Origins of Rabbinic Judaism considered the Jews a most "philosophical" people because of their belief in a god that cannot be represented visually), and growing Jewish interest in Greek philosophy, which sought to establish universal truths, thus leading—potentially—to the idea of monotheism, at least in the sense that "all gods are one." It was also at this time that the notion of a clearly bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed. According to one scholar, the clash between the early Christians and Pharisees that ultimately led to the birth of the Christian religion and Rabbinic Judaism reflected the struggle by Jews to
Sephardic law and customs process of standardization: in a list of differences preserved from the time of the Geonim, most of the usages recorded as Palestinian are now obsolete. (In the list of usages below, Sephardic usages inherited from Palestine are marked P, and instances where the Sephardic usage conforms to the Babylonian while the Ashkenazic usage is Palestinian are marked B.) By the 12th century, as a result of the efforts of Babylonian leaders such as Yehudai Gaon and Pirqoi ben Baboi, the communities of Palestine, and Diaspora communities such as Kairouan which had historically followed Palestinian usages, had adopted Babylonian rulings in