>>22606433Judaism was an attempt by post-Achaemenid Chaldeans to create a Hellenized version of Assyrian paganism that they could convert their mercenary Hebrew armies that guarded their silk road trade to.
The Hebrew mercenaries were relevant to Mesopotamia and Egypt and represented a possible stealth political power (like the Fremen in Dune). They were already paying tithes to Jerusalem, so they built the religion around the temple texts of the Jerusalemite priestly aristocracy.
The "Laws of Moses" were for priests to follow as purification rites during their month of temple service, not universal laws of daily life.
The Pharisees were like Iron Age Calvinists who took the Torah text and tried to build a popular, scriptual exegesis out of it.
Most Pharisaical work was done in Yavne and Galilee by nationalist Jews who embraced that identity because they were like colonial settlers in a sea of others.
Yes, rabbinical "torah" Judaism of the Talmud was after Christianity.
However, the closest religion to original Jewish Christianity is Islam, although Islam is nothing like it.
Christianity as we know it is just Middle Platonism with a nativity and passion tale. Even Acts is a fabrication based on Greek adventure tales.
Arian Christianity and Nestorian Christianity are closest to the original Christianity which was inspired by Median (Aryan) beliefs about the genealogy of the god head and the avatar hero-king.
When the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the classical Jewish religion totally died. Although the early seeds of rabbinical Judaism had already sprouted thanks to Rabbi Akiva.
Although, there are theories that Bar Kokhba and Akiva are tall tales or embellishments about what that revolt was really about, and that the pure, mishnaic Rabbinism and zionist nationalism of Bar Kokhba was a later fabrication.
