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Why Did Christianity During Its Rise Appeal to the Romans More Rather Than Judaism

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Why Did Christianity During Its Rise Appeal to the Romans More Rather Than Judaism
November 2010

Essay Paper

World History I

Why did Christianity during its rise appeal to the Romans more rather than Judaism?

GSD Geneva School of Diplomacy & International Relations

GLADYS SHAHTOU

Candidate number: 20100943

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Table of contents

Why did Christianity during its rise appeal to the Romans more rather than Judaism?

Introduction

Main Body

Paganism

Judaism in ancient Rom

The rise of Christianity in ancient Rom

Growth of Christianity (introducing Monotheism)
Christianity as the official ideology of the empire

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Each religion has had its difficulties in gaining credibility in the beginning, as the new religions always meant an entire different way of perception of the world. Christianity is in the present day the largest religion1, yet how did it emerge? In ancient Rom it has not always been the primary religion since the beginning. How did occur, that the majority of the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, rather than Judaism? Did Christianity provide them with far more advantages such as clarification on their existence, opportunity to reach redemption or better promises than Judaism or Paganism? Was force used by Christians to impose their religion on Rom’s citizens Christianity was able to be appealing to both the rich and poor citizens of the empire? How was this possible? This is what I would like to discuss and explore in this paper. How would they reach salvation? To what extent was Christianity, a form of Judaism? I will explore this based on what existed in ancient Rom before Christianity, how Christianity spread and how it gained over hand in the Empire.

Main Body

Paganism

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The Romans originally followed a rural animistic tradition, in which many spirits (gods) were each responsible for specific, limited aspects of the cosmos and human activities.2 Religions of the majority of



Bibliography: * John Chuchiak and Walter Kirchner, 2006, ‘Collins college outline’, USA: Collins Reference * Howard Zinn, 2008, ‘A people’s history of the world’, USA: Verso * http://www.crystalinks.com/romereligion.html * M. Murray, 2004, ‘Playing the Jewish Game’, Gentile Christian Judaizing in the first and second centuries CE, Canada: Cardian corporation

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