• Amoxtli@thelemmy.club
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    43 seconds ago

    There were many streams of Judaism in ancient times, and they were not as closed off as they are today. Jews converted other people. The major distinction between Judaism and that of Christianity and Islam is the sense of universalism. The concerns of Jews are mostly toward Jews. Not outwardly toward non-Jews. It is a covenant with God. Where Christianity and Islam proselytize. For Christians, to save the souls of people against the eternal damnation of the original sin and to seek eternal existence with God. For Islam, it is to expand the community of Muslims. In belligerent times, more Muslim recruits for war.

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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    47 minutes ago

    So in addition to what pretty much everyone else says, you should note the conditions of emergence. Judaism not only doesn’t seek converts; the people it considers its followers were a subjugated people. Not in a position to spread anything. And then after the Romans drove them out of their land a couple centuries BCE, they were basically the world’s biggest refugee population. Again, not a situation that helps proselytization even if they wanted to do it.

    Meanwhile Christianity managed to become the state religion of Rome and basically all of Europe after the collapse of Rome. Added up that’s more than 600 years as the state religion of a global superpower (or superpowers) that actually cared to spread their religion. When you also remember how European colonization was a thing, you basically have three continents’ worth of Christians and significant populations elsewhere.

    Meanwhile Islam came and united the Arabs under one banner. These people, who were only concerned about writing poetry, trade and killing each other for a while, suddenly had both the means and (material and spiritual) incentive to expand. With the two extant superpowers greatly weakened, nobody could do anything about their light cavalry and sheer zeal (remember the Syria crossing?) for a while. You know how the Mongols were united by Genghis Khan and conquered basically everyone? Yeah that’s basically how it went. Muslim merchants, with their country now the wealthiest in the world (sans China I don’t know much about them in that time period) went everywhere and had a tendency to convert trade partners, which got Islam a foothold in places Muslim rule never reached. BTW here I’d like to correct a common mistake: Islam usually didn’t force people to convert. However, Islam was still the state religion and at the top of the socioeconomic ladder, and depending on time and place non-Muslims had significantly harder lives than Muslims. These factors fueled conversions and in a few centuries Islam was the majority religion in these countries.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      24 minutes ago

      I want to note that there isn’t actually a lot of historical evidence for Jewish people being driven out of Judea in any large numbers by the Romans.

      The area did get conquered as part of the Arab conquests though, and while Islam didn’t actually do conversion by the sword, as you mention, they did do conversion by tax relief. It wasn’t just a social heirarchy, they would literally tax you more money if you didn’t convert.

      What almost certainly happened to the Jewish majority in Judea was simple conversion. I was easier to follow Allah than Yahweh, and if they’re theoretically the same god anyways…

    • The_v@lemmy.world
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      11 minutes ago

      Also remember that Islam and Christianity have been shown to be a very mallable tool for political power. The upper echelons were those who controlled the religion, state, and military.

      In all islamic and Christian countries, the state religion was essentially a branch of the government.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Judaism is what’s called an ethnic religion, rather than a universalizing religion. Ethnic religions generally don’t seek converts. There are accounts of forced conversion by Jewish fundamentalists in the Second Temple Period, but even then it tends to be of peoples they regard as ethnically related and ‘fallen astray’ rather than people they see as out-and-out foreigners. Ethnic religions are regarded as a pact between the Divine and a specific set of people - and outsiders are either viewed neutrally or negatively coming (or trying to come) into the faith. As such, ethnic religions generally only propagate by birth or, less often, intermarriage. They don’t want outsiders flooding into their private ethnic pact with the Divine, and, indeed, sometimes regard it as religiously offensive.

    Universalizing religions, on the other hand, are quite explicitly peddling a view of the world that does not, theoretically, have ethnic or cultural borders. Christianity and Islam, both universalizing religions, desire Asian Christians as much as African or European Christians. Theoretically. There is a… great deal of difference between what is taught and what is executed, but in general you can assume that universalizing religions like those more or less always want a person as a convert, regardless of their background. The pact with the divine is regarded as personal, rather than ethnic, and the divine regarded as largely impartial to all the minute divisions of mankind.

  • JackGreenEarth
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    4 hours ago

    Judaism tries to disincentive people to convert while Islam and Christianity both try/have tried very hard to convert people, often at the tip of the sword.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      1 hour ago

      Okay just to make something clear: While Muslim rule spread by force, getting told “comvert or die” was generally a very rare occurrence. Better living conditions for non-Muslims were a thing depending on the time and place, but even then the Islamization of the modern Muslim world outside Arabia was a very gradual process that took, for example, four hundred years in Egypt of one-sided cultural osmosis. Admittedly there was some foul play involved at some points, but almost nobody was converted at the tip of a sword.

  • Dagwood222
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    4 hours ago

    One thing no one mentioned yet.

    Christianity really spread once it became Rome’s state religion, and Islam was always about expanding.

    Once the Jews got kicked out of their homeland they were stateless people. Pretty hard to go against local religion when you’re a guest with no army.

  • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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    5 hours ago

    They believe that God wants us to use our free will, which means that proselytizing isn’t kosher (har har.) Where Christianity and Islam have spread pretty aggressively (often literally), missionary work or let alone forcing people to convert is anathema to Judaism

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    I am not a historian but my bet would be that it’s ultimately a political question.

    Christianity was the religion of the late and medieval Roman Empire, and later of the western European colonial empires.

    Islam was a religion that became a caliphate and a series of empires afterwards.

    There has never been a Jewish empire, and the Jewish kingdoms (Hellenistic Israel, the Khazar khanate, Beta Israel) have been small, non impetial and relatively short lived.

  • SattaRIP@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 hours ago

    Part of why is that Islam and Christianity spread to other cultures, often with force. Judaism doesn’t give heaven points like they do for converting someone.

    • JackGreenEarth
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      4 hours ago

      Not a huge one. The far bigger factor is that it doesn’t try to convert people, while Islam and Christianity both do/have, often at the tip of the sword

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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        4 hours ago

        Not sure why the down vote this is just a fact lol

        Christians and Muslims are brain dead zealots… Seeing clowns pester people in public places. Haven’t seen muslim tbh but Christian twats are worse than NYC guy trying to give you a “gift”

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    It’s because new religions always cherry pick the parts they like of old religions and then eventually replace them entirely. Judaism itself was just made up from parts of Zoroastrianism and Hellenism and Babylonian beliefs.

    It’s all bullshit anyway so it hardly matters. Religions change as needed to meet the changing wants and needs of the people who follow them. A Christian from the time of the crusades would probably be horrified by what is considered to be Christianity today.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    5 hours ago

    Looking at religion purely as a means of comfort for people who are afraid of dying, I wouldn’t think Judaism is very popular compared to Islam or Christianity because afaik, Judaism doesn’t have a clear way to heaven.