Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture) - Hardcover

Boyarin, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804736170 ISBN 13: 9780804736176

Publisher: Stanford University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Not long ago, everyone knew that Judaism came before Christianity. More recently, scholars have begun to recognize that the historical picture is quite a bit more complicated than that. In the Jewish world of the first century, many sects competed for the name of the true Israel and the true interpreter of the Torah―the Talmud itself speaks of seventy―and the form of Judaism that was to be the seedbed of what eventually became the Christian Church was but one of these many sects. Scholars have come to realize that we can and need to speak of a twin birth of Christianity and Judaism, not a genealogy in which one is parent to the other. In this book, the author develops a revised understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Judaism in late antiquity, interpreting the two "new" religions as intensely and complexly intertwined throughout this period. Although the "officials" of the eventual winners in both communities―the Rabbis in Judaism and the orthodox leaders in Christianity―sought to deny it, until the end of late antiquity many people remained both Christians and Jews. This resulted, among other things, in much shared religious innovation that affected the respective orthodoxies as well. Dying for God aims to establish this model as a realistic one through close and comparative readings of contemporary Christian texts and Talmudic narratives that thematize the connections and differences between Christians and Jews as these emerged around the issue of martyrdom. The author argues that, in the end, the developing discourse of martyrology involved the circulation and exchange of cultural and religious innovations between the two communities as they moved toward sharper self-definition.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Daniel Boyarin has done it again. With this book . . . he has again provoked, challenged, and enlightened us. With his usual clear, crisp, and sometimes sharp-edged writing, with his consistently critical engagement of ancient primary and modern and postmodern secondary interpretive texts and theories, Boyarin has forced us to think again and in some respects in radically different ways and on radically different terms about. . .the 'making’ of Christianity and Judiasm."—Journal of the American Academy of Religion
“This is a rich, stimulating and compelling work. Boyarin’s writing is complex and full fo irony and humor. . . . It is fascinating and, like a good drama, draws the reader in as if to solve a mystery. . . . Even those how are not in the field of ancient Judiasm . . . will find much of interest in this book.”—Hebrew Studies

About the Author:

Daniel Boyarin is Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of several books, most recently Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0804736170
• ISBN 13: 9780804736176
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 268