Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.2 The Historical Context
a funerary inscription from our period in Italy, which praises a woman 'who lived
a gracious life within Judaism' (en to Ioudaismo, CIJ 537). 21
Two points call at once for comment. First, in the earliest phase of its usage
there are no examples of the term being used by non-Jews. 'Judaism' begins as a
Jewish term of self-reference. But equally noticeable is the fact that all four
sources just cited reflect the perspective of Hellenistic (or diaspora or Greekspeaking)
Judaism. Thus, it is significant that the term occurs in 2 Maccabees,
composed in Greek and a self-confessed 'epitome' of the five-volume work of
Jason of Cyrene (2.26, 28), and not as a translation of some Hebrew term in
1 Maccabees. Indeed, K. G. Kuhn can find only one passage in rabbinic literature
and perhaps Palestinian usage where yhwdoth = Ioudaismos occurs, but, interestingly,
in a description of the Jews in Babylon who did not change their God or
their religious laws but held fast byhwdoth ('in their Judaism') (Esther Rab.
7.11). 22 Here we should simply note the further element of anomaly in our definitions
in that we are using a term ('Judaism') to describe the religion of Jews in
the land of Israel in the first century which those native to the land evidently did
not use for themselves.
Second, in all cases the term 'Judaism' was being used in self-definition to
mark out the character of belief and practice which distinguished the referent
from the surrounding culture and ethos. Such diaspora Jews lived 'within Judaism'
as 'a sort of fenced off area in which Jewish lives are led'. 23 Indeed, in
2 Maccabees the term is obviously coined as a counter to hellenismos, 'Hellenism'
(2 Mace. 4.13) and allophylismos, 'foreignness' (2 Mace. 4.13; 6.24). That
is to say, for the author of 2 Maccabees, 'Judaism' is the summary term for that
system embodying national and religious identity which was the rallying point
for the violent rejection by the Maccabees of the Syrian attempt to assimilate
them by the abolition of their distinctive practices (particularly circumcision and
food laws — 1 Mace. 1.60-63; so also 4 Mace. 4.26). From the beginning, therefore
'Judaism' has a strongly nationalistic overtone and denotes a powerful integration
of religious and national identity which marked Judaism out in its distinctiveness
from other nations and religions. 24
This is confirmed by the other literary usage cited above — Gal. 1.13-14. For
21. Y. Amir, 'The Term Ioudaismos: A Study in Jewish-Hellenistic Self-Identification',
Immanuel 14 (1982) 34-41.
22. K. G. Kuhn, 'Israel', TDNT 3.363 and 364 n. 49.
23. Amir, Ioudaismos 39-40.
24. D. R. Schwartz, 'On the Jewish Background of Christianity', Studies on the Jewish
Background of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992) 11, plays down the
nationalist dimension of 'Judaism' in its reaction to 'Hellenism'; 'Hellenism' may indeed have
defined itself by its culture more than by descent or place of origin, but the reaction is hardly to
be described as simply 'in kind'.
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