Furthermore, Antarctica is already the sacred capital of the Joshalonian Empire, promised to my Joshalonianites in the Holy Book of the J. No way we're giving up these rad ice sheets and totally gnarly glaciers.
Would you be so kind as to quote the verse where that comes from?
Throughout the age of the Roman empire, the Israelites were a warlike state. They had originally come to glory under the reign of the king David, who had led a miraculous victory against outnumbering forces ("Goliath") to gain the Jews land. They soon lost most of it, however, and the people then came to believe that a new messiah would rise up and lead them in a military campaign to reclaim their land. Many men attempted to take on this mantle, and all failed. Eventually, the Jewish empire completely crumbled and they lost the remainder of their land.
Well, I'm intending to be a historian of the Classical era and, though Middle-Eastern history isn't exactly my focus (I know quite a bit more about Greek history), I'll try and answer this to the best of my knowledge. In some regards, I am a student of that era of history, so I'll do my best to answer it what you've said.
Firstly, ALL states were warlike in that era, and I can very confidently say that Israel was FAR less warlike than Assyria, which existed at the same time.
Now for the rest...
Not quite. King David did not lead the Israelites to gain the land. Joshua did. Thereafter, they were still a relatively minor power in the area, despite having conquered it. Certain fortresses (such as Jebus, the city of the Jebusites - later to be called Jerusalem) remained, as did the threat of the Philistines, who had arrived in Palestine from Greece in about the same time as the Hebrews. These Philistines (Goliath amongst them) were very possible the same people who fought at Troy, now driven to the sea and eventually landing in the Levant. Anyway, as such, the forces which Goliath championed were no less invaders of Caanan than the Jews were. However, David did manage to secure the land, conquering such places as the aforementioned Jebus, making it his capital.
Now, they did not lose this very quickly at all. In fact, they kept power in the region (or, relative power - at times they were in alliance with others in order to secure it) for several hundred years. David lived about 1000 BC - the downfall of the northern kingdom was to the Assyrians, in the late 700s... nearly 300 years. The southern part, Judah, with Jerusalem as a capital, in fact outlasted the Assyrians themselves, and only fell to the Babylonians in about 600BC... after having had a lengthy run of some four hundred years being more or less the power in a VERY contested region (the entire area of Megiddo, which Ahab fortified, was the pass between Assyria and Egypt - countless battles were fought there, so that it became proverbial in Revelations as the sight of the ultimate battle.)
The Jews thereafter suffer captivities, until being returned in the reign Cyrus the Persian, likely the messianic figure to whom Isaiah refers. Now, this must be looked at in an interesting way. I well understand that the book of Isaiah is said to be the one of the most prophetic and messianic books, but that isn't depreciated. Isaiah wrote things regarding his own time - but they also, incidentially (whether known to him or not), foreshadowed the future. That's the general take on that in scholarly Theological circles, I think. Anyway, moving on, the Jews run into bit of a problem a little bit later. You see, one of Alexander's generals, Selucus, comes into power in Asia. This is alright for a time, but one of his descendants comes into bitter conflict with the Jews, setting up an idol in their temple. Many of the priests allow this, but Simon the Maccabee sets up a guerilla force, and drives off the power of the invaders, granted them freedom... for a very short time. One of his family, I think it's his brother, decides to make a political move, and allies himself with the Greek overlords, who give him the office of High Priest - a thing not allowed to the family he was part of. At that point, a division occurs. The priestly class has become a sycophantic political institution, catering to the rulers... the Sadduccees of later times.
However, dissenting groups appear, such as the Essenes, and more radically in Roman times, the Zealots. The Essenes are those that more than any other kept alive the idea of a Messiah. A third group at this time where the Pharisees. Now, the Pharisees were not the corrupt political group that the Sadducees were. In fact, they were lay people, and not even priests. At that time, most people didn't go to the temple save for special days. However, synogogues were set up, and those who frequented them to study the Law were the Pharisees. Now, this is why, in the New Testament, we see the Pharisees not exactly sure about Jesus, but often just questioning, and sometimes siding, with him. The Saducees, on the other hand, were politically oriented, and saw Jesus as a threat. Unfortunately, the Sanheedran was made up of equal numbers of Saducees and Pharisees, with the odd number being the High Priest... a Saduccee. It was the politicians, therefore, that condemned Jesus... not the religious. And, well, I think everyone else knows how the rest of everything here went. I'm remaining a historian in this, not delving into religion.
However, Jesus was not the last of the Messianic figures to arise. Simon Bar Kochba was another who appeared later, and it was at this point that the power of Rome utterly demolished Israel. My history is a little fuzzy here, but I think the rebellion of Bar Kochba was after the destruction of the temple by Vespasian.
It was at this point that some of them created a new religion, Christianity. They picked a messiah from the past, Yeshua (or the Greek "Jesus" if you prefer) and colored his actions differently. They claimed he was a prophet of peace, and that his death was the fault of other Jews, not the Romans. This eventually allowed them acceptance into the Roman empire. But that's a sidenote.
Now, on this part, it's rather difficult to judge anything by fact. I've actually never heard of the theory that they simply picked a messiah from the past, however - usually, even by those who don't believe it, it's said to be the followers who claim that there was a resurrection directly thereafter. That, I think, is the standard consensus of historians.
Well, I spoke in reference to the rest of this before. If they picked a messiah from the past, it wasn't far in the past (I think the gospels were written what, 50 years after Jesus?) Now, the death of Jesus was, as I've said, the fault of the politicans, far as we know. There's no other evidence for anything else, as it is. The only other person that speaks of Jesus is Tacitus in around 100AD, and all he says is that Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate. The acceptance into the Roman empire, however, had nothing to do with an apportioning of blame. If so, they would not have been persecuted under Nero, Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, and Diocletian. And those persecutions were, indeed, unwarranted and violent (proven by Tacitus who, quite plainly, despises Christians, but makes it plain the pretext for their persecution, the Great Fire of Rome, was not their fault.) Indeed, if acceptance rested on that fact, it should have been swifter. Rather, it was only by power of general Constantine in the 300s that finally allowed for this to occur. That imperial decree, and nothing else, allowed for its adoption.
What I've said here is pretty much the standard interpretation of history for the events - from a secular view (though not contrary to anything I'd believe.)
Oh, and an absolutely useless comment that my Philhellenic mind is forcing me to say: it's not Jesus in Greek, it's Iesu. Jesus would be Latin. Or, the other Latin version of the name, which is Joshua (more direct from Yeshua.)
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