Border Lines

The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity

Daniel Boyarin

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English

University of Pennsylvania Press
26 October 2006

Religion & beliefs; Christianity; Judaism

Series: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion

The 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.

In Border 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.

By: Daniel Boyarin
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 662g
ISBN: 9780812219869
ISBN 10: 0812219864
Series: Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion
Pages: 392
Publication Date: 26 October 2006
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Daniel Boyarin is the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity, Judaism and A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, and other books.

Reviews for Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity

"""Encourages us to see historic Christianity as but one expression of a universalistic potential in Jewish monotheism... In a fruitful career not yet nearly over, Border Lines, the culmination of many years of work, may well remain Daniel Boyarin's masterpiece.""--Jack Miles, Commonweal ""Boyarin's book challenges the ordinary usage of the terms 'Judaism' and 'Christianity' and juxtaposes the formation of orthodoxy as it is formulated within rabbinic tradition and among Christians of the patristic period. His bold thesis will no doubt prove controversial and important.""--Elaine Pagels, author of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas ""Boyarin proposes that by constructing the categories of religious orthodoxy and heresy, second-century Gentile Christians created the concept of religion which pervades the Western world to this day. The work is intensely provocative and innovative and is destined to take its proper place as a modern classic among Boyarin's previous works.""--Shofar"

Winner of American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Historical Studies 2006.
Winner of Winner of the 2006 Award for Excellence in the Historical Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion 2021
Winner of Winner of the 2006 Award for Excellence in the Historical Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion.