How did the Jewish god become an International Sensation?

[Rainbow Mage]

The Tanakh/Old Testament says nothing about this notion that Christianity and Islam have that we're supposed to be trying to get the whole world to worship the god of Israel, in fact the Torah says for the Jews to worship him, and leave the rest of the world alone. Let them have their gods, but don't go after them. So how did an obviously national deity suddenly become international?

 

[Rakhel]

envy, maybe?

 

[*Paul*]

Nothing about the Gentiles trusting in Him also?

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Nothing about the Gentiles trusting in Him also?

Why should they? The Tanakh says they have their own gods. Why not trust in those? Or has Christianity and Islam removed you from the heritage of your ancestors?

 

[Tiapan]

I would have said it was mostly due to European world colonization and domination from the 15th -20th century, with the British, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese being prominent.

One of the cultural aspects introduced by the Europeans where their missionarys who displaced forcefully earlier local cultural religions, replacing them with the christian god, who was modeled on the jewish god, which in turn was modeled on the egyptian god, Ra.

Cheers.

 

[Levite]

The Tanakh/Old Testament says nothing about this notion that Christianity and Islam have that we're supposed to be trying to get the whole world to worship the god of Israel, in fact the Torah says for the Jews to worship him, and leave the rest of the world alone. Let them have their gods, but don't go after them. So how did an obviously national deity suddenly become international?

Christianity. Specifically, Pauline Christianity. Paul was the one who decided that the Hebrew Scriptures were somehow supposed to be applicable to everyone, even though for some reason you weren't supposed to observe the commandments anymore, which is kind of the reason for the Hebrew Scriptures, but...whatever, I guess.

 

[Penumbra]

Why do some people become celebrities while most are not? A lot of it is hard work, but a lot of it also has to do with catching a really rare break.

Judaism had Paul come around and start preaching it to gentiles. And then centuries later the big man, emperor Constantine, converted to Christianity, and from there the stories go. And then Christians and Muslims were the groups with the most technology and power, and began spreading their culture.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Jesus is a rock star.

Seriously. He was a relaxed, poor guy hanging out with poor people suggesting forgiveness and mercy. And, he extolled the Jewish God.

 

[Revasser]

The same way any celebrity of questionable talent and worth becomes an international sensation; people with loads of money surrounding them, great marketing and an unsuspecting, ignorant public who'll flock to anyone that looks shiny (or who threatens to hit them if they don't join up.)

 

[fallingblood]

A little research into Christian history, early Christian history, would go a long way. I would suggest reading L. Michael White's book From Jesus to Christianity. It would shine a lot of light on this subject for you.

 

[arimoff]

Why do some people become celebrities while most are not? A lot of it is hard work, but a lot of it also has to do with catching a really rare break.

Judaism had Paul come around and start preaching it to gentiles. And then centuries later the big man, emperor Constantine, converted to Christianity, and from there the stories go. And then Christians and Muslims were the groups with the most technology and power, and began spreading their culture.

Actually Jews didn't just play a major roll in spreading monotheism while being scattered among others, they at the same time played a major roll in technology, science, medicine power and basically in almost every other case.

A great way to succeed.

 

[Penumbra]

Actually Jews didn't just play a major roll in spreading monotheism while being scattered among others, they at the same time played a major roll in technology, science, medicine power and basically in almost every other case.

A great way to succeed.

Part of it has to do with the culture. Jews generally don't believe their culture (including religion) is necessarily superior to all others, and so they don't do much preaching (at least since Biblical times where the ancient Israelites were apparently pretty terrible).

Jews, throughout the last couple thousand years, were a fairly small group, consisting of only tens of millions of people. It was not hundreds of millions like the Christians and the Muslims. While Jews have always been among the most highly educated of groups, they lacked the numbers/power and the desire to invade others and spread their religion. (So no Jews crossing the Atlantic to spread their religion to the inhabitants, or enslaving Africans on an epic scale that eventually resulted in many of them adopting the culture, or trying to preach in Chinese and Japanese cultures.

