One God, Two Faiths

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Bowl fragments with menorah, shofar, and Torah ark · Roman, 300–350 CE
Jewish communities across the Roman world kept the Torah and its symbols alive, even far from ancient Israel.

Most ancient civilizations you have studied so far, Sumer, Egypt, Greece, Rome, believed in many gods, a practice called polytheism. Judaism, with roots stretching back over three thousand years in the ancient region of Israel, stood out for its monotheism, the belief in a single God. Central to Judaism is the idea of a covenant, an agreement between God and the Jewish people, along with the Torah, its foundational text containing law, history, and moral teaching. Despite periods of conquest, exile, and dispersal across the ancient world, Jewish communities preserved their beliefs, practices, and identity across millennia.

Christianity emerged from within Jewish tradition in the first century CE, centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish teacher whose followers came to believe he was the son of God. Early Christian teaching emphasized love, forgiveness, and the promise of salvation, and it spread first among Jewish communities and then increasingly among non-Jewish populations across the Roman Empire, carried along Roman roads and trade routes by traveling missionaries such as Paul of Tarsus.

For roughly three centuries, Christians faced periods of suspicion and outright persecution under various Roman emperors, who saw the religion's refusal to worship the traditional Roman gods as a threat to social order. That changed dramatically in 313 CE, when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity throughout the empire. By the end of the fourth century, Christianity had become the Roman Empire's official state religion, a stunning transformation for a faith that had begun as a small, often persecuted movement within one province of that same empire.

Judaism traces its beginnings to Abraham, considered a founding father of the faith. According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham and his children the land of Canaan, and Abraham moved there. Generations later, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. Their leader Moses led them out of slavery and toward Canaan in a journey called the Exodus, and the Bible says he parted the Red Sea so they could pass through it. Jews remember this escape every year at the holiday of Passover. The Exodus story is significant because it explains how the Hebrews, seeking a homeland of their own, came to settle in Canaan, and it gives historians information about the beginnings of an ancient society.

According to the Bible, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, laws that include honoring one's father and mother and keeping the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest that God commanded. The Torah is made up of five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which also form the opening of the Christian Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible recorded the ideas and practices of Judaism, including the belief that God is everywhere and all-powerful, and later rabbis wrote the Talmud, which explains and discusses Jewish law. Biblical stories also taught lessons: Ruth refused to leave her mother-in-law Naomi and vowed to stay with her, and Queen Esther, wife of King Ahasuerus, saved her people from the villain Haman with help from her cousin Mordecai, a story Jews celebrate at the holiday of Purim.

The Israelites eventually formed a kingdom. Saul was the first king of Israel. David, who as a young man defeated the giant Goliath, united the tribes of Israel and made Jerusalem his capital, and his son Solomon built and dedicated the First Temple there. Babylon later destroyed that temple, but the Persian king Cyrus allowed the Jews to return and rebuild it, creating the Second Temple.

Under Roman rule, Jews rebelled more than once. In 70 CE, the Romans crushed a revolt and destroyed the Second Temple of Jerusalem, and many Jews moved to other parts of the Roman Empire and the Mediterranean region. After the Jewish-Roman wars ended in 135 CE, the Romans sent Jews away from Jerusalem altogether. This scattering of Jewish people outside their homeland is called the Diaspora. Living far from home made it hard to preserve their culture, but Jewish communities survived by forming strong communities, following their traditions carefully, and studying their sacred texts, and the continued existence of these communities explains the survival of Jewish culture to this day.

Christians believe the New Testament continues the story of the Old Testament and that Jesus is the Messiah, who came to save humanity and will return. Constantine did more than any other emperor to spread the faith. Together with his co-emperor Licinius, he issued the Edict of Milan, and he stopped the persecution of Christians, built churches, and added Christian symbols to Roman coins. Later, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the empire's official religion in 380 CE and closed down pagan temples. Rome's practice of Christianity contributed to the rise of the Catholic Church, led by the bishop of Rome, the pope. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the belief that there is only one God; they also recognize Abraham, value prayer, and believe in an afterlife.

Adapted from Studio Aletheia's World Builders Academy curriculum library, drawing on classical world history resources on the origins and spread of Judaism and Christianity.