while modern scholars appropriately distinguish between Israelite religion and Judaism, the Jews of postbiblical antiquity did not—they saw an unbroken thread of continuity between themselves and the people spoken of in Scripture as Israelites or Hebrews. In other words, while it may be anachronistic to call Abraham a “Jew,” the “Jews” of the Hellenistic era did not know that and thus thought of Abraham as the first Jew.)
