Israelites or Jews?

Some have argued that the various ancient cognates of “Jew” (e.g., יהודי [Yehudi]) should be translated differently depending on time period and other factors: “Judahite” when referring to the pre-exilic Iron Age people and then “Judaean” after the exile until the term comes to reflect an “ethno-religious” connotation rather than an “ethno-political” sense. See especially Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–512.

The underlying idea is that, whereas the modern term “Jew” implies religious affiliation, the alternative translations more precisely indicate an ancient ethnic group rather than a religious one. But the category of ethnicity as distinct from cultus is no less modern than the category of religion; in Paula Fredriksen’s words, “gods really did run in the blood … cult, as enacted and imagined, defined ethnicity” (“Compassion Is to Purity as Fish Is to Bicycle and Other Reflections on Constructions of ‘Judaism’ in Current Work on the Historical Jesus,” in Apocalypticism, Anti-Semitism and the Historical Jesus: Subtexts in Criticism, ed. John S. Kloppenborg and John W. Marshall [T&T Clark, 2005], 57).

Moreover, the foundational presumption of the distinction is misguided; since roughly a quarter of American and Israeli Jews define themselves as atheists, the modern term “Jew” need not imply religious membership today, either. The English word “Jew” refers at least as much to ethnicity as religion and can refer to a secular atheist Jew in Israel or to a Hasidic rabbi in New York City (though not to O. J. Simpson). As such, I agree with Cynthia Baker’s conclusion that “As a stand-in for ‘ethnic group’ its [the term Judaean’s] ability to clarify is matched only by its potential for obfuscation and misrepresentation.” See eadem, “A ‘Jew’ by Any Other Name,” JAJ 2 (2011), 178.

I also agree with Marc Zvi Brettler that “Jew” should be used even in the pre-exilic period, at least when referring to those specifically from the tribe or kingdom of Judah, since the languages of the ancient texts themselves do not distinguish between Iron Age “Judahites” and later “Jews,” and differentiating the terms obscures the continuity of the people group before and after the exile. See Marc Zvi Brettler, “Judaism in the Hebrew Bible? The Transition From Ancient Israelite Religion to Judaism,” CBQ 61, no. 3 (1999): 429–447. For more on this debate over translation, see the online symposium: “Jew and Judean: A Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts,” Marginalia (Aug 26, 2014). This article will therefore not distinguish between “Judaeans” and “Jews” or “Judahites”—a distinction the ancient languages themselves cannot make.

Karl Georg Kuhn, “Ἰσραήλ, Ἰουδαῖος, Ἑβραῖος in Jewish Literature after the OT,” TDNT, 3:359–368 [1964 English translation of the original German Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament 3:360–370 entry from 1938].

After the collapse of Northern Israel in 722 B.C.E., only the comparatively small territory around Jerusalem, the kingdom of [Judah], was left to maintain the ancient tradition and name of what was once the whole people [Israel]. …After the return from exile…it is thus quite natural that the name which derives from the territory…which originally denotes an inhabitant of the kingdom or province of Judah, should come to be used more generally for a member of the people of Israel. To denote, not a member of the Jewish state or an inhabitant of Judaea, but a member of this people, two terms can thus be used, namely, ישראל-Ἰσραήλ, “Israel(ite)” and יהודי-Ἰουδαῖος, “Jew” (ibid., 359).

Similarly John J. Collins, “The Construction of Israel in the Sectarian Rule Books,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity: Theory of Israel (Pt. 5 Vol. 1), ed. Alan J Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and Bruce D. Chilton (Brill, 2001), 25–42 (at 25), states:

In biblical tradition, “Israel” is the union of tribes descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. For a period of some two hundred years it had a narrower connotation, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel as opposed to the southern kingdom of Judah. After the fall of the Northern Kingdom, however, the Judeans laid claim to the heritage of all Israel.

Gad Barnea has more recently argued that around the sixth century B.C.E., Yehudi became a general ethno-religious identifier for all worshipers of YHWH and thus could and did apply to those not from the southern kingdom of Judah. Barnea first starts with etymological and onomastic arguments and then points to the Elephantine community as evidence, arguing that the “Jews” at Elephantine were likely Yahwists from northern Israelite stock because they were also referred to as “Aramean,” a label he argues would likely not apply to someone from Judah. See Gad Barnea, “Yahwistic Identity in the Achaemenid period,” ZAW 136.1 (2024): 1–14.

