Judean definition

Judean rather than “Jew” will lose, for today’s readers, the specific sense of religious affiliation and religious practice. Doran concludes, correctly: “In modern English ‘Judean’ retains only the connotation of geographical origin, without maintaining the religious and cultural significance that a point-of-origin term would have retained in antiquity. I have therefore opted to keep the traditional translation,” that is, “Jew.”63 In the end, then, “Judeans” remains insufficient as it excludes the central importance of religion in the defining of this people as well as the historical continuities which an ethical consciousness requires scholars to maintain. As Daniel R. Schwartz has 62 Levine, Misunderstood Jew, 160. 63 Levine, Misunderstood Jew, 162. Cf. Bengt Holmberg, “Understanding the First Hundred Years of Christian Identity,” in Exploring Early Christian Identity (ed. Bengt Holmberg; WUNT 226; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 4. concluded, “. . . Jewish identity in antiquity was anything but unambiguous. It would not seem to be a good idea, when we come to represent ancient notions and realities by translating ancient books, to lean over backwards to make it sound as it were.”64 At this point, my options are three-fold. First, I could simply pick either one of these problematic terms, constantly reminding the reader of its inadequacies. The constant refrain of caveats may prove too distracting and ultimately not take seriously enough the problems these terms pose in historical inquiry.65 Second, I could use both terms at the same time (Jews/Judeans) or interchangeably; again, however, the limitations of these terms may then only be relegated to footnotes when their importance properly belongs at the forefront of this discussion. Third, following Hodge I could opt for “Ioudaios,” thus emphasizing that there is not a term in English that lines up well enough with the Greek term, while at the same time reserving the right to use “Jew” or “Jewish” in order to remind the reader of the historical links between these ancient and modern peoples.66 While I tend to prefer the latter in this dissertation, ultimately, this work cannot resolve these irreducible ambiguities and irreconcilable tensions. The focus of this dissertation on Acts requires me to ask specifically what the author of this text might have meant by the ethnic term Ἰουδαῖος and be prepared to discover that Luke takes advantage of the multivalent potential of this and other ethnic appellations. With th...
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Examples of Judean in a sentence

  • In a later period of Judean history, the “literacy model” makes more sense.

  • The First Thousand Years (2d ed.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 127-34 argues that while συναγωγή was the preferred terminology in Judean settings, there is significant evidence that προσευχή was preferred in the Diaspora.

  • Numerous Old Hebrew inscrip- tions from the ninth through sixth centuries b.c.e. (and from Israelite and Judean sites) contain hieratic numerals, a complicated numeric system.

  • As such, there is an essential religious dimension to the category “poor,” one that does not completely override its economic and social dimensions but that offers a ▇▇▇▇▇▇ understanding of the reality designated by the term in the context of first-century Judean virtuoso religious practices (ibid., 131).

  • He argued that Judean levitical priests were responsible for composing Deuteronomy.7 Deuteronomy is a cultic document and a book filled with the spirit of holy war,8 two features he proposes levitical authorship explains.

  • Not surprisingly, this second section reads a bit like a political thriller filled with espionage and murderous detail, and a jarring reversal of fortune for the vulnerable remnant whose survival is ultimately at stake in the harsh thrust and parry between Judean and Ammonite power-players.

  • If these Galileans were ignorant of certain Judean traditions, whether it be as a result of moving away or as a result of intentional disregard, they could easily re-familiarise themselves with such traditions during one of their pilgrimage visits to Jerusalem (see Freyne 1988:178-187; 2000:130, 154; ▇▇▇▇ 2000:57-58; cf.

  • Now, seeing as the great majority of Galileans were ethnically and religiously Judean, it is extremely likely that inhabitants of Galilee shared religious and mythological customs and traditions with Judea, including the concept of psychostasia.

  • Palestinians in Gaza are confined to the Western border of the Negev desert, and those in the West Bank, to the Judean desert.

  • Relinquishing the western slopes of the Judean and Samarian hills will create a situation in which the fate of the national water supply could be determined by the actions of whatever Arab author- ity controlled the evacuated areas after withdrawal.