Animated Map Shows How the Five Major Religions Spread Across the World (3000 BC - 2000 AD)

"Hin­duism, Judaism, Bud­dhism, Chris­tian­i­ty, Islam.... Claims to ancient ori­gin and ulti­mate author­i­ty notwith­stand­ing, the world's five major reli­gions are all of recent vin­tage com­pared to the cou­ple hun­dred thou­sand years or more of human exis­tence on the plan­et. Dur­ing most of our pre­his­to­ry, reli­gious beliefs and prac­tices were large­ly local­ized, con­fined to the ter­ri­to­r­i­al or trib­al bound­ar­ies of indi­vid­ual groups."

"For peo­ple groups in the British Isles a thou­sand years ago, for exam­ple, the Lev­ant may as well have been anoth­er plan­et. How is it that Britain became a few hun­dred years lat­er one of the most zeal­ous­ly glob­al evan­ge­liz­ers of a reli­gion from Pales­tine? How is it that an Indi­an sect, Bud­dhism, which sup­pos­ed­ly began with one man some­time in the 5th Cen­tu­ry B.C.E., became the dom­i­nant reli­gion in all of Asia just a few hun­dred years lat­er?"

"Answer­ing such ques­tions in detail is the busi­ness of pro­fes­sion­al his­to­ri­ans. But we know the broad out­lines: the world's major reli­gions spread through impe­r­i­al con­quest and forced con­ver­sion; through cul­tur­al exchange of ideas and the adap­ta­tion of far-off beliefs to local cus­toms, prac­tices, and rit­u­als; through migrant and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties mov­ing across the globe. We know reli­gions trav­eled back and forth through trade routes over land and sea and were trans­mit­ted by the painstak­ing trans­la­tion and copy­ing by hand dense, lengthy scrip­tures."

Major religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam claim ancient origins but are recent compared with overall human history. For much of prehistory religious beliefs and practices remained localized within territorial or tribal boundaries. Geographic and cultural distance did not prevent later rapid religious expansion across continents. Major religions spread through imperial conquest and forced conversion, through cultural exchange and adaptation to local customs and rituals, and through migration and diaspora communities. Trade routes and painstaking translation and copying of scriptures also transmitted religious ideas across land and sea.

Read at Open Culture