Starting with an endorsement of the patristic view of Judaism (that it was a "carnal" religion, in contrast to the spiritual vision of the church) this book argues that rabbinic Judaism was based on a set of assumptions about the human body that were profoundly different from those of Christianity.[...]

Daniel Boyarin turns to the Epistles of Paul as the spiritual autobiography of a first-century Jewish cultural critic. What led Paul - in his dramatic conversion to Christianity - to such a radical critique of Jewish culture? Paul's famous formulation, 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, no male and fe[...]

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 befo[...]