The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

424 Pages·2007·10.69 MB·English

by  Adam H. Becker

The Ways That Never Parted
Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity
and the Early Middle Ages
Edited by
ADAM H. BECKER
and
ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED
FORTRESS PRESS
M I N N E A P O L IS
THE WAYS THAT NEVER PARTED
Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
First Fortress Press edition 2007
Preface to the Fortress paperback edition copyright © 2007 Fortress Press, an imprint
of Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Paperback edition published under license from J. C.
B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, copyright © 2003 J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). All
rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this
book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the pub­
lisher. Visit http://augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/contacts/asp or write to Permissions,
Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Cover design: Jessica Puckett
Cover image: Copyright © Caroline Adams, Olive Tree Diptych—aquatint and
etching —2003. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8006-6209-7
ISBN-10: 0-8006-6209-1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American Na­
tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z329.48-1984.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
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Contents
Foreword by MARTIN GOODMAN, SIMON PRICE, AND PETER SCHAFER . . .vii
Preface to the Fortress Paperback Edition ix
ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED AND ADAM H. BECKER
Introduction: Traditional Models and New Directions 1
PAULA FREDRIKSEN
What "Parting of the Ways"? Jews, Gentiles, and the Ancient
Mediterranean City 35
DANIEL BOYARIN
Semantic Differences; or, "Judaism"/"Christianity" 65
ROBERT A. KRAFT
The Weighing of the Parts: Pivots and Pitfalls in the Study
of Early Judaisms and their Early Christian Offspring 87
ANDREW S. JACOBS
The Lion and the Lamb: Reconsidering Jewish-Christian
Relations in Antiquity 95
MARTIN GOODMAN
Modeling the "Parting of the Ways" 119
DAVID FRANKFURTER
Beyond "Jewish Christianity": Continuing Religious Sub-Cultures
of the Second and Third Centuries and Their Documents 131
E. LEIGH GIBSON
The Jews and Christians in the Martyrdom of Polycarp:
Entangled or Parted Ways? 145
AMRAM TROPPER
Tractate Avot and Early Christian Succession Lists 159
vi Contents
ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED
"Jewish Christianity" after the "Parting of the Ways": Approaches to
Historiography and Self-Definition in the Pseudo-Clementines . .. 189
ALISON SALVESEN
A Convergence of the Ways? The Judaizing of Christian Scripture
by Origen and Jerome 233
DANIEL STOKL BEN EZRA
Whose Fast Is It? The Ember Day of September and YomKippur. . . 259
NAOMI KOLTUN-FROMM
Zipporah's Complaint: Moses is Not Conscientious in the Deed!
Exegetical Traditions of Moses' Celibacy 283
RA'ANAN S. BOUSTAN
Rabbi Ishmael's Miraculous Conception: Jewish Redemption
History in Anti-Christian Polemic 307
AVERIL CAMERON
Jews and Heretics—A Category Error? 345
JOHN G. GAGER
Did Jewish Christians See the Rise of Islam? 361
ADAM H. BECKER
Beyond the Spatial and Temporal Limes: Questioning the
"Parting of the Ways" Outside the Roman Empire 373
List of Contributors 393
Modern Author Index 397
Subject Index 403
Foreword
Foreword by MARTIN GOODMAN, SIMON PRICE, AND PETER SCHAFER
This volume arises from the fortuitous and fortunate coincidence of
two originally unrelated events. The first is a series of workshops and
colloquia initiated by Peter Schafer in 2000, with generous funding
from John Wilson, formerly Dean of the Princeton University Graduate
School. The aim was to foster collaborative research between faculty
and doctoral students in the Religions of Late Antiquity subfield of the
Department of Religion, while providing the Department's students
with unique opportunities for professional development. Each year, two
graduate students choose a topic of interdisciplinary interest and, under
the guidance of Peter Schafer, organize a series of workshops on that
theme, followed by a colloquium. At each workshop, a graduate student
paper is presented, followed by discussion geared towards providing the
student with guidance about how best to rework the paper into a formal
conference presentation. The student papers are finally presented at the
concluding colloquium, alongside papers from the faculty participants
and invited scholars from other institutions, who are selected by the two
organizers. Following the success of the first colloquium, "In Heaven as
it is on Earth: Imagined Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique
Religion" (January 14-15, 2001),1 planning soon began for a second
workshop and colloquium, this time organized by Adam H. Becker and
Annette Yoshiko Reed. For this, they conceived of a timely topic that
draws on the special strengths of Princeton's Department of Religion:
an exploration of the continued interchange between late antique and
early medieval Jews and Christians, which approaches the two religions
as "Ways That Never Parted."
