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The Jews of Hellenistic Egypt, Rather Than Being Oppressed, Were Often

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The Jews of Hellenistic Egypt, Rather Than Being Oppressed, Were Often RETURN FROM EXODUS: JEWS OF EGYPT DURING THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of The requirements for The degree Master of Arts In Special Major: Jewish Studies by Patricia Keer Munro San Francisco, CA May 2004 Copyright by Patricia Keer Munro 2004 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Return from Exodus: Jews of Egypt during the Hellenistic Period by Patricia Keer Munro, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Special Major: Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University ________________________________________________ Fred Astren Professor of Jewish Studies ________________________________________________ Pamela Vaughn Professor of Classics ________________________________________________ Marc Dollinger Professor of Jewish Studies RETURN FROM EXODUS: JEWS OF EGYPT DURING THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD Patricia Keer Munro San Francisco State University 2004 During the Hellenistic period, the Jews of Egypt were a successful Jewish community in that they explicitly identified themselves as Jews; they were identified as Jews by the surrounding society; and they maintained or expanded their population for several centuries. Until the destruction of this community in 115-117 CE, these Jews functioned in both non-Jewish and Jewish spheres. This thesis will examine the ways in which the Jews of the Egyptian Jewish community to maintained a balance between integrating into and separating from the majority culture through analyzing three texts that may categorized as “popular literature.” I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. _______________________________________ ________________ Fred Astren, Professor of Jewish Studies Date Chair, Thesis Committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis has taken shape over a long period of time. I could not have written it without the help and support of many people. Daniel Boyarin pointed me in the right direction at a critical time. Erich Gruen told me how to pare it down to the essentials. Stephanie Green and Ruth Haber provided moral support, intelligent reading, and good friendship. Marc Dollinger and Pamela Vaughn gave of their time to read it and give thoughtful commentary. I thank them all, but particularly Fred Astren, whose encouragement originally started me on the path, and who provided direction and support as I wrote. Finally, and most especially, I thank my family: Miranda and Deborah, who didn’t roll their eyes too much when Egyptian Jews were mentioned, and Dave, whose patience, humor, and love provide the foundation of our lives together. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Let My People Go—to Egypt……………………………………….…..…1 Chapter Two: Jews in Hellenistic Egypt…………………………………………….…..28 Chapter Three: From Egyptian to Jew: Joseph and Asenath…………………………… ..………...……..51 Chapter Four: Shock and Awe in Judea and Egypt: III Maccabees………………………………..………..……….…70 Chapter Five: The Wisdom of the Jews comes to Alexandria: The Letter of Aristeas………………………………………..…..86 Chapter Six: Jews and Others in All Times and All Places……….……………...…….105 Bibliography……………………………………………………………..…..…………121 vi Chapter One: Let My People Go—to Egypt Introduction In the mythic narrative of Judaism, Egypt is a land of slavery and the Egyptians are the people who enslaved the Israelites until God brought them out of Egypt “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm,” and led them, circuitously, into the land of Israel. In this narrative, both Egypt and Israel are symbols: Egypt of slavery and Israel of freedom. Further, the goal, both of the narrative and within Jewish prayer, is to seek Israel—whether as reality or as symbol. A Jew makes “Aliyah” or “goes up to Israel.” This phrase elevates both the place and the person: if one goes up to Israel, everywhere else is down. To be out of Israel is to be in the Galut, in exile, and therefore is a condition, which—at least symbolically—must be overcome. And, while Jews may live in other countries besides Israel, Egypt represents the place to leave, as confirmed by the name of the Exodus itself: “Yitzi’at Mitzraim.” With this background, it might seem incongruous that through the Second Temple period and beyond, Jews came to live in Egypt and that there they developed a large, stable community that survived for several centuries. The perception of this community is further complicated in two ways. First, the Egypt in which Jews thrived was not the Egypt of the Pharaohs and Egyptian religion, nor the Roman Egypt of the desert monks and other early Christian thinkers, but the Egypt of Hellenistic