Ioudaioi
Encyclopedia
Ioudaioi (as per the Ancient Greek nominative plural case
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

; also Ἰουδαῖῶν (Ioudaiōn, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

), Ἰουδαῖοῖς (Ioudaiois, dative
Dative case
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....

) and Ἰουδαῖούς (Ioudaious, accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

) in other forms) is an ancient Greek term used frequently in classical and biblical literature to refer to a group of people that is most often translated in English as either as "the Jews" or "the Judeans".

In its various contexts, the word has also been translated as "Judahites", "people of the region of Judah/Judea" and "leaders of Judea".

The choice of translation is the subject of frequent scholarly debate, given its central importance to passages in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 (both the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

 and the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

) as well as other writers such as Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

 and Philo
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....

. Translation as "Jews" is seen to infer connotations as to the religious beliefs of the people, whereas translation as "Judeans" infers an identity primarily defined by the territory of Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

.

The distinction is relevant in English but is not relevant, for example, in modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....

 or modern standard Arabic where the same word is still used for both Jews and Judeans.

A related translation debate refers to the terms ἰουδαίζω (verb) and Ἰουδαισμός (noun), commonly translated as “Judaism”.

Translation implications

The word Ioudaioi is used primarily in three areas of literature in antiquity: the later books of the Hebrew Bible (e.g. the Books of the Maccabees
Books of the Maccabees
The Books of the Maccabees are books concerned with the Maccabees, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid dynasty, or related subjects.The term mostly refers to two deuterocanonical books contained in some canons of the Bible:...

), the New Testament (particularly the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

 and Acts of the Apostles
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...

) and classical writers from the region such as Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

 and Philo
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....

.

There is a wide range of scholarly views as to the correct translations with respect to each of these areas, with some scholars suggesting that either the words Jews or Judeans should be used in all cases, and other scholars suggesting that the correct translation needs to be interpreted on a case by case basis.

One complication in the translation question is that the meaning of the word evolved over the centuries. For example, Morton Smith
Morton Smith
Morton Smith was an American professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba in...

, writing in the 1999 Cambridge History of Judaism, states that from c.100 BCE under the Hasmoneans the meaning of the word Ioudaioi expanded further:
For clarity, we may recall that the three main earlier meanings were: one of the descendants of the patriarch Judah
Judah
The name Judah can refer to:*Judah , fourth son of the Biblical patriarch Jacob All later individuals, groups and places of this name are directly or indirectly derived from this Judah....

, i.e. (if in the male line) a member of the tribe of Judah; a native of Judaea, a "Judaean"; a "Jew", i.e. a member of Yahweh
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...

's chosen people, entitled to participate in those religious ceremonies to which only such members were admitted.
Now appears the new, fourth meaning: a member of the Judaeo-Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

-Idumaean-Ituraean-Galilean
Galilean
Generically, a Galilean is an inhabitant of Galilee. Galileans were also the members of a fanatical sect , followers of Judas of Galilee, who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans, and whose violence contributed to induce the latter to vow the extermination of the whole race...

 alliance


Language Comparison

The English word Jew derives from the Old French forms "Giu" and "Juieu", which had elided
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...

 (dropped) the letter "d" from the Middle Latin form "Iudaeus", which, like the Greek Ioudaioi, meant both Jews and Judeans / "of Judea".

However, most other European languages retained the letter "d" in the word for Jew, and in a number of languages, including modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....

 and modern standard Arabic, the same word is still used for both Jews and Judeans / "of Judea".
English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....

Modern Standard Arabic Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

Jew wikt:יהודי Yehudi wikt:يهودي Yehudi wikt:Iudaeus wikt:Ἰουδαῖος Ioudaios
"of Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

" or "Judean"
wikt:יהודי Yehudi wikt:يهودي Yehudi wikt:Iudaeus wikt:Ἰουδαῖος Ioudaios
Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

wikt:יהודה Yehudah wikt:يهودية Yehudea wikt:Iudaea wikt:Ἰουδαία or Ioudaiā

Ioudaismos

The Ancient Greek term Ioudaismos, usually translated as "Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

" or "Judeanism", first appears in 2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, which focuses on the Jews' revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work....

 in the 2nd century BCE. In the context of the age and period it held the meaning of seeking or forming part of a cultural entity and can be compared with hellenismos, meaning acceptance of Hellenic cultural norms (the conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind the Maccabeean revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos). Shaye J. D. Cohen wrote:
...in this first ocurence of the term, Ioudaismos has not yet be reduced to designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish)." Among these characteristics, to be sure, are practices and beliefs that we would today call "religious" but these practices and beliefs are not the sole content of the term.

External References

General References
  • Malcolm Lowe, Who Were the Ioudaioi?, Novum Testamentum 18 (1976), 101-130
  • Philip Esler, Conflict and identity in Romans
  • Shay Cohen, The beginnings of Jewishness
  • Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007) p457-512.... see also article here
  • Jesus the Israelite was Neither a Jew Nor a Christian. On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature
  • David M. Miller, The Meaning of Ioudaios and its Relationship to Other Group Labels in Ancient ‘Judaism'
  • Morton Smith
    Morton Smith
    Morton Smith was an American professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba in...

    , Palestinian Parties and Politics that shaped the Old Testament, SCM Press
    SCM Press
    SCM Press is a UK-based academic publisher of theology, established more than a century ago. It was purchased by Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd. in 1997. In 1989 the Los Angeles Times described SCM Press as "Britain's leading theological publisher"....

    , 1987


Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John
Gospel of John
The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

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