Steve Mason (a colleague of mine here at York U.) recently handed me an offprint of his new article that, in my mind, puts to rest a recent debate within scholarship regarding the appropriateness of using the term “Judaism” — as though it were an ancient, emic (insider) concept — to describe a whole system of practice and belief in the Greco-Roman world:

Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007) 457-512. (available online to subscribing institutions here).

Mason convincingly argues that Ioudaioi (traditionally translated “Jews”) and related terms should be understood in terms of ethnic groupings in antiquity. For the Hellenistic and Roman periods (at least until the third century CE) we should be speaking of “Judeans”, not “Jews”, and of “Judean customs” or practices, not “Judaism”. Mason is careful to point out that he is not arguing against the use of critically-employed, etic (outsider), scholarly categories in the interest of furthering scholarly knowledge (pp. 458-460). So while he is underlining the absence of the category “Judaism” as a system (i.e. the lack of an emic term such as this in ancient literature), on the one hand, he is also pointing to the ineffectiveness, scientifically, of the uncritical use of this specific modern scholarly (etic) category, “Judaism”, in connection with the ancient period.

Mason builds his argument in three stages. First (pp. 457-480), he deals with the relatively rare ancient terms ἰουδαίζω (verb) / Ἰουδαισμός (noun), which have often been erroneously translated as referring to “Judaism” as a system of belief and practice, rather than to the practice of adopting the ways of a particular ethnic group. Mason shows, that these “-ize” terms, like “barbarize”, “Spartanize”, “hellenize”, and “Romanize”, are used by the ancients to speak of those from one ethnic group going over to or adopting the practices of a people other than their own, adopting foreign ways. Christian uses of “Judaize”, as in Ignatius of Antioch, often occur in polemical materials pertaining precisely to this pull toward Judean ways among Greeks of western Asia Minor (“Gentiles”). Mason goes through the main cases of “Judaize”, including those in the Maccabean histories and in the inscription from Stobi, to show that there was no “static or systematic abstraction” known as “Judaism” in minds of those who used these Greek terms in antiquity.

Second (pp. 480-488), Mason goes on to show how some scholars continue to uncritically employ the concept of “religion” in studies of ancient Judean culture. In particular, theories by Shaye Cohen and others that propose a shift in the meaning of Ioudaioi from an originally ethnic-geographic category (i.e. “Judean”) to a religious category (“Jew”) are built on problematic notions regarding the category of “religion”. Mason emphasizes that what we as moderns think of as “religion” was, in fact, not known in antiquity and also intersects or envelopes at least six different categories that were familiar to the ancients (ethnos, cult, philosophy, familial rites of passage, associations, and astrology / magic).

Third (pp. 489-512), Mason argues that the Ioudaioi / Iudaei “of Graeco-Roman antiquity understood themselves, and were understood by outsiders, as an ἔθνος, a people comparable to and contrastable with other ἔθνη” (p. 489). Ancient authors including Strabo, Posidonius, Tacitus, Philo, and Josephus consistently speak of Ioudaioi in terms of them being an ethnos, a people or ethnic group. Here Mason also deals with common objections to the use of “Judeans” to translate Ioudaioi, most notably the objection raised by Cohen and others that “conversion” to Judean ways by non-Judean peoples in the Hasmonean period signals the shift to a “religious” understanding of the label Ioudaios. Mason effectively argues that we have no evidence from ancient authors that this proposed shift took place and that it is also problematic in regard to the notions of “religion” that lie behind it.

This article, in my mind, has put this question to rest. It is time to speak of “Judeans”, “Judean practices”, and “Judean culture” in the same way that we would speak of the identity and practices of the many other ethnic groups or peoples that existed in antiquity. The Judeans of antiquity are not a special case.

Among other things, my own recent research into immigrant groups of various kinds, including Judeans in the Greco-Roman cities, led me to speak of Judeans and Judean culture, Syrians and Syrian culture. Even in lectures I now speak of Paul, Philo, Josephus, and others primarily as “Judeans” and of the practices and beliefs they express as variations on Judean culture. At the moment and probably in the long-run, these are the most appropriate categories to work with.

This third episode looks at Paul’s response to followers of Jesus at Thessalonica, including his attempt to comfort these socially dislocated Christians, his use of familial language to build up their identity, and his use of praising (demonstrative) rhetoric. It also begins to consider Paul as an apocalyptic Judean (approx. 32 minutes). This episode is part of series one (“Paul and his Communities”) of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast.

Podcast 1.3: Paul’s response to Jesus-followers at Thessalonica (mp3; archive.org page with various downloading options here).

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I was happy to be chosen and interviewed as October’s “blogger of the month” by Biblioblogs.com (Brandon Wason and Jim West).  You can read the interview here.  A monkey is involved.

