Books by Daniel Boyarin

Makes the bold argument that the very concept of a religion of "Judaism" is an invention of the Christian church. The intellectual journey of world-renowned Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin, this book will change the study of ""Judaism"" - an essential key word in Jewish Studies - as we understand it today.

Offers an alternative to the Euro-American warrior/patriarch model of masculinity and recovers the Jewish ideal of the gentle, receptive male. Analyzing ancient and modern texts, this book reveals early rabbis - studious, family-oriented - as exemplars of manhood and the prime objects of female desire in traditional Jewish society.

Using Michael Bakhtin's notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, this title demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually monologic in spirit as well as shows that there are other elements that manifest genuine dialogicality.

Beginning with a startling endorsement of the patristic view of Judaism - that it was a 'carnal' religion, in contrast to the spiritual vision of the Church, the author argues that rabbinic Judaism was based on a set of assumptions about the human body that were profoundly different from those of Christianity.

"Encourages us to see historic Christianity as but one expression of a universalistic potential in Jewish monotheism. . . . In a fruitful career not yet nearly over, Border Lines, the culmination of many years of work, may well remain Daniel Boyarin's masterpiece."-Jack Miles, Commonweal