I, however, remain unconvinced that the Elephantine Jews should be identified as ethnic northerners; one could just as easily argue that the origins of the Elephantine group came from Assyrian-period Judahites who they also designated as “Arameans” (=those from beyond the river”). On “Aramean” as a Neo-Assyrian term meaning those “beyond the River,” see D. R. G. Beattie and Philip R. Davies, “What Does Hebrew Mean?” JSS 56.1 (2011): 71–83. Moreover, even if Barnea is right about the sixth century and Elephantine, this sense of “Jew” does not appear to persist in later Second Temple evidence.

^[3] For example, Louis Feldman summarizes a debate over the status of the Samaritans (t. Ter 4:12, 14) as follows: “The fact that, according to the latter [Judah Ha-Nasi], a Samaritan is like a non-Jew indicates that he is really a Jew.” See Louis H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Attitude toward the Samaritans: A Study in Ambivalence,” in Jewish Sects, Religious Movements, and Political Parties: Proceedings of the Third Annual Symposium of the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization Held on Sunday–Monday, October 14–15, 1990, ed. Menachem Mor, SJC (Creighton University Press, 1992), 23–45 (at 32). The passage, however, references neither “Jew” nor “non-Jew” but rather “Israel” and “foreigner.”

^{תוספתא תרומות ד:יב} הכותי כנכרי דברי רבי. רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר הכותי כישראל.

^{t. Ter 4:12} A Samaritan is like a foreigner. These are the words of Rebbi. Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel says, a Samaritan is like [a member of] Israel.

There are innumerable examples of this phenomenon, including in many translations themselves.

Of these 26, four refer to the Jews of Josephus’ day (1.4; 1.6; 1.214; 9.291 [ 2]), seven to the southern kingdom (9.245; 10.87; 10.169; 10.182; 10.186; 10.222; 10.265), one explains why Jews were originally called Hebrews (1.146), and three are quotations from other historians (1.95; 1.240; 7.103). Four are ambiguous, but appear to represent those from Judah: 6.30 (land belonging to “the Jews” in the territory of Judah); 6.324 (“south of the Jews”); 7.72 (“David, king of the Jews”); 8.163 (Ezion-Geber once belonged to the Jews). Only six times does Josephus use it in a sense akin to Israelites; all but one of those occurs in book six (4.11; 6.26; 6.40; 6.68; 6.96; 6.97).

“Hebrew” seems to have become primarily a linguistic marker by the Second Temple era. See the discussion in Jason A. Staples, The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 71–83.

Kuhn, TDNT, 3:360.

Kuhn, TDNT, 3:368.

Presumably, he means Judah and Benjamin, with Levi not included in the count. Exactly how the tribes are numbered (and which tribes are to be counted) varies across early Jewish sources. See Andrew Tobolowsky, The Sons of Jacob and the Sons of Herakles: The History of the Tribal System and the Organization of Biblical Identity, Forschungen Zum Alten Testament 2 (Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

The remaining ten tribes of “Israel” did not return. The ears of the reader aware of the prophets’ promises about Israel’s restoration should be tingling at this, as Josephus thereby indicates that Roman hegemony over the Jews will not be permanent—when the rest of Israel returns, Rome will be unable to resist.

For a thorough analysis of these sources, see Staples, The Idea of Israel.

Staples, The Idea of Israel, 252–253.

Nathan Thiel, “‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’ as Markers of Jewish Identity in Antiquity: The Problems of Insider/Outsider Classification,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian Hellenistic, and Roman Period 45, no. 1 (2014): 80–99 (pp. 86–87). See also Sylvie Honigman, “‘Politeumata’ and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102. The Herakleopolis papyri are collected in James M. S. Cowey and Klaus Maresch, Urkunden des Politeuma der Juden von Herakleopolis (144/3–133/2 v. Chr.)(P. Polit. Iud.) (Westdeutscher Verlag, 2001). The fifth- and fourth-century B.C.E. papyri and ostraca (potsherds with writing on them) from Elephantine in Egypt similarly show the Jews in Elephantine self-identifying with the default Aramaic Yehuda’i. See Hélène Lozachmeur et al., La collection Clermont-Ganneau: Ostraca, épigraphes sur jarre, étiquettes de bois, 2 vols. Mémoires de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Boccard, 2006), nos. 135cv2, 182, x11.

Jeremiah 32:12; 34:9; 38:19; 40:11–12, 15; 41:3; 43:9; 44:1; 52:28, 30

Yehudi appears seventy-eight times in the Bible. Six instances refer to the “Judean” language—almost certainly meaning what we would call Hebrew (2 Kgs 18:26; 18:28; Isa 36:11; 36:13; Neh 13:24; 2 Chr 32:18). Four others refer to a person named Yehudi (Jer 36:14, 21 [2x], 23). The related “son(s) of Judah” (בני יהודה) appears fifty-one times. The uses of that term in the Torah (6x), Joshua (14x), and 1 Chronicles (10x) refer to the putative descendants of the patriarch Judah (mostly in genealogies), but the ten instances in the Latter Prophets are probably better understood as referring to the people of the kingdom of Judah, including those from other tribes.

