>> Introduction - Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations
Vocabulary
→ Its population could never have been great, and though cities and villages were crowded togerther on the plains and in the valleys, and perched at times on almost inaccessible crags, the difficulty of finding sustenance for their inhabitants prevented them from rivalling in size the European or American towns of to-day.
perch: any place or object, as a sill, fence, branch, or twig, for a bird, animal, or person to alight or rest upon ; to settle or rest in some elevated position, as if on a perch.
e.g. This, says Sethi as we perch amongst the plant pots in the courtyard of the Diggi, is at the heart of the novel.
crag: a steep, rugged rock; rough, broken, projecting part of a rock.
e.g. Wonder how many years it will be before the sea washes the crag all away.
sustenance: means of sustaining life; nourishment.
e.g. During particularly harsh beginnings upon landing in the New World, desperate colonists resorted to human flesh for sustenance.
→ Like the country in which they dwelt, the people of Palestine were necessarily but a small population when compared with the nations of our modern age.
dwell: to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.
e.g. ① Nadia Sidiqi knew her life was in danger, but she tried not to dwell on it.
② I do not like this sense of God, this nothingness in which I now dwell.
→ And yet it was just this scanty population which has left so deep an impress on the thoughts and religion of mankind, …
scanty: scant in amount, quantity, etc.; barely sufficient.
e.g. In the evenings, to augment our scanty revenues, I worked at copying law papers for a notary.
背景延伸
关于犹太人的历史，我们更多获悉的，或是摩西将犹太人带出埃及“为奴之地”，或是犹太教与基督教之间同宗同源、却存在着两千年的血债与宗教冲突。我的学术积淀（甚至称不上“学术”）也有限，故将这篇关于犹太人的背景梳理仅限定在：从“基督教和犹太教的冲突” 到 “犹太人为何长期以来被孤立”。
犹太教是由原始社会多神崇拜基础上发展而来的一神教，即犹太人信奉唯一的真神——永恒的上帝耶和华。这是犹太教最重要的教义，也是与古希腊罗马“崇奉多神”相较，二者间最大的区别。传说摩西将犹太人从埃及为奴之地带出时给予了告谕，即“十诫”，犹太人便自诩“上帝的选民”，给予真神信仰，遵循“十诫”；相应的，上帝会庇护信仰他的选民。
犹太教与基督教一定意义上可以说是“同宗同源”——诞生于巴勒斯坦的“圣城”，耶路撒冷耶稣及其门徒是犹太人。犹太人也与古希腊罗马人也有紧密的关联，而如我们所知，古希腊、古罗马可以说是欧洲史的起源，这就决定了：犹太人的历史，与欧洲、世界都不可分离。
公元前2世纪，罗马取代希腊，成为地中海和近东的征服者。其疆域西至大西洋，北以莱茵河、多瑙河为界，南达北非沙漠，巴勒斯坦作为罗马帝国的一个偏远省份，就此在地缘上作为罗马、古欧洲与犹太人的联系——犹太人成为了罗马帝国的臣民。
相对于世界三大宗教——基督教、伊斯兰教、佛教——犹太教是个普世性较弱的宗教，其对教徒的选择与准入都相当严格——你得先成为犹太人，遵奉《旧约》针对犹太人所订立严格规定；且犹太教并不主动对外传教——犹太教的传教对象更多的是那些不怎么遵守犹太教规的犹太人，通过传教使他们“保持”对唯一真神的信仰。而基督教，先是耶稣将一些看起来十分严苛的古老道德教训发扬光大，后有保罗提出不必先成为犹太人：基督已把我们从戒律中解放出来，他关于爱的教诲凌驾于一切律法之上。所以，基督教能成为具有普世性强的世界性宗教，不无道理。当时犹太领袖对身为当时讲道人与先知之一的耶稣心生疑忌，联合了罗马将耶稣处死。
在君士坦丁皈依并承认基督教国教地位前，犹太人也只是被认为是一个独立（或说有“个性”的群体），周围人对其的态度尚未上升至后来的歧视；而在君士坦丁大帝皈依基督教后，使基督教称为罗马统治者的宠儿、迅速发展为欧洲乃至世界性宗教。与此同时，君士坦丁也下令禁止异教信仰。然而，犹太教固执于信仰其唯一的真神——上帝耶和华，不肯被基督同化，仍局限于在犹太人中发展犹太教徒。从此，犹太人的犹太教，被贴上“非法”标签；宗教势力相对的此消彼长，确立了犹太教在长久的历史中处于被动挨打的地位；欧洲大陆上对其逐步形成的“异端”印象，推动了日后的“歧视犹太人”之命运转轮。
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