean they also lack the reason they were specifically targeted for antisemitic attacks and shunned from mainstream European society. Hating Jews is not some default position of European commoners, it has a very specific relationship to Christianity and the historical belief among many Christians, developed from the Bible, that Jews were "Christ Killers."

EDIT: Also, not sure about a world without Rome, but in a world without Christianity, @Practical Lobster explored something like this in To Ourselves, To New Paganism

To be fair, pre-Christian Rome already had a lot of contempt against Jews.

 

[PecuTheGreat]

I mean they also lack the reason they were specifically targeted for antisemitic attacks and shunned from mainstream European society. Hating Jews is not some default position of European commoners, it has a very specific relationship to Christianity and the historical belief among many Christians, developed from the Bible, that Jews were "Christ Killers."

EDIT: Also, not sure about a world without Rome, but in a world without Christianity, @Practical Lobster explored something like this in To Ourselves, To New Paganism

While it can be argued that European Christiandom was uniquely hard on Jews, this wasn't something that started during Christianity, the Romans already had their reasons to hate them and several places like Cyprus had laws to kill them on sight.

They'll still have a shit time in Europe most likely but maybe unlike in Christian Europe, after a few centuries why they were hated would be forgotten.

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

Now, could a religion take off in the place of Christianity? No, it couldn’t, because Christianity is a really good thing for poor people to have as it says “hey, you? You matter and are loved!” Perhaps we’d see the spread of Zoroastrianism, but I doubt we’d see Mithraism take off, as that was, well... a cult that was insular.

Yeah, "you matter and are loved" - ask Elbean Slavs or Old Prussians, genocided and colonized by Christians to the point of their languages and cultures being extinct, ask Lithuanians whose state was mercilessly raided by Christian Teutonic Order pre-baptism, ask Poles who mostly believe themselves to be idiots unable to do anything without Church and auto-racist statements are common on Polish Facebook - once I encountered the guy who said that Slavs (larger ethnic group Poles are part of) are "poor, pitiful ethnicity destined to slavery" and that they would amount to nothing without Christianity, so sorry I don't feel "loved" at all by actions of practitioners of that religion.
Church of course had it's achievements, sometimes very big and very impactful, but without monotheistic proselytizing religion, the ethnic beliefs would just develop over time.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Eh, Hellenes like it and took alot of ideas from it, that's how ISIS spread, so maybe I shouldn't have called it Pharoanic religion. Ancient Egyptian outgrowth religion? Isisism?.

Plus, there is a theory that early "Madonna and Child" images were based off of "Isis and the infant Horus" images.

Although, a "Horus as a Jesus-analogue" religion might be interesting.

 

[SlickerVyn]

Plus, there is a theory that early "Madonna and Child" images were based off of "Isis and the infant Horus" images.

Although, a "Horus as a Jesus-analogue" religion might be interesting.

Posts like this make me want to scream because of how ahistorical it is. The first part, sure, I can maybe buy... the second? No. Horus could never be a Jesus-analogue because, and I emphasis this heavily, he's not even remotely similar to Jesus for this to happen. The one myth I know about him involves casting out his uncle Set's semen from his anus and onto a cabbage to gain the throne.

They'll still have a shit time in Europe most likely but maybe unlike in Christian Europe, after a few centuries why they were hated would be forgotten.

Doubtful. When you look at the rhetoric used by Romans to justify the persecution of the Jews, you'll notice it is strikingly similar to the rhetoric used today. So no, the reasons why they would be hated won't be forgotten, because it wasn't some singular event that caused everyone to hate Jews, it was them being blamed for basically everything.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Posts like this make me want to scream because of how ahistorical it is. The first part, sure, I can maybe buy... the second? No. Horus could never be a Jesus-analogue because, and I emphasis this heavily, he's not even remotely similar to Jesus for this to happen. The one myth I know about him involves casting out his uncle Set's semen from his anus and onto a cabbage to gain the throne.

I didn't imply that he would be like Jesus in any way shape or form. Just that he would have a position similar to Jesus within the religion.

 

[SlickerVyn]

I didn't imply that he would be like Jesus in any way shape or form. Just that he would have a position similar to Jesus within the religion.

Oh, my apologies. I've just heard one too many "Jesus was inspired by Horus" crap so seeing that idea set me off.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Oh, my apologies. I've just heard one too many "Jesus was inspired by Horus" crap so seeing that idea set me off.

No problem. I was more implying "one specific thing to do with Mary and Jesus* was inspired at least in part with one specific thing to do with Isis and Horus".

*e.g. these:

 

[Gloss]

Yeah, "you matter and are loved" - ask Elbean Slavs or Old Prussians, genocided and colonized by Christians to the point of their languages and cultures being extinct, ask Lithuanians whose state was mercilessly raided by Christian Teutonic Order pre-baptism, ask Poles who mostly believe themselves to be idiots unable to do anything without Church and auto-racist statements are common on Polish Facebook - once I encountered the guy who said that Slavs (larger ethnic group Poles are part of) are "poor, pitiful ethnicity destined to slavery" and that they would amount to nothing without Christianity, so sorry I don't feel "loved" at all by actions of practitioners of that religion.
Church of course had it's achievements, sometimes very big and very impactful, but without monotheistic proselytizing religion, the ethnic beliefs would just develop over time.

While Christianity was indeed violent, the example you bring are rather weird considering that both Elbian Slavs and and Old Prussians went extinct in the 18th century, far after the bulk of the violence happened.
One of the slowest genocide ever that had the people being genocide leaving a lot of their ancestry to the "newcomers".

 

[Zygmunt Stary]

While Christianity was indeed violent, the example you bring are rather weird considering that both Elbian Slavs and and Old Prussians went extinct in the 18th century, far after the bulk of the violence happened.
One of the slowest genocide ever that had the people being genocide leaving a lot of their ancestry to the "newcomers".

I exaggerated it, of course, but the point was to show it's not rainbow and sunshine (at least it wasn't) and it's introduction could lead to multi-generational trauma.

 

[SlickerVyn]

I exaggerated it, of course, but the point was to show it's not rainbow and sunshine (at least it wasn't) and it's introduction could lead to multi-generational trauma.

Then don't exaggerate a point because it damages your credibility. Just lay the facts out straight.

On this thread's topic, (since I don't want to start a derail,) I think China's a good example to use. It didn't have Christianity but we see the various folk beliefs intermingle with each other and develop. We'd probably see something similar in a world without Rome... or at least, loosely so. The Greeks did tend to identify other foreign gods with their own, which I consider a form of cultural appropriation, and I firmly believe this helped overwrite the native Celtic myths. Granted they were transmitted orally as well, but I still think Roman and Greek influence damaged the Celtic religions through the identification method.

I believe that Plato's philosophy would emerge as a dominant one, but I also don't think Zoroastrianism would take Christianity's place because nothing can. Christianity has unique aspects (promises of an eternal reward for the just and those who have suffered, a personal relationship with a loving God, etc,) that helped it gain many converts compared to the pagan religions. Crap, even outside of Europe, this helped it succeed in places like the Artic among Inuit peoples who lived in constant fear of their native spirits, or so I've read. Without that, nothing can really gain as much strength and influence as Christianity.

In any case, the Celtic religions are not gonna have a fun time.