Why were the Jews different from other peoples in the roman empire?

Answer 1

Most other peoples were content to have the protection and increasing prosperity of the Empire. The Jews were constantly stirred up by their leaders into revolts, with four major revolts over a century resulting in them being dispersed to put an end to it.

Answer 2

Monotheism.

One of the reasons that the Greeks and Romans hated the Jews was the stark difference of the Jewish practices (and not just the beliefs), as compared to those of the Greeks and Romans. The Jews, by and large, adhered to the practices of the Torah, which calls for kindness, charity, scholarliness, the value of human life, and the abhorrence of promiscuity.

Just a very few examples:
1) Aristotle, who was among the greatest of the Greeks, and Seneca, the famous Roman, both write that killing one's unwanted young babies is perfectly acceptable. 2) In Europe, the Druids practiced human sacrifice throughout Roman Gaul and the British isles. Virgins were sacrificed by casting them into wells.
3) In the Roman cities, the Bacchanalian feasts became so wild that a royal decree was promulgated that they be held outside city limits.
4) Prostitution was a fixed part of temple worship.
5) Children had no rights. In Carthage, babies were sacrificed in fire. Roman law (Patrias Potestas) permitted a man to kill his male descendants of any age and for any reason. Professor and former President of the American Historical Association, William L. Langer (in The History of Childhood), writes: "Children, being physically unable to resist aggression, were the victims of forces over which they had no control, and they were abused in almost unimaginable ways."
6) Under Israelite law, "an eye for an eye" has always meant the monetary value placed upon it by the court (Talmud, Bava Kama 83b). Roman law, however, included literal retaliation (Twelve Tables of Roman Law, 7:9).
7) Romans were killed for the crime of slander (Twelve Tables, 7:8).
8) A Roman could be killed for assembling a noisy crowd at night and disturbing the town (Twelve Tables, 9:6).
Given the vast difference between the two peoples, the Romans found it hard to stomach the kindliness and temperance of the Jews, and they lashed out with physical cruelty as well as slander. Tacitus, one of their greatest historians, penned the canard that the Jews originated as Egyptians who were expelled from Egypt due to disease (History of Jews V, ch.2). Today we can expose this claim for what it is, since DNA analysis shows that Jews were not Egyptians.
Not satisfied with that, he wrote that "the Jews are the most lewd nation on Earth," despite his own contradictory admission that "the Jews will not corrupt foreign women." He also claims that the Jews "are taught to have their parents, children and brethren in the utmost contempt" (ibid.), despite the Jewish Torah being one of the major sources of Western morality.

Answer 3

The Jews differed chiefly because Judaism was (and is) the only religion that began by God speaking to the entire assembled nation of over two million people (Exodus ch.19-20).

The ancient world was full of pagan cults; they were polytheistic, worshiping multiple deities and lacking moral character; with their rites accompanied by things such as human sacrifice, "sacred" prostitution, and animal worship. Abraham was the first to advance the idea of ethical monotheism: the worship of One God, and the appropriate ethical code of conduct.

• The concept of morality was founded by the Hebrew religion, including the dignity and value of every person. It is the responsibility of the community to support the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the stranger passing through. Compare this to other ancient societies in which only mature, land-owning male citizens had rights.
• Agriculture in the Holy Land included tithes to be given to the Levites and Kohens, thus providing for a scholarly class of people. One of the tithes was given to the poor, thus obviating the existence of starvation.
  

• Government is accountable to a higher authority. In other ancient societies, the monarch was all-powerful. Among the Israelites, however, the king was under the constant scrutiny of the Divinely-informed prophets, who didn't hesitate to castigate him publicly for any misstep in the sight of God. And, other than for the crime of rebellion, the king couldn't punish any citizen by his own decision. He was obligated by the Torah-procedures like everyone else (Talmud, Sanhedrin 19a).

• Under the law of Judaism, everyone had recourse to the courts. A child, widow, wife, poor person, etc., could initiate legal action against any citizen to redress perpetrated harm.

• A robber repays double to his victim, or works it off. Unlike other ancient societies, in Judaism debtors are not imprisoned or harmed. They are made to sell property and/or work to repay what they owe. Compare this to the Roman practice by which anyone could accuse a man of owing them money and the debtor could be killed (Roman Twelve Tables of Law, 3:10).

Answer 4

During the Roman Empire one of the many things that set the Jews apart from the Romans and other nations was monotheism, the belief in One God. The Jews, by and large, adhered to the practices of the Torah, which calls for kindness, charity, scholarliness, the value of human life, and the abhorrence of promiscuity.

Example:

Aristotle, who was among the greatest of the Greeks, and Seneca, the famous Roman, both write that killing one's unwanted young babies is perfectly acceptable.

• Link: European infanticide

Given the vast difference between the two peoples, the Romans found it hard to stomach the kindliness and temperance of the Jews, and they lashed out with physical cruelty as well as slander.
Eventually, they singled out the Jews to destroy them.

• Link: Western morality

Answer 5

Romans were polytheists while Jews were (and still are) monotheists.