Israel and its Heirs in Late Antiquity (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781009392914)

This Element explores constructions of Israelite identity among Jewish, Samaritan Israelites, and Christian authors in Late Antiquity, especially early Late Antiquity. It identifies three major strategies for claiming an Israelite identity between these three groups: a 'biological' strategy, a 'biology plus' strategy, and an 'abiological' strategy, referring to the difference between Jewish claims to Israel premised on exclusive biological descent, Samaritan Israelite acknowledgments of shared descent, and the 'Verus Israel' tradition in Christianity, which disavows the importance of descent. Using this framework, it makes various general conclusions about the construction of ethnic identity itself, including the inadequacy of treating descent claims as the sine qua non of ethnicity and role played in any given vision of ethnic identity by the individual creativity of a given author.

Author: Andrew Tobolowsky
ISBN-10: 1009392913
ISBN-13: 9781009392914
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 05/08/2025
Pages: 72
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.24lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.15d