2. Hellenistic Judaism

2. Hellenistic Judaism Alexander the Great burst like athunderbolt upon the history of the Near East. Within adozen years in the late fourth century B.C.E., he humbled the mighty PersianEmpire, marchingits length and breadth, defeating its armies, toppling its satraps, terminatingits monarchy, and installing aGreek hegemonyfrom the Hellespont to the Indus.Itwas abreathtaking achievement—and on more than just the military front.The conquests of Alexander provided aspringboard for the expansion of Greek culture in the landsofthe eastern Mediterranean. That world would never be quite the same again. No direct confrontation occurred between the great Macedonian conqueror and the Jews of Palestine. Fanciful tales sprang up later in which Alexander paid homagetothe highpriest in Jerusalem and Yahweh sanctionedhis subju- gation of Persia.None of them has abasis in fact.Palestine was of small interest to the king who captured the great fortress of Tyre, then marched straight to Egypt and subsequentlytoMesopotamia, on the waytothe heartland of the Per- sian Empire. Judaea was spared—and largely ignored. The long-term impact on Jewishculture, however,was momentous.Jews had hitherto livedunder aPersian yoke, alight one and arelatively benign one. The centers of royal power layatagreat distance, in Susa and Persepolis,with little direct effect upon the society of the Jews. Amajor changeoccurred with the com- ing of the Greeks.Alexander’svastholdingssplintered after his death, as his powerful marshals divided and fought fiercelyoverthe territories he had claim- ed. In the new configurations of the Hellenistic kingdoms, Greco-Macedonian dynasts held sway, and Hellenism became the cultureofthe ruling class in the major cities and states, both old and new,ofthe Near East—in places like Sardis and Ephesus, Alexandria and Antioch, in Babylon, Tyre,and Sidon, and in the coastal communities of Palestine. The political constellation affected Jews everywhere. Palestine itself came under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt for about acentury after Alexander’s death, and, when power shifted in the region, the land entered the hegemonyof the Seleucidmonarchs of Syria from the beginning of the second centuryB.C.E. The Maccabean rebellion ushered in aJewishdynasty,the Hasmonaeans, fol- lowed by the house of Herod, who provided ostensiblyindigenous rule. But the Hasmonaeans, in fact,governedonlyunder the shadow of the Seleucids, and the Herodians underthe shadow (sometimes more thanthe shadow) of Rome. The Hellenistic monarchies continued to reckon Palestine within their sphere of influence, and Rome later undertook to supplyits own governors of the region. In the Diaspora, Jews everywherelived in circumstances where 22 2. Hellenistic Judaism pagan power held sway. Through most of the third and second centuries B.C.E., the Ptolemies exercised authority in Egypt and usuallyinCyprus and Cyrene; the Seleucidsheld power in Syria, Phoenicia,and at least nominallyinthelands across the Euphrates;the Attalids ruled in Pergamum and extended theirinflu- ence elsewhereinAsia Minor whereadiversity of dynasts struggledfor control; and in Greece itself contending forces from Macedon and various states and fed- erations kept the Jews of their region in apolitically subordinateposition. The subsequent dominance of Rome in the eastern Mediterranean, beginning in the late second century B.C.E., brought Jews, among others, into direct contact with Roman governors, officialdom, and imperial power. The JewishDiaspora, to be sure, did not await Alexander.Jews had certainly found their waytoSyria, to Egypt,and to the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates well before. But the arrival of the Greeks proved to be an irresistible magnet. Jews migrated to the new settlements and expandedcommunities in substantial numbers. AGreek diasporahad brought the Jewish one in its wake. Within afew generations, Jews had installedthemselvesinanastonishingarray of places all around the Mediterranean and beyond. If one can believethe author of 1Macca- bees, composed in the late second century B.C.E., they could be found not only in Syria,Egypt,the Parthian empire, and throughout the cities and principalities of Asia Minor,but even in Greece itself, in various islands of the Aegean, and in Crete, Cyprus, and Cyrene.¹ This remarkable dispersal impressed itself even upon pagan writers like Strabo, who commented that the Jewishpeople by his day (late first century B.C.E.) had moved into almost every city and that hardlya place remained wherethey had not made their presencefelt.² The consequences are readilydiscernible. Jews became exposed to and thor- oughlyengaged with the Greek culture that prevailed in the various communities in which they settled. And not onlyinthe Diaspora. Greek towns sprang up in Palestineitself, from Akko to Gaza on the Mediterranean coast,inthe Lower Gal- ilee, and in various sites on bothsides of the Jordan.