The invention of the Jewish people

Shlomo Sand, professor of History at the University of Tel Aviv, studied the history of the Jewish people and concluded that Judaism was for a long time a proselytizing religion expanding in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, the Caucasus and even Ethiopia . The concept of the "Jewish people" different from the religion is a later invention. that served and serves to justify many things.

Shlome Snad says that the Romans never deported entire peoples of the eastern countries they conquered. What probably happened in the year 70, with the fall of the kingdom of Judea, was quite different.  This happened in  Jerusalem especially, from where, by the end of the century the population had already recovered.  At a later date.  the myth of the exile of the Jews after the ruin of the temple has developed.  Researchers who have studied this think that it was  a late elaboration by groups living outside of Palestine and sought to identify with the errant and unredeemed essence of a people who rejected the grace of Messiah Jesus and waited for the "true" one , who would take them back to Jerusalem.

The fact is that before the alleged expulsion, there were already many Jewish communities in the Middle East and the shores of the Mediterranean, in this latter zone, especially as a result of the commercial expansion during the Hellenistic period. There is also evidence that Judaism, practiced by deeply Hellenized people, was at that time a proselytizing religion that grew with a significant number of conversions of foreign peoples. In this sense, the works of Josephus, for example, have an explicit missionary purpose. As far as the scriptures are concerned, fragments can be found both in favor and against accepting proselytes. This expansive process reached its climax in the shadow of Rome and inaugurated a slow decline from the third century with the triumph of Christianity. In Palestine, it is in the fourth century when the population becomes predominantly Christian, probably due to conversions, although there remained a Jewish minority.