The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century After Christ-Hengel

7/30/2019 The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century After Christ-Hengel

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This short but highly significant smdy is the fIrst real sequel toProfessor Martin Hengel's classic and monumental workJudaismand Hellenism. It demonstrates from a wealth of evidence, muchof it made readily available here for the fIrst time, that in the NewTestament period Hellenization was so widespread in Palestinethat the usual distinction between 'Hellenistic' Judaism and'Palestinian' Judaism is not a valid one and that the word'Hellenistic' and related terms are so vague as to be meaningless.The consequences of this for New Testament study are, ofcourse, considerable.Martin Hengel is Professor ofNew Testament and Early Judaismin the University ofTiibingen.Cover: The Greek inscripcions on cheJewish coin read: (fau) King Agrippa,friend of the Emperor; (obverse) Friendship ofKing Agrippa with the Senateof the Roman people.

SCM PRESSLondonTRINITY PRESS INTERNATIONALPhiladelphia

ISBN 0-334-00602-3


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T h e ' He l l e n i za t i on ' o f Ju d a e a i n th eFirst Century after Christ


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M A R T I N H E N G E LT h e 'Hel lenization' of Ju d ae ain the First Centuryafter Christ

i n c o l l a b o r a t i o n w i t hC h r i s t o p h M a r k s c h i e s

S C M P R E S SL o n d o n

T R I N I T Y P R E S S I N T E R N A T I O N A LP h i l a d e l p h i a


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Translated by Jo hn Bowden from the Germ an 'Zu m Problem d er"Hellenisierung" Ju da as im 1. Jahrhundert nach Christus' Martin Hengel 1989

Translation J o h n Bowden 1989First published 1989

SCM Press Ltd26-30 Tottenham RoadLondon Nl 4BZTrinity Press International3725 Chestnut StreetPhiladelphia, Pa. 19104

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the priorwritten permission of the publishers, SCM Press andTrinity Press International.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataHengel, MartinThe 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the first centuryafter Christ.1. Judaism, HistoryI. Title II . Markschies, Christoph II . Problem derHellenisierung Judaas im 1. Jahrhundert nach Christus.English296'.09 *

ISBN 0-334-00602-3Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataHengel, Martin.

[Zum Problem der "Hellenisierung" Judaas im 1. Jahrhundert nachChristus. English]The 'Hellenization" of Judaea in the first centuryafter Christ / Martin Hengel.p. cm.ISBN 0-334-00602-31. Judaism RelationsGreek. 2. Hellenism. 3. Jews--CivilizationGreek influences. 4. Judaism HistoryPost-exilicperiod, 586 B.C.-210 A.D. I. Title.BM536.G7H4713 1989296'.0933-dc20 89-20469Phototypeset by Input Typesetting Ltd, London

and printed in Great Britain byRichard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk


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V EN ERA N D O O RD IN I TH EO LO G O RU MUNIVERSITATIS ARGENTORATIS

M A G N O TH EO LO G IA E D O CTO RIS H O N O RE O RN A TU SHUNC LIBELLUM

G RA TO A N IM ODEDICATA U CTO R


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Contents

1 T h e P r o b l e m 12 T h e L i n g u i s t ic Q u e s t i o n a n d i ts C u l t u r a l B a c k g r o u n d 73 Gr e e k E d u c at i on an d Li t e r a tu r e i n J e w i s h Pa l e s t i n e 1 94 T h e Po l i t ic a l an d S oc i a l A sp e c t s o f ' H e l l e n i z a t i o n ' 305 ' H e l l e n i s t i c ' T r a d i t i o n s i n J e w i s h P a l e s t i n e 4 56 T h e C o n s e q u e n c e s : P a l e s t in i a n J u d a i s m a s ' H e l le n i s ti c

J u d a i s m ' 5 3Notes 57Abbreviations 9 9Index of Modern Scholars 103Index of Nam es and Places from Antiquity 109


