Dialogical Differences: (De-)Judaizing Jesus' Circumcision

This essay seeks to rethink the inscription of difference in early Christianity by focusing on the role of the circumcision of Jesus—a paradigmatically Jewish mark on the Christian savior's body—in early Christian "dialogue"-texts (both external dialogues, such as Justin's Dialogue with Trypho, as well as erotapokriseis-texts, here framed as internal dialogues). When we examine how difference is both inscribed and deferred in these texts, as it is on Christ's body, we can realize how difference is never really "other" but always retained within the chorus of Christian cultural identity, a productive heteroglossia that recalls the dominant strategies of Roman imperial power.