³ Hence, even the Jews of Judaea could not and did not isolate themselvesaltogether from the pervasive aura of Hellenism. FormanyJews, especiallyinthe Diaspora, the close contact with the institutions,language, literature,art,and traditions of Hellas reached the point wherethey lost touchwith Hebrew itself. The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, probablyinAlexandria sometime in the third or second century B.C.E., reflects the needs of Jews settled abroad for several generations for whom Macc. :–. Strabo, in Jos., A. J., :. See, e.g., V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (New York, ), –. 2. Hellenistic Judaism 23 Greek was the primary,perhaps sole, languageand for some of whom education gave greater familiarity with Plato than with Moses. The Jewishinvolvement with Hellenism in the period from Alexander the Great to the destruction of the Sec- ond Temple in 70 C.E. was acentral, even adefining,characteristic. But the involvement is rife with ambiguities. Indeed, ambiguity adheres to the term “Hellenism” itself. No pure strain of Greek culture, whatever that might be even in principle, confronted the Jews of Palestine or the Diaspora. Transplanted Greek communities mingled with ancient Phoenician traditions on the Levantine coast,with powerful Egyptian elements in Alexandria, with en- duringMesopotamian institutions in Babylon, and with acomplex mixture of so- cieties in Anatolia. The Greek culture with which Jews came into contact com- prised amongrel entity—or rather entities, with adifferent blend in each location of the Mediterranean. The convenient term “Hellenistic” signifies complex amalgamations in the Near East in which the Greek ingredient was acon- spicuous presencerather than amonopoly. “Judaism,” it need hardlybesaid, is at least as complex and elastic aterm. The institution defies uniform definition. And changes over time, as in all reli- gions, renderany effort to captureits essence at aparticular moment highly problematic. “Hellenistic Judaism” must have experienced considerable diversi- ty,quite distinct in Alexandria, Antioch, Babylon, Ephesus, Cyrene, and Jerusa- lem. Simplistic formulationsonce in favorare now obsolete. We can no longer contrast “Palestinian Judaism” as the unadulterated form of the ancestral faith with “Hellenistic Judaism” as the Diasporavariety that diluted antique practices with alien imports. Hellenism existed in Palestine—and the Jews of the Diaspora still held to their heritage. Each individual area struck its balance differentlyand experiencedits own peculiarlevel of mixture. It is essential to emphasize that Jews were not obliged to choose between succumbing to or resistingHellenism. Nor should one imagine aconscious dilemma whereby they had to decide how far to lean in one direction or another,how much Hellenism was acceptable before they compromised the faith, or at what point on the spectrum between apos- tasy and piety they could comfortablylocate themselves. Adifferent conception is called for.ManyDiasporaJews and even some dwelling in Hellenistic cities of Palestine after ageneration or twowerealready confirmed Greek speakers and integrated members of communities governedby pagan practices and institutions. They did not confront dailydecisions on the de- gree of assimilation or acculturation. They had long since become part of aHel- lenic environment that they could take as agiven. But their Judaism remained intact.Whatthey needed was ameans of defining and expressingtheir singular- ity within that milieu, the special characteristics that made them both integral to the community and true to their heritage. 24 2. Hellenistic Judaism JewishCreationsinGreek Genres How does one locate the boundaries between the cultures?The issue put in that form is itself problematic. The very metaphor of boundaries, even permeable boundaries, begsthe question. The Jews, it might betterbesaid, redefined their heritageinthe terms of Hellenistic culture itself. They engaged actively with the traditions of Hellas,adaptinggenres and transforminglegends to artic- ulate theirown legacyinmodes congenialtoaHellenistic setting.Atthe same time, they recreated their past,retold stories in different shapes,and amplified the scriptural corpus itself through the medium of the Greek languageand Greek literaryforms. The challengefor the Jews was not how to surmount barriers or cross boundaries. In aworld whereHellenic cultureheld an ascendant position, they strovetopresent Judaic traditions and express their own self-definition through the media of the Greeks—and to make thosemedia their own. This refashioning can

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