Tracing Emergent Judaism and Christianity through Different Conceptualizations of Time

What ideological moments could be used in the construction of a “Judaism” that was opposite to a “Christianity?” Daniel Boyarin’s 2004 Border Lines centered this question, one already raised by Judith Lieu in 2003. Both scholars pushed the distinction between the two traditions forward to the fourth century. Since 2004, others have contributed analyses of textual methodologies that illuminate the formation of difference. This paper proposes that Tannaitic and Christian writers’ unique conceptions of time and memory play a significant role in the process of separation.

Comparisons between the midrashic methods of Origen and the Rabbis have yielded important insights. Ishay Rosen-Zvi for instance, notes that the Mekhilta of R. Ishmael positions commentary on Exodus trans-historically while Origen speaks personally to his audience and brings the past events of the text into the present day. He notes that Origen uses the present to focus on the soul’s struggle with evil. This theme can of course be traced to Paul. It is interesting that Augustine will also take up this idea of the past and develop it as a memory of the present. His unique theory finds its nadir in Augustine’s near contemporary, Cassian, who asserts that the moment of regret, conpungere, pierces the heart in a moment of exaltation.

Rabbinic texts on confession do not have a psychological component. In both the Mishnah and Tosefta, the act of confession is presented as a first order rule. But the present is documented in a non-linguistic way as well, through both the iteration of a confession and, I would hold, repeated acts of purification rituals. Immersing is connected to the sphere of holiness by R. Akiva in the final section of Mishnah Yoma through references to two biblical passages. The texts propose that acts are how an individual renews their covenantal link with the deity. The talk will use the topic of recollection of the past by Christians and Rabbis to form different concepts of the self.