Over on my music blog, I have just today posted a review of Stephen Catanzarite’s Achtung Baby: Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall (33 1/3; New York: Continuum, 2007).

This second episode looks at the situation among followers of Jesus at Thessalonica in Macedonia in the mid-first century. Considering the ethnic and social makeup of the earliest Christians, this episode also discusses two main problems faced by these followers of Jesus: “afflictions” and the death of fellow-followers of Jesus. This prepares the way for episode three, which will look at how Paul responds to this situation in his letter, known as 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament (approx. 36 minutes). This episode is part of series one (“Paul and his Communities”) of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast.

Podcast 1.2: The Situation at Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians) (mp3; archive.org page with various downloading options here).

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So far, it seems that the move of my websites and blogs to a new internet hosting service provider has gone well, and that things are working. Please comment here if you do encounter any problems at all on the blogs or websites. It would be much appreciated!

I just noticed that the number of unique visitors to this blog (since 2005) has recently gone passed 100,000, not to mention the 300 or so regular readers who now subscribe through feeds (and are not included in that unique visitors count). This makes it all seem worthwhile. Thanks for visiting this blog!

Now, if I could only get these sorts of numbers to my new music blog, Phil’s Vinyl Addiction.

This inaugural episode in series 1 (Paul and his communities) uses incidental autobiographical references in Paul’s letters as an avenue into the study of Paul, his letters, and early Christian groups (approx. 27 minutes).

Podcast 1.1: Paul in his own words (mp3; archive.org page with various downloading options here).

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Although philosophical debates about the nature of Jesus Christ in terms of his humanity and / or divinity were clearly a hallmark of the fourth century (as evidenced in the church councils and creeds), it is true that how one viewed Jesus’ fleshliness was a divisive factor among some followers of Jesus in the late first century and into the second. In fact, one of the earliest cases of schism within a specific community of Jesus-followers seems to relate to this factor.

The author of the tractate and epistles associated with John the elder (1-3 John) provides us with evidence of this earliest of schisms (probably in the late first century). More specifically, this elder attests to the fact that a group of people had left what was previously a relatively united community of followers, likely somewhere in western Asia Minor (usually labeled the “Johannine community” by scholars due to the community’s shared traditions associated with the Gospel of John).

The divide that had since developed between John the elder and his supporters, on the one hand, and those that had left, on the other, was considerable, with very little sign of reconciliation. So much so that the elder associates them with “the world” in a strongly negative sense and he does not hesitate to label them “deceivers” and “antichrists” — strong language indeed. The central factor in the disagreement relates to what the elder considers a failure to acknowledge Jesus’ coming in the flesh:

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7-8 [RSV]).

“For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already” (1 John 4:1-3).

(For a discussion of the rhetorical use of “Satan”, “antichrist” and related labels, see my other post here.)

Elsewhere, the elder also claims that this had some implications regarding ethics or behaviour, regarding how these opponents were viewing “sin”, namely that “we have no sin” (1 John 1:5-10). It is hard to evaluate the truth in this accusation of false claims, if there is any, since the elder claims that he and his camp, in opposition to the “children of the devil”, know that “no one who abides in [Jesus] sins” (1 John 3:6). Both sides are claiming sinless status though disagreeing on the other’s precise understanding of that and of whether or not the other is “abiding” in Jesus.

Apparently the “flesh” factor also underlies the elder’s other accusations that the opponents supposedly deny “the Father and the Son” or deny that “Jesus is the Christ” (1 John 2:22). We need to take these generalizations with a grain of salt and interpret them in light of the “flesh” factor, since it is hard to imagine that these other followers of Jesus were indeed denying that Jesus was the Messiah or that Jesus was sent by the Father. Instead, the elder seems to equate any downplaying of Jesus’ humanity as the equivalent of denying Jesus, the Son, and the Father altogether.

As scholars such as Raymond Brown point out, it seems that the elder and his opponents, who had belonged to the same community and had the same favourite writings, were both interpreting the gospel of John’s rather high Christology (Jesus as the preexisting “Word” or Utterance of the Father) in two very different ways. Both might agree that Jesus was preexistent and that Jesus was made flesh in some manner, but each interpreted such things differently and put more emphasis on one factor (divine preexistence) than another (flesh).

It is difficult to know precisely how these opponents relate to the opponents attacked by Ignatius of Antioch just about a decade later, also in Asia Minor. These opponents are accused of saying that Jesus “suffered in appearance only” (Letter to the Trallians 10). The downplaying of Jesus’ fleshliness is once again a factor here in what scholars often label “docetism” (from the Greek word dokein = to seem or appear to be). We’ll come back to docetism and Ignatius in a later post.

For more on the opponents in 1-3 John, see Raymond Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 93-144.