Objective: Students will answer questions regarding paganism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, including tensions within and between each, based on a variety of sources that includes primary source documents, videos, images, and articles, with an 80% success rate
Vocabulary: paganism, Zealots, diaspora, the Great Schism, Quran, Great Man Theory
Directions: Get a copy of this worksheet (Ancient Frictions) and answer the questions on the worksheet based on the 6 Parts listed below
Part 1: The Pagan World
The purpose of this section is to gain an understanding of paganism
Paganism is the word used by early Christians to describe polytheistic religions outside of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Please note that there is no single "Pagan" religion, but rather a number of pagan religions.
Here are some well-known examples of pagan religions:
Ancient Greece (e.g. Zeus, Hercules, Poseidon, Aries)
Norse (e.g. Thor, Freya, Oden)
Egyptian (e.g. Horus, Osiris, Ra, Isis)
Roman (e.g. Bacchus, Mars, Jupiter)
To get a better understanding of Roman paganism, watch the video below
Part 2: The Great Revolt
Click on the link below to access the article on the Great Revolt
(#8) Polytheistic religions tend to be more accepting of other polytheistic religions. When a polytheistic empire, such as Rome, conquers other polytheistic religions, the conquered do not simply switch one set of gods for another, but add the gods of their conquerors to their pantheon (all of the gods of a religion). For monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity, and later Islam, this is impossible. For them, there is but one god, and asking them to accept additional gods into their worldview would mean betraying their faith. The resistance of these monotheistic religions to accept Roman culture and religion let to increasing friction.
Click on the link below to access the documents needed to answer the questions in this section