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1

Ever s ince the beginning o f cr it ica l invest igat ion of the Ne w Te sta m entin term s of the history of re l igion i t has b een cu stom ary to d ist inguishbetween 'Judaism' and 'Hel len i sm' (or between 'Jewish ' and 'Hel l enist ic ' ) as two complete ly di fferent enti t ies , to some degree capableof exac t def ini tion. Fu nd am enta l im por tance is often attache d to thisdist inct ion, in which cas e it then appea rs as one of the m ost imp ortan tcri ter ia for historical interpretat ion in New Testament studies . 2 H e r e'H el lenism ' (an d the adjective formed from i t) as i t i s now und erstoodis a relatively recent term; the great scholar Droysen was the first toattach i ts present s ignif icance to i t ab ou t 150 year s ago in co nne ct ionwith II M acc .4 .13 ( s ee n . 19 be low ) . I t i s used in h i s tory and the s tudyof an tiquity to desc ribe that new c ivi l izatio n furthered abo ve al l bythe expedi t ion of Alexand er the Great and the G raeco -M aced onian'colonial rule ' wh ich followed, a c ivi l izat ion wh ich w as shap ed by thegradual spread of the Greek language and of Greek forms of l i fe andthought . This very complex process cont inued under Roman ru le inthe east of the Em pire until the fourth century C E . In Syria, in clud ingC i l ic i a , C o m m age n e , n orthe rn M e sop o tam i a , Ph oe n i c ia , Ju d ae a -Palest ine and Nabataean Arabia , th i s deve lopment on ly rea l ly cameto a c l imax in the Roman per iod . 3 In the Christ ian period there wasthen a reversal and a new penetrat ion of the 'eastern' languagesspok en by the Ch rist ianized rural po pula t ion , for exa m ple Sy riac andCo ptic . Bec aus e of i ts m ult ipl ic i ty and com plex ity the process can notbe described by a s ingle term in the re l igious sph ere , for exa m ple bythe term ' syncret i sm' which i s so popular a watchword amongProtestant theologians . 4 However, r ight up to the present day NewTe stam ent scholarsh ip has hardly been bothered by such com plexi tyand scholars have often used this term without reflecting on it verym uc h. Co nce pts , tradit ions, w ho le narratives, forms of thou ght a ndl i terature are examined to see whether they are of a 'Jewish' or

The Problem 1


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2 The 'Hellenization' ofJuda ea'Hel lenist ic ' or igin and stamp, and attempts are made to drawcon clusio ns from the findings.5

A scientific un de rsta nd ing o f earliest C hristia nity, i ts histor y, i tstheological thought, and with it the 'historical-critical' interpretationof the N ew T esta m en t now seem s hardly conce iva ble wi thout th i sdist inct ion wh ich w e have com e to take for gran ted - perh aps al l toomuch for granted. The concern to attach c lear labels has often givenrise to polem ical argu m ents , and sti ll do es so. W e evidently can no tescap e them any m ore than our fathers did . Scholars are st il l con cernedyet again , and somet imes even agi tated , as to whether ind iv idualcon cepts , com plex es of ideas or eve n part icular theologian s of earliestCh rist ianity like Pau l , Jo h n or the auth or of H ebr ew s are to beunderstood in terms of 'O ld Testa m ent /J ew ish trad i t ion ' or 'He l len i s t ic syncret ism' , 'Jewish apocalyptic ' or 'Hel lenist ic Gnost ic ism' (or'enthusiasm') , ' rabbin ic l egal thought ' or 'He l len i s t i c myst ic i sm' . 6T h e fact that here a preference for the predicate 'O ld T es ta m en t/J ew ish' often goes with a more 'conservative' approach and a preferencefor al l that is 'Helle nist ic' go es w ith a mor e ' l iberal' or 'critical' att itud ehas not helped to produce an object ive discussion. Al l too often onegets the impression that such a great and impressive label i s s implym ean t to conce al a lack of h istorical u nd ersta nd ing. 7

Ne verth eless , there wa s often an awaren ess that this d ist inct ion w asvag ue and re lat ive , indeed in som e c ircum stances even quest ion able ,and therefore attempts were made at a more precise di f ferentiat ion.For it was recognized that the greatest influence on the rise of thechurch did not real ly come from a contrast between 'Judaism' and'Hel lenism' but from a synthesis of the two forces, as for example inthe 'He l len i s t i c Ju da ism ' of the Diasp ora of the Rom an Em pire .N ow , howev er , as a ru le th is 'He l len i s t i c Ju da ism ' beca m e s imi lar lydetac hed m ore or less c learly from the Ju da ism of the Palest ine m othe rcountry, from which in fact earl iest Christ ianity had also emerged.This merely shi fted the focal point of the quest ion. A consequence ofthis differentiation was that the earlier, al l too crude, distinctionbetween the (Jewish Chris t ian) Palest in ian 'pr imi t ive community 'and the (Gent i l e Chr is t ian) 'H e l len i s ti c com m unity ' , w hich goes backto H ei tmu l ler and was s t il l used by Bu l tm ann , was supplem ented bythe imp ortan t interm ediary l ink of a 'Jewish Christ ian H el lenist icc o m m u n i t y ' . 8 Ac cor ding to this pattern, wh ich is pop ular tod ay, f irstthere was the earl iest Palest inian community, e i ther in Gal i lee orJerusalem, which was fo l lowed by 'Jewish Chris t ian Hel len i s t i c 'com m unit ies in Syr ia , for exam ple in D am asc us , where Paul beca m e


