(September 28, 2016 at 2:53 am)Aractus Wrote:(September 28, 2016 at 1:55 am)Minimalist Wrote: Uninformed speculation. In general the so-called "pagans" were far more tolerant of other religions that your xtian pals.
The Romans were far more tolerant than the Jews, yes. That's why we know Jesus wasn't executed for blasphemy - that was a lesser Roman offence that might get you beheaded, but certainly not crucified. The operative word being "might" - that is to say Romans didn't want to execute people just for "blasphemy" as Trajan's letter to Pliny the Younger shows. Also, what they considered blasphemous was quite different to what the Jews considered blasphemous, which is why even today Judaism is quite tolerant in its beliefs compared to the other Abraham religions.
The history of Roman-Jewish relations is not one of the highlights of Roman colonial administration. To a large degree this can be attributed to the fact that the highly Hellenized Roman ruling class regarded the jews as barbarians and circumcision was always a key source of derision. The Great Revolt of 66 was triggered by the theft of money from the temple by the prefect, Gessius Florus on top of a whole series of lesser insults. The bar Kochba revolt arose after Hadrian thought he was doing the jews a favor by ripping down the ruins of Jerusalem and rebuilding a new Roman city. After the revolt he threw them out and formed a Roman colony there called Aelia Capitolina. One would have to say that the jews brought that one on themselves. In general, when the Romans moved into an area they adopted the gods of that region into their pantheon. The jews were a little unwilling to go along with that sort of thing but until Caligula they were generally given some special treatment.
But after 3 revolts between 66 and 135 the jews were decidedly persona non grata in the empire and the writings of the xtian gospels become progressively more anti-semitic.
I doubt that the Romans worried much about blasphemy unless it was directed at one of the state cults.
