Chat with The Mikado about cool history topics that interest you

[Mopsus]

What do you know about the interesting historical case of the Khazars?

[Mopsus]

What do you know about the interesting historical case of the Khazars?

Other than the famous stuff?  Turkic tribe whose ruler, like so many other rulers in the era of the great migrations, decided to adopt a new religion, but unlike all of the other Turkic tribes converting to Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or (for the early Uyghurs) Manicheanism, their ruler picked Judaism.  The tribe's ordinary members didn't heavily Judaize, but their elites did.  The Khazars aligned with the Byzantines but lost many wars with the Rus principalities and were finally crushed by the pagan Cumans.

Of course, the remarkable thing is that they chose Judaism. I suppose that it's possible that King Bulan really did convene a debate between representatives of the three major Abrahamic faiths and happened to choose Judaism as the superior religion, but it seems more likely to me that the faith was seen as a middle ground between Christianity and Islam.

On a related note, what do you think would have happened if Vladimir I had chosen Judaism?

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Yes, I've encountered that theory among Christians who want to maintain the Hebrew roots of their faith while simultaneously being anti-Semitic.

[Mopsus]

Which was more important to the development of Jewish religion, culture, identity, etc.: the mythical exile in Egypt, or the actual exile in Babylon?

[Mopsus]

Which was more important to the development of Jewish religion, culture, identity, etc.: the mythical exile in Egypt, or the actual exile in Babylon?

This is a loaded question, but I think it boils down to the question of whether subjects of the Kingdom of Judah prior to the Babylonian sack were recognizably "Jews" or whether "Judaism" as a religion only developed in the aftermath of that event.  Is this more or less what you were trying to ask?  I'll come back to this one later.

The heart of my question was, How does the importance that the Babylonian Exile had on the development of modern Judaism compare with the importance of the Exodus mythos on the development of Judaism in its embryonic stage, and which one was more influential? My hope in asking this question was actually that you would talk about how Judaism developed, which is a topic that's captured my interest lately.

[Mopsus]

OK, the thing about the Judaism question is that it's going to either result in a very long post or a very incomplete one.  I'm still figuring out how to go about this because I don't particularly want to write a number of paragraphs on this topic, as interesting as it is. 

That's fine. I promise to be satisfied with whatever I get

[Mopsus]

That was an excellent response to an admittedly vague question. Thank you.

What do you think of Karen Armstrong?