What Makes a People?: Early Jewish Ideas of Peoplehood and Their Evolving Impact

Published by De Gruyter 2024

What Makes a People?

Early Jewish Ideas of Peoplehood and Their Evolving Impact

Edited by: Dionisio Candido , Renate Egger-Wenzel and Stefan C. Reif

Volume 2022/2023 in the series Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111337807

Overview
Contents

About this book

This set of varied and stimulating papers, by an international group of younger as well as senior scholars, examines the manner in which peoplehood was understood by the Jewish communities of the Second Temple period and by the religious traditions that emerged from those communities and later flourished in Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The Hebrew and Greek terms for "people" and "nation" and the name "Israel" are closely analyzed, especially in forays into wisdom literature, Jewish apologetic and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their uses are related to geographical, political and theological developments, as well as statehood, authority and rulership in the Persian world, Hasmonean times and Ptolemaic Egypt. Especially interesting are the carefully argued and documented suggestions about how Jewish peoplehood expressed itself with regard to charitable behavior, pagan deities, and marital regulations. Those interested in the history of cultural and theological tensions will be intrigued by the studies centered on how the opponents of Jews behaved towards "the people of God", how Hellenistic Jewish culture located the Jews on the Roman rather than on the Greek side, and how early Christian discourse saw the mission among the peoples and interpreted earlier sources accordingly. The idea of the Jewish "way of life" is seen to have influenced the writer of the longer Greek version of Esther and works of fiction are shown to have had important historical data within them. Modern social theory also has its say here in a careful consideration of Cognitive theory of ethnicity and the dynamic of ethnic boundary-making.

Author / Editor information

Dionisio Candido und Renate Egger-Wenzel, both Salzburg, Austria; Stefan C. Reif, Cambridge, England.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Social Conflicts in the Persian Period: Yehud, Elephantine and Samaria Stefan Beyerle Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
What Makes a People According to Israel’s Wisdom Literature? ἔθνος and ἔθνη in Proverbs, Wisdom of Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon Oda Wischmeyer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Laos in the First Book of Maccabees: A Hasmonean Perspective in the Context of Limited Statehood Barbara Schmitz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Sociology of Ben Sira’s Patriarchal Society: Textual and Papyrological Perspectives Jeremy Corley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Ben Sira’s Catalogue of Generosity (Sir 7:32‒36) Núria Calduch-Benages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
“When one is wise to his people’s advantage” (Sir 37:23): Political Intelligence in the Book of Ben Sira Severino Bussino Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Konfrontationen. Die Kontrahenten des Volkes im Buch der Weisheit Friedrich V. Reiterer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Die jüdische Lebensweise in den griechischen Versionen des Buches Esther Renate Egger-Wenzel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
The Identity of “Israel” in the Book of Tobit: How to Create an ethnos? József Zsengellér Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
The Heroes of the Book of Tobit as Figures of the Assyrian Diaspora Marcin Chrostowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
“For we are the sons of the prophets”: The Idea of a People in the Book of Tobit Francis M. Macatangay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Which Idols? The Criticism of Idolatry in the Epistle of Jeremiah (Bar 6) Armando Rafael Castro Acquaroli Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
What Makes a People in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Jutta M. Jokiranta Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Entangled Jewish Identities in Rome. The Case of “Barbarians” in Philo and Josephus Maren R. Niehoff Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (Matt 28:19): Jesus’s Cosmocracy and the Universalization of Discipleship—an “Inclusive” Reading Eve-Marie Becker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
The Mixed Marriage Crisis (Ezra 9‒10, Nehemiah 13), and Its Resonance in Jewish Law and Lore Dalia Marx Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
The Notion of the Nation: How Hebrew Terminology Has Adjusted to Changing Circumstances—A Tale of Cultural Semantics Stefan C. Reif Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Index of Subjects Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index of Modern Authors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297
Index of Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303

(Deutsch)

Languages: English, German
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Researchers in the fields of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish ancient history, Literature of the Second Temple
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 322
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Tables: 25
Keywords: Ethnicity; Jewish Literature; Hellenism; Diaspora

eBook

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783111337807

Hardcover

Published: November 6, 2023
ISBN: 9783111334851