Competing heirs to shared heritage fight more bitterly than strangers do

Evidence

While some of these hostile Jewish descriptions of Christianity can be (and have been) explained as reactions to Christians’ anti-Judaism, this begs the question: what explains the virulent hostility to Judaism of so many Christians over the centuries? Why are Christians much more hostile toward Jews, with whom they have much in common, than with (say) Buddhists or animists, with whom they have much less in common? It is precisely because Christians and Jews are fighting for rightful ownership of a common spiritual heritage that their disputes can be so bitter. Each claims to be sole legitimate heir to Moses and Abraham; each claims exclusive rights to the correct interpretation of the Torah: those who are “too close for comfort” provoke “uncharacteristic and bitter fury.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 158

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely counterintuitive and broadly applicable claim — closeness, not difference, drives the bitterest conflicts. Dense enough to sit with.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s library on moral panics and the dynamics of ‘too close for comfort’ — also links to social identity and inter-group conflict literatures.