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Judean Ethnic Identity in Josephus' Against Apion

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Judean Ethnic Identity in Josephus' Against Apion JUDEAN ETHNIC IDENTITY IN JOSEPHUS’ AGAINST APION Philip F. Esler Among the many signifi cant contributions Sean Freyne has made to understanding the early Christ movement in its context, especially the Galilean setting of Jesus, has been an incisive analysis of what lies behind the names “Galileans,” “Samaritans” and “Ioudaioi.”1 In this essay in Professor Freyne’s honour, my aim is to consider how best to understand what Josephus means by Ioudaioi in Against Apion. In doing so, I will revisit the broad approach to Judean ethnicity, and certain specifi c remarks on Against Apion that I set out in 2003 in a monograph on Romans,2 in the interests of offering a more detailed consideration of Judean ethnicity in this Josephan text than I was able to in 2003. While I cannot say that Professor Freyne will necessarily agree with my argument, I am happy to be able to present this essay to him as a small token of thanks for the warm friendship he has shown me for some twenty years. The word Ioudaios appears in the extant Greek section of Against Apion seventy-two times.3 I argued in 2003 that in the fi rst century c.e. this word carried an ethnic, not a religious meaning, that the sense of its connection to the land Judea was very strong and that it should be translated “Judean” and not “Jew.” Part of my argument in 2003 was the observation that in Against Apion the name for virtually every one of the forty or so groups mentioned (except anomalies like the Hycsos) was based on the territory they occupied. Translating Ioudaios as “Jew,” and hence without reference to the geographic dimension, rather than 1 Freyne 2000, 114–31. 2 Esler 2003, 40–76. 3 See the data in Rengstorf et alii, (eds) 1968, 63. There are three other instances where the text is disputed. These statistics include the occasions on which the word Iudaeus appears in the Latin translation of the section for which the Greek is not extant (2.51–113). This Latin passage is taken from Cassiodorus’ Latin translation of the work. For a Greek retroversion of Cassidorus’ Latin, see Shutt 1987, 79–93. See the concordance to the Latin section in Feldman and Levison 1996, 453–517. 74 philip f. esler “Judean,” would represent an indefensibly exceptionalist translation.4 In the present essay, I seek to corroborate my claim that the Ioudaioi of whom Josephus writes are best regarded as an ethnic group, just like the other groups whom he mentions. In this text, in fact, Josephus expressly relates the name of his people to the name of their land by citing, with evident approval, a saying attributed to Aristotle that the Ioudaioi take their name from the place which they inhabit, Ioudaia (1.179). The Ioudaioi, therefore, are “Judeans,” the ethnic group from “Judea,” not “Jews,” meaning the members of a religion “Judaism.” Here “ethnic” is an etic (that is, an outsider, social-scientifi c) expression and while it should not be regarded as a perfect mode of designation (no system is), nevertheless in my view it remains the best presently available. Since Against Apion is the richest source for Judean ethnicity we have from the fi rst century c.e., it constitutes a strong reason for translating Ioudaios as “Judean” in other texts of this period. I should note at this point that, in addition to regarding “Jew” or “Jewish” as inappropriate for anyone in the fi rst century, I also consider the word “Christian” as inappropriate for anyone at that time (I prefer “Christ-follower” or “Christ-believer”) because of the blatant anachro- nism of the expression. One aspect of this anachronism is that there are three instances of Christianos in the New Testament (Acts 11.26 and 26.28; 1 Pet 4.16), but they are not used as self-designations. On the other hand, I certainly consider that modern-day Jews and Christians look back upon ancient Judeans and Christ-followers respectively as their biological (in some cases) or spiritual ancestors and feel strongly attached to them as the progenitors of their current identities.5 But that is no reason for denying these ancient people the right to be referred to by a name that refl ects the nature of their identity in the fi rst century rather than being saddled with a modern designation anachronistically dropped on them.6 As Fredrik Barth, to whom I will now turn, has 4 Esler 2003, 59. I am gratifi ed that Professor John Barclay, of the University of Durham, in an unpublished lecture delivered in that university on 11th May 2005 (“Jewish Ethnicity as Collage: The Construction of Ethnicity in Josephus’ Contra Api- onem.”) a copy of which he has kindly provided to me and which he is working up for publication, has also expressed the view that “Judean” is the preferable translation for Ioudaios because of the territorial nature of the other names for ethnic groups in the text (p. 20). Since this paper was written, Barclay’s commentary on Against Apion has been published (2006) and in it he continues using the translation “Judean.” 5 As far as Christians are concerned, see Esler 2005. 6 My approach also provides a defence against the “eternal Jew” idea that features in anti-semitism, a vicious evil now occasionally surfacing in parts of Europe and elsewhere. .
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