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Dan Jaffé Le judaïsme et l'avènement du christianisme: Orthodoxie et hétérodoxie dans la littérature talmudique Ier-IIe siècle Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2005 Pp. ii + 484. [euro]46.55.
This is a study of the so-called parting of ways between Judaism and Christianity and the creation of orthodoxy and heresy as viewed from the perspective of the emerging rabbinic Judaism.
Jaffé starts with a rich and detailed introduction (15-116), which sets forth the methodological axes of the study and describes the socio-historical context of Judaism in the first two centuries of the common era. In the wake of the destruction of the temple, among the dissidents who failed to adhere to the new halakha imposed by the Sages (which now acquires "inherent status," becoming the single criterion of Judaism [170-71]), a distinction exists between minim and amei-ha-aretz. The latter are "a heterogeneous group, without self-consciousness, without really common characteristic traits, and without precise religious ideology" (96), whose fault is not one of doctrine but of lax observance of the purity laws. By contrast, before 135 (when the semantic range of the term is broadened) minim designates in particular the followers of Jesus, who are doctrinal infractors targeted by the birkat-ha-minim ("the blessing of heretics"-in fact a self-imposed malediction) (90).
Jaffé's assumption is that the events narrated in the Talmud can be useful for historical reconstruction because of their paradigmatic value (77). In one text, for instance, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus is arrested on suspicion of...