Friday, 26 June 2015

Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter,
Philip F. Esler, Fortress Press, 2003, page 66

Supporting Hodge's arguments, Philip Esler affirms that "before the destruction of the temple in 70 CE the law and the temple were twin foci of the Judeans ... separating the two is not easy."

Making the good point that one of the essential differences between those living in Judea and those living in the Diaspora was that the former had the temple on their doorstep, so to speak, whereas the latter group had to work much harder to maintain their individual and community identity, he concludes:

The major problem is that to translate Ioudaioi as "Jews" removes from the designation of this ethnic group the reference to Judea, to its temple and the cult practiced there, that both insiders and outsiders regarded as fundamental to its meaning and that accorded with the almost universal practice of naming ethnic groups after their territories.