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The Problem 3a Christ ian, bu t ab ove al l in An tioch , an d finally by the pr edo m inan tly'Gent i le Chr is t ian Hel len i s t i c comm unit ies ' , pr inc ipal ly in Asia M inorand in Greece , i .e . in the sphere entered by the Pau l ine missio n. H erethe contribution o f the individu al co m m un it ies to the r ise of primit iveChrist ianity, i ts worship and i ts theological tradit ions i s againd i s p u t e d . 9

In this connect ion the 'Hel lenist ic ' Christ ianity of Syria enjoyed aspecial populari ty; the decis ive dev elop m ent s and m ost of the G osp elswere attr ibuted to i t, a l thoug h w e kno w no thin g abou t Syrian Christianity between 30 and 100 CE except for the l i t t le that the much-revi led Luke an d Pau l report . Betw een Ign atius (died c . 113) an dTh eop hi lus of An t ioch (c . 175 C E) our kno wledg e i s even l e ss . Nev ertheless we can f ind Bultmann saying:

O n th is I wo uld mere ly com m ent that the problem of the H el len iz at ion of earl iest Christ ianity seem s to me to be c lose ly con necte dwith that of i ts Syrification. The share of Syria in the rel igioushistory of Hel lenist ic and earl iest Christ ian re l igion is in urgentn e e d o f i n ve s t i ga t i on . 1 0Those who as a result of today's widespread preference for Syria

put the decis ive development of earl iest Christ ianity between 30 and100 a long wi th the or ig in of three Gospe l s (M atth ew , M ark and Jo hn )there overlook three things:

1. O ur know ledge of the H el leniz at io n of Syria in the pre-Ch rist ianperiod is as l imited as our knowledge of rel igious conditions in thisprovince . They do not seem to have changed a l l that much betweenthe Pers ian and the Roman per iod , i . e . be tween 350 and 50 BCE.Even our knowledge of the capital Antioch, founded as &polis in theearly Seleucid p eriod, can not be said to be ove rw helm ing. A part fromthe sanctua ry of the Dea Syria i n Hi e r ap o l i s -Bam b yc e " w e h ave h ard lyany inform ation a bo ut the Syrian cults of that period and virtual ly n oinformation and no sources at al l about pre-Roman 'Hel lenist ic 'D am asc us . T he s i tuat ion in the Phoenic ian c i ti e s from Arad os to Do ris som ew hat bet ter - but on ly so m ew ha t . 1 2 We learn by far the mostin the per iod betw een Alexan der and the beginning of the c om m onera about Je w s in the ir mother country and the ir pag an ne ighbours .O nly on the bas i s o f our know ledge of contem porary Ju da ism can wereport more about the 'environment' or better about the roots ofearl iest C hrist ianity.

2. 'Syrian' writ ing proper only begins with Ch rist ianity, presu m ablywi th Ta t ian 's Diatessaron;* 3 in othe r wo rds, with tw o or three exce ption s


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4 The 'He llenization' of Juda eaaround 200 CE we hav e no non-C hris t ian Syr ian li terature . M oreov erthis does not come into being within the terri tory of the Empire buton it s per iphery , beyond the Euphrates in E de ss a . 1 4 The great periodof Roman Syria begins only in the second century with the culturalact ivi ty of the Antonines, and above al l in the third century with therise of the priestly family of Emesa to the imperial throne, thePalmyrene quest for rule and the introduction of the so l invictus asimp erial go d b y the Sy rian Au relia n. In th e first ha lf of the first cen turyC E Syria and i ts cults were nei ther part icularly creat ive nor a ttract ive:

Syria was an intermediary between the high cultures of Egypt ,M esop otam ia a nd A nato l ia , but it se lf for the m ost part rem aineda recipient , which produced only sporadic developments of i tso w n . 1 5

Only the Phoenic ian c i t i e s became an independent ly in f luent ia lcultural and pol i t ical power.

