Replies

Christianity was quite successful in Isreal until the diaspora

Oh, what a joke! There is no historical record of any massive Christians anywhere in Israel. There are no historical records of Jesus, His ministry, His trial, or anything. And pleas don't bring up Josephus, because his "reference" is doctored and corrupted in several versions.

Christ commissioned His apostles not to go to the Gentiles, but only to the tribes of Israel. They weren't terribly successful. And even Christ predicted that they would be thrown our of synagogues (it's in the NT).

As far as pagans murdering Christians, Saul was no pagan, he was a Pharisee. Obviously, the Jews were doing well hunting down their own apostates and killing them.

The Church in Israel was literally dying. The only way it was going to survive was to convince pagan Greeks and Romans by including them in the Gospel.

There were quite a bit of Jews in Diaspora dating back to the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem. Alexandria and Asia minor were full of diaspora Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew but Greek for centuries. There was also a large colony of Jews in Rome.

[.. As far as pagans murdering Christians, Saul was no pagan, he was a Pharisee. Obviously, the Jews were doing well hunting down their own apostates and killing them. ..]

Thy shall not MURDER/kill... Who were the apostates?..
By Jesus time the Holy of Holies had no visitation of God..
No ark and no viel..
The priests were actors, pretenders, phonies, poseurs..

The reason for Jewish religion was GONE..
YET the faux religion continued as it does now..
Current Judaism is synthetic Jewishness..

The rightful owner of the ARK is here and has been for 2000 years..
The Lord of the Sabbath trumps ceremony and tradition..
Without God.... the word HOLY/Kosher is a joke and byword..

Thank you so much for this interesting sidebar!

My musing is that God is ever in control moving the course of history together towards the new heaven and the new earth.

I do not consider it a coincidence that Daniel prophesied of Alexander the Great, nor that Alexander the Great learned at the feet of Aristotle who learned at the feet of Plato. As a result of his conquering the civilized world, the Greek language was "normalized" and became the common language of the civilized world; and certain word concepts became common knowledge, e.g. Logos. Thus the ground was prepared for the spreading of the Gospel to the gentiles.

Also, because of this Hellenization of the Jews - the Essenes withdrew from mainstream society, the result being that the Dead Sea Scrolls were preserved thus proving the faithfulness and true antiquity of Scripture.

This passage stands out:

And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. – John 12:20-24

Everything works together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.