What is the most powerful empire ever to grace us?

No, Boudicca destroyed Londinium, not Rome. Briton was not a name invented by the Romans, but a Latinization of the Greek name (Prettania).

That's because it wasn't an "enormous" war. It was a one of many rebellions in minor frontier provinces.

Rubbish, neither side gave much of a toss about freedom of belief. The Zealots and especially the Sicarri ("dagger-men") were murdering Jews who were too Hellenistic, who worshipped the Roman deities (or perhaps just went to the Gymnasiums or Baths). For the Jewish rebels, it was about fighting against religious pluralism and establishing the supremacy of their religion, at any cost. For the Romans it wasn't a religious conflict at all; it was about restoring order after the civil disorder caused by the Zealots. 

You're joking, right? The Second Temple was certainly impressive, but hardly "the biggest monument in the world," heck, it wasn't even the biggest temple in the local area. 485' by 145', including the courts and surrounding wall; the temple itself was said to be of the same dimensions as Solomons' temple which was 135' by 35', very modest compared to some Roman and Egyptian temples. Nor was it a product of Jewish culture. Darius I, king of Persia, first built the Second Temple; and Herod razed the Persian version and built a Hellenic-style temple on the site (still called the Second Temple).

True, but they stole it from others before them too - the Jebusites. 

Wrong. The Greeks did get there. Pytheas coined the term "Prettani", not the Romans.

Most religions do hope to appeal to people who aren't yet followers, and sway them over. Nothing particularly exceptional about that. But the Hellenized Jews just did it by choosing to practice their religion publicly - the Zealots did it by murdering any Jews who refused to practice Judaism. See the difference?

Well, they probably just heard all that stuff from a Jew talking about his Canaanite neighbours - the money-grubbing, blood libel tales were originally Jewish propaganda against the Phoenicians and Canaanites, in a twist of ironic justice they got attached to the Jews as well, because the Greeks had difficulty telling them apart.

No it didn't. Many famous Greek philosophers found the Hebrew bible fascinating (long before Alexander).

Fantasies. If it was that big, a fire would hardly have destroyed it. Besides, why would Darius - a Persian - build a structure that was far larger than any other building in the entire history of the planet until the 20th century, for some remote hill-tribe? Darius was obviously friendly with the Jews, but he wasn't that friendly!!

Again, this is nonsense. Religious butchery between Jews predates the Roman occupation, in fact, it is the reason why the Romans came in the first place. They were invited by one side in a civil war. The Jews were stabbing each other to death over religion ever since Hellenic culture, the ancient version of Westernization, spread over the Near East following Alexander's conquests.

Completely ignoring the absurd exaggeration of numbers there, this is still rubbish. Contemporary accounts from both the Jewish and Roman side are in crystal clear agreement on the fact that even as the Romans besieged Jerusalem, religious factions within the city were at war, with different groups controlling different sectors. There were three principal factions: the fanatical Zealots, led by Eleazar the High Priest; the even more fanatical and violent Sicarii, led by Simon bar Giora; and the utterly bizarre followers of John of Giscala, who were reported to have prowled the streets in women's clothes, killing innocents for sport (reminiscent of these guys).

In fact, this infighting became a core element of Jewish religion afterward, which accounts the destruction of the Second Temple as punishment for the violent hatred in Jewish society at the time:

The Gemara indicates the problem, the reason for which we mourn to this day: “Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of students…" They all died, within a short time, because
they did not treat each other with the proper respect . . . 
It is interesting that the destruction – and subsequent mourning for generations – arose
here not because of the wicked people of the generation, but rather because of the Torah 
scholars. Their Torah study did not correct the fundamental defect that brought about
the destruction of the Temple – causeless hatred.

http://www.torahmitzion.org/pub/parsha/5764/emor_gen.pdf

Of course, secular Zionism has a modern political agenda which is at odds with a two-thousand year old rabbinic perspective, so it has to invoke nonsense revisionism, backed by endless repetition rather than fact, to pretend that everything was a utopian paradise between Jews except for all those troublesome outsiders who ruined everything. This is a typical feature of most anti-logical forms of nationalism with many other parallels (for instance, the infamous "Norman Yoke" of English nationalist myth, which posits that the Anglo-Saxons lived in a peaceful utopia until the terrible Normans came and spoiled everything). 

