Quote Originally Posted by Hax View Post
To get back to the original, I think an important aspect of both Judaism and Zoroastrianism is that they are not religions that place heavy emphasis on proselytisation: if my memory serves me well, there are only a few Jewish religious groups that accept conversion at all, and Zoroastrianism has very much been a religion of the elite and even during its heyday wasn't particularly attractive for the "common people".
Proselytisation in the jewish religion isn't what it used to be. Note that during our period they actually forcedother people to become part of it. Also many of the earlier stories have foreigners becomming jewish as well (the wife of Joseph, the Queen of Sheba,...), so it definately used to be different. Actually it would be interesting to go and look and see when and why that has changed.