rule, a world in which Jews had to understand themselves in relation to both Egyptian and Hellenistic worldviews. While the traditional narrative casts the Jews as slaves and the Egyptians as oppressors, the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt, rather than being oppressed, were often (though by no means always) part of the privileged class. Second, Egyptian Judaism was Return from Egypt: Introduction 1 © Patricia Munro 2004 a Judaism that successfully reconciled the dominant Hellenistic milieu with both religious and ethnic aspects of Judaism. That is, the Jews of Hellenistic Egypt neither abandoned Judaism, nor rejected the majority culture in which they lived. Rather, until riots of the first century of the Common Era and the subsequent destruction of the Egyptian Jewish community in 115-117 CE, these Jews functioned in both non-Jewish and Jewish spheres. During the intervening centuries, Christianity emerged as the dominant religion and culture, while rabbinic Judaism became the hegemonic type of Judaism, a model that has endured until modernity. However, the secular rationalism of the post-Enlightenment world, as well as the prevailing pluralist environment, have challenged its authority and its ability to “succeed” in the future. Longevity, while necessary, is obviously not sufficient to define success in all circumstances. Rather than using the hegemonic form of Judaism to define “successful” or “real” Judaism, another definition could use the following three criteria. First, it remains “Jewish” in form—that is, it neither defines itself nor is defined by other Jews as another religion (as happened with Christianity). Second, it is perceived as Jewish by surrounding dominant cultures. Finally, it persists despite assimilation or acculturation, a point that can be further characterized as a Jewish population that maintains or increases its numbers over a substantial length of time, which I would define as two hundred years. These three criteria share the virtue of simplicity: rather than defining Judaism according to particular practice or belief, which has the effect of privileging one particular Judaism over another, this definition assumes that only Jews would claim to be Jewish (although different groups of Jews will argue as to who is truly a Jew) or would be so identified by the society around them.1 The criterion of longevity is admittedly Return from Egypt: Introduction 2 © Patricia Munro 2004 somewhat arbitrary. Clearly, a few generations—under one hundred years—is too short to establish longevity. However, as a criterion for success, a millennium is too long, excluding, for example, the Roman empire. Within Jewish tradition, the span of ten generations, or approximately two hundred years, has been used to indicate the passage of time and, indeed, seems a reasonable minimum for cultural continuity. These criteria—self-identification, identification by the dominant culture, and persistence—can be applied to the Egyptian Jewish community under Hellenism. The Hellenistic (and early Roman) period, which lasted from Alexander’s conquest in 333 BCE and ended following the riots in 117 CE, provided a relatively favorable environment for a stable Jewish community. During this time, the Egyptian Jewish community met the criteria for success defined above: they explicitly identified themselves as Jews, interpreting Judaism to themselves and the surrounding world; they were identified as Jews by the surrounding society; and they persisted, with the Jewish population not only maintaining, but expanding during that time. The specific problems these Jews faced appear in the surviving papyri, as well as in historical and philosophical literature, all of which provide evidence of a diverse people confronting issues common to any minority culture. These writings show that Jews came to Egypt for many reasons: some as slaves, some as part of the Ptolemaic army, and still others for the trade opportunities in Alexandria. These Jews were fluent in Greek (but not necessarily Hebrew), exhibited an ongoing struggle to reconcile Jewish beliefs with Hellenistic ideology, and even, in some cases, intermarried or converted (both to and from Judaism). Egyptian Jews, as with other Jews of this period, had few Return from Egypt: Introduction 3 © Patricia Munro 2004 identifying features and therefore could have assimilated into the Hellenistic world. That they, as a group, did not indicates some degree of choice. While the Jews of Egypt are intrinsically interesting, it was the parallels between this community and the American Jewish community that particularly caught my attention. Both Hellenization and modernity functioned in pluralistic worlds with competing ideologies. Both, either explicitly or in effect, distinguished between the public and the private domains of
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