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There's no historical evidence of a mass conversion

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Uh, you sure about this?

I'd start with Sand's Invention of the Jewish People.

Second, maybe look into when Yemen was a major Jewish power. And also much of North Africa.

The mists of time obscure much.

But this we know, that before the massive sweep of Islam (many converts to Rabbinic Judaism in Arabia, btw) -

that Apostolic / Arian Christianity "versus" Rabbinic Judaism struggled against one another mightily for converts. Both religious sentiments aggressively sent missions all over the known world, from Spain to what is now India and China, and into the Sahara.

Related - we don't have the ability, at present, to trace genetic markers into pre-Islam. Reich talked about this in a joking fashion referenced above, one reason why he hasn't exactly been embraced by interested Jewish commentators with platforms.

A small but telling data point, for the definition of "Jewish" I've stated this week (and please do read about those Catholic converts, especially Brother Daniel):

When Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, what did that included?

A formal renunciation of her Christian baptism.

Sapper,

The temple was supposed to be the center of the jewish faith. Just because the Saduccees were corrupted and the Pharisee's decided to remove themselves from temple sacrifices does not remove the centrality of the temple to the faith.

Norms versus descriptions here.

Redstone said:

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The mists of time obscure much.

But this we know, that before the massive sweep of Islam (many converts to Rabbinic Judaism in Arabia, btw) -

that Apostolic / Arian Christianity "versus" Rabbinic Judaism struggled against one another mightily for converts. Both religious sentiments aggressively sent missions all over the known world, from Spain to what is now India and China, and into the Sahara.

Related - we don't have the ability, at present, to trace genetic markers into pre-Islam. Reich talked about this in a joking fashion referenced above, one reason why he hasn't exactly been embraced by interested Jewish commentators with platforms.

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Sure we do. I earlier linked a study about genetic ties to Canaanite peoples. What's hard (likely impossible) is getting more specific than a broad link to the historic peoples of the Levant.

To some of your other claims, we know Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews are genetically very similar despite 1500 years or so of separation. They've kept their populations largely intact as a distinct ethnic population related to a population from ancient Palestine. I'm not sure what sources you're using for the idea of widespread conversions to Judaism after Bar Kokhba. Most populations in the Middle East existed from the time of the first diaspora or were traders who spread and settled in areas.

That's simply inaccurate. Entire kingdoms converted. Over the course of a millennium.

Sand is my primary source, the Israeli history professor, and indisputably one of the world authorities on this topic.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Sapper,

The temple was supposed to be the center of the jewish faith. Just because the Saduccees were corrupted and the Pharisee's decided to remove themselves from temple sacrifices does not remove the centrality of the temple to the faith.

Norms versus descriptions here.

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Where, aside from the New Testament are you seeing that the Sadducees were corrupted?

Yes, the Temple was central. It's still central in Judaism. Go ask a Kohanim in Orthodox communities what rules they follow that other Jews are not bound to. Much of the current mitzvot is more stringent than you'd likely see during the Temple era because there is no Sanhedrin to make decisions and so they err on the safe side. The prayers in Judaism look for a return to Jerusalem and the Temple, but the focus is on some divine process rather than people just building a new Temple. To say there's no significant and lasting continuity in theology and practice and belief after the destruction of the Temple is just not factually accurate.

Pharisee re-alignment, especially compilations of discourses, is quite different from the 1,000 plus years, from Moses to Jesus, where diverse groups of one religious ethnicity centered themselves, including rituals believed to be essential.

Redstone said:

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That's simply inaccurate. Entire kingdoms converted. Over the course of a millennium.

Sand is my primary source, the Israeli history professor, and indisputably one of the world authorities on this topic.

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Sorry, but Sand is decidedly not in the historiographic mainstream on these positions. The evidence for the conversion of "entire kingdoms" is just not there. As in, completely absent aside from tenuous and expansive readings of problematic sources. We've discussed the Khazars. The Berber Jews also appear to be related to Ashkenazi Jews rather than completely similar to other Berbers, and the source Sand relies on only speaks of conversion of a few tribes in an area he is not living in or traveling in.

Nope.

Read Sand, review his sources, and then head to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton from an academic access point.

Regarding Khazaria, that was a large "buffer" kingdom (for about 500 years, from united tribes to an empire) at the literal crossways of the known world, Pontus.

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To say there's no significant and lasting continuity in theology and practice and belief after the destruction of the Temple is just not factually accurate.

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who has argued that?

I know what the Khazarian Khanate was. The genetic and historical evidence is not there for the Khazarian hypothesis nor for the rest of Sand's claims. The genetics work of the last 10 years has really damaged those hypotheses.

Zobel said:

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To say there's no significant and lasting continuity in theology and practice and belief after the destruction of the Temple is just not factually accurate.

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who has argued that?

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To claim Judaism is a newer religion than Christianity requires a very specific interpretation of what Judaism is and requires ignoring the continuity while emphasizing the change.

To say that Christianity is a newer religion than Judaism requires a very specific interpretation of what Judaism is and requires ignoring the continuity while emphasizing the change. What's your point?

Zobel said:

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To say that Christianity is a newer religion than Judaism requires a very specific interpretation of what Judaism is and requires ignoring the continuity while emphasizing the change. What's your point?

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By all means, point to the trinity, not arguments over what exactly is meant by two powers in Heaven, but the trinity, in Second Temple Judaism.

