"This book explores how Jews, and some Christians, understood the meaning of 'Israel' up to the Talmudic period, and the implications of those understandings for Jewish identity and self-definition represented by the various documents discussed. In its two accounts in Genesis of how Jacob became 'Israel', the Hebrew Bible offered tremendous scope for interpreters: correspondingly, the opening chapter lays open the multi-faceted exegetical possibilities of the Hebrew texts. Succeeding chapters trade developments of these possibilities by key groups and individuals. Thus, the Septuagint linked 'Israel' to notions of struggle and ultimate victory enabling Jacob-Israel and his descendants to take possession of the 'land of Israel', as well as to an idea that 'Israel' implied strength of angelic character. Jubilees, by contrast, stressed Israel's affinity with ministering angels, emphasizing the priestly and royal nature of the title. Philo took 'Israel' to mean 'one who sees God', while Josephus resurrects notions of struggle and victory, offering a complex rewriting of the biblical material in an attempt to comprehend both Jewish and Roman sensibilities. Rabbinic texts used the Genesis material to speak of Israel as a nation loyal to the commandments, this time directing the notion of struggle against Rome and its celestial representatives. C. T. R. Hayward elucidates all these Jewish interpretations, which are based on learned etymologies of the name Israel, draw upon a vast range of post-biblical traditions, and speak to particular times and places. His two final chapters discuss Christian use of Jewish tradition: one argues for its use by the writers of John's and Luke's Gospels, while the other records some key patristic treatments of the name Israel."--BOOK JACKET.