History cannot correctly be viewed. Ever. Why? Because it is happening. While it is happening we don't call it history. We call it "current events"--as though the calendar date makes NOW immune.
Religion cannot be correctly viewed either. Ever. Why? Because it is a bowl of God Soup. A little bit of everything contributed to the flavor.
For example:
In the Roman empire it didn't matter what your religious beliefs were since there was no intellectually rational TEST for credibility.
The idea that a religion was "true" was not a thought with any currency.
The Romans absorbed the Greek culture (and religion) changing the names of deities as they went along.
Do you know what christians were called by Romans? ATHEISTS!
Why? Because a Roman thought everybody's god was okay while christians said everybody ELSE'S god was false!
That made them people who DENIED validity in the category of what God meant to everybody.
Interesting?
We hear the word PAGAN used alot today to mean something that really has no historical validity.
Technically speaking, what was PAGAN changed in importance and meaning over time.
PAGAN was intended to mean country bumpkin. Like we would say: Hillbilly today.
After those bumpkins were absorbed into the Roman cities and protectorates they were mainstreamed into city folk.
The boundry of "meaning" is dissolved for the term "pagan" at that point.
The Jews were pagans because they were not city dwellers until Jerusalem became the center of worship. At that point the aspect of "pagan" had no true meaning.
The Semetic people were polytheists until they weren't.
Ahkenaton in Egypt worshipped only the Sun (Aton) as a monotheist. By what standard would he be called Pagan?
Religious ideas were all LOCAL. These were family and tribal superstitions. As families grew larger and combined with other families into
very large movements a blending of superstitions created a kind of GOD SOUP.
The extraordinary shock of Alexander the Great's conquests were largely one of having a CULTURE imposed upon country bumpkins.
Language changed.
Customs changed.
Traditions changed.
Ideas became a confluence. RELIGION was just one of many shuffles of the deck in the hand that was dealt to ethnic peoples.
John 1:1 like any other religious writing is a facet of many, many changed ideas and influences over centuries of upheaval.
To your average Greek speaking Roman the common idea of a divine man was the DEMI-GOD.
A really soul-stirring religious sermon preached on the streets of any large city would trigger LOCAL THOUGHTS about "meaning".
The Jesus stories had different importance to different locations. They each identified his uniqueness strictly in terms of their
own culture and superstition.
That is why the idea of a TRINITY is such a sticky problem to early christians. Some christians thought Jesus was one thing while others thought he was MORE than one thing.
Local philosophers had resort to previous cultural norms to "explain" these views.
In 325 c.e. an effort was made to publicly debate ideas about Jesus to form a consensus. At that juncture it is very very clear how many differing views there were to be aired. Athanasius and Arius are clear examples of large constituencies.
Neither would need to accuse the other of being PAGAN. It would have no meaning.
