Multiethnic Identity in the New Testament: Genealogies, Myths, and the Politics of Ancestry

Ancient identity was never as simple as blood, land, or ancestry. Rubin James Yi McClain demonstrates how the New Testament and Greco-Roman writers imagined peoplehood through stories of descent, genealogies, and ethnic lists. Figures such as Herod the Great, the Samaritans, and Jesus’ genealogies possessed identities that crossed and mixed boundaries, showing that multiethnic identity was a powerful and flexible category in the ancient world. This study places multiethnic identity and the politics of ancestry at the center of the New Testament and early Christian identity formation, offering a new way to read the New Testament.