I finished Idolatry, by Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit. I have two items, both pertaining to the issue of Gentile idolatry.
1.
On pages 210-213, Halbertal and Margalit talk about the question of
whether Judaism considered Christians to be idolaters, and how that
impacted the relationship between Jews and Christians during the Middle
Ages. Tractate Avodah Zarah in the Babylonian Talmud restricted
relations between Jews and idolaters, including in the business realm.
Rabbinic authorities and Maimonides deemed Christianity to be
idolatrous, on account of its belief in the Trinity and the incarnation,
and the application of their teaching "prevented the Jews from doing
business with the Christians at all" during the Middle Ages (page 210).
Some Jews simply ignored these teachings and did business
with Gentiles. But there were others who sought to allow Jews to do
business with Gentiles while being faithful to Jewish tradition. One
way was to appeal to Rabbi Tam's opinion (which is mentioned in the
medieval Tosafot to Tractate Avodah Zarah 2a) that Jews can do business
with Gentiles, so long as the object of their commerce is not used in an
idolatrous worship service. Another way was to refer to Rabbi
Jochanan's view in Babylonian Talmud Chulin 13b that "Gentiles outside
of the land of Israel are not idolaters, but they are merely following
the customs of their ancestors" (Jochanan's words, as quoted by
Halbertal and Margalit). According to Halbertal and Margalit,
the eleventh century rabbi Gershom Meor Hagolah, who cited Rabbi
Jochanan's teaching, still believed that Christianity was idolatrous,
probably because Jews were continually struggling against it, but he
thought that Jews could do business with Christians because many
Christians "were not devoted adherents of their religion but were simply
following the customs of their ancestors" (Halbertal and Margalit's
words on page 211). The third approach was that of Rabbi Menahem
Ha-Meiri, who maintained that Christians who were moral were not
idolaters, for Rabbi Menahem Ha-Meiri thought that Tractate Avodah Zarah
was talking about immoral nations when it referred to Gentile idolatry.
2.
On page 256, Halbertal and Margalit argue that the Bible prohibited
Gentiles from worshiping idols only in the land of Israel, whereas it
allowed them to do so outside of there. They refer to such passages as
II Kings 17 and Deuteronomy 4:19. Halbertal and Margalit contend that
the view that Gentile idolatry is forbidden under the Noachide
commandments emerged in Talmudic times, and they cite Tosefta Tractate
Avodah Zarah 8.4; Genesis Rabbah 16:16; and Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin
56a.
I asked a few posts ago why Exodus 34:15 described
Canaanite idolatry as harlotry, when Canaanites were not Israelites and
thus were not in a covenant relationship with God that banned them from
worshiping other gods. Part of the answer may be that the Canaanites
were worshiping in the holy land, where idolatry was prohibited. I have
another idea: perhaps some of the Canaanites were believed to be in
covenant with God. At Harvard Divinity School, one teaching assistant
suggested that Ezekiel 16 depicts Sodom as having some sort of covenant with God.