In this day of Mel Gibson’s The Pas­sions of the Christ it behooves us to learn more about Judaism and Chris­tian­i­ty. Are there sim­i­lar roots? What are they? How did they evolve? 

In his newest book, Daniel Boyarin out­lines a bril­liant the­sis that traces how Chris­tian­i­ty emerged from Judaism. 

Through the close read­ing of texts he shows that what devel­oped as main­stream Chris­tian­i­ty most prob­a­bly came from main­stream Jew­ish understandings. 

What is espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing in this work is Boyarin’s sug­ges­tion that this draw­ing of bor­ders is the essence of the entire Chris­t­ian rev­o­lu­tion: insid­ers and outsiders.