[B-Greek] IOUDAIOS

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Thu Jan 29 12:20:44 EST 2004


Dear Carl,

That was an angelic assignment. Thank you for transcribing all that.

>(Since the term 'Judaism' suggests a monolithic entity that fails to take
>account of the many varieties of thought and social expression associated
>with such adherents, the calque or loanword 'Judean' is used in this and
>other entries where I. is treated. Complicating the semantic problem is
>the existence side by side of persons who had genealogy on their side and
>those who became proselytes [on the latter cp. Cass. Dio 37, 17, 1; 67, 14,
>2; 68, 1, 2]; also of adherents of Moses who recognized Jesus as Messiah
>[s. Gal 2:13 in 2d below; s. also 2ea] and those who did not do so.
>Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing I. with 'Jew', for
>many readers or auditors of Bible translations do not practice the
>historical judgment necessary to distinguish between circumstances and
>events of an ancient time and contemporary ethnic-religious-social
>realities, with the result that anti-Judaism in the modern sense of the
>term is needlessly fostered through biblical texts.)
>	1. pert. to being Judean (Jewish), with focus on adherence to

HH: Conceivably "incalculable harm" has been done by simply glossing the
word with Jew, but the lexicon itself still puts "(Jewish)" after Judean.
It seems that if something is gained by not using "Jew," a lot is lost.
There is a continuity between the people then and the people now. It
confuses things to obscure it. I was going to say that Jew was more of a
national term back then, but it was also an ethnic term in the Bible. It
seems just a fact of life, and translations that have used "Jew" have
reflected that fact. It is the wrong thinking of many generations that has
caused the problem, not the translation of the word.

It has been a while since I studied the issue, but I think I remember
thinking there were some places in the NT where the translation "Judean"
might be warranted, where IOUDAIOS described people who lived in Judea
versus those who lived in the northern provinces. I'll try to check it.

The lexicon says:

>there is no indication that John uses the term in the general
>ethnic sense suggested in modern use of the word 'Jew', which covers
>diversities of belief and practice that were not envisaged by biblical
>writers, who concern themselves with intra-Judean (intra-Israelite)
>differences and conflicts:

HH: Yet there are verses like the following:

John 4:9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou,
being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews
have no dealings with the Samaritans.

HH: Just because Jews had no dealings with Samaritans did not mean that
they were otherwise monolithic in beliefs. We know that there were strong
differences of opinion within the Jewish people at that time. Why would
John exclude that reality from his conceptualization of IOUDAIOS. John does
not focus on these diversities of belief and practice, but they not not
excluded from the implication of his word for that reason.  I don't see why
John might not be using the term in a national, ethnic way, the Jewish
people versus the Samaritan people, with all that implied. Perhaps I am
missing something.

				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard



				Yours,
				Harold

				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard






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