You didn't answer the question. Who has argued that there's no significant and lasting continuity in theology and practice and belief after the destruction of the Temple?

The Trinity is everywhere present in the NT (as well as the old for that matter) which itself a product of second temple Judaism.

Sand, like me, follows Khazarian arguments and reaches no firm conclusion as of now. The point is that the conversion of this Turkic group was huge, important, central to trade routes, and long lasting. Given that you know about it, I don't think our disagreements are large on this topic.

The above screenshot is the opening page from one of the many articles that Princeton has published on this fascinating and important topic -

The dozens (yes, it's true) of conversions of tribes, groups, kingdoms to Rabbinical Judaism, from about 300 to about 1000.

Zobel said:

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You didn't answer the question. Who has argued that there's no significant and lasting continuity in theology and practice and belief after the destruction of the Temple?

The Trinity is everywhere present in the NT (as well as the old for that matter) which itself a product of second temple Judaism.

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Claims that Judaism is a "new religion" assume some significant theological break with the past, significant enough to make the theology of the new indecipherable to the old. Unless you're going with Boyarin's claim that any imposition of a language of theological orthodoxy represents the creation of a religion, which seems problematic for any number of reasons and in Boyarin is a failing of modern religions.

That's not an answer to my question. The trinity is only there if you choose to interpret certain verses as it being there. There's no history of a Jewish tradition of a three-in-one God. It's a Christian tradition that is central to Christian orthodoxy and a clear break with prior traditions.

As Peter Schafer notes,

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A CONCLUSION strongly suggests itself: if we wish to evaluate "Judaism" and "Christianity" in the first centuries C.E. from a historian's point of view, we need to stay away from the dogmatic notion of two firmly established religions, the one defined by its ultimate triumph over Judaism after it became the religion of the Christian statewith all its horrible consequences for the Jewsand the other defined by the victory of the rabbis over their enemies from within and from without. In doing so, we will discover that there is no single line or single point in the first centuries of the Christian era that distinguished Judaism and Christianity once and forever. There are several lines and several points.
The binitarian idea of two divine powers does not constitute a definite line of demarcation between the faithsbut the Trinitarian idea of three divine powers does.

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Is that Jesus in the Talmud?

If so, he definitely is in line with the points I've been making - a transition (IMO, a fulfillment) that lasted about a century, with a massive break at 70.

By the second Roman-Jewish war, the divisions were explicit and almost universally understood.

Strong recommend that book alongside Sand.

I think you could make the argument either way for Christianity or modern Judaism being older than the other. Christianity obviously started around 30AD, but it was clearly an evolution and not a revolution with many of the strains of 2nd Temple Judaism. So if you want to set a firm 30 AD start date for Christianity, then rabbinical Judaism is older as it dates back to the first Diaspora.

However, all of 2nd Temple Judaism was dramatically transformed by the destruction of the Temple and the Second Diaspora. Christianity was the least affected by far. The next hundred years really caused permanent divides between Christians and other Jewish sects, and the Rabbis became the dominant force among non-Christian Jewish sects. All the non-Christian sects held serious animosity towards the Christians for not fighting against Rome in 70AD or fighting the in many revolts that followed. So the Rabbis began to change their religious practices to implicitly or explicitly exclude Christians. This is the time the Shema became so prominent and the Talmud was written down. There are also stories of synagogues making everyone denounce Jesus in order to flush out the Christians "hiding" in their denominations. There has been very little substantive change in Orthodox Judaism after this period of time, so you could say accurately that modern Judaism dates back to the mid 2nd century, in which case Christianity is older.

It's still a blurry distinction into the 500s AD. You can find Patriarchs and Emperors from the 300s on to the 500s telling Christians to stop worshipping with Jews, observing the Sabbath and such. Around the 500s you stopped getting any sort of casual overlap in practice and worship. So you could also say that both religions completely separated form each other then.

No one said Judaism was a new religion. They said Rabbinic Judaism as it exists today is newer than Christianity. Both are continuations of various Judaisms of the second temple period. Christianity crystallized to its modern form before Rabbinic Judaism did.

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The trinity is only there if you choose to interpret certain verses as it being there. There's no history of a Jewish tradition of a three-in-one God. It's a Christian tradition that is central to Christian orthodoxy and a clear break with prior traditions.

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that's just like, your opinion man.

"That's not an answer to my question. The trinity is only there if you choose to interpret certain verses as it being there. There's no history of a Jewish tradition of a three-in-one God. It's a Christian tradition that is central to Christian orthodoxy and a clear break with prior traditions."

"Certain verses" include...
God meeting Gideon in person
God meeting Abram in person
God meeting Jacob in person
God leading the Jews out of the desert himself
David saying 'My Lord said to my Lord'
God taking on a human face in the burning bush

There are clearly times in the OT that God himself interacts with man as a man. Who is that man? What does the Angel of the Lord as a title mean?

Lets dig a little deeper Sapper....the Judaism you know so much about is shoel-bent on handwaving any instance of God as a man in the OT. A hard line that would not have been so in second temple judiasm.

And by the way, I'm not about to go do a extra biblical deep dive about the moral character of the Saduccees to prove the Sadducees were money corrupt. Your Pharisees agrees with Christians on this one. Thats primarily why they are Pharisees.