The study of the literature and the various groups within Judaism of the late Second Temple period is a most fertile field for studying such identity matters, and one which is also of crucial significance for the subsequent history of Jews and Christians. How could different groups develop and maintain their identity within the challenge of Hellenistic and early Roman culture? Was there a common ‘Jewish’ identity, and how could it be defined? What about the images of ‘others’? And how could some of those ‘others’ adopt a Jewish lifestyle or identity, at the same time that other others, from within, abandoned their inherited identity? Finally, how were the world-views and beliefs of the emerging groups of Jesus-followers related to different aspects of Jewish identity?
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