14 àll that Rome asked of Jerusalem was a twice-


DAILY
SACRIFICE OF
ONE BULL AND
TWO LAMBS ON BEHALF
OF THE EMPEROR AND FOR HIS GOOD HEALTH!
Continue making the sacrifice, keep up with the taxes & tribute,
follow the provincial laws, & Rome was happy to leave you, your god, & your temple alone!

The Romans were, after all, fairly proficient in the religious beliefs and practices of subject people?
Most of the lands they conquered were allowed to maintain their temples unmolested! Rival gods, far from being vanquished
or destroyed, were often assimilated into the Roman cult (that is how, for example, the Canaanite god BA'AL became associated
with the Roman god Saturn)! In some cases, under a practice called EVOCATIO, the Romans would take possession
of an enemy's temple - ànd therefore its god, for these two were inex-tricable in the ancient world -
and transfer it to Rome, where it would be showered
with riches & lavish sacrifices?

Such displays were meant to send a clear signal that the hostilities were directed not toward the enemy's god
but toward its fighters; the god would continue to be honored & worshipped in Rome if only his devotees would lay down
their arms and allow themselves to be absorbed into the empire!

As generally tolerant as the Romans may have been when it came to foreign cults,
they were even more lenient toward the Jews & their fealty to their One God - what Cicero decried as
the "barbarian superstitions" of Jewish monotheism: the Romans may not have under-stood the Jewish cult,
with its strange observances and its overwhelming obsession with ritual purity - "The Jews regard as profane
all that we hold sacred," Tacitus wrote, "while they permit all that we abhor" -
but they nevertheless tolerated it!

What móst puzzled Rome
about the Jews was not their unfamiliar rites or their strict devotion to their laws,
but rather what Romans considered to be their unfa-thomable superiority complex. All of these we can
still recognise today in certain Jewish, Christian & Islamistic sects that claim to be the Real True
Believers in their brand of religion, GOD & culture:
that's why they scream so often
'god is great', 'if god wants it'
& 'laillaha'?
18 nov 2015 - bewerkt op 19 nov 2015 - meld ongepast verhaal
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