The second event was the creation of a formal Research Partnership
between Princeton and Oxford in April 2001. One of the first twelve
projects approved by that Partnership was on "Culture and Religions
of the Eastern Mediterranean." Convened by Simon Price at Oxford
and Fritz Graf at Princeton, this project seeks to make use of the ample
resources of both universities in the area of late antique religions in order
to promote interdisciplinary research and to enhance the excellence of
graduate studies through joint projects and graduate student exchanges.2
1 The papers from the 2001 colloquium will also be published as a volume: Heavenly
Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions, ed. Raanan S. Abusch and
Annette Yoshiko Reed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
2 For more information, see http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/faculty/oxprinceton.html.
viii Foreword
It soon became clear that the "Ways That Never Parted" project was
an ideal fit for the new Oxford-Princeton partnership. Martin Good­
man and Simon Price organized a seminar on the same topic, involving
Oxford students and faculty from a broad range of related fields, and
they oversaw the planning for a group of the Oxford participants to travel
to Princeton for the culminating conference on January 9-11,2002.
As the first event in the Oxford-Princeton Research Partnership, the
conference brought together faculty and students from Princeton and
Oxford, along with selected speakers from other institutions. As part
of the unique combination of interdisciplinary research and graduate
student training in the "Culture and Religions of the Eastern Mediter­
ranean" project, Martin Goodman and Simon Price also worked with
Fritz Graf to arrange two evening workshops during the conference, at
which doctoral students from Oxford and Princeton shared their disser­
tation research with a group of faculty and students from both institu­
tions. Together with the conference itself, these sessions helped to lay
the groundwork for further cooperation and collaboration, strengthen­
ing the connections between scholars and students from different fields
between (and even within) the two universities. The conference itself
was organized by the editors of the present volume, under the guidance
of Peter Schafer, and the expenses were met jointly by Princeton and
Oxford. The costs of the conference were covered from the fund estab­
lished to support the yearly workshops and colloquia in Princeton's
Department of Religion, while the Oxford visit and graduate student
sessions were generously funded by the Oxford-Princeton Research
Partnership.
The "Ways That Never Parted" proved to be a wonderful theme for
a conference. A great deal of intellectual excitement was generated by
the participation of scholars and students from Princeton, Oxford, and
other universities, representing an unusually broad array of fields: Jew­
ish Studies, Christianity, and even Paganism. The present book results
from this conference. We believe that it successfully conveys the intel­
lectual vigor of this event and, moreover, offers an excellent indica­
tion that the Oxford-Princeton project will go from strength to strength,
revolutionizing our understanding of the culture and religions of the
Eastern Mediterranean world.
Preface to the Fortress Paperback Edition
It is with great pleasure that we compose the new preface to this vol­
ume, which appeared originally as a hardcover published by Mohr
Siebeck in 2003. Numerous colleagues have expressed an interest in
seeing it published in paperback in order that it might be accessible to
a wider audience and more practically useful in classroom settings. We
are grateful to Mohr Siebeck and Fortress Press for having made this
a reality.
Since this volume's initial publication, interest in interactions between
Jews and Christians has continued to grow. It has become increasingly
common to examine the relationships between Judaism and Christian­
ity, not just in the first century CE, but also in later periods. In addition,
more and more scholars are acknowledging the importance of study­
ing Rabbinic and Patristic sources in concert. The last four years have
also seen the publication of a number of major works on the history of
Jewish-Christian relations.1 These include books and articles by many
of our volume's contributors. Daniel Boyarin's Border Lines, Paula
Fredriksen's Augustine and the Jews, and Peter Schafer's Jesus in the
Talmud attest the ongoing work of the senior scholars who participated
in the volume and the conference that inspired it.2 Inasmuch as the con­
ference and volume grew out of the collaboration between junior and
senior scholars at Princeton, Oxford, and beyond,3 we are especially
delighted to report that all of the junior scholars involved in the project
have now published books, each of which speaks, in innovative ways,
1 E.g., S. Schwartz and R. Kalmin, eds., Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian
Roman Empire (Leuven: Peeters, 2003); J. Hahn, Gewalt und religidser Konflikt: Studien zu
den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Christen, Heiden und Juden im Osten des Rbmischen
Reiches (von Konstantin bis Theodosius II) (Berlin: Akademie, 2004); J. Lieu, Christian Identity
in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); E. Kessler
and N. Wenborn, eds., A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005). Also notable is the much awaited English translation of I. Yuval Two
Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle
Ages, trans. B. Harshav and J. Chipman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
2 D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: Univer­
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); P. Schafer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton Uni­
versity Press, 2007); P. Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews (New York: Doubleday, 2007).
3 Specifically, this volume arose from the intersection of two broader projects: Princ­
etons annual workshops and colloquia on late antique religions and the Oxford- Princ­
eton research partnership on "Culture and Religions of the Eastern Mediterranean"
X Preface
to parallels, intersections, and interactions between Jewish and Chris­
tian cultures in Late Antiquity.4
We hope that this volume has contributed, in some small fashion, to
the richness and dynamism of current research in these areas. It would
be an understatement to say that we have been gratified by its posi­
tive reception: the volume has been widely cited as exemplary of the
renewed scholarly concern for the overlaps and interactions between
Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Moreover, its critiques of the traditional model of the "Parting of the
Ways" have helped to spark further discussion and debate.
