Marianne raised the issue of Israelite/Judean identity based on matrilineality.
A couple of issues are involved here:

1) Matrilineality is not the same as cognatic descent. The latter term refers to cases in which both family lines come into play in certain social situations. An example of this is the relative priority of a king's sons rated by their maternal priority, honor, power; this came up both with David's sons and Herod's sons.

2) Neither the Sepphoris archives reference nor the Mishnah address the general issue of social identity or group definition (re: who rightly belongs to our group?). They rather address the *degree* of purity required of women only for an "acceptable" priestly marriage.

On descent principles, see: Roger M. Keesing, _Kin Groups and Social Structure_. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1975.

On biblical and other ancient texts, see: K. C. Hanson, "The Herodians and Mediterranean Kinship. Part I: Genealogy and Descent." _Biblical Theology Bulletin_ 19 (1989):75-84.

K. C. Hanson
The School of Theology at Claremont

On matrilinearity, note the following:

Cohen SJD: `The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law', _AJSR_ 10 (1985) 19--53. `Was Timothy Jewish (Acts 16.1--3)? Patristic Exegesis, Rabbinic Law, and Matrilineal Descent', _JBL_ 105 (1986) 251--268.

Falk ZW: `On the Hist background of the Talmudic Laws Regarding Gentiles', _Immanuel_ 14 (1982) 102--113.

Ilan T: `'Man Born of Woman ...' (Job 14:1). The Phenomenon of Men Bearing Metronymes at the Time of Jesus,', _NovTest_ 34 (1992) 23-45.

Schaefer P: `Jewish Magic Literature in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages', _JJS_ 41 (1990) 75--91.
(Notes that in the _Sefer Ha-Razim_ 51f the name of the ill person's mother is recited)

Regards, Douglas de Lacey, Cambridge UK.

Herb Basser asks why I said that one's kinship status could be challenged on the basis of one's mother's menstrual status.

This is a rhetorical matter (not a matter of biology or pious observant practice). Impudence in a boy is supposed to indicate that he is the son of a menstruant or an adulteress; see Kallah 51a. (I am looking at the text as cited by Jane Schaberg on pp. 171-2 of _The Illegitimacy of Jesus_.) Although the story may be late, it's about Rabbi Akiba, who tracked down a naughty boy's mother selling peas in the market and tricked her into confessing that the kid was two kinds of illegitimate: (1) begotten by the husband's friend after the husband turned away when he saw that (2) she was a niddah on the wedding night. The complicated rules for determining degrees of legitimate birth are summarized by Jenny Teichman in _Illegitimacy: An Examination of Bastardy_ (Cornell Univ. Press, 1982) pp. 134-140; but Teichman's treatment of"traditional Jewish Law" is not referred to any particular era.

I'm very grateful to get the bibliographical references to discussions of ancient Jewish kinship practices from Douglas and, hopefully, from Shaye. By the way, according to the _Chronicle of Higher Education_, Jane Schaberg's car was fire-bombed several months ago by somebody who didn't like the title of her book.

Marianne Sawicki, University of Kentucky sawmill@ukcc.uky.edu