Christianity more of a Fusion of Hellenistic Polytheism and Judaism

Yeah, but what would catalyse this shift in thought? Ideas don't just randomly generate, especially theological ones. It won't be something as simple as "trade and contact between India and the Roman Empire increases, leading to exchange of ideas". There is compelling reason to believe that the more monist branches of Hindu thought developed entirely in Northern India due to contact with and cultural influence from Islamic kingdoms. Thus, OTL Christianity would be a prerequisite for that train of thought.

As I said earlier, Judaism was at this time very monotheistic, and coexisted in Hellenistic culture just fine without a loss of religious identity. Christianity, an offshoot of Judaism, followed that precedent. For this Polytheistic Christianity concept to work, it'd need some precedent of monism that didn't really exist in common Hellenistic religion. The closest you get is Neo-Platonism, and that didn't come about until around when Pauline Christianity was already on the upswing.

Actually, there is some archaeological evidence that the Judaism in Alexandria near Egypt had some very strange syncretistic forms (temples with both YHWH and ?Egyptian? gods). So there WAS a branch of Judaism that might serve as a basis for this. Of course, this is a couple of hundred years IIRC before Christianity, and probably no longer existed then. Any religion that developped there would be VERY different from Christianity.
 
Damned difficult to do. Judaism by that time was strongly monotheistic; had been for a good while. It doesn't mesh well with Hellenistic polytheism, though it works okay with Hellenistic philosophy and culture; because, well, it did for hundreds of years.
It just would be almost impossible to reconcile the radically different theological perspectives and practices.
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Well their was a point before Modern Polytheism that you see after the Exodus and their was another point during the period of the Diadochi when Hellenism became popular in Israel, and Jews spread out across the Selucid and Ptoletmy empires became "lax" but then the Macabbees came and pretty much took over and went to straight lace monotheism.
 
I have been critical of some of the recent romantic/quixotic paganwanks on this Board esp in regards to "Pure Polytheism". However I do not regard Christianity in either its OTL manifestation or certain contemporary Protestant formulations as inevitable. I turn again and again to Augustine a figure I regard with ambivalence. I do wonder WI if the Neoplantonist in Augustine won out (ie. more than OTL) over the Christian (or more specifically what he regarded as Christian).
 

Skokie

Banned
Except, that's not polytheism. The saints aren't worshipped. They're honoured, venerated even, but not worshipped. Prayed to for intercession, but not as divine powers themselves.
I am a polytheist; I know what polytheism is. Catholicism is not it.

You're right that Catholicism is not polytheist, but it's important to recognize the Catholic understanding of worship. Catholics do in fact worship the saints. But they do not worship them in the same way they worship God.
 
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