The beginnings of Jewishness : boundaries, varieties, uncertainties
In modern times, various Jewish groups have argued whether Jewishness is a function of ethnicity (membership in a descent group, a function of birth), nationality (citizenship in a state, a function of politics), religion (membership in a group characterized by various beliefs and practices), or all three. These fundamental conceptions were already in place in antiquity; the peculiar combination of ethnicity, nationality, and religion that would characterize Jewishness through the centuries first took shape in the second century B.C.E
Print Book, English, ©1999
University of California Press, Berkeley, ©1999
History
xiii, 426 pages ; 24 cm
9780520211414, 9780520226937, 9780585246437, 0520211413, 0520226933, 0585246432
39727721
A note on God and parentheses
Prologue: Jews and others
pt. 1. Who was a Jew?
Was Herod Jewish?
"Those who say they are Jews and are not": How do you know a Jew in antiquity when you see one?
Ioudaios, Iudaeus, Judaean, Jew
pt. 2. The boundary crossed: becoming a Jew
From ethnos to ethno-religion
Crossing the boundary and becoming a Jew
Ioudaïzein, "to Judaize"
The rabbinic conversion ceremony
pt. 3. The boundary violated: the union of diverse kinds
The prohibition of intermarriage
The matrilineal principle
Israelite mothers, Israelite fathers: matrilineal descent and the inequality of the concert
Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness: us and them
Was Martial's slave Jewish?
Was Menophilus Jewish?
Was Trophimus Jewish?
Was Timothy Jewish?