Hostile legends about rivals helped embattled minorities defend against doubt

Evidence

For the reader of the twenty-first century, prone to ecumenism and tolerance, these legends can be a source of embarrassment to the heirs of the communities that produced them and offensive to those whose sacred traditions are vilified. Yet these legends bear examination, because they show how an embattled, despised religious minority created walls and boundaries between itself and the dominant (Christian or Muslim) majority. Because he had a detailed and disparaging biography of the founder of the majority religion, with derogatory explanations for its principle rites and holidays, the Jew (or Christian) could protect himself from doubt, could construct a wall of contempt between himself and Christianity (or Islam). To the haughty disdain of the majority he would respond with an equal and opposing scorn. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 157

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the psychological function of hostile religious polemic — a boundary-building mechanism rather than mere bigotry.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing library on moral panics and boundary-marking between groups (midwife’s tale, social capital work on community boundaries). — connects to: Respectability crusades unwittingly reinforced the very stereotypes they fought. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 894; Competing white supremacist groups were rivals publicly but allies in neighborhood defense. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 124