 

[AxisMundi]

The Tanakh/Old Testament says nothing about this notion that Christianity and Islam have that we're supposed to be trying to get the whole world to worship the god of Israel, in fact the Torah says for the Jews to worship him, and leave the rest of the world alone. Let them have their gods, but don't go after them. So how did an obviously national deity suddenly become international?

Organized religion demands corruption due to its inherent political power base and wealth generation.

 

[Kodanshi]

Christianity. Specifically, Pauline Christianity. Paul was the one who decided that the Hebrew Scriptures were somehow supposed to be applicable to everyone, even though for some reason you weren't supposed to observe the commandments anymore, which is kind of the reason for the Hebrew Scriptures, but...whatever, I guess.

I agree whole–heartedly with the above. I would also like to add the following:

Jews documented their nationalist history extensively (though most likely from their captivity in Babylon onwards, and thus drawing upon Babylonian myths and legends too) and certainly knew their religion thoroughly. They proved eloquent in these matters and consummate at exegesis, midrash and religious debate.

So when people presented Yeshua‘ (Jesus) as THE Messiah expected by the Jews they had a fight on their hands, not least of which because nothing in Judaism predicted a messiah who would die before emancipating them. Earliest Christians naturally came from Jewish stock. Accordingly they drew upon Jewish history (they had to so that others would engage them in debate). Gentile Christians, therefore, had to subsume the entire Tanakh as their Old Testament in order to establish Jesus’ place within history — only to break him away from it.

 

[arimoff]

The Tanakh/Old Testament says nothing about this notion that Christianity and Islam have that we're supposed to be trying to get the whole world to worship the god of Israel, in fact the Torah says for the Jews to worship him, and leave the rest of the world alone. Let them have their gods, but don't go after them. So how did an obviously national deity suddenly become international?

Just proofs that G-D exists. 10-20 million people carrying His message keep surviving regardless of all that has happened to them and a final return home just adds to that.

 

[AxisMundi]

Just proofs that G-D exists. 10-20 million people carrying His message keep surviving regardless of all that has happened to them and a final return home just adds to that.

Ancedotal evidence at best, which doesn't prove anything except that self-fullfilling prophesy comes in quite handy.

 

[*Paul*]

Why should they? The Tanakh says they have their own gods. Why not trust in those? Or has Christianity and Islam removed you from the heritage of your ancestors?

I never said whether they should or shouldn't, I was asking if the Old Testament mentions if the gentiles will trust in the Jewish God?

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I never said whether they should or shouldn't, I was asking if the Old Testament mentions if the gentiles will trust in the Jewish God?

It mentions briefly that some Gentiles will grab onto the fringe of a Jew's garment and learn the Torah from them. That isn't Christianity or Islam by any stretch of the imagination, since both claim the Torah is no longer binding on anyone.

 

[Kodanshi]

Just proofs that G-D exists. 10-20 million people carrying His message keep surviving regardless of all that has happened to them and a final return home just adds to that.

Logical fallacy of Appeal to Numbers. Number of people believing in something does NOT automatically make it the truth. Or did prophets who started out with no followers start off ‘wrong’?

This stems back to our evolutionary past of ‘safety in numbers’. Follow the herd and you’d live. Great for pack protection, not so good at determining the veracity of something.

How many people in the world? More than 6.7 billion, and that was figures back in September of 2008. How many Christians in the world? More than 2 billion. Does that make the people not believing Christianity correct? (I know you follow Judaism, just saying, is all).

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I have never considered God to Jewish, or belong to the Jews.
God was around long before them, and was worshipped since man thought up religion.
The Jews were not even the first or only peoples to believe in a single God.

If you believe in a single God as both Christians and Muslims do, and base your beliefs on those prevailing at the time. It is inevitable that that God will be thought to be the same one.
However the Jews Christians and Muslims have very different concepts of Gods Nature.