They seemed like a thing in my parents’ era of graduations (70s), and my grandfather was very proud of his “brass rat” (MIT ring), but by the time I was graduating high school and college in the late 00s/early 10s no one I knew cared about them at all.
Why did they become a thing, and then why did they lose popularity?
I’ve read a decent bit on the issue around monotheism/henotheism/monolatry in Second Temple Judaism. A lot of what I’ve read approaches it from the perspective of Jewish understandings of their god and his relationship with other (potential) gods.
Can anyone recommend a good article/book that looks at things the other way around, the pagan understanding of the Jewish god as a god within their religious framework? Most of what I’ve found seems to be focused on pagan views of Jews and their practices, without as much on what pagans understood their god to be. Would non-Jewish visitors or transplants offer sacrifices at the Temple, or otherwise do devotional practices? Do we know of “Yahweh” as a more minor god in other pantheons contemporary to Second Temple Judaism? Would the sorts of gentiles that Paul was talking to have already known the god of Israel and understood him to have particular power?