La recherche du Nouveau Testament « à l’intérieur du judaïsme »

Summary

The term “Judaism” is the subject of intense debate in current scholarship on Christians and Jews in Antiquity. What does this term mean? What was the nature of Judaism before the modern era? Boyarin has been pondering these important questions for several years, and offers a detailed treatment in his book, Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion . While Boyarin completely discourages using the term Judaism because it is particularly susceptible to distortion, an increasing number of scholars use the phrase “within Judaism” to signal the Jewishness of the authors and writings of the New Testament. This article traces the origins of this phraseology, in vogue in New Testament studies, and critically discusses its utility in light of Boyarin’s reflections. Without calling for its decommissioning, this article suggests using the term Judaism as well as other related words, such as “Jew” and “Judean,” in ways that take Boyarin’s warnings against anachronism and essentialization into consideration.