This article addresses recent arguments that question whether “Judaism,” as such, existed in antiquity or whether the Jewishness of the Second Temple period should be characterized in primarily ethnic terms. At stake is the question of whether it is appropriate to speak of Judaism as an abstract system or religion in this early period. An appeal to the under-used collections of Midrash Aggadah provides the context for new insights, focused around a pericope in Leviticus Rabbah that is preoccupied with this very question. This parashah goes well beyond the ethnicity/ religion binary, producing instead a rich variety of paradigms of Jewish identity that include moral probity, physical appearance, relationship to God, ritual life, political status, economics, demographics, and sexual practice.
