Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-ChristianityThe historical separation between Judaism and Christianity is often figured as a clearly defined break of a single entity into two separate religions. Following this model, there would have been one religion known as Judaism before the birth of Christ, which then took on a hybrid identity. Even before its subsequent division, certain beliefs and practices of this composite would have been identifiable as Christian or Jewish. InBorder Lines, however, Daniel Boyarin makes a striking case for a very different way of thinking about the historical development that is the partition of Judaeo-Christianity. There were no characteristics or features that could be described as uniquely Jewish or Christian in late antiquity, Boyarin argues. Rather, Jesus-following Jews and Jews who did not follow Jesus lived on a cultural map in which beliefs, such as that in a second divine being, and practices, such as keeping kosher or maintaining the Sabbath, were widely and variably distributed. The ultimate distinctions between Judaism and Christianity were imposed from above by "border-makers," heresiologists anxious to construct a discrete identity for Christianity. By defining some beliefs and practices as Christian and others as Jewish or heretical, they moved ideas, behaviors, and people to one side or another of an artificial border--and, Boyarin significantly contends, invented the very notion of religion. Boyarin demonstrates that it was early Christian writers who first imagined religion as a realm of practice and belief that could be separated from the broader cultural network of language, genealogy, or geography, and that they did so precisely to give Christians an identity. In the end, he suggests, the Rabbis refused the option offered by the Christian empire of converting Judaism into such a religion. Christianity, a religion, and Judaism, something that was not a religion, stood on opposite sides of a borderline drawn more or less successfully across their respective populations. As a consequence, "Jewish" to this day is an adjective that can describe both an ethnicity and a set of beliefs, while Christian orthodoxy remains, perhaps, the only religion on earth. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 50
Page 9
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 29
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 40
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 41
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 48
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Making a Difference The Heresiological Beginnings of Christianity and Judaism | 35 |
Justin 5 Dialogue with the Jews The Beginnings of Orthodoxy | 37 |
Naturalizing the Border Apostolic Succession in the Mishna | 74 |
The Crucifixion of the Logos How Logos Theology Became Christian | 87 |
The Intertextual Birth of the Logos The Prologue to John as a Jewish Midrash | 89 |
The Jewish Life of the Logos Logos Theology in Pre and Pararabbinic Judaism | 112 |
The Crucifixion of the Memra How the Logos Became Christian | 128 |
The Yavneh Legend of the Stammaim On the Invention of the Rabbis in the Sixth Century | 151 |
When the Kingdom Turned to Minut The Christian Empire and the Rabbinic Refusal of Religion | 202 |
A Fragment | 227 |
Notes | 229 |
333 | |
361 | |
Acknowledgments | 373 |
Sparks of the Logos Historicizing Rabbinic Religion | 149 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
aggada ancient Angeles argues argument Babylonian Talmud biblical binitarian Boulluec Bultmann Burrus Cambridge Chris Christianity and Judaism Church cited claim Cohen context cultural daism Dialogue discourse divine doctrine E. J. Brill Early Christian Father fourth century Fourth Gospel Genesis Gnosticism Greek groups hairesis halakhic Hebrew Hellenism heresiology heresy heretics hermeneutical Hillel identity incarnation interpretation Israel Jerusalem Jesus Jews Jews and Christians John Judaism and Christianity Justin Late Antiquity Logos theology means Memra Metatron midrash minim Mishna narrative Nicaea notion Oral Torah original orthodoxy Palestinian patriarch Pharisees Philo Powers in Heaven practice produced Prologue Qumran Rabban Gamaliel Rabbi Akiva Rabbi Eliezer rabbinic Judaism rabbinic literature rabbinic texts reading refers religion religious Roman Sadducees scholars sect seems Segal shift story Studies suggest synagogues tannaitic Targum term textual tion Torah Tosefta tradition trans University Press verse Wisdom words writes Yavneh Yohanan Yohanan ben Zakkai