First instance of anti-semitism or religio licita? Catalyst for Christianity or Greco-Roman real politik?

At this time of year, it is common to seek a familiar face to retroject onto the person of Jesus.  It is common to revisit what is presumed to be known of the world at that time.  Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, is recalled.  What is not recalled is how Judea came to possess a Roman governor, since at the presumptive time of Jesus, Judea had not been conquered by Rome.

Christian scholarship contends that in the Greco-Roman world, Judaism was a "religio licita."  The phrase is from Tertullian, writing in the late 2nd/early 3rd century.  That alone should make the hypothesis suspect.

Jewish scholarship holds that the destruction of the Temple was the first act of deliberate Anti-Semitism in the west.  Christian scholarship contends that it was the catastrophe that proved the catalyst for the growth of Christianity as a major religion.  Neither are accurate.

In the ancient world, at the time of the rise of Greco-Roman civilization, Judeans were recognized as some of the fiercest fighters, and were sought after as mercenaries.  There were five fully-functioning Temples to the G-D of Judea.  One of those 5 temples was that of the Elephantine garrison community in upper Egypt.

We know from references in Tacitus that Cleopatra had engaged the Elephantine community as an addition to her forces.  We also know from Tacitus that when drought struck Egypt, and pleas were made to Cleopatra to release the corn stores and she refused, the Elephantine garrison switched sides and gave its strength to Augustus, ensuring his victory.

Victory as the result of assistance from Judean mercenaries was problematic for Augustus.  The problem did not arise because the aid was from mercenaries, but because it was not possible to assimilate those mercenaries into the Roman legions.  It was customary to incorporate allies into the Roman empire by giving them a place in the army--to facilitate this, the foreign gods worshipped by foreign fighters were given their Roman approximation.  This was not possible with the Judean mercenaries, whose god could not be represented in physical form, whose name could not be pronounced.  It was impossible to permit the Judean mercenaries to depart, with the possibility that they could rise against Rome.  It was equally impossible to assimilate them into the Roman army.

Augustus found a medium--claim Judea as a Roman "protectorate."  To forestall the possibility that the Judean mercenaries might rise up against him and Rome, Augustus decreed that Judeans were not permitted to carry arms.  In this way, the Judean mercenaries who enabled his victory were both "included" in the Roman Empire, and removed as a threat to it.  Judaism was not a "religio licita" because Judeans had not been conquered, and therefore had not been compelled to renounce their god or his worship.

The Jewish War was an astonishment to the Romans because this people who had been disarmed not only found arms, but made good use of them.  A people who were believed to no longer be a threat suddenly became an active threat.

In this context, the destruction of the Temple was not the first known act of Anti-Semitism in the west, but an act of Greco-Roman realpolitik:  the ancient world's way of saying "my god is bigger than your god and to prove it, I'll knock your god's temple down."  This was believed to be sufficient to show an enemy that the enemy's god was not stronger, and therefore the conquered people (and their god) were now subject to the stronger, victorious god.

Since this was not the first time the Temple had been destroyed (as attested to by the "rededication" as represented in the books of the Maccabees), it was not a cataclysmic action that provoked the uprising of a new sect that identified itself as "christians."

The Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-136, on the other hand...a revolt by a people who had been conquered, who had been disarmed as a result of that conquest, and yet who found the arms and the courage to rise a second time...