This essay reflects on the relationship between the study of the origins of Christianity and the discipline of Religious Studies in conversation with William Arnal’s “What Branches Grow out of this Stony Rubbish? Christian Origins and the Study of Religion,” published in Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses in 2010. Extending Arnal’s call for specialists in the New Testament and early Christianity to engage Religious Studies, it explores a reorientation of perspective, towards the aim of a doubled lens from and upon both Christian Origins and Religious Studies. Particularly promising may be the interrogation of ancient and modern practices of periodization and category-creation, especially as they intersect with imperial and anti-imperial discourses about “origins,” knowledge, and power.
ArnalW (2010) What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? Christian origins and the study of religion. Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses39(4): 549–572.
2.
ArnalWMcCutcheonRT (2013) The Sacred is the Profane. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3.
AsadT (1993) Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
4.
BarrJ (1961) The Semantics of Biblical Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5.
BatnitzkyL (2011) How Judaism Became a Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6.
BeckerAH (2009) Martyrdom, religious difference, and “fear” as a category of piety in the Sasanian Empire. Journal of Late Antiquity2(2): 300–336.
7.
BoinD (2014) Hellenistic “Judaism” and the social origins of the “Pagan–Christian” debate. Journal of Early Christian Studies22(2): 167–196.
8.
BowersockG (2007) Review of Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem. London Review of Books29(4): 16.
9.
BoyarinD (2003) Semantic differences; or, “Judaism/Christianity.” In: BeckerAHReedAY (eds) The Ways that Never Parted. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism95. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 65–85.
10.
BoyarinD (2004a) The Christian invention of Judaism: The Theodosian Empire and the Rabbinic refusal of religion. Representations85: 21–57.
11.
BoyarinD (2004b) Border Lines. Divinations. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
12.
BrubeckRCooperF (2000) Beyond “identity.”Theory and Society29: 1–47.
13.
BuellD (2005) Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press.
14.
CampanyRF (2003) On the very idea of religions (in the modern West and in early medieval China). History of Religions42 (2003): 287–319.
15.
DeleuzeGGuattariF (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
16.
DubuissonD (1998) L’Occident et la religion: Mythes, science et idéologie. Bruxelles: Éditions Complexe.
17.
DubuissonD (2007) Exporting the local: Recent perspectives on “Religion” as a cultural category. Religion Compass1(6): 787–800.
18.
EdwardsMJ (1995) Justin’s Logos and the Word of God. Journal of Early Christian Studies3(3): 261–280.
19.
FlemingBJ (2009) Mapping sacred geography in medieval India. International Journal of Hindu Studies13(1): 51–81.
20.
FlemingCO’CarrollJ (2012) Revolution, rupture, rhetoric. Philosophy and Social Criticism38(1): 39–57.
21.
FredriksenP (2006) Mandatory retirement: Ideas in the study of Christian origins whose time has come to go. Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses35: 231–246.
22.
FredriksenPReinhartzA (2002) Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament After the Holocaust. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
23.
FrilingosC (2010) Early Christianity and the discourse of Empire in the first three centuries CE. Religion Compass4(3): 144–156.
24.
FurstenbergY (2012) The Agon with Moses and Homer: Rabbinic Midrash and the Second Sophistic. In: NiehoffM (ed.) Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters. Leiden: Brill, pp. 299–328.
25.
GerdmarA (2009) Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann. Leiden: Brill.
26.
GirardotNJ (1999) Finding the Way: James Legge and the Victorian invention of Taoism. Religion29: 107–121.
27.
GoldhillS (ed.) (2001) Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
GraetzH (1891–1898) History of the Jews, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, ed. and trans. LöwyB. 6 volumes. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society.
29.
GraetzH (1975) The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays, ed. and trans. SchorschI. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary.
30.
HeschelS (1998) Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
31.
HeschelS (1999) Revolt of the colonized: Abraham Geiger’s Wissenschaft des Judentums as a challenge to Christian hegemony in the Academy. New German Critique77: 61–85.
32.
HeschelS (2008) The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
33.
HorsleyR (2010) Revolt of the Scribes. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
34.
HughesAW (2006) Haven’t we been here before? Rehabilitating “religion” in light of Dubuisson’s critique. Religion36: 127–131.
35.
