Daniel Schwartz on the Ioudaioi Debate

Myself and Joel Willitts have thought a fair bit about whether Ioudaioi should be translated as "Jews" or "Judeans". See our respective posts on Judean and Syrian, Being Jew or Judean, and Its High Time to Change our Terminology. I'm not yet ready to jettison the term "Jew" in favour of "Judean", although I do think that "Judean" finds a proper place at many points especially related to the Gospels and in parts of Josephus. See also Phil Harland (e.g. here and here) and Loren Rosson's posts (here).

What has further raised doubts in my mind about treating Ioudaioi as "Judean" is an essay by Daniel R. Schwartz, '"Judean" or "Jew"? How Should We Translate Ioudaios in Josephus,' in Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World, eds. J. Frey, D. Schwartz, and S. Gripentrog (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 3-27. Schwartz notes now post-holocaust sensitivites have both helped and hindered discussions of Jewish identity and he notes the complex problem of identity as not all Jews adhere to Judaism and not all adherents of Judaism are Jews by birth, so life and usage can get complicated (a complication exhibited in Israeli courts where Jewish identity often has to be proven). He also acknowledges examples where Ioudaios clearly means "Judean" such as Apion 1.177ff and Antiquities 18.196. Yet Schwartz presents no less than ten reasons why we should prefer "Jews" over "Judeans"!

(1) Epigraphic evidence indicates that Ioudaios refers mostly to people who have been born as Jews, regardless of where they are from, and in a few cases to those who had converted to Judaism. (2) If the Idumeans, Judeans, and Galileans made a common front against the Romans, what is that front to be called? (3) In 2 Macc. 2.21, 8.1, and 14.38 Ioudaios defines a person by his relation to religion not by his place of Judea. (4) There seems to be no evidence at all for calling someone we would call a non-Jew a Ioudaios. (5) When we do hear of pagans mentioned in Judea they are usually called 'Greeks' not 'Judeans'. (6) Our English term 'Jew' refers not only to religion but also to descent, and much data in Josephus points to Ioudaios as something predicated by birth. (7) There is an element of development in Josephus' thought between Wars written in the 70s and his other works written in the 90s, Josephus' understanding of being Jewish developed from one which assumed that religion and state go together to one which recognized that they need not. (8) Greco-Roman authors very rarely linked the Ioudaioi with the land of Judea and they used other words for it such as Idumea, Palestine, or Syria. (9) Given that more Ioudaioi lived outside of Judea than in it (i.e. the Diaspora) there is not enough evidence to indicate that Ioudaioi could unambiguously be taken as linking those it denoted to a particular land. (10) There is no good reason not to treat Ioudaios just like Rhomaios. All "Romans" were Roman regardless of whether they were in or from Rome or not.

Interesting stuff to think about!

Judean and Syrian

I am reading through Stern's GLAJJ and I am intrigued by relationship between Ioudaioi and Syrioi. Consider the following:

a. "The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine acknowledge of themselves that they learnt the custom [of circumision] from the Egyptians, and the Syrians of the valleys of the Thermodon and the Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macrones, say that they learnt it lately from the Colchians." Herodotus, Hist. 2.104.3.

b. "And indeed, says, Theophrastus, the Syrians, of whom the Jews constitute a part, also now sacrifice live victims according to their old model of sacrifice". (Theophrastus cited in Porphyry, On Abstinence, 2.26.

c. "All the opinions expressed by the ancients about nature are found also among the philosophers outside of Greece, some among the Indian Brahmans and others in Syria among those called Jews". Megasthenes cited in Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.15.72.5.

d. "The philosophers, they say, are in India called Calani, in Syria by the territorial name of Jews; for the distrinct which they inhabit is known as Judaea. Their city has a remarkably odd name: they call it Hierusaleme." Clearchus of Soli cited in Josephus, Apion 1.179.

What does this mean for the debate about connecting Ioudaioi with Judea? Should we connect it also with Syria in some way as well? Or does this link of Syrians with Judeans stem from a European ignorance of the complexity of near eastern ethnic groups?

