FORUM third series 6,2 fall 2017 145 From the Herodians to Hadrian The Shifting Status of Judean Religion in Post-Flavian Rome Heidi Wendt Introduction This article builds on the work of scholars who have attempted to theorize the complex and shifting negotiations of “Jewish” or “Judean” and “Christian” as categories of self-identification and opposition with a view to key histori- cal developments that occurred between the Judean War and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. 1 In particular, I suggest that, despite the considerable tolls of the war, it created a pretext for widespread interest in the religion of Judeans—at least certain forms, namely ones rooted in the exegesis of Judean texts, especially for prophetic or esoteric purposes—and for people claiming expertise therein. 2 The 1. To be clear from the outset, I am not using “Judean” and “Christian” in an essentializ- ing way, to denote distinct ethnic or religious identities, but rather to capture either notional expectations that Roman audiences held about these populations or else the discursive con- structions of such categories by Justin Martyr and similar writers. For further explanation of the former use, see note 2. 2. Throughout this article I prefer the language of “Judean” and “Judean religion” to “Jewish” and “Judaism” in order to reframe the evidence I consider in terms more compa- rable to how Roman audiences, defined broadly, perceived and engaged the religious prac- tices, skills, actors, and institutions of other foreign peoples. “Judean” has gained traction in recent years insofar as it foregrounds geographic and ethnic connotations of Ἰουδαῖος/ Iudaeus in contexts where such connotations eclipse the religious valences the term might otherwise carry, and which are primary in “Jew.” Some of these insights arise from Steve Mason’s important 2007 article (“Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism”) in which he draws attention to the pronounced ethnographic dimension of “Judean” in many writings of the Greco-Roman period, particularly ones written by or for non-Judeans. I am persuaded by Mason’s suggestion that using “Judean” in certain instances promotes a more precise un- derstanding of how ancient peoples organized their knowledge of the world and particular peoples or groups, although I do not share his view that the term “religion” is inapplicable to antiquity (pp. 481–82). Indeed, for present purposes I find “Judean” useful precisely be- cause this language evoked a suite of cultural features associated specifically with Judea, of which religious practices and the Jerusalem temple were a central part. “Judean” thus points to Judea in a way that “Jewish” does not, at a time when geography was central to how Romans imagined the religious practices, institutions, and artifacts (including texts) that they understood to emanate from particular regions, regardless of where the latter were actually encountered. Since I aim to redescribe the activities of self-authorized experts in the par- ticular wisdom traditions, writings, and religious practices associated with Judea, as Roman audiences would have wielded such categories, “Judean” serves as an important reminder of how non-Judeans would have recognized these figures. I am not setting Judean experts