3. As far as the observers of antiquity were concerned, was notPalest ine (or m ore precise ly Ju da ea and G al i lee) part of Syria andvery c lose ly bound up with i t e thnical ly , cultural ly and pol i t ical ly?U p to 200 B C E the Ptolem ies cou ld cal l their territory sou th of thel ine betw een Tr ipol i s and Dam asc us s imply Z Y P I A K A I OINIKHand the Se leuc ids la ter cou ld ca l l i t K O I A H Z Y P IA . For the R om ansJu da ea w as ju st a part icularly difficult pol i t ical ap pe nd ag e of theprovince of Syria. However, for that very reason one must be verycautiou s abo ut ass um ing a 're ligious' inf luence from Syrian cults . ForSyr ian (or Ca naa ni te -Pho enic ian) pag anism , wh ich was to be foundimm ediate ly a longs ide them , had long been part icu larly abhorrent toJe w s (and Jew ish C hris t ians) . Therefore , as i s sho wn b y events inJeru salem and Shec hem at the t ime of An t iochus I V a nd the siqqusm'lomem (D an .1 1 .31 ; 9 .27 an d 12.11, a parody of the Syrian BaalSamem), even i ts new form, Hel lenized by interpretatio graeca, did notc h a n g e a n y t h i n g . 1 6 T h e Baal o f Do l iche in Co m m ag en e and the Syr iansun god had m ore at tent ion from our forebears in Rom an Ge rm aniaand Br i tannia than a m on g je w s a nd Chris t ians in Palest ine and Syr ia .As far as w e kn ow , 1 7 the Syrian cults in H el lenist ic ga rb certainly hadno influence o n early Ch ristian ity in Syria (a nd P ales tine - i t is difficultto keep the two apart ) geog rap hica l ly . 1 8 N or ma y w e s im p l y i n tr od u c einto the first century the 'or iental iz ing' of H el len ist ic-R om an rel igiousfeeling, whic h beco m es vis ible from the end of the seco nd century andis completely visible in the third. So we can find a truly deep 'Syrianinfluence' only in the fact that at the end of the third century the late


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The Problem 5R oman ' mon oth e i s t i c ' Sol invictus became the precursor of Constan-t ine's acceptance of the Christ ian God.

Against this background, the nomenclature which is quite widespread in contemporary scholarsh ip , based on a fundam ental d iv i s ionbetw een 'Palestin ian Ju da ism ' and the 'He l len i s t ic Ju da ism ' of theDiaspora (and especial ly Syria) and similarly between the earl iest'Palest in ian ' community and somewhat la ter the f i r s t miss ionarycommunit ies in Syr ia wi th a 'Jewish-Chris t ian /Hel len i s t i c ' s tamp,' inf luenced by syncret ism' , i s not complete ly without problems. Thereaso n for this is as fol low s.

There is a contrast here between the c lear geographical term'Palest inian' and the re lat ively indeterminate attr ibute 'Hel lenist ic '( thou gh this is to be understood in a cultural and rel igious sens e) . A tthe sam e t ime this leaves room for the quest io nab le view that the landof'P ale st in e' , or an essential part of it , 'Jewish Palest ine' , was hardlyinf luenced, i f at al l , by 'Hel len ism ' - wh atev er migh t be u nder stoodby that; this in complete contrast to the adjacent areas of Phoenic ia ,Nabataean Arabia , Syr ia or Egypt . Under ly ing the in troduct ion ofthe keyword 'syncretistic' is the view that this influence included amore or l e ss s trong pagan component which may not ye t be presuppose d in the Palest inian mo ther country, thoug h it m ay in the D iaspo raof the adjacent regions.

T hi s object ion brings us to m y specific topic: W hat effects of'Hellenistic'civilization, or mo re exactly the 'Greek' languag e, Greek life-style, econo my,technology, education, ph ilosop hy and religion can be demonstrated in JewishPalestine in the first century after C hrist, i.e. in the time with which we areconcern ed, during wh ich earliest C hristianity came into being, a nd predominantly in the Jewish parts of Palest ine? Here again we need to askwhether i t i s possible without further ado to make a c lear divis ionbetw een 'Jew ish' and 'non-Jew ish' (or eve n 'Hel lenist ic ' Palest ine) inthis way. This topic at the same t ime contains the quest ion whether'syncr etistic' elem en ts, i .e . the influence of al ien culture and r el igion,were not possible there also (as they had been in earlier Persian andAssyr ian t imes) .

