Mapping the Ancient Evidence: Pots, Pans and the Religious (?) Material Culture of Jews and Christians in the Second Century CE

This article presents Jewish and Christian household material culture of the second century CE and compares them within the parameters of the ‘parting of the ways’. Not only were the material ways of Household Judaism and Christianity parted, but they were never even entwined. Jewish householders and Christian householders might have used the same objects, but those objects were neither Christian nor Jewish. However, in the Jewish home, household objects could become Jewish things. In the Christian household, objects remained objects. While it might be possible to map aspects of Jewish or Christian material culture, often it was not a question of shared territory or overlapping boundaries, but of different maps entirely.