GROUPS OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS ELITES, WERE BUSY AS WELL, WORKING HARD TO DISCOVER HOW TO DEFINE THEIR OWN BORDERS IN A DISCURSIVE WORLD BEING DRAMATICALLY CHANGED BY THE NOISE THAT CHRISTIANS WERE MAKING, SOUNDINGS OF "NEW ISRAELS," "true Jews,", & "heretics!" "JUDAISM" - an anachronism - was up for grabs as well, by which I (DB) don't mean only the by-now well-accepted notion that there wàs nó nòrmative Judaism, only 'judaisms', but sòmething móre?!
Even rabbinic Judaism was thus struggling to figure out for itself whàt a "JUDAISM"
ìs ànd whó, thèn, CÓULD be defined as ìn ànd óut òf ìt!?
DB's book/bl is a narrative of Thàt Period of struggle,
of false starts & ruptures ànd abandoned paths
during the initial phases of this
'site under construction.'
~~~
I (db@bl) am arguing in this book that "heresiology," the extraordinary practice of an anatomizing, pinning down, making taxonomies of Christians who are nòt somehow "ìn," was an integral part of the answer to the question, What kind of thing wìll Christianity be?
In-tegral tó Thàt heresiological answer às wèll was a response to Jews who would nòt be Christians, or, better put (in a way that I hópe wìll become clearer as you read this (HÌS!) bóók), a response to the question of how the mapping of a border with something that Chris tianity wìll call Judaism wìll make the new Christian self-definition as a "religion" work?!
As an important, even vital part, of the answer to these questions, Christian discourse from the second through the fifth centuries ~ the centuries that are the object of this book ~ dìd keep producing a species of heretics called "Jews" & "Judaizers," hybrids, "monsters" to use the terminology of one of the earliest of the Christian writers, Ignatius of Antioch: "It ìs monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ (YESHUA haMashiach) ànd to practice Judaism" (Magnesi-ans 10:3)! Thése very monsters were to appear as a heresiological topos of the orthodox Christian wiriters who almost constantly dìd figure heresy as a hydra.
The Rabbis, in those same centuries, produced an analogous response,
a discourse as well of the pure & the authentic
opposed to the impure, the
contaminated, the hybrid,
the MÍN!
I speak here, then, for the monsters!
But why?
What right do I have to do so?
Wònderlijk genóeg
is dàt precies wat Mòr
bezighield & before/in & after '67 (óók àl!) min &
meer 'bezielde'!? Vàndaar kamp Erica/Vledder,
"beersheva"/Petra/Ma'an/Rabbat
Ammon/Philadelphia
etceterara ~~!