The origin of heresy -- The rhetoric of difference in Israel -- Reform and revolution in the Roman Empire: John the Baptist and the disciples of Jesus -- Paul and the rhetoric of difference -- The Christian Gospels as narratives of exclusion -- Policing the boundaries: the politics of heresiology -- The politics of orthodoxy -- Conclusions
Summary
Heresy is a central concept in the formation of Orthodox Christianity. Where does this notion come from? This book traces the construction of the idea of 'heresy' in the rhetoric of ideological disagreements in Second Temple Jewish and early Christian texts and in the development of the polemical rhetoric against 'heretics, ' called heresiology. Here, author Robert Royalty argues, one finds the origin of what comes to be labelled 'heresy' in the second century. In other words, there was such as thing as 'heresy' in ancient Jewish and Christian discourse before it was called 'heresy.' And by
