In this book, Jason A. Staples proposes a new paradigm forhow the biblical concept of Israel developed in Early Judaism and how thatconcept impacted Jewish apocalyptic hopes for restoration after the BabylonianExile. Challenging conventional assumptions about Israelite identity inantiquity, his argument is based on a close analysis of a vast corpus ofbiblical and other early Jewish literature and material evidence. Staplesdemonstrates that continued aspirations for Israel’s restoration in the contextof diaspora and imperial domination remained central to Jewish conceptions ofIsraelite identity throughout the final centuries before Christianity and eveninto the early part of the Common Era. He also shows that Israelite identitywas more diverse in antiquity than is typically appreciated in modernscholarship. His book lays the groundwork for a better understanding of theso-called ‘parting of the ways’ between Judaism and Christianity and howearliest Christianity itself grew out of hopes for Israel’s restoration.* Traces the development of the concept of ‘Israel’ from theBible into the first century AD* Offers a new paradigm for understanding the relationshipbetween the terms ‘Israelite’ and ‘Jew’ in antiquity, explaining the connectionbetween that terminology and the apocalyptic restoration hopes of many Jews inthe Second Temple period* Provides a close reading of a vast corpus of biblical andother early Jewish texts, integrating data and questions typically isolated ortreated differently across the fields of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, NewTestament, Jewish Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Dead Sea Scrolls,and history of JudaismAfter examining and rejecting the common presupposition thatonly Judaeans were Israelites (an ideology that can be termed‘solajudaeanism’), Staples synthesizes several interdisciplinary gains madeover the last several decades in order to make the most comprehensive andconvincing case to date regarding the NT fulfillment of the prophesi