It was hardly a "threat" since the Jews were not attempting to export monotheism, and wouldn't share their religion with curious Greeks. Neither was the concept of monotheism an affront to Greeks and Romans, since many respected Greek philosophers proposed similar concepts and rejected the pantheon (in fact, by the time of the Jewish revolt, the pantheon wasn't even that popular anymore, having been largely usurped by imported mystery cults). Finally, the "head-bashing deities" of the Greek and Roman religions were far, far less violent than the jealous, genocidal tribal god of Judea, who not only instructs his followers to scrub whole cities of the face of the earth, he does so himself - in fact, the mythology has it that he has scrubbed most of the planet of life at least once. Did Zeus ever get upset, have a tantrum, and wipe out almost all life except for a ship full of animals? No. He might have hit a half dozen people with lightning bolts, at most.

What was an affront to the Romans was that Judeo-Romans were being killed by fanatics for practicing Roman religion. More generally, one issue of long-standing hostility between Greco-Romans and Jews was the refusal of Jews to accept syncretism. In our world today, proponents of religious tolerants attempt to find 'universal truths' that are held by all the major religions, and try to accept all the religious traditions as equally valid expressions of these universal truths. The Greco-Romans had a similar concept: they tried to unite the religions through universal deities. This is called syncretism.

In practice, what this meant was that they'd show up and say "Hey! That's a fine god you've got there. He's just like our god, Zeus! We have alot in common ... you know, since they are so similar, they're probably just different names for the same god, different ways of honouring the same god! Isn't this great! Let's share our gods, you show us how you worship him, we'll show you how we worship and we'll learn how to honour Zeus-Yahweh better." Most of the time, with other pantheists, this went over very well. But obviously this is incompatible with the Abrahamic system of belief, and the Jews reacted violently when Hellenes or Romans or Hellenized Jews practiced syncretism with regards to Yahweh. Nor were they willing to share their religious practices and secrets. This infuriated Greco-Romans to no end. What we have here is a mutual religious hostility caused both by the stubbornly naieve views of pantheistic syncretism and monotheism's patronizing refusal to accept other religions as valid and interesting. The ideas were incompatible, and a confrontation was inevitable. 

Bingo. You should read before you copy and paste.

Of course, this is typical in every country and every time period. What do you think Solomon's popularity was based on - sending pretty flowers to the Canaanites?

But they did. It's hardly "desperate", it was a common practice back then - and the Hebrews celebrate their military conquests in their own writings, heck, they even exaggerate their conquests. Just because they were from the area doesn't mean they didn't fight with other tribes in the region and take their land. The Scots and the English are both from Britain, the Romans and Etruscans were both from Italy, it doesn't mean they never tried to steal other's land. 

Because it doesn't say that and you're just making stuff up. Both the masoretic text and the septuagint say that David wanted the city, it was heavily fortified and the Jebusites told him to get lost, and David either snuck in through the sewers (masoretic version) or stormed the city and killed the Jebusites "with daggers" (septuagint version).

If you believe in freedom of religion, what difference does it make what animals the Hellenists want to sacrifice on which day? Freedom means people can decide for themselves. Jewish fanatics were against freedom of religion and stabbed Jewish men, women, and children to death in public if they didn't practice religion the way the fanatics said they should. This was a struggle for freedom of religion ... and, at terrible cost, freedom of religion WON. Ever since the Romans prevailed against the Zealots and Sicarii, people who have been born Jewish can practice any religion they want without worrying that their own people will kill them.

Of course it was. It's the single most apparent doctrine of the Hebrews. Worship the golden calf, and you will all die. Sacrifice the wrong animal, and you will all be killed. Believe in this other god, we will slaughter you. There simply wasn't any other religion more violently dogmatic in the entire region. Granted, it only applied if you happened to be born Jewish, but this doesn't make it one bit less shrill or fanatical.

The entire system of Roman religion stands as proof of the same concept. Foreign religions in all conquered areas were tolerated, sometimes their gods were even imported. The Romans built lavish temples to foreign, native gods in Egypt, Gaul, Greece, even in Britain. Did the ancient Jews ever build a temple for anybody else's god? No of course not! They hated everybody else's god. Keep in mind that in those days, Jewish maxims like "love thy neighbour" did not apply to non-Jews, to "others", it was strictly about regulating conduct between Jews. There are separate rules governing relations with non-Jews and they are not of a "love thy neighbour" bent ... more like "anything goes". In fact, lovin' is strictly forbidden.