Within the l imits avai lable here , of course I can only more or lesssketch out a se lect ion of perspect ives. Essential ly , a real ly thoroughinvest igat ion o f the problem w ould n eed a mo nogr aph the s i ze of myJudaism and Hellenism, the original of wh ich app eared twe nty yearsago, in which I pursued the problem for the 'early H el lenist ic ' p eriodas far as the middle or end of the second century. However, insteadof the second volume which I promised in the introduction to that


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6 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eabook I can only offer a parergon which takes up i ts substantialpredecessor .

It i s worth noting how often in the sphere of ancient history thecoun tless detai ls ha ve a m ore or less fortuitous character - thou ghthis is not surprising in, for example, discoveries of inscriptions andother archaeological data. But al l in al l the many 'coincidences' , foral l their mult ipl ic i ty , present an amazingly coherent overal l p icture .Such 'chance discoveries' could be further mult ipl ied by an intensiveand systema t ic search . M oreover I m yse l f am am azed at the degree towh ich t im e and again ne w archaeological and epfgraphical d isco veriesconfirm the picture that I once sketched out in Judaism and Hellenism.H ere thing s are m os t difficult in the sphe re of the history of rel igion s,for that i s wh ere phen om en a are part icularly c lose ly interw ove n. H erethe problem ar ises in a degree of com plexi ty and co m pl icat ion wh ichis almost impossible to grasp, for at the same t ime on each occasionone would have to attempt to c lari fy what the shimmering terms'Hel lenist ic ' , 'Hel lenism' , 'Hel lenizat ion' etc . , so beloved of NewTestament scholarship, al l real ly mean in their part icular historicalcontext . For i t i s only on that basis that we can say more precise lywhat were the al leged differences between so-cal led 'Palest inian' and'Hel len i s ti c ' Ju da ism , or the ear li e st 'Palest in ian ' com m un ity andthe 'Hel len i s t i c ' com m unit ies w i th a Je w ish Chris t ian and Gen t i l eCh rist ian stam p. T ha t i s to say, i f suc h differences cou ld be c learlydem onstra ted at all . C an the term 'Hel lenist ic ' be used in a m eaning fulway for precise distinctions in the history of earliest Christianitygeneral ly? Beca use of this com plex ity w hich is so difficult to gra sp, tobegin with I want to put the history-of-re l igions quest ion into thebackgro und an d ini t ial ly to conc entrate p rimari ly on the 'real features'in which the s i tuat ion can be understood more c learly.


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2

To begin wi th the last point: in contrast to the use of 'He l len iz ing'an d ' He l l e n i sm' s tam p e d by culture and inte l lectual h istory which isc u s tomar y amon g th e o l og i an s , and which u l t imate ly goes back toD r o y s e n , in antiquity the verb 4XXT)vieiv and the rare noun 'EXXT)-VI(TU.6S referred almost exclusively to l a n g u a g e . 1 9 Only rarely didthese words have a comprehensive meaning re lat ing to culture andcivi l izat ion - with one s ignif icant exception to which we shal l have toreturn - and there i s evide nce of this only in the post-Chr ist ian period.In Christian l i terature from the third-fourth century CE the term"EXXTJV and the other terms associated w ith it then general ly cam e tom e a n ' p a g a n ' . 2 0 Before that both terms primarily and in the firstinstance denoted an i m p e c c a b l e c o m m a n d of the Greek language .This a l so g ives us a first fairly clear criterion for dist inct ion in thisinvestigation: 'Hellenistic' Jews and Jewish Christians are (in the real,original meaning of the word) those whose mother tongue was Greek,21 incontrast to the Je w s in Palestine and in the Bab ylon ian Diaspo ra w hoor ig inal ly spo ke Aram aic . It i s in this w ay , in terms of mo ther tongu e ,that Luke understands the dist inct ion between "EXXfiviOTai and' E B p a l o i in Acts 6.1 (cf. 9 . 2 9 ) . 2 2 T he mother- (or m ain) language ofthe "HXXTjvioTai is Greek and that of th e ' EBp a l o i A r amai c . How ever , we meet these two gr ou p s in Je r u sa l e m itself, in th e Je w i shmetropol i s o f the H oly L and - and that goe s against the usual dividin gl ine . It is too easi ly forgotten that in the t ime of Je su s G reek hadalready been establ ished as a language for more than three hundredyears and already had a long and varied history behind it. As earlyas the third century in different parts of Palest ine we h a v e a w h o l eseries of tes t imonies to Greek as a language, and they are s lowly butstead i ly cont inu ing to increase in nu m be r .

