The authors have presented a linear development from an original pluriform conception of Israel’s others to Ezra’s generalized and essentialized collective Other, to its individuation by Paul, and finally to its consolidation in the legal texts of the early rabbis (Mishnah and Tosefta) where it functions as a stable binary that brooks no hybridity. However, as I pointed out in a response to Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s earlier articles,[4] a review of the evidence suggests that the two concepts of the other identified by the authors do not represent consecutive stages in a diachronic development (one pre-1st century and the other post-1st century). Rather, the evidence indicates that the two concepts were synchronic phenomena found, albeit with important differences in detail and emphasis, in both biblical and rabbinic literature. ...Another installment in the AJR forum on Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, Goy, on which more here, here, and here.
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