It took 17 centuries for the NEWS TO BREAK that a Christian community had been well established already hundreds of years by the time this cross-shaped marble baptistery was built in 4th Century Turkey.
Think if there had been television and BREAKING NEWS, an Internet and social media a couple thousand years ago.
Imagine how the words and actions of Jesus, Muhammad and Moses would have gone insanely viral . . . how rapidly their respective religions would have spread and flourished almost instantly.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism: Three Mega Monotheistic Religions
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century founded on the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Islam developed in the 7th century founded on the life, teachings and revelations of Muhammad. Judaism is the ancient, Abrahamic religion of the Jewish people with the Torah as its foundational text.
Jesus
Can’t you just see Jesus on Facebook? His having a twitter account like our President, only making the human race great again . . . publishing articles to hundreds of millions of faithful followers? Think of the views Jesus would get making a blind man see, bringing a dead man to life, curing leprosy, walking on water.
Who wouldn’t share an Instagram of His walking with Mary Magdalen behind Him? Imagine Jesus with a billion connections on LinkedIn.
Moses
On the Judeo side, who wouldn’t treasure seeing a YouTube video of Moses, not the Charlton Heston Moses, but the real McCoy liberating his people from captivity, leading them out of Egypt and across the Red Sea?
His descending Mt. Sinai with those weighty tablets.
Would you say a billion views . . . in the first week?
The Ancient City
While it took me less than a week to open an office of TransMedia Group in Rome and start serving delizioso PR like al dente pasta, it took Christianity without Internet and cell phones centuries to come out of the shadows of being a Jewish sect and into its own, full-blown religion.
Even as Christian populations grew, distrust and persecution by their Roman rulers forced the church to avoid what I’m hired these days to deliver—my clients’ messages with the impact of breaking news. Or to put it more prosaically—generating publicity!
The situation changed radically in 313 A.D. when the emperor Constantine made news calling Christianity a legitimate religion of the Roman Empire.
Muhammad
As there was no FOX News or CNN back then, it also took the Muslim faith a while before it took hold throughout the Arabian Peninsula?
On the other hand, even if they were around then, the cable nets and politicos might have been fixated on the Trumps, Schumers and Pelosies and other emperors of the day, and not on the holy sea change of great religions forming.
According to tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around the year 570.
When he was about 40, Muhammad began receiving what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the angel Gabriel, which would later form the Quran.
He gained few early followers and escaped ongoing persecution only by migrating from Mecca to Medina in 622.
This event, the Hijra, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The revelations which Muhammad reported receiving until his death, form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim “Word of God” and around which the religion is based.
In December 629, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca.
Since there was no New York Times, Washington Post or Mika Brzezinski stirring up emotions, the conquest went largely uncontested and Muhammad seized the city with little bloodshed.
All were challenged
Without laptops and cell phones, all founders were challenged, yet were incredibly successful in building their respective religions.
Christians, Muslims and Jews still have their differences, but occasionally when they come together and shake hands, or better yet, when they embrace, surely God smiles.
TM