Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.2
the life described there as 'in/within Judaism' is marked by the same total commitment
to traditional religious practices and by the same hostility to anything which
would dilute or defile Israel's distinctiveness. The fierceness of this reaction is indicated
particularly by the terms 'zeal' (Phil. 3.6) and 'zealot' (Gal. 1.14). These
terms are prominent in describing Maccabean motivation, 25 where Phinehas is presented
as the great role model (1 Mace. 2.26, 54; 4 Mace. 18.12) and the war-cry is
'zeal for the law' (1 Mace. 2.26,27,50,58; 2 Mace. 4.2). And Paul implicitly aligns
himself with such fiercely nationalistic response by attributing his motivation as a
persecutor of the church to the same 'zeal' (Phil. 3.6). It is equally significant that
he sets his life 'in/within Judaism' in sharp contrast to his commission as apostle to
the Gentiles (Gal. 1.13-16), implying clearly that it was the hostility to things 'Gentile'
in his 'Judaism' on which he had now turned his back. 26
In short, so far as its earliest usage is concerned, the term 'Judaism' describes
the system of religion and way of life within which diaspora Jews lived so
as to maintain their distinctive identity, and also the national and religious identity
which was given its more definitive character by vigorous resistance to the
assimilating and syncretistic influences of wider Hellenism.
b. 'Jew', 'Israel'
This finding seems to be strengthened by comparison with the much more widespread
use of the terms 'Jew' and 'Israel'. The term 'Jew' (Ioudaios) begins of
course as a way of identifying someone from Judea (Ioudaia). 21 Indeed, for its
early usage Ioudaios should be translated 'Judean', rather than 'Jew'. 28 And even
25. Zelos in 1 Mace. 2.54, 58; zeloun in 1 Mace. 2.24, 26, 27, 50, 54, 58; zelötes in
2 Mace. 4.2; 4 Mace. 18.12.
26. See further my Galatians (BNTC; London: Black, 1993) ad he; also Theology of
Paul 346-54; see further below, vol. 2.
27. 'This name (loudaioi), by which they have been called from the time when they
went up from Babylon, is derived from the tribe of Judah; as this tribe was the first to come to
those parts, both the people themselves and the country have taken their name from it'
(Josephus, Ant 11.173).
28. When 'Judean' transposed into the less territorially specific 'Jew' is an important
question, still highly relevant, for example, in discussion of the reference of hoi loudaioi in the
Gospel of John. S. J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties
(Berkeley: University of California, 1999) concludes that prior to the Hasmonean period
Ioudaios should always be translated 'Judean', and never as 'Jew' (70-71, 82-106); the
shift from a purely ethno-geographical term to one of religious significance is first evident in
2 Mace. 6.6 and 9.17, where for the first time Ioudaios can properly be translated 'Jew'; and in
Greco-Roman writers the first use of Ioudaios as a religious term appears at the end of the first
century CE (90-96, 127, 133-36). Given the crucial transformative effect of the Maccabean re-
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