Although some have critiqued the volume for not promoting a new
model to replace the old, we continue to see its polyphony as one of its
strengths. The diversity of its viewpoints reflects the richness of recent
specialist research on the interactions between Jews and Christians. It also
mirrors, in our view, the stunning variety of approaches to negotiating
biblically-based religious identities in Late Antiquity and beyond. Taken
together, the contributions in this volume demonstrate the inadequacy
of any monolithic model that seeks to theorize the relationships between
"Judaism" and "Christianity" without considering the socio-cultural and
discursive specificities that shaped interactions between Jews and Chris­
tians in different cultural contexts, geographical locales, and social strata.
—both creative forums for collaborative, interdisciplinary research that have continued
to push research in exciting new directions. Under the guidance of Peter Schafer, doctoral
students in Princetons Religions of Late Antiquity subfield have organized conferences on
central themes in the study of Judaism, Christianity, and Greco-Roman religions. Proceed­
ings of the two most recent conferences are forthcoming with Mohr Siebeck: Heresy and
Self-Definition in Late Antiquity (ed. E. Iricinschi and H. Zellentin) and Antiquity in Antiq­
uity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World (ed. G. Gardner and K. Oster-
loh); the 2006/2007 project is exploring "Revelation, Literature, and Community' Likewise,
the Oxford-Princeton project on "Culture and Religions of the Eastern Mediterranean* has
run parallel seminars on "Purity and Pollution in Ancient Religions" (2002/2003), "Soci­
ety, Wealth and the Divine: Benefactors in Ancient Cities" (2003/2004), "Priesthoods in the
Ancient World" (2004/2005), and "Syria in Antiquity" (2005/2006).
4 A. H. Becker, Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School ofNisibis and
the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (Philadelphia: U. of
Pennsylvania Press, 2006); R. S. Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology
and the Making ofMerkavah Mysticism (TSAJ112: Tubingen: Mohr, 2005); A. S. Jacobs,
Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire in Late Antiquity (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2004); A. Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism
and Christianity: The Reception ofEnochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005); D. Stokl Ben Ezra, The Impact ofYom Kippur on Early Christianity: The Day
of Atonement from Second Temple Judaism to the Fifth Century (WUNT 163; Tubingen:
Mohr, 2004); A. Tropper, Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography: Tractate Avot in the Con­
text of the Graeco-Roman Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Preface xi
To take seriously recent critiques of the traditional view of the "Part­
ing of the Ways" is to accept, in our view, that one can no longer assert
that "Judaism" and "Christianity" were separated without also asking
where and when, by whom and for whom. No longer can scholars as­
sume that there was a single historical moment after which the texts, be­
liefs, and practices of Jews became irrelevant to those of their Christian
contemporaries-nor the converse. Too much is lost when we study the
two in isolation from one another.
With regard to the scholarly temptation to construct monolithic mod­
els, it is perhaps telling that some critics of this volume have focused
more on its title than its contents. Much to our surprise, some readers
misread or misrepresented the volume as denying the existence of any
"Jews" or "Christians" in this period; others imagined that we sought
to present the religious landscape of Late Antiquity as a hybrid hodge­
podge or undifferentiated melange. In no way did we mean to claim,
then or now, that Jews and Christians were always and everywhere the
same as one another. To question the retrojection of modern ideas about
"Judaism" and "Christianity" into the distant past is not to deny there
were ever any differences. It is, rather, to embrace a more textually rig­
orous and historically rooted approach that investigates the distinctive
ways in which identities were demarcated in specific contexts; rather
than imposing modern categories on our pre-modern literary evidence,
such an approach is attentive to the anxieties, fluidities, and hybridities
in our sources, allowing for a rich and variegated continuum of Jew­
ish, Christian, and "Jewish-Christian" identities in dynamic competi­
tion, contact, and confli ct. Much recent work in this area, for instance,
is marked by renewed attention to local and temporal particularities,
whether it be in the appreciation of the Sasanian context of Babylo­
nian Rabbinic culture,5 the investigation of "Jewish Christianity" in its
5 See most recently R. Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine:
Decoding the Literary Record (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Yaakov Elman
continues to produce work demonstrating the importance of Middle Persian sources for
understanding the Babylonian Talmud; e.g., "'Up to the Ears* in Horses' Necks (N.M.
108a): On Sasanian Agricultural Policy and Private 'Eminent Domain,"' Jewish Studies,
An Internet Journal 3 (2004): 95-149 [online at http://www.biu.ac.il/IS/ISIJ/]; "Middle
Persian Culture and Babylonian Sages: Accommodation and Resistance in the Shaping
of Rabbinic Legal Tradition," in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rab­
binic Literature, ed. C. E. Fonrobert and M. S. JafFee (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007), chap. 8. Junior scholars are following in Elmans footsteps; e.g., G. Her­
man, "Ahasuerus, The Former Stable-Master of Belshazzar, and the Wicked Alexander
of Macedon: Two Parallels Between the Babylonian Talmud and Persian Sources," AJS
Review 29.2 (2005): 283-97.