Remarques sur un faux ami : le terme “judéen”

Abstract

The word “Judaean” has now replaced “Jew” in several current historical papers. We propose to study the relevance of the reasoning that induced such a substitution, and find it lacking. The replacement derives from scholarly works written in English (S. Mason, D. Boyarin) whose inherent worth is in itself questionable. In opposition to their chosen approaches, our analysis is based on the actual sources. Whether they were written in Greek, in Hebrew, or in Aramaic, they clearly show that the meaning of the word “Jew” evolved during the Second Temple Period, and that the use of “Judaean” does not account for this semantic development.

Keywords

• Jew
• Judean
• Second Temple Judaism
• parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity