WHEN DID JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY PART WAYS?

Presented by Dr. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal
Horace Goldsmith Visiting Associate Professor in Judaic Studies, Yale University;
Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought, The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The development of the two religions: Christianity and Judaism, is a topic of much debate. Whereas Judaism and Christianity are known as separate religions, in fact, these two religions developed side by side. While earlier researchers conceptualized a “parting-of-the-ways,” after which the two religions evolved independently, new studies reveal a multi-layered set of interactions throughout the first several centuries CE. In late antique Jewish and Christian texts, admonitions against following borrowed customs are preserved alongside casual references to joint religious practices, depicting a reality in which Jews and Christians lived in close proximity and engaged in a range of relationships. These studies reveal much richer and more multi-layered models of interactions than previously thought.

Join us to explore some of these texts and talk about the “parting of the ways” between the two religious communities.