What's in a name? A Growing Bibliography

The T&T Clark Blog links to several essays available for free download in the Philip Davies festschrift, In Search of Philip R. Davies: Whose Festschrift Is It Anyway? (Duncan Burns and John W. Rogerson, eds; T&T Clark, 2008?). One by R. Barry Matlock caught my eye: "Jew by Nature": Paul, Ethnicity, and Galatians." A quick scan of the article shows it is long on theory and short on application to Paul, but Matlock is evidently working on a larger project on the same topic.

Here's another 2007 monograph on ethnicity in Paul:

Hodge, Caroline Johnson. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford, 2007):

Abstract: Christianity is understood to be a “universal” religion that transcends the particularities of history and culture, including differences related to kinship and ethnicity. This portrait of Christianity has been maintained by an interpretive tradition that claims that Paul eliminates ethnicity or at least separates it from what is important about Christianity. This study challenges that perception. Through an examination of kinship and ethnic language in Paul's letters, this book demonstrates that notions of peoplehood and lineage are not rejected or downplayed by Paul; instead they are central to his gospel. Paul's chief concern is the status of the gentile peoples who are alienated from the God of Israel. Ethnicity defines this theological problem, just as it shapes his own evangelizing of the ethnic and religious “other”. According to Paul, God has responded to the gentile predicament through Christ. Using the logic of patrilineal descent, Paul constructs a myth of origins for gentiles: through baptism into Christ the gentiles become descendants of Abraham, adopted sons of God and coheirs with Christ. Although Jews and gentiles now share a common ancestor, Paul does not collapse them into one group. They are separate but related lineages of Abraham. Kinship and ethnicity work well in Paul's arguments, for at the same time that they present themselves as natural and fixed, they are also open to negotiation and reworking. This paradox renders them effective tools in organizing people and power, shaping self-understanding and defining membership. This analysis demonstrates that Paul's thinking is immersed in the story of a specific people and their God. He speaks not as a Christian theologian, but as a 1st-century Jewish teacher of gentiles responding to concrete situations in the communities he founded.

The OUP webpage for the book also includes chapter abstracts.

Since the flood of publications on the meaning of Ioudaios--or on ethnicity in Early "Judaism" and "Christianity" more generally--is not likely to abate soon, I might as well keep tracking them here:

Dunn, James D. G. "Two Covenants or One? The Interdependence of Jewish and Christian Identity," Pages 97-124 in Geschichte--Tradition--Reflexion. Edited by Hubert Cancik, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Peter Schäfer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996.

Goodblatt, David M. Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Jones, Siân and Sarah Pearce, eds. Jewish Local Patriotism and Self-Identification in the Graeco-Roman Period. JSPSupp. 31. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998.

Porton, Gary G. "Who was a Jew?," Pages 197-220 in Judaism in Late Antiquity Part Three: Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism. Edited by Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Kessler, Gwynn. "Let's Cross that Body When We Get to It: Gender and Ethnicity in Rabbinic Literature." JAAR 73, no. 2 (2005): 329-359.

Neusner, Jacob. "Was Rabbinic Judaism Really Ethnic?" CBQ 57, no. 2 (1995): 281-305.

Udoh, Fabian. To Caesar What is Caesar's: Tribute, Taxes and Imperial Administration in Early Roman Palestine (63 B.C.E.-70 C.E.). Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2005.

David Hindley comments: He seems to suggest that from the time of the early emperors onward Jews enjoyed a quasi-political "ethnos" which guaranteed certain rights and privileges to the members, regardless of place of residence. These included the right to practice ancestral customs unmolested, right to assemble for worship according to these customs, and transport money offerings to Jerusalem. I believe that he thinks this "ethnarchy" was centered on the temple in Jerusalem, sort of like a "temple state."

Earlier posts in this series:
Part 1: On Jews and Judeans, Israelites and Israelis
Part 2: Ioudaios according to Shaye Cohen
Part 3a: Ioudaios according to Philip Esler
Part 3b: Philip Esler Responds to Shaye Cohen
Part 4: Judean vs. Israelite according to John H. Elliott
Part 5a: Ioudaios according to Steve Mason
Part 5b: Ioudaios according to Steve Mason
Part 6: Preliminary Conclusions
The Translation of Ioudaios and the Parting of the Ways