But a Roman was any citizen of Rome, or, more broadly, any supporter of Rome. This included many, many Hellenized Jews who were not only told not to worship their Greek/Roman/syncretic religions, they were brutally murdered by Zealot or Sicarii fanatics when they did.

As you are aware, I didn't claim the Greeks ruled the island, only that they reached it (something you didn't realize until I gave you a search term: Pytheas). Pytheas called the people who lived there "Prittani" from which the Romans derived "Britannia". So, again, no - the Romans did not invent the term. They merely Latinized the Greek name for it.

Again, this is nonsense. Religious butchery between Jews predates the Roman occupation, in fact, it is the reason why the Romans came in the first place. They were invited by one side in a civil war. The Jews were stabbing each other to death over religion ever since Hellenic culture, the ancient version of Westernization, spread over the Near East following Alexander's conquests.

 

Sure - there's no writings anywhere more trusworthy than the Hebrew writings.

Actually Hebrew writings are very much uncorroborated either by archaeological evidence or independant accounts from outside the religion. There are, of course, many things that have been shown to be accurate, but these are dwarfed by the things which remain uncorroborated - for instance, the conquest of Jericho, or the whole of Exodus. Hebrew historical writing is akin to Greek histories prior to Thucydides, that is, based in fact but full of mythological sequences, bias, distortion, exaggeration, and so on. 

There was in-fighting since Herod was appointed, and it is akin to the EU appointing a falsified convert as a Muslim and making him rule in Saudi Arabia: would you not find in-fighting by Muslims?

Yes, but it's not the same. Herod was a Jew (not terribly enthusiastic about Judaism, but Jewish by birth and nominally of Jewish religion). He was, furthermore, a descendant of the Hasmonean (Maccabean) dynasty. The situation would be similar to what is happening today with the House of Saud. And yes, he could be quite brutal at times, but he wasn't called "the Great" for nothing - Judea achieved its most impressive level of development and architectural achievement under his rule, including the Second Temple, Masada, etc.

The reverse is the case: the writings says there was never a utopia!

The rabbinic writings, yes. The Zionist writings blame all the trouble on outsiders or other religions.

The greeks proposed an amalgamation after they studied the Septuagint, and wanted Moses to be a universal figure. This sublime premise fell because the greeks also wanted Paganism mixed with Monotheism: Zeus alongside the Hebrew God.

True.

This is also the reason the greeks never forgave the Jews, and instigated Rome to re-activate its heresy law.

False. Which Greeks instigated Rome to do this? When? Where? Who? 

Rome wasn't motivated by the Greeks, but by disorder in Judea.

 

Finally, the "head-bashing deities" of the Greek and Roman religions were far, far less violent than the jealous, genocidal tribal god of Judea   Far, far less violent? Have you read descriptions what brutality Rome did

Are we talking about the gods, or about the people? You said "head-bashing deities". 

As far as the people go, yes, the Romans could be brutal to their enemies, but so could the Hebrews.

In fact the Hebrew bible forbids the taking of even a single cubit of land outside the miniscule area alloted them.

Yes, but it also says things like: "In the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, in order that they may not teach you to do all the things which they have done for their gods."

The Grecko-Roman religions are dead - by implosion, and of their own - because it was horrific and depraved, abusing inalienable human rights, liberty, women's rights, animal rights, democrasy and everything which is an affront to humanity today and what is aspired.

First you get angry at the false stories the Greeks told about the Jews, but then you turn around and do the very same thing. 

The Greek belief system was not some Nazi orgy of murderous barbarism, however fanatically you might wish it was. One of the reasons Greeks and Jews interacted so much was because they were very similar cultures in some ways - they were both very literate and philosophical about the world. Greco-Roman philosophy produced many progressive ideas about moral behaviour, which greatly inform the modern world. Many of the things you mentioned are actually values we inheirited from the Greeks - democracy, the idea of rights, the idea of liberty.

