Why read Border Lines?

Book cover of Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity

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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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Border Lines as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

John Tolan

Author

How did Christianity grow out of Judaism and emerge as a separate religion? We all know, of course, that Jesus was Jewish, as were the Apostles. And it is well-known that it is Apostle Paul who first started preaching the faith of Christ to non-Jews. Yet we tend to think that by the end of the first century CE, Judaism and Christianity are two distinct and separate religions. Daniel Boyarin’s fascinating book challenges that idea. Throughout the first centuries of our era, some Jews accepted Jesus as their Messiah, others did not. Some Christians continued to frequent the synagogue and…

From John's list on The best books to make you realize that you don’t know what religion is.