Two Nations in Your Womb : Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

by Israel Jacob Yuval, Jonathan W. Chipman (Translator), Barbara Harshav (Translator)

Since it was first published in Hebrew in 2000, this provocative book has been garnering acclaim and stirring controversy for its bold reinterpretation of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the Middle Ages, especially in medieval Europe. Looking at a remarkably wide array of source material, Israel Jacob Yuval argues that the inter-religious polemic between Judaism and Christianity served as a substantial component in the mutual formation of each of the two religions. He investigates ancient Jewish Passover rituals; Jewish martyrs in the Rhineland who in 1096 killed their own children; Christian perceptions of those ritual killings; and events of the year 1240, when Jews in northern France and Germany expected the Messiah to arrive. Looking below the surface of these key moments, Yuval finds that, among other things, the impact of Christianity on Talmudic and medieval Judaism was much stronger than previously assumed and that a "rejection of Christianity" became a focal point of early Jewish identity. Two Nations in Your Womb will reshape our understanding of Jewish and Christian life in late antiquity and over the centuries.

Genres: History, Christianity, Religion, Judaism, Medieval, Nonfiction, Politics

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 25, 2006

Reviews

[Sarah]

One of my professors recommended we read this before Pesach, and it did not disappoint! I read this over chag and it provided a completely fascinating approach to so many customs, practices, and minhagim. It totally changed how I view so many aspects of the seder, the Haggadah, Pesach, and medieval Ashkenazi Jewry in general. I absolutely recommend it as a Pesach read or even as a general Jewish history read. One of the best books I’ve read in a while.

[P. Es]

Sibling not offspring analogy p.27,69

sometimes christian account/phenomenon was evidently earlier p.69

martyrdom p.139,162,164

ancient antagonisms p.26-7

pagan protection of jews p.208

indirect negation of christianity in rabb lit 51-

punishment, edom, esav yaakov p.32,274

mutual negation p.25

medieval jewish anti-christianity 120-

Medieval Jewish messianism and milchamot hashem, p.289

[Leon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yuval has taken heat for the honesty of this book because he gets outside the (sadly) ongoing polemics between Judaism and Christianity. His thesis is that much of what comprises current practice in Rabbinic Judaism is a response to Christianity. He carefully traces many threads through the inner dialogue of Jewish writings in Antiquity and Medieval times.