What is your opinion? Still a major religion, or well past its prime on the world stage?
Say what you understand by “major religion”, and then some answer to your question may be possible.
It never has been a major world religion. It’s been historically important in the West and Middle East, but not because it’s “major”.
EDIT:
That’s pretty tiny, on a world scale.
That’s what the Illuminati want you to think!
It’s estimated that in the early centuries of the Common Era the total world population was around 200-250 million, and that total Jewish population around that time was maybe 3-5 million, or up to about 2% of the total.
By the end of the 19th century there were about 1.6 billion humans, of which at most about 10 million were Jews, or about 0.6% of the total.
So I think it’s safe to say that Jews have never made up more than a few percent of the human population even at their most numerous, and for most of their history haven’t exceeded a few tenths of a percent.
The “major religion” status of Judaism is perhaps somewhat akin to that of Jainism, another group that’s comparatively insignificant as far as demographics alone are concerned. There are only a few million Jains in the world, but their cultural/social impact on the closely related religion of Hinduism, with nearly a billion adherents, has made their religion far more noticeable on a global scale than the mere numbers would suggest.
Likewise, the global impact of Judaism has “coattailed” on that of its much more prolific and influential offspring, Christianity.
And Islam.
And that’s before you take into account the disproportionate Jain influence in Hollywood.
True.
Yes, though of course Jain influence in Hollywood, which AFAIK has only started having a detectable impact in the last few decades, is not a significant contributor to cultural perceptions of Jainism as a “major religion”.
The big reason that Jainism is far more recognized as a “major religion” than, say, the Persa Pen clan deity/ancestor spirit worship of India’s Gond tribal people (even though there are about as many Gonds as Jains) is that the Jains have had a hugely disproportionate influence on the historical, cultural, and intellectual developments within the Hindu-majority larger society.
Some things can be measured in more than one way. Being historically important for so long IS major.
Even if we restrict ourselves to the present day, having the biggest, most powerful nations on the planet decide to have a large part of their foreign policy revolve around either you or your enemies is pretty major. Having essentially the whole world argue over what should be done with your ancient capitol city is major.
I don’t think anybody is arguing that modern-day Israel isn’t a major nation-state in current world affairs. But the state of Israel != the religion of Judaism. If all Israeli Jews decided to relocate to Montana tomorrow, Judaism would still be demographically tiny but historically and culturally significant on a global scale.
It was rather influencial to the development of Buddhism. Siddhartha used to practice Jainism.
Judaism is not a proselytising religion like Islam or Christianity, you can’t easily join, so the number of adherents will always be limited. So if you measure just by numbers of adherents, then it never was regarded as major.
If you mean influential, well Christianity arose from Judaism and western culture is regarded as a product of both religious influences, so it that is pretty major. If you mean a religion established by a nation state, then there is only one country that has this, so not very major compared to Christianity or Islam.
The question is not very clear.
And vice versa: both seem to have been descended (along with extinct religions such as Ajivikism) from a complex of beliefs and practices sometimes known as “Greater Magadha religion” that blended with Indo-European deity worship to produce what’s now known as Hinduism.
But of course, Buddhism’s undeniable status as a “major religion” nowadays depends primarily on its spread and influence beyond India.
As I understand it, though, it seems unlikely that that’s always been the case; early Common-Era Judaism did actively recruit converts from non-Jews in some circumstances. Possibly one of the factors that made conversion to Judaism less attractive than conversion to Christianity was the circumcision requirement.
IMHO it is a major religion on the world stage, not on it’s own so much but the major religion of Christianity pay much respect to its Jewish roots and recognizes it as a valid in it’s ‘God given existence’ as itself. There is a link between the 2, that perhaps Judaism (or some of it) would rather not be there, but in much of Christianity those under Judaism are take as God’s blessed and chosen people.
I do not know if Islam does the same.
Like I said in the previous thread, it’s a little weird that Christians essentially preface their entire religion by saying everything the Jews said in the Old Testament is true, with Adam and Eve and the Tower of Babel and Noah’s Ark and Samson’s superstrength and the miracles of Elijah and Elisha; every word, from Moses to Solomon to David and Goliath. <beat> And then, years later. some other stuff happened.
That gives Judaism an odd piggyback status.
Sorta goes by what you count as a “major religion”.
Does “major religion” go strictly by number of adherents? Then it never was one. It was always a small minority of the world’s population.
Does “major religion” go by influence on the world’s culture? Then it clearly qualifies - it ‘punches far above its weight’ both in historical influence (Christianity and Islam), and in current contributions to the arts and sciences by members.
The latter seems like a pretty odd measure.
While agreeing with the general gist of your post, that part above would refer more to Jews punching above their weight, rather than Judaism. A lot of that art and science was accomplished by atheists ;).
… and even Hindu Jews.