 

 

In practice, what this meant was that they'd show up and say "Hey! That's a fine god you've got there. He's just like our god, Zeus! We have alot in common ... you know, since they are so similar, they're probably just different names for the same god, different ways of honouring the same god! Isn't this great! Let's share our gods, you show us how you worship him, we'll show you how we worship and we'll learn how to honour Zeus-Yahweh better." Most of the time, with other pantheists, this went over very well. But obviously this is incompatible with the Abrahamic system of belief   Your totally wrong, and have not a clue what Monotheist belief is. Try telling your reasoning to Muslims for example, who are Monotheists? Now Judaism does not tell you what to believe - why should you bother what they believe? This is what the war with the hellenists and Rome was all about - they would not allow another their beliefs unless Polytheism was accepted alongside - you have totally disregarded this and made the victims the bad guys.

Please read what I've written again. You seem to have made a great effort to misunderstand, and I'm afraid you sound a little crazy here. Your response is just ... bizarre. It's like I've said "it's a potato" and you've said "It's not a sirloin steak!! Don't you get it ... it's a potato!"

 

The secret was strict monotheism. Which meant no Zeus and no divine Roman Emperors. Were the Hellensists and Romans not violent about their beliefs?

Well ... I guess you could point to Socrates and say that they were, in a sense. But if you're familiar with that case you'd know it's not as simple as that. They didn't go to war with people because they refused to accept Zeus. Look at Alexander for instance - his idea was to unite the cultures in a brotherhood of humankind, and even tried to force the Greeks to accept Near Eastern customs (which didn't go over so well, though it wasn't resisted with "Dagger-Men" killing people in public and Zealots burning towns down). They went to war like communists or democrats, they believed their way - their society, not their religion - was superior and they were liberating people from tyrants, especially in the Near East. It was as hubristic and flawed then as it is today, but the thing to keep in mind here was that it wasn't religiously motivated - it was politically motivated and spurred by secular ideals. The same is true with Rome.

With power in your hands, would you massacre all those who refuse to give up their Monotheism

But they didn't. They massacred people for rebelling against their political authority, not their religion. The Romans grudgingly accomodated monotheism in Judea, but would not accept challenges to their political authority. And that's what the cult of the emperor was about, political authority thinly veiled as a religious practice. 

accuse them of being secretive? The Hebrew bible is the most read of all bibles and the first one translated to other languages. Very secretive, no?

Well, yes, today it is. But how widely read is the Talmud? 

The Talmud was what the Greeks were really curious about and they couldn't access it. Most of the interest in Judaism came from philosophers and scholars, who weren't interested in stories about magical apples and talking snakes or elementary moral principles - they were interested in the Talmud, because it contains the philosophical, legal, and ethical discussions of the rabbis. For obvious reasons, this was the "dope" as far as Greek philosophers were concerned.

Edited by edgewaters - 08-Dec-2008 at 03:08

This is one of the problems with using the Internet as a source. Common misconceptions are widely repeated on the net. The etymology of "Britain" definately does predate the Romans. It's not even Greek because Pytheas didn't make it up and it's not a Greek word: Pytheas reported that this is what the tribe he encountered called themselves (though most likely, it was just the name of one tribe, not the island as a whole).

Solomon's navy, lol ... what are you, a puffer-fish?

Anyway, the phoenicians were trading with the Britons (though Solomon was not involved, I assure you!) and Pytheas' journey could indeed have had something to do with their trips, as the Greeks were seeking the source of tin (for bronze) which the Phoenicians were importing. That's why they founded Massalia (modern-day Marseilles), to cut the Phoenicians out as middle-men by using the Gauls as intermediaries.

But, it's not a phoenician word either. It is certainly a Celtic word, given the meaning Pytheas reported ("painted people").

No, everyone knows that the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet. Greek democracy, though, didn't have anything to do with the Phoenicians (and certainly not the Israelites, who were the very definition of oligarchy). But they did borrow alot of other things - the trireme, for instance. Alot of their science was from Egypt or Mesopotamia too. And the Romans borrowed some of their most famous weapons and armour from none other than the Celts.

The Greeks and the Romans were never afraid to adapt what worked from other cultures - it's one of the chief reasons why they were so technologically, militarily, and economically succesful while other great empires like Persia and Egypt began to stagnate and languish.