Who are you going to alienate by starting a new religion? No one unless you choose to. (Even the intolerant Hebrew scriptures were respected among the pagans by virtue of their antiquity, and this was a big selling point for the many fellow-traveler non-Jew Jews, if you will, and for the later Christians.)
But did the Hebrew’s respect the pagans? Religion is mindkilling, and anyone who ascribes to another one is going to be less fond of you. At least that’s what I was thinking.
Did they all? Who knows. Xenophobia is universal. We do know there were instances and veins of respect for some pagans who did not go so far as to convert & be circumcised. If they were ‘righteous’, which entailed following the basic moral code, they might even avoid Gehenna.
Who are you going to alienate by starting a new religion? No one unless you choose to. (Even the intolerant Hebrew scriptures were respected among the pagans by virtue of their antiquity, and this was a big selling point for the many fellow-traveler non-Jew Jews, if you will, and for the later Christians.)
But did the Hebrew’s respect the pagans? Religion is mindkilling, and anyone who ascribes to another one is going to be less fond of you. At least that’s what I was thinking.
Did they all? Who knows. Xenophobia is universal. We do know there were instances and veins of respect for some pagans who did not go so far as to convert & be circumcised. If they were ‘righteous’, which entailed following the basic moral code, they might even avoid Gehenna.