This chapter summarizes evidence from the Second Temple period for the relationship between the terms “Israel/Israelite” and “Jew.” Challenging the previous consensus (insider/outsider) paradigm and its origins with Nazi scholar K.G. Kuhn, this chapter argues that the distinction between these terms is rooted in the biblical distinction between Israel and Judah, with “Jews” a subset of the larger category of “Israel,” a label also claimed by Samaritans (who were not Jews). Finally, the chapter connects the persistence of this terminological distinction with the theological paradigm of restoration eschatology, in which Jews continually recognize that the restoration of all Israel (including the tribes of the former northern kingdom) remains a future hope—an especially foundational paradigm in earliest Christianity.

This chapter focuses on the series of conflicts between the Roman government and the Jewish population of the Roman empire during the first and second centuries CE. Modern theories on this relationship are as elaborate and convoluted as the corpus of primary sources available for it. Both will be analyzed here through the scope of genocide, in an attempt to determine whether there ever existed a Roman intent to destroy the Jewish group or parts of it, and the extent to which actual destruction ultimately occurred.

This chapter discusses the economic developments occurring within the Ptolemaic empire (323–30 BCE), of which Egypt was the core province. It explores how state formation affected economic development and how Ptolemaic imperialism, demography, and the interaction between Egyptian and Greek social networks were factors of economic change and economic exploitation. After an overview of past and current approaches to the economy of the Ptolemaic empire and of the geography of the empire, it assesses the cost and benefits of military conquests and the management of migrations patterns and new settlements by the Ptolemies, who increased their revenues and reduced the cost of their army through land allotments to cleruchs. The political economy of the Ptolemies relied on a complex tax system, with some documents pointing to a centralized taxation of the provinces, and innovative but also unusual monetary policies, such as closed-currency system based on a lower weight standard than the Attic standard in Egypt, Cyprus, and Syria-Phoenicia. The chapter concludes with examples of the synergistic relationship between empire, warfare, and trade and between the public and private spheres of the economy, and sketches the purchasing power of different economic groups in Egypt.

The events of Ezra-Nehemiah are frequently treated as though they represent the end of the exile. This chapter argues that this was not how Ezra-Nehemiah was understood by early Jewish readers. Instead, the chapter argues that Ezra-Nehemiah records multiple attempts to initiate Israel's restoration but presents the efforts of its protagonists as admirable failures, accomplishing only a "little reviving" in the midst of an exilic and servile condition portrayed as continuous with the Assyrian hegemony centuries earlier. The book and its protagonists see the restoration as contingent on obedience, and the returnees' unfaithfulness and lack of holiness/separation show that the restoration has not happened—and also prevent it from being initiated. The chapter argues that the authors of Daniel, 1 Enoch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees all understood the events of Ezra-Nehemiah as inadequate and hoped for the promised restoration in their own day. The chapter also suggests that the appearance of "Israel" language in this literature is strongly correlated with restoration eschatology and the hopes of the renewal of a people including but not limited to the tribes of Judah, Levi, and Benjamin.

Most modern studies of early Judaism or Christianity have presumed that the terms "Israelite" and "Jew" are coextensive, referring to the same people group. For nearly a century, the most commonly held model for the relationship between these terms is that "Israel" was the preferred insider term typically used by the people themselves, while "Jew" was an "outsider" term that insiders sometimes used by accommodation to outsider contexts. This chapter argues not only that the ancient evidence does not support this model but that the insider/outsider model is the result of assuming that these terms were used in antiquity as they were in pre-World War II Europe. The chapter concludes with a preliminary look at these terms and the related term "Hebrew" in the corpus of Josephus and proposes a new model that better accounts for the ways these terms were actually used in antiquity, arguing that they are not in fact coextensive but instead refer to overlapping but distinct groups.