This is especially relevant to why Mordecai is identified as a Yehudi in Esther 2:5 despite being from the tribe of Benjamin, a problem discussed in b. Megillah 12b. For more on the term in Esther and the rabbinic discussions thereof, see Ophir Yarden, “Jewish Not Judean: The Diaspora in the Book of Esther,” TheTorah (2022).

The term is similarly used as an ethnonym in Kings and in Chronicles: when the Arameans took land that had been under Judah’s control, וַיְנַשֵּׁל אֶת הַיְהוּדִים מֵאֵילוֹת, “they drove the Yehudim away from Elath” (2 Kgs 16:6); Gedaliah, appointed by the Babylonians to govern Judah, is killed, along with אֶת הַיְּהוּדִים וְאֶת הַכַּשְׂדִּים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ אִתּוֹ בַּמִּצְפָּה, “the Yehudim and Chaldeans who were with him at Mitzpah” (2 Kgs 25:25); and Mered, the descendant of Caleb (living in Judah) is said to have had two wives: אִשְׁתּוֹ הַיְהֻדִיָּה, “his Yehudiyyah wife,” and another who is the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Chr 4:18).

Some form of “Israel” or “Israelite” occurs approximately 2522 times in the Bible (BHS). For a recent review of scholarship on how and when Judah began to use the name Israel, see Jason Staples, The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism, 87–120; Gary N. Knoppers, “Did Jacob Become Judah?: The Configuration of Israel’s Restoration in Deutero-Isaiah,” in Samaria, Samarians, Samaritans: Studies on Bible, History, and Linguistics, ed. József Zsengellér (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 39–67; Michael J. Stahl, “The ‘God of Israel’ in Judah’s Bible: Problems and Prospects,” JBL 139, no. 4 (2020): 721–745; and Michael J. Stahl, The “God of Israel” in History and Tradition, VTSupp 187 (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

^{בראשׁית לב:כט} וַיֹּאמֶר לֹא יַעֲקֹב יֵאָמֵר עוֹד שִׁמְךָ כִּי אִם יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי שָׂרִיתָ עִם אֱלֹהִים וְעִם אֲנָשִׁים וַתּוּכָל.

^{Gen 32:29} Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”

Two passages also use the gentilic form יִשְׂרְאֵלִי, “Israelite” (Lev 24:10–11; 2 Sam 17:25).

For example, when Jeremiah refers to אֶת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת בֵּית יְהוּדָה, “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (e.g., Jer 31:31), the “house of Israel” refers to northerners in distinction from those of the southern kingdom of Judah. Similar distinctions appear across the prophets. See, e.g., Isaiah 11:10–13; Ezekiel 37:16–17; Amos 2:4–6; Hosea 1:9–2:1; 8:8; and Zechariah 10:6–10.

The offering of twelve male goats by שָׂבֵי יְהוּדָיֵא, “the elders of the Jews” (Ezra 6:14) at the dedication of the rebuilt Temple, is especially significant in this respect, as the twelve tribes are not otherwise represented:

^{עזרא ו:יז} וְהַקְרִבוּ לַחֲנֻכַּת בֵּית אֱלָהָא דְנָה תּוֹרִין מְאָה דִּכְרִין מָאתַיִן אִמְּרִין אַרְבַּע מְאָה וּצְפִירֵי עִזִּין לְחַטָּיָא [לְחַטָּאָה] עַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל תְּרֵי עֲשַׂר לְמִנְיָן שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל.

^{Ezra 6:17} And they sacrificed for the dedication of this House of God one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and twelve goats as a purification offering for all of Israel, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.

This offering is therefore apparently hopeful of a greater restoration than what Ezra later calls ‏מִחְיָה מְעַט בְּעַבְדֻתֵנוּ כִּי עֲבָדִים אֲנַחְנוּ, “a little reviving in our bondage, for we are slaves” (9:8–9).

E.g., Stefan Schorch, “The Construction of Samari(t)an Identity from the Inside and from the Outside,” In Between Cooperation and Hostility: Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers, ed. Rainer Albertz and Jakob Wöhrle, JAJSup 11 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 136; Alan D. Crown, “Redating the Schism Between the Judaeans and the Samaritans,” JQR 82.1–2 (1991): 17–50 (at 50); Ferdinand Dexinger “Samaritan Origins and the Qumran Texts,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722.1 (1994): 231–249 (at 237). Editor’s note: See also Mary-Joan Leith, “The Ten Lost Tribes: A Myth to Delegitimize the Samarians,” TheTorah (2025).

