Can someone enlighten me about SA's argument, please?

[Russell Gmirkin]

Wow.

Delos Synagogue Inscription #1:

“The Israelites on Delos who make first fruit offerings to the temple on Mt. Gerizim, crown with a gold crown Sarapion, son of Jason, of Knossos for his benefactions toward them.”

Provenance: Both Delos inscriptions #1 and #2 were found together on the seashore 100 meters from the Synagogue on Delos Island, Greece 1979 AD

https://www.bible.ca/synagogues/Delos-G ... -250bc.htm

Delos Synagogue Inscription #2:

“The Israelites on Delos who make first-fruit offerings to the temple on holy Mt. Gerizim honour Menippos, son of Artemidorus, of Herakleion, both himself and his descendants, for constructing and dedicating, his own funds, for the synagogue of God, the ... and crown him with a gold crown...”

Yeah, I meant to say two inscriptions from Delos. Good on you for looking them up.

[Secret Alias]

So when "Judea" was renamed "Palestine" by the Romans the Jews disappeared? No longer an ethnos called "Jews." History's like that. Turn a switch. No evidence. It's over. As I noted earlier Josephus never refers to "the Jews" as "Israel." Samaritans always refer to their nation as "Israel" and as Bowman reports "the Samaritans to this day call themselves Israel." https://books.google.com/books?id=HMlJA ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Kartveit on the inscription, Qumran and the never ending self-identification of the Samaritans as "Israel." https://books.google.com/books?id=RO15D ... an&f=false

[Secret Alias]

Schur "Petermann points out that the Samaritans call themselves " Shomrim " Cornou ) , i.e. watchmen or guardiens ( of the law ) . The Arabs call them es - Samerah 10 ml . However most often they call themselves " Israel " and ' regard themselves as the true inheritors of the ancient Israelites.

[Secret Alias]

To me it comes down to the Samaritans ALWAYS calling themselves or referring to themselves as "Israel" and the Jews formerly only referring to themselves as "Jews" but in modern times appropriating the title "Israel" and "Israelite." Even in the Mishnah "Israel" and "Israelite" are used in a strange sense.

[Secret Alias]

For me at least the role of the scholar is not to become an activist and just report phenomena. Jews (or Josephus) before 70 CE did not use the term "Israel" or "Israelite" to refer to themselves in the way Samaritans did. The Samaritans saw themselves as the heirs to the kingdom of Israel. That "Israel" was to be identified with the region around Shechem. The Jews didn't do the same regarding the land around Judea and so I surmise that the ancient kingdoms continued to define the self-identities of Samaritans and Jews while they lived in the land.

[MrMacSon]

To me it comes down to the Samaritans ALWAYS calling themselves or referring to themselves as "Israel" and the Jews formerly only referring to themselves as "Jews" but in modern times appropriating the title "Israel" and "Israelite." Even in the Mishnah "Israel" and "Israelite" are used in a strange sense.

Kartveit on the inscription, Qumran and the never ending self-identification of the Samaritans as "Israel." https://books.google.com/books?id=RO15D ... an&f=false

A screenshot of the page that url opens to:

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ETA:

Kartveit_Origins_of_the_Samaritans_2.png (249.12 KiB) Viewed 966 times

[Secret Alias]

Abu'l Fath the Samaritans "instead prefer to call themselves 'the sons of Israel,' 'the tribes of Israel,' 'the family of Israel,' 'the sons of Israel the observant ones,' 'the sons of Israel who possess the truth,' 'the family of Phinehas,' 'the tribe of of Joseph,' 'the family of Ephraim,' 'the family of Phinehas,' 'the observant ones,' and 'the Samaritans.'

[Secret Alias]

I don't think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Jews originally referred to themselves as "Israel" in the same way the Samaritans did. The Mishnah has this terminology as something meaning "generic believer" "generic practitioner of the Pentateuch" some who is not of the priesthood. It wasn't a term of national identity.

[neilgodfrey]

Let's move away from maps now and examine another piece of evidence:

thumb00240.jpg (17.38 KiB) Viewed 953 times

I've taken that from https://www.coinarchives.com/a/results. ... bar+kochba

Here is the caption:

JUDAEA. Bar Kokhba. 132-135 CE. Medium Æ (23.5mm, 11.54 g, 12h). Mint in Judaea. Dated year 1 (132/133 CE). "Simon Prince of Israel" (paleo-Hebrew), palm branch within wreath / "Year one for the redemption of Israel" (paleo-Hebrew), wide lyre (nevel or chelys) of 6 strings.

That's from the early second century CE. Bar Kochba calls himself the "prince of Israel". He announces the liberation of Israel on the same coin.

Israel -- it's a key identifier here.

But when I do a little bit of background reading on the Bar Kochba war here is one piece of information that only adds to our mystery:

As for the Bar Kokhba revolt, at this time as well, the Samaritans had no common aims with the Jewish rebels. Hence, the main question that, in my opinion, has to be asked is not whether the Samaritans took part in the Second Revolt, but how the Samaritans reacted to the erection of the temple to Zeus the Highest on the sacred Mount Gerizim and to the prohibition to practice circumcision that had been imposed upon them. Were these given no response by them? In my view, the rural Samaritan population rebelled against Hadrian during the same period as the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt, but they did not fight together with the Jewish rebels; they did so separately in their own area.

That's from

• Mor, Menahem. The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 Ce. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2016.

Now that's just one opinion, presumably an educated one. I can add others.

But the point is that Bar Kochba's main centre of rebellion was the countryside around Jerusalem, south and west in particular. Other coins of his speak of the liberation of Jerusalem.

So after the time of Christ we have here clear evidence that people around Judea, we can call them Judeans or Jews, led by Bar Kochba, identified themselves with Israel. The Samaritans appear to have been left on the side-lines.

So the question is: What happened to the name "Israel" between its disappearance in 722 BCE and its appearance in a very different context, applied to a different region and to different people, in the second century CE?

That question leads us into asking what the name or word "Israel" even means and how it is used between the time of Shalmaneser and Hadrian.