Judaism Without Gentile Converts

What would happen if non-Hebrews/Israelites never massively adopted Judaism? No Ethiopians, no Khazars, no South Arabians, no conquered Canaanites like those from Edom, etc. Basically a "pure" ethnic religion. Would we lose many important people and events in history?
 
What would happen if non-Hebrews/Israelites never massively adopted Judaism? No Ethiopians, no Khazars, no South Arabians, no conquered Canaanites like those from Edom, etc. Basically a "pure" ethnic religion. Would we lose many important people and events in history?

Herod, to just say one guy, with, well, kind some importance.
 

yofie

Banned
Unless I'm mistaken, all Israelites were in fact descended from Canaanites.

Remember what the Bible says, that Abraham came from Ur Kasdim, in Mesopotamia, and he married his cousin Sarah. Isaac and Jacob, their son and grandson respectively, married Aramean girls; and Jacob begot 70+ progeny who then went down to Egypt. The Israelites lived in Egypt for 400 or so years, after which they made their Exodus from Egypt, wandering in the desert for 40 years. Only then did they, now under Joshua, conquer the Land of Canaan and were instructed by God to get rid of Canaanite idols and so forth as well, not that they all actually did. But it is true, Israelites were close ethnic relatives of the Canaanites!
 
Remember what the Bible says, that Abraham came from Ur Kasdim, in Mesopotamia, and he married his cousin Sarah. Isaac and Jacob, their son and grandson respectively, married Aramean girls; and Jacob begot 70+ progeny who then went down to Egypt. The Israelites lived in Egypt for 400 or so years, after which they made their Exodus from Egypt, wandering in the desert for 40 years. Only then did they, now under Joshua, conquer the Land of Canaan and were instructed by God to get rid of Canaanite idols and so forth as well, not that they all actually did. But it is true, Israelites were close ethnic relatives of the Canaanites!

Even aside from the fact that that is not a historical account of any great reliability - the continuity between the people who were in on the exodus deal and the "Jewish" population of either the second temple satrapy or the Herodian kingdom is tenuous at best. Quite simply, we have to reckon with outsiders being integrated into Judaism all the time (and, of course, Jews going out to throw in their lot with the Gentiles, as the OT hardly ever ceases to lament).
 
Most modern Jewish ethnic groups have obvious Gentile ancestry, as well as Israelite ancestry, so are you trying to keep them almost pure Hebrew? Because the diaspora is going to have them intermarrying with everyone.
 
Remember what the Bible says, that Abraham came from Ur Kasdim, in Mesopotamia, and he married his cousin Sarah. Isaac and Jacob, their son and grandson respectively, married Aramean girls; and Jacob begot 70+ progeny who then went down to Egypt. The Israelites lived in Egypt for 400 or so years, after which they made their Exodus from Egypt, wandering in the desert for 40 years. Only then did they, now under Joshua, conquer the Land of Canaan and were instructed by God to get rid of Canaanite idols and so forth as well, not that they all actually did. But it is true, Israelites were close ethnic relatives of the Canaanites!

Sorry, but I trust the archaeological record before I trust the Biblical account of history.
 
I think the main problem would have been an incredibly small nonviable gene pool.

You said Israelites so I'll take it you're starting with Jacob (Israel) as the cut off point.

Abraham married his half-sister, Sarah.
Isaac married his parent's great-niece Rebecca.
Jacob married his first cousins Rachel and Leah and took two concubines of unknown parentage. His brother Esau married a grand-daughter of Abraham and a number of pagan wives.

Abraham also fathered a son, Ishmael, from a pagan concubine and later took a second wife who also gave him a number of sons.
Ishmael married a pagan too and fathered twelve sons and unknown number of daughters.

You're then left with a Jewish nation descending entirely from Jacob's twelve sons and sole daughter and whatever spouses they can draft from their kinfolk descended from Ishmael, Esau and Abraham's other sons, who I would assume would also be faithful to YHWH.

From then on the level of in-breeding would be more than even Crufts could ever bare ;)
 
Without Jewish converts there is nothing that resembles Christianity.

Most Christian evangelism in the first generations was in Jewish communities outside of Judea, and a good many of the converts (to Christianity) were newish converts to Judaism.

Obviously, God can do what he wants, and Christianity could have still come about ... but OTL's version pretty much required the expansion of Judaism in the Roman Empire to lay the groundwork.

Without Christianity, you're not going to have Islam (again, in any recognizable form).

Without Christianity and Islam, the world is a hugely different place.
 

yofie

Banned
Not necessarily no intermarriage, but I mean no groups without Hebrew/Israelite/Semitic lineage convert as a whole (like the Khazars).

So you're still incorporating conversion stories like Ruth the Moabite being converted to Judaism and being an ancestor of King David?
 
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