Magdlyn

"Jew" as a word in the Greek text of the New Testament, is written Judaean, afaik. I only know a few words of Greek, but so I've been led to believe.

What was this "Jew?" What did it mean? Was Jesus Jewish, being from Galilee? Were YHWH worshiping monotheists anywhere in the disapora knows as Judaeans, even if their ancestors going back several generations, were from areas outside of Judaea? Would they call themselves Judaeans or Israelites even if they'd never been on a pilgrimage to sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem?

Of course, modern Judaism did not start to take form until the "Oral Torah" was written down and commentary codified. So, prev to this, imo, Judaism did not really exist. You had Judaea/Judah. You had Israel, a neighboring kingdom as war with Judah, whose alliance to Judah under David and Solomon might be purely legendary. Israel was lost to Assyria in the misty past.

I have had orthodox Jews tell me that there were no Jews until Moses had his burning bush exp of YHWH, and he and his brother were the only ones until the Torah was "handed down on Sinai". But we know that most people in the area were polytheists at least until just before the Babylonian conquest!

John 4

Why did she say, "You are a Judaean?" Jesus was from Galilee, not from Judaea. Other passages suggest the Galilee accent was discernable. Could she tell he was a "Jew" just by looking at him, or what?

Were Galileans really not friends with Samaritans? Is any of this reliably historically accurate?

Anyone care to comment on any of this?

mountainman

One comment would be to point out that Gibbon writes
that there were two entirely different types of "Galilaeans"
written about by the authors of antiquity.

One type was written about by christian authors at some
unknown dates conjectured to be within the bounds of
the first four centuries "CE" --- was the lesser known.

The dominant depiction of "Galilaeans" was in response
to the people of Galilee refusing to pay tribute to the
new mafia boss warlord from Rome. Hebrew rebels.

They were a thorn in the side of the Roman administration
and posed serious problems to the stability of "the
Roman Empire" in "that province of the empire". Thus
the Roman literature depicts them as Hebrew rebels.

The stability of Roman taxation and slave-trade
was being jeopardised by the actions of these
Galilaeans, who were described as warlike, and
very numerous, having settled closely together
in a rich and fertile area.

They attempted to fight together against the might
and supremacy of the Roman military machine, just
like the tribes of Celts from Gaul, and Germany,
and the Britons --- and were eventually decimated
by this horrendously corrupt empire.

Julius Caesar (ruled 49 - 44 BCE) claimed descendancy
from the divinity of Venus and built the "Temple of Venus"
in Rome. He decimated the Gallic Celts; a million deaths
and a million slaves. The Gallic resistance fighter
Vercingetorix brought to Rome and killed.

The Galilaeans were Hebrew resistance fighters at
the time. It appears their history must be somehow
interwoven through to the fall of Jerusalem to the
Roman army 70 CE.

This time was a boundary event for the people of
many nationalities and tribes around Judea, and
elsewhere around the "Roman Empire".

It appears to me that the writings to which the
people of today, who refer to themselves as Jewish,
are descendant from the compilation of the Mishnah
at the end of the second century CE.

Arnaldo Momigliano would have more to say.
But time is limited today.

Here is the Gibbon quote:

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Magdlyn

Anyone else have an opinion on whether Jesus could not have been a Jew, since he was Galilean and Jew just meant Judaean?

J-D

This is guesswork, but if the Galilean population identified religiously with the Judaean population, and were correspondingly accepted in Judaea, then they may have regarded themselves, and been regarded, as 'Jewish' in that sense.

The Samaritans, on the other hand, were plainly regarded as religiously distinct from the Judaeans, and presumably so regarded themselves.

When and how these identifications were first established, and how people regarded themselves and eacht other in earlier times, can't change what was the case at the time you are referring to.

spin

I thought we had already established that there were Jewish settlers in Galilee at the time of the Maccabean disturbances. Judeans were people at least of Judean origin, so that one didn't need to have been born in Judea to be a Judean. Just think of all the Jews in the diaspora.

There was a longstanding conflict between the Judeans and the Samaritans in that they shared the same religion. There had been intermarriage between the priesthoods of the temple in Jerusalem and on Mt Gerizzim. These temples were seen as being of the same religion (2 Mac 6:1-2), though there had been conflict between the two centers for quite some time. John Hyrcanus to secure his power destroyed the temple on Mt Gerizzim so that the religion had to be focussed on Jerusalem.

The conflict between the Judeans and the Samaritans is a bit like that between the catholics and the protestants. In this case the Judeans had the clout to gain the ascendency and that reflects the attitudes of the Samaritan woman.


spin

username

Jew is basically 'You', but pronounced with an arabic accent.

Someone a long time ago simply did not understand modern English or Arabic accents and got confused and You became Jew.