It’s High Time to Change our Terminology

This is the view of John H. Elliott in his excellent article appearing in the most recent issue of the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus: "Jesus the Israelite was neither a ‘Jew’ nor a ‘Christian’: On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature". The "terminology" I’m referring to is what we label Jesus and the early church. Here is one of his strongest statements:

It is time finally for interpreters, Bible Translators, and commentators to cease and desist. Jesus and the Jesus movement (with all its various movement groups) have their roots in Israel, not ‘Judaism’. They were , in the nascent period, predominantly ‘Israelites’, not ‘Jews’; Galileans, not Judeans; Nazoreans, not ‘Christians’. They belonged to the House of Israel, not ‘Christianity’ (p. 148).


Leaving aside the clearly anachronistic use of the term "Christian" or "Christianity". While we continue to use these terms anachronistically we seem to be more aware of the problem than with the terms "Jewish" and "Jew".

With verve Elliott rehearses the well-known contrast between insider/outsider language in the Second Temple period in reference to Israel, and convincingly shows that Jesus and the early believers (including Paul) preferred the term "Israelite" over the term "Jew" in their self-designations. He avers that the New Testament guild must be more careful in their language when referring these historical personages and events to at best avoid anachronisms and at worst promulgate false assumptions.

Elliott presents that case that in the Second Temple period outsiders (specially the Romans) referred to Israelites as Ioudaioi and that term was eventually adopted by Diaspora Jews as a self designation especially when conversing with non-Israelites although nonetheless infrequently used. What’s more, Elliott explains that the term Ioudaioi maintained a geographical connotation as it expanded to include ethnicity. While at first the term was coined in the Persian period to refer to those who resided in the region of Ioudaia, it later came to be used as a designation by outsides for all those who oriented their lives—politically, ethnically, economically, socially and culturally—around Judea: the Jerusalem and the Temple, and the cult and law as practiced there. Thus, Elliott argues that the term Ioudaioi be translated as "Judeans", not "Jews" since as he states, "The term ‘Jew’ as a translation for Ioudaios does not communicate the connection of the name with the name of the land" (p. 148).

Also important is his discussion of the term Ioudaisimos which is translated "Jewish". Not only does the term rarely appear in Greek (and has not Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent), but also it was not a conventional term of Israel parlance. He opines, "It is ironic and unfortunate that a name occurring so infrequently [Jew, Jewish] in the literature of Israel and the New Testament should have become in modern times the most frequent designation of the children of Israel" (p. 142-43). Furthermore, Elliott argues that it was used in the Maccabean period to designate not a social collectivity but a "Judean way of behavior".

As a Christian, New Testament scholar and teacher I am as guilty as anyone for the lack of precision in my language. I take Elliott's criticism to heart and will attempt to be much more careful in my writing and speaking. Here is my list of terms to work on:

Israelites, not Jews (Galilean Israelites, Judean Israelites, Diaspora Israelites)

Judeans, not Jews

Judean lifestyle, not Jewish

Believers in Jesus, not Christians

A caveat: It is not possible to avoid completely the terms "Jew", "Jewish", and "Christian" nor is it necessarily desirable in every instance since these terms are so widespread in secondary literature. And most discussing topics such as Jewish Christianity, for example, don't think for a moment that the appellation is anything more than a modern construct used to describe an ancient phenomenon. (By the way, Craig Hill in Jewish Christianity Reconsidered [pp. 40-41] has a nice discussion of the term and an argument for retaining it [or at least tolerating it] .

Wellhausen on Jesus as a Jew

J. Wellhausen's dictum is well-known: ‘Jesus was not a Christian, but a Jew’. What is a little less known is that he also said a few paragraphs later: ‘one may be justified in maintaining that what is un-Jewish in him, what is human, is more characteristic than what is Jewish’.

J. Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien (1911), pp. 102-3.

This calls to my mind something that Ernst Käsemann said in a radio broadcast where he said about human beings that "each man has become his own Jew". Yet ironically, being a Jew inwardly is regarded as being a good thing by Paul in Rom. 2.25-29.