Jewish Glass and Christian Stone

A Materialist Mapping of the "Parting of the Ways"

Eric C. Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315474717
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

In recent years scholars have re-evaluated the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity, reaching new understandings of the ways shared origins gave way to two distinct and sometimes inimical religious traditions. But this has been a profoundly textual task, relying on the writings of rabbis, bishops, and other text-producing elites to map the terrain of the "parting." This book takes up the question of the divergence of Judaism and Christianity in terms of material--the stuff made, used, and left behind by the persons that lived in and between these religions as they were developing. Considering the glass, clay, stone, paint, vellum, and papyrus of ancient Jews and Christians, this book maps the "parting" in new ways, and argues for a greater role for material and materialism in our reconstructions of the past.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The geographies of identity
• 1 Mountains, valleys, and stones
• 2 Mountains: The construction of world religions
• 3 Valleys: Intersectional, material antiquity
• 4 Glass: The identities of things
• 5 Clay: The economics of belonging
• 6 Marble: Stories in stone
• 7 Paint: The hollowness of symbols
• 8 Vellum: “Relations” in miniature
• 9 Papyrus: The practice of text
• 10 The mountains from the valley
• Index