We are all Jews by virtue of all being yews, I mean yous. Damn those accents are hard to deal with. Time for everyone to learn proper English.

Magdlyn

But would they call themselves Judaeans? Was it like today, if your mother was Jewish, you were? Would they have to be able to trace their roots to Judaea proper? The 10 tribes of the northern kingdom had been supplanted by Assyrian settlers long ago. Were all the "Jews" in Galilee essentially immigrants from Judah/Judaea?

The Bible is so Judah-centric it's hard for me to understand how people thought of themselves. Plus the idea that there weren't really many synogogues pre-Temple destruction. What did it mean to be a Judaean peasant outside of Judaea then? Circumcision and no pork? Was that about it?

Certainly the Judaean elite didn't like another center for YHWH worship. How different were their methods of worship tho? Were they identical? Did they follow the mitzvot except in a different place? Did they have their own scriptures?

I don't know what that means. I am not trying to change anything, just understand. I guess I want to know more about the religio-political mileu amongst YHWH worshipers, as distinct from the Greaco-Roman religions. It seems we have good evidence about "Jewish: sects in or near Judaea~ Essenes, Pharisees, Saducees, Zealots~ but Galilee/Samaria, where Jesus was supposed to have come from... we got nothing? Those regions were not very far away from Judaea. Why are they so dark?

Magdlyn

Do you mean in a past thread? Do you have a link?

So was Galilee considered part of the diaspora 1st cent CE?

Were you considered diaspora if you emigrated from Judaea willingly, instead of being forced out by war? How many "Jews" were in Galilee at the time of "Jesus?" It seems they were really looked down upon by all of Judaea. Maybe they weren't all that Jewish- perhaps they didn't speak Aramaic, much less Hebrew.

Were Asherah and Tammuz (Adonis) still hanging around?

"Can anything good come of Nazareth?" "Galilee of the Gentiles." Were people surprised to see a devout Jew like Jesus come out of the north, b/c there were next to no devout Jews up there? Were they seen as tainted as the Samaritans were? Was there some chauvinism around how Judaeans viewed Jesus and his Galilean followers, b/c it was thought it was impossible for Jesus to be as good of a Jew as those further south?

How'd they get the clout? More money, bigger armies? Larger populations to be conscripted for an army?

We are certainly not led to believe, by reading the gospels, that Samaria was YHWHtheistic. We are led to believe they were depraved Satan worshipers.

I just don't know what to call Jews at this time. Judaeans refers to a certain geographical region. Israelites is out b/c Israel ceased to exist after Assyria conquered it. Hebrews is no good b/c they were no longer speaking it. Jacobites is no good, his god/dess was El Shaddai. Abrahamic is no good, he also did not know YHWH. Perhaps Mosaic is the most accurate title.

spin

I don't remember the thread, but the reference is to 1 Mac 5:14-16 (and following on from 5:9ff).

I don't really know if the distinction of diaspora against from Judea was meaningful in those times. Herod defended Jews throughout the Roman world. High priests came from Egypt and from Babylon. Obviously they weren't considered any differently.

I don't know.

I don't know if Jesus existed, so the presupposition that he did doesn't make too much sense for me to answer in your first question.

The views of the Samaritans in Ben Sira 50:25f is instructive for understanding them. Galilee was somewhat different from Samaria. It was a place where Judeans must have gone to live -- among the gentiles. The Samarians weren't Judeans to start with, but shared basically the same religion. Galilee might always be Galilee of the gentiles, but some Jews lived there and were probably seen as Jews.

The Jerusalemites in winning their freedom from the Seleucid empire had developed military forces to survive and John Hyrcanus used them for Judea's aggrandizement. That included the reduction of Samaria and its temple.

And what makes the gospels an authority?

There are Samaritans in the world today and their holy literature includes the Samaritan pentateuch, whose major difference involves the importance of Gerizzim.

The books of the Maccabees had no trouble in using "Israelites". And I don't think Judea was strictly a geographical reference, given as I indicated that Herod was famous for supporting Jews throughout the Roman empire.

That's not correct. Hebrew was a productive language at the time. The vast majority of non-biblical DSS were written in Hebrew. Hebrew was used in letters and contracts during the Bar-Kochba revolt.

Why not stick with Jews in English meaning Judeans or simply with Judeans. It clearly wasn't just a geographical term.


spin

Ray Moscow

My limited 2-cents: in the English NT, "Jew" is used for "Judean" -- but by extension also those who identified with the Judeans culturally and religiously, like Saul/Paul (of Tarsus, in Cilicia/Asia Minor/modern Turkey).

Galileans were apparently considered rather fringe characters by true Judeans, but it's not unreasonable for a foreigner to group them with the "Judeans".

Ray