IamJoseph

Whew! So Europe destroys Judea, massacres millions, then commits a continueing sub-human persecution for 1800 years, topped with another holocaust, and fastediously barrs Jews from returing to their land - ends up being Jews stealing their own land as their crime. Will the truth still set you free?

I never forgot anything. Paul was not around when Titus left a partial wall of the temple standing - as a reminder to anyone challenging Rome's divine emperors. Paul was executed by Rome well before 70 CE, being sent in 65 CE to Rome for his trial, and killed off in the sea voyage before he got there.

bacht

First of all it was the Romans who destroyed Judea. Western Europe at this time was mainly Celtic and Germanic tribes under Roman authority. Eastern Europe had little formal government afaik other than territories like Romania under nominal Roman control.

If you're going to talk about how Europeans treated Jews over the centuries you have to break it down into manageable pieces. In the early medieval period western Europe was in chaos. Jews actually lived peacefully among western Christians for these centuries. The period beginning with the 1st Crusade in 1099 marks the start of official persecution and expulsion from western countries.

Jews in the West were forced to earn a living from commerce or professions like law, hence the stereotype of Shylock. This obtained until the Enlightenment when institutions like the Inquisition were de-fanged. I don't know if western Jews were allowed to own land until the 20th C, though I think they could in America before this. Jews in eastern Europe were never really welcome, and many were poor peasants. The nadir was the pogroms in the 19th C, especially state-sanctioned persecution in Russia.

It's a sad story but not totally tragic. Europeans had mixed feelings about Jews, partly because they came from Asia, partly because they were linked with ancient pre-European cultures. And of course there was the blood libel about "christ-killers" mixed with magico-mystic superstititions about the children of Israel.

But what was happening elsewhere? Were the Chinese emperors more tolerant? Weren't the Japanese xenophobic? What about the Indians, did they allow minorities freedom of movement and capital? Did all Muslim countries welcome Jews? These are the relevant questions, we have to have some context within which to judge European actions and attitudes. The fact that the Jews somehow survived into modern times is fairly remarkable.

I'm not going to argue about the Holocaust or Zionism, these aren't relevant topics to this forum, and we've already drifted into fringe territory with these posts.

Solo

The issue here is taking isolated artifacts and making all sorts of unwarranted conclusions by fabricating contexts to them while ignoring contrary evidence. Here, in the case of Paul, Rom 1:21-23:

.....for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.


Jiri

premjan

Jews lived for a long time in India without as far as I know, significant persecution because freedom of religion was generally protected in India. I have not heard of any persecution of Jews in China either. In Europe it was partially racism, from Aristotle and Alexander onwards there was a tendency to look down on Asians as an inferior race.

spamandham

From Paul's rant about the downfall of humanity as a whole, you conclude that the early church was overly concerned with artwork?

I don't understand where the idea comes from that the church so strictly adhered to the 2nd commandment, that they would avoid even artwork.

bacht

The quote above sounds like it came straight from the OT, where prophets railed against idols for centuries. But Paul's audience was gentiles, who were the producers of these statues and figurines. Was he (or early church writers) trying to impose the Jewish ban on Christians?

wordy

My wild guess is that Jesus is the symbol for all the Jews that was crucified but that the Romans made a State Religion out of something that is lost to us now.

My wild guess is that there are many groups fighting for political power and they change the story to show themselves as righteous and the others as evil. But I only guess.