The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties

Bell & Howell Information and Learning: Foreign text omitted. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, by Shaye J. D. Cohen. Hellenistic Culture and Society 31. Berkeley: University of California Press 1999. Pp. xv + 426. $45.00. This invaluable book weaves together ten of Shaye Cohen's meticulous essays about Jewish identity in the Greco-Roman period (eight revised versions of previously published essays and two new ones). Part 1 posits that Jewish identity was "elusive and uncertain" in late antiquity due to the lack both of a normative definition of Jew and of objective criteria to establish such a definition. The study interacts closely with other studies that argue that identity is a construct based on social discourse and not on a simple set of shared beliefs, practices, or languages. The first chapter presents the problem of identity by outlining the Rorschach test of classification of Herod, whose father was a "Judaean" but not his mother. These included Jew (by Plutarch and Josephus), non-Jew (by the rabbis), and even Arab (by some early Christians). Chapter 2 puts to rest centuries of anachronistic depictions of late antique Jews: a careful review of the Greco-Roman sources demonstrates that Jews were indistinguishable from others based on looks, clothing, speech, names, or occupation. The third chapter traces the Greek term (.). Cohen builds on E. Bickerman's crucial observation that both Jews and non-Jews used the terminology of (.) to refer to Jews, setting them up as an entity parallel to the other (.) of the late antique world. Cohen then attempts to locate uses of the term (.) that point to distinct nuances in meaning: political, religious, ethnic, and geographical. Cohen argues that only in some cases should the term (.) be translated as "Jew. " Disqualifying some uses of the term (.) as really referring to Jews is a slippery endeavor, as his examples show. For possible examples of geographical nuances Cohen turns to inscriptions made by manumitted slaves; here the use of the term (.) might appear to imply little more than a slave's geographical origin. This is not entirely persuasive since there is no clear evidence from the inscriptions that excludes these slaves from the Jewish (.) in a fuller sense, that is, that they observed Jewish customs, were loyal to the Jewish God, and even shared a common Jewish ancestry (genealogies are also a social construct). As to the definition of (.) as primarily being religious, although for generations Judaism has been primarily envisaged as a religion, it is hard, as Cohen notes, to find clear evidence of such a definition of Judaism in antiquity. Cohen nevertheless argues that what is ultimately distinct about Judaism is the manner in which they worship their gods (p. 7) or a "Jew" is someone who worships the God whose temple is in Jerusalem (pp. 78, 97). This conclusion does not emerge from the rich late antique data he himself presents. A prime example of (.) as a function of a politics is provided for Cohen by reports about the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus, who (according to some ancient sources) conquered and forcibly circumcised the neighboring Idumeans, after which they were referred to as (.). In Cohen's judgment the Idumeans did not become real (.). Instead "they still retained their prior ethnicity and much of their prior religion and culture, but they joined the Judaean people and declared loyalty to the God of the Judaeans" (p. 105; cf. p. 118). The question must be asked: In whose eyes did they not become real (.) like the others? The importance of the forced circumcision case is exactly that it shows us a moment when circumcising someone was deemed to make him part of the (.). Part 2 focuses on boundaries and boundary crossing. …