Evolving Terminology

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The progression of God’s chosen people coming to be known as Jews begins with Abraham. His descendants through Isaac were known as the Hebrews. Traditionally, it has been believed that the word “Hebrew” originated with Eber (Heber), a descendant of Shem[1] an ancestor of Abraham.[2] It was not until after Jacob (Israel) that Abraham’s descendants were known as Israelites. The first use of the term “Jew” occurred when King Pekah of the Northern Kingdom warred with King Ahaz of the Southern Kingdom.[3] After the Babylonian exile of Judah, the term “Jew” eventually comes to be used for all the tribes.

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Paul is a conglomeration of this entire history, for he proclaimed that he was “the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews,”[4] meaning both his parents were of Hebrew origin. Paul also refers to himself as a Jew in Acts 21:39. He does this using present tense, so this was not a religious label he once used to describe himself before becoming a Christian.

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It was also not a way to describe his origins. Paul was not born in Judea. He was born in Tarsus in what was the Roman province of Cilicia, which is a part of Turkey today. Acts 22:3 informs us that he was brought up and studied in Jerusalem in Judea, but he was not a native-born Judean, and yet he defines himself as a Jew. If Paul, who was not from the tribe of Judah nor a native-born Judean but rather from the tribe of Benjamin, a tribe associated with Judah (but only in the very distant past), would come to call himself a Jew, it should not be difficult to believe that the other tribes did so as well after the divided kingdom ceased to exist.

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The term “Jew” contains within it this entire history. Anglo-Israelists try to discount this history and attempt to keep the term isolated. Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God and writer of the book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, endeavored to do this by stating that Israel never meant Jews exclusively,[5] meaning the word “Israel” never pointed to the tribe of Judah on its own. However, this could be said about any of the other tribes. For example, Israel never indicated Ephraim, Manasseh, or Levi exclusively either. “Israel” was and is not an exclusive term. When used, it usually described all the tribes unless the context was referring to the time when the kingdom was divided. Even during those eras, the term “Israel” referred to the tribes of the Northern Kingdom. This is an erroneous argument by Armstrong.

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Another way in which Armstrong tried to equate the term “Jew” with the tribe of Judah exclusively was to remark how Abraham was never called a Jew.[6] Of course, Abraham would not have been referred to as a Jew because Judah had not yet been born. 

 

[1] Gen. 10:22–24.

[2] 1 Chron. 1:24–27.

[3] Second Kings 16:6 contains the first use of the term Jews.

[4] Phil. 3:5.

[5] Armstrong, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, p. 80.

[6] Ibid.​

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