1000 BCE–700 CE: (Commercial Networks and the Spread of Ideas, Invention, and People — The Emergence in the First Millennium BCE of Religions with Written Sc…

1000 BCE–700 CE: (Commercial Networks and the Spread of Ideas, Invention, and People — The Emergence in the First Millennium BCE of Religions with Written Scriptures or More Accurately Religion-Backed Sociocultural Ideologies Propagated by Teachers and Proselytizers, Including Zoroastrianism Buddhism Daoism Confucianism Judaism and in the First Millennium CE Christianity Manicheism and Hinduism with Islam Still Later in the Seventh Century CE, a Theme of Eventual Global Impact Taking Shape in This Age): Still another theme of eventual global impact began to take shape in this age: the emergence in the first millennium BCE of religions with written scriptures — or possibly more accurately, of religion-backed sociocultural ideologies propagated by teachers and proselytizers. These included Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Judaism, and in the first millennium CE, Christianity, Manicheism, and Hinduism — with Islam still later, in the seventh century CE. Ehret’s reframing is subtle but important. He does not call these simply “religions.” He calls them “religion-backed sociocultural ideologies propagated by teachers and proselytizers.” The distinction matters because it shifts the analytical lens from theology to sociology — from what these systems believed to how they spread. What was new in the first millennium BCE was not monotheism (which Africa had invented millennia earlier) or even written sacred texts (which Egypt had produced for over two thousand years). What was new was the combination of scriptural authority with organized proselytization — the systematic deployment of teachers and missionaries to spread not just beliefs but entire social and cultural systems across existing commercial networks. The trade routes that carried gold and silk also carried ideas and converts. Commerce created the infrastructure; ideology traveled along it. And as Ehret will demonstrate, Africans were not merely recipients of these traveling ideologies. They were among the most consequential architects of the one that would become the most globally dominant of them all.