Jewish Studies Lecture​

Stories portraying heretics in rabbinic literature are a central site of rabbinic engagement with the “other.” These stories typically portray a conflict between a rabbinic figure and a “heretic” over the interpretation of a biblical verse. This talk will focus on heretic narratives in the Babylonian Talmud, and how we can understand the figure of the “heretic” in a Christian context. It will attempt to add to our understanding of the complex relationship between Jews and Christians as presented in the Babylonian Talmud, and offer a new insight into the bigger question of the “parting of the ways” between Jews and Christians in the first centuries CE.