INTRODUCTION
This chapter locates the analysis of religious rivalry within a broader ana-
lytical framework. It views religious rivalry and the exclusion of the reli-
giously other as only one dimension of inter-group relations, social
formation, and self-definition within the pluri-religious and pluri-ethnic
urban environment of the second- and third-century CELevant. I begin
unconventionally, by offering a full account of my conclusions at the out-
set. The remainder of the chapter is not, however, intended to be a proba-
tive argument for those conclusions. Rather, I present a sample of the
evidence, principally from early rabbinic texts, meant to lend these propo-
sitions sufficient weight to warrant their further exploration and to suggest
their utility. The chapter puts forward three main propositions, two concep-
tual and theoretical in nature, and one methodological:
- By means of the analysis of several illustrative texts from third-cen-
tury Galilean-rabbinic sources, the chapter propounds a particular concep-
tual framework. In this framework, rivalry, exclusion, and competition
(which produce group cohesion and, at times, expansion) operate along-
side other mechanisms in creating arenas for trans-group social co-opera-
tion, co-participation and social solidarity. In this framework, understanding
religious rivalry and competition in context requires more than the iden-
tification of social spheres in which Jews, Christians, and adherents of
other religions operated as rivals or practised mutual avoidance. In addi-
tion, scholars also need to attend to social spheres in which these same