Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism » (1)

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.

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.

Booknews

The received wisdom that Judaism preceded Christianity turns out to be considerably oversimplified, says Boyarin (Talmudic culture, U. of California-Berkeley). He argues that both religions precipitated out of the ferment of the first century in which many sects competed for the name of the true Israel, and that we need to speak of a twin birth rather than a genealogy. He also points out that, though leaders on both sides sought to deny it, many people remained both Christian and Jewish until the end of late antiquity, and shared much religious innovation. Of these he focuses on the discourse about martyrology as an example. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)