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.

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.