Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§9.2 The Historical Context
in later usage, referring, for example, to Jews long settled in the diaspora, the basic
sense of 'the Jews' as the nation or people identified with the territory of
Judea is still present. 29 But since Judea was a temple state, religious identity was
inextricably bound up with ethnic identity — 'the Jews' as worshippers of the
God whose temple was in Jerusalem. 30 It was precisely this initial ambivalence
and subsequent shift to a more religious significance which made it possible for
the idea of non-Judeans becoming Jews, as in the famous case of Izates, king of
Adiabene in the mid-first century CE (Josephus, Ant. 20.38-46). 31
The point for us, however, is the one again made so effectively by Kuhn:
that is, that' "Israel" is the name which the people uses for itself, whereas "Jews"
is the non-Jewish name for it'. 32 In other words, 'Jew' is more the term used, by
(Hellenistic) Jews (Philo, Josephus, Aristeas, Eupolemus, Artapanus, Hecataeus)
as well as others, to distinguish the people so designated from other peoples,
whereas 'Israel' is a self-affirmation by reference to its own distinctively apprehended
heritage. Thus we find, for example, the use of 'Jews' in 1 Maccabees
where the context is official and the tone diplomatic, but 'Israel' when it is a matter
of self-designation; 33 in the Gospels 'king of the Jews' is Pilate's terminology,
but 'king of Israel' that of the high priests; 34 Paul speaks regularly of 'Jew(s) and
Greek(s)' as a way of categorising the whole of humanity, 35 while preferring to
bellion, however, it is questionable whether Cohen should push his thesis to include the claim
that 'loudaismos should be translated not as "Judaism" but as Judeanness' (106). BDAG has
controversially elected to argue consistently for 'Judean' as the best translation (and even
'Judeanism'), but fails to take into account the shift in reference just outlined. For the question's
more immediate relevance to our present concerns see below §9.6.
29. See BAGD/BDAG, Ioudaia; G. Harvey, The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew,
Hebrew and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996) ch. 2.
30. Hence the well-known but still surprising willingness of the Roman authorities to
permit diaspora Jews to send their temple dues to Jerusalem.
31. Izates realized that 'he would not be genuinely a Jew (einai bebaiös loudaios) unless
he was circumcised', but was initially dissuaded from circumcision itself on the advice of his
mother that his people 'would not tolerate the rule of a Jew over them' (Ant. 20.38-39). See further
Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness 78-81 and ch. 5 ('Crossing the Boundary and Becoming
a Jew'). R. S. Kraemer, 'On the Meaning of the Term "Jew" in Greco-Roman Inscriptions',
HTR 82 (1989) 35-53, finds evidence of non-Jews who affiliated with Judaism taking on the
term 'Jew' either for themselves or for their children.
32. Kuhn, 'Israel' 360; see analysis and discussion on 359-65; see further EncJud 10.22.
Kuhn's conclusions have been confirmed by P. Tomson, 'The Names Israel and Jew in Ancient
Judaism and in the New Testament', Bijdragen 47 (1986) 120-40, 266-89, and have not been
disturbed by Harvey, True Israel, whose focus is different (he objects to the idea that 'Israel'
was limited as a title to a perceived 'pure or true Israel').
33. Kuhn, 'Israel' 360-61.
34. Mark 15.2, 9, 12, 26; 15.32 pars.
35. E.g., Rom. 2.9-10; 3.9; 10.12; 1 Cor. 12.13; Gal. 3.28.
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