JensenLM (1997) Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
36.
JohnsonAP (2006) Ethnicity and Argument in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
37.
KingR (1999) Orientalism and the modern myth of “Hinduism.”Numen46: 146–186.
38.
KittelGFriedrichG (1933–1979) (eds) Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. 10 volumes. Stuttgart: Eerdmans.
39.
KönigJWhitmarshT (2007) (eds) Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
40.
LapinH (2012) Rabbis as Romans: The Rabbinic Movement in Palestine, 100–400 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41.
LehouxD (2012) What did the Romans Know: An Inquiry Into Science and Worldmaking. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
42.
LopezDS (1995) (ed.) Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism under Colonialism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
43.
LopezDS (1998) Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
44.
LopezDS (2005) (ed.) Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
45.
LorenzenDN (1999) Who invented Hinduism?Comparative Studies in Society and History41(4): 630–659.
46.
MasonS (2007) Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of categorization in Ancient History. Journal for the Study of Judaism38(4–5): 457–512.
47.
MasuzawaT (1993) In Search of Dreamtime: The Quest for the Origin of Religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
48.
MasuzawaT (1999) Origin. In: BraunWMcCutcheonRT (eds) Guide to the Study of Religion. London: Cassell, pp. 209–224.
49.
McCutcheonRT (1997) Manufacturing Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
50.
McCutcheonRT (2003) The Discipline of Religion. London: Routledge, pp. 120–122.
51.
MeeksWA (2004) A Nazi New Testament professor reads his Bible: The strange case of Gerhard Kittel. In: NajmanHNewmanJH (eds) The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James L. Kugel. Leiden: Brill, pp. 513–544.
52.
MooreGF (1921) Christian writers on Judaism. Harvard Theological Review14(3): 197–254.
53.
MurphyT (2004) Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
54.
NasrallahN (2005) Mapping the world: Justin, Tatian, Lucian, and the Second Sophistic. Harvard Theological Review98(3): 283–314.
55.
NongbriB (2013) Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
56.
ReedAY (2008) “Jewish Christianity” as counter-history? The apostolic past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies. In: GardnerGOsterlohK (eds) Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism123. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 173–216.
57.
ReedAY (2012) Parting ways over blood and water? Beyond “Judaism” and “Christianity” in the Roman Near East. In: MimouniSCPouderonB (eds) La croisée des chemins revisitée. Paris: Cerf, pp. 227–259.
ReedAY (2014b) Messianism between Judaism and Christianity. In: MorganMLWeitzmanS (eds) Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 23–62.
60.
ReinhartzA (2002) The colonized as colonizer: A postcolonial reading of the Gospel of John. In: StaleyJSugirtharajahRS (eds) Postcolonialism and John. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, pp. 170–192.
61.
SaidEW (1975) Beginnings: Intention and Method. New York: Basic Books.
62.
SchopenG (1991) Archaeology and Protestant presuppositions in the study of Indian Buddhism. History of Religions31(1): 1–23.
63.
SchottJ (2003) Founding Platonopolis: The Platonic in Eusebius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. Journal of Early Christian Studies11(4): 501–531.
64.
SchottJ (2007) Heresiology as universal history in Epiphanius’s Panarion. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum10(3): 546–563.
65.
SchottJ (2008) Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
66.
SmithHG (1902) The debate of comparative religion. Bibliotheca Sacra59(236): 764.
67.
SmithJZ (1998) Religion, religions, religious. In: TaylorMC (ed.) Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 269–284.
68.
SmithWC (1963) The Meaning and End of Religion. New York: Macmillan.
69.
TaylorMC (1998) (ed.) Critical Terms for the Study of Religion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
70.
TroeltschE (1971) The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religion, trans. ReidD. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox.
71.
Von HarnackA (1906) Reden und Aufsätze. 2volumes. Giseen.
72.
Von HarnackA (1908) What is Christianity? Lectures Delivered in the University of Berlin during the Winter Term 1899–1900, trans. SaundersTB. 2nd rev. edn. New York: GP Putnam’s Sons.
73.
WiesseC (1999) Wissenschaft des Judentums und Protestantische Theologie im wilhelminischen Deutschland. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
74.
WoolfG (2011) Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
75.
ZerubavelE (1999) Social Mindscapes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
