Ioudaios as “Jew” or “Judean”

Over at Marginalia, T. Michael Law has put together a great team of folks including Adele Reinhartz, Steven Mason, Daniel Schwartz, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Joan Taylor, Malcolm Lowe, Jonathan Klawans, Ruth Sheridan, and James Crossley to chime in on the debate about how best to translate Ioudaios. This is a topic that touches upon biblical studies, ethnography, history, Greek literature, post-holocaust studies, sociology, and ideological criticism.

Me personally, I’ve always been convinced by John Barclay’s take on Ioudaios as denoting a person of “shared ethnicity and custom” that I’ve pretty much gone with that.

I provide my own two cents on the topic in an extended excursus in my Crossing Over Sea and Land, pp. 13-16.