See the discussion in Gary N. Knoppers, Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of their Early Relations (Oxford University Press, 2013), 15–16.

E.g., Josephus, Antiquities 9.288, 10.184; m. Niddah 4:1–2; t. Terumot 4:12; b. Gittin 44a. See Feldman, “Josephus’ Attitude toward the Samaritans, 31; Rocco Bernascon, “Tannaitic‘Israel’ and the Kutim,” in Entre lignes de partage et territoires de passage: les identités religieuses dans les mondes grec et romain. “Paganismes,” “judaïsmes,” “christianismes,” eds. Nicole Belayche and Simon C. Mimouni, Collection de la Revue des Études Juives 47 (Peeters, 2008), 365–92; Ingrid Hjelm,“What Do Samaritans and Jews Have in Common? Recent Trends in Samaritan Studies,” CurBR 3.1 (2004): 9–59; Ingrid Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A Literary Analysis, JSOTSup 303 (Sheffield Academic, 2000).

This pattern was by no means limited to Germany, nor was it unique to National Socialism; similar patterns had been present throughout Europe for generations. In France, for example, juif was frequently employed as a slur, while israélite was a respectful term used by non-Jewish sympathizers. In the United States, it was no accident that the two major American Jewish newspapers established in the nineteenth century were called The American Israelite (est. 1854) and The American Hebrew (est. 1879). For more on the term “Jew” and its development after antiquity, see Cynthia M. Baker, Jew (Rutgers University Press, 2017), especially 3–10.

“Die Ausbreitung des Judentums in der antiken Welt.” The first part of this lecture was subsequently published as “Die inneren Voraussetzungen der jüdischen Ausbreitung” [The internal conditions of the Jewish spread] Deutsche Theologie 2 (1935): 9–17. See the discussion in Hermann Lichtenberger, “Karl Georg Kuhn (1906–1976)—Two Academic Careers in Germany,” in Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism, and Anti-Judaism, ed. Arjen F. Bakker et al., JSJ Supp 200 (Brill, 2022), 1–23 (p. 6)

Presumably, the inscription was In herzlicher Kameradschaft, Ernst Röhm, as was the case for the 1934 honor daggers introduced by Ernst Röhm and modeled on the SS daggers.

M. A. Beek, review of Achtzehngebet und Vaterunser und der Reim, by Karl Georg Kuhn, Vox Theologica 21 (1950): 21–22, my translation.

See Toby Axelrod, “In Germany, Kristallnacht goes by a different name. Here’s why,” The Times of Israel, 9 November 2022.

Karl Georg Kuhn, Die Judenfrage als weltgeschichtliches Problem (Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1939).

See Robert P. Ericksen, “Theologian in the Third Reich: The Case of Gerhard Kittel,” Journal of Contemporary History 12 no. 3 (1977): 595–622.

For more details on Kuhn and the origin of his theory, see Staples, The Idea of Israel, 29–39; Maurice Casey, “Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the ‘Theological Dictionary of the New Testament’” NovT (1999): 280–291.

This pattern begins as early as the New Testament Gospel of John, which, although labeling Jesus himself as a “Jew” (John 4:9), frequently refers to Jesus’ opponents with the label Ioudaioi (“Jews”). In contrast, when Jesus expresses his approval of the disciple Nathanael, he declares him “truly an Israelite” (1:47). By the second-century, documents like the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho further develop this trajectory, which then characterizes many Christian patristic sources from that time forward. See Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews (Doubleday, 2008); Paula Fredriksen and Adele Reinhartz, eds., Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust (Westminster John Knox, 2002).

In the Talmud, both R. Yoḥanan and R. Judah ha-Nasi agree with Eliezer, with the former declaring that in this judgment, “R. Aqiva abandoned his love/piety” (b. Sanh 110b).

David Goodblatt, “‘The Israelites Who Reside in Judah’ (Judith 4:1): On the Conflicted Identities of the Hasmonean State,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz, TSAJ 130 (Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 74–89.

Goodblatt confesses that he has no explanation for why the Hasmoneans called their kingdom “Judah,” not “Israel.” Goodblatt, “Israelites Who Reside in Judah,” 84, 86; and David Goodblatt, “From Judeans to Israel: Names of Jewish States in Antiquity,” JSJ 29.1 (1998): 1–36.

Lawrence M. Wills, “Jew, Judean, Judaism in the Ancient Period: An Alternative Argument,” JAJ 7.2 (2016): 169–193 [at 178].