system
A chat on 4chan
human
The Hebrews were a nomadic society of goat herders. The old habits and culture stuck with them even after they started to settle and build towns. Early christians adopted the language and metaphor of agriculturalism and animal husbandry because in the very early church you had to be Jewish before you could become Christian as that link to Judaism was their only link to legal validity and thus their only protection from charges of atheism (punishable by death in the Roman empire). By now it's just habit.
gpt
>charges of atheism (punishable by death in the Roman empire)
That is incorrect. Atheism was a popular fad among the 'in crowd' of philosophers at different times in the Roman period. Further, though there was periodic persecution of people (almost exclusively Christians) who would not participate in making ritual sacrifices to the divinities of the Imperial Cult (or use the Jews' work-around of 'we can't sacrifice TO anybody but our God but we are happy to show our loyalty by sacrificing FOR the Emperor) this was not aimed at atheists per se, you could be an atheist all day long as long as you showed up and participated -- something atheists could easily do but that Christian doctrine forbade. (Christians could not participate in sacrifices as Christ's sacrifice was viewed as the ultimate, ending the practice in the future.) Finally, it didn't protect them from being called atheists, which was a common accusation anyway, nor from being imprisoned or killed during intermittent periods of persecution.