2 3

The Greek language had

The Linguistic Question and itsCultural Background


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8 The 'Hellenization' of Judaeaalready long been accepted not only in the former Philistine orPhoenician areas on the coast and (in the third century BCE) in the'Graeco-Macedonian' cities in the interior, but also (though not sointensively) in areas settled by Jews and Samaritans. Judaea, Samariaand Galilee were bilingual (or better, trilingual) areas. While Aramaicwas the vernacular of ordinary people, 2 4 and Hebrew the sacredlanguage of religious worship and of scribal discussion, Greek hadlargely become established as the lingustic medium for trade, commerce and administration.

The victorious Maccabaean revolt and the national and religiousrenewal associated with it had hardly changed anything in thisrespect. Here is an elementary example of this. The Hasmonaeanhigh priest and king Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE), who enjoyedpolitical success generally, already issued what were presumably thefirst Jewish bilingual coins, with yhonatan hak-kohen hag-gadol onone side and BA2IAEQ Z 'AAEEANAPOY on the other.2 5 Hisgrandson, the last Hasmonaean king Mattathias Antigonus, duringthe time of his desperate war against Herod and the Romans in 40-37 BCE, followed the same practice. The contemporary Nabataeanking Aretas III similarly minted bilingual coins with the legendBA2IAEQ2 APETOY


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The Linguistic Question and its Cultural Background 9'also in other respects at many points betrays a deeper knowledgeof Greek and Roman cu l tural l i fe ' . 2 9 However, the earl iest Greekloan wo rds do not appea r on ly in the M ish na h; if w e leav e aside them usica l instrumen ts in Da nie l (3 .5 ,10 ,15 , se en .15 ) an d the drach m ae(dark'monim) in Ezra 2 .69 and Nehemiah 7 .69-71 they a lready occurin the copper scro ll o f Q u m ra n . 3 0 Greek m on ey had a lready com e in tothe country at the beg innin g of the Persian period (or even ea rl ier ) . 3 1

The l inguis t i c problem was d i scussed at l ength by Sevenster 3 2 in amonograph in 1968 and has long been famil iar to scholars, thoughon e con tinua l ly gets the imp ression tha t i ts con seq uen ces for the N ewTe stam ent h ave often not been fu lly taken in to account . Th e constantdiscovery of ne w inscript ions confirms this p icture of a fund am ental lym ult i l ingu al society. Schlatter already drew a ttention to this s i tuat ionin h i s famou s s tudy on 'Th e Lan guag e and H om elan d of the FourthEvangel ist ' (which is in no way taken seriously enough):

Here too the inscript ions are the decis ive authority for assessingthe l inguist ic que st ion (of a bi l ingual s i tuat ion , M .H .) . Th e factthat we d o not have a ny from w est of the Jo rd an is m ad e up for bythe inscr ipt ions from the H au ra n . 3 3

In the meantime we also have two bi l ingual inscript ions fromJudaea and Gal i lee , quite apart from the large number of test imoniesto use of the Greek language. Almost ninety years ago Schlatter hada com plete ly correct view of the linguist ic s i tuat io n, a c learer on e thanthe representat ives of the History of Re l igions schoo l .The most important centre of the Greek language in JewishPalest ine was of course the cap i ta l , Jer usa lem . W e again hav e a goo ddeal of epigrap hical evide nce to support this .

Thus we have a number of publ ic inscript ions in Greek from theper iod of the Second Temple , above a l l the two famous warninginscript ions wh ich prohibit Genti les from ente ring the inner precinctso f th e Te mp l e (CIJ 2,1400) , and in addi t ion we now a l so have anhonorif ic inscript ion, which is presumably dedicated to a donor fromthe Jew ish com m unity in Rhod es who pa id for a s tone pavem ent ( inthe Temp le?) . M T h e earliest Greek inscript ion in Je ru sale m com es froman even earl ier period, presu m ably from the Seleu cid m il itary sett lersin th e A c r a i n Je r u s a l e m . 3 5 In addit ion there are a large number ofGreek epitaphs from Jer usa lem : a go od third were written in G ree k. 3 6M y col league L .Y.Ra hm ani of Jeru salem wa s k ind enough to wr i tem e a letter giving the latest inform ation from the catalogu e of Je w ish


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10 The 'Hellenization' of Judaeaossuaries from Jerusalem and its environs which is in process ofpublication (letter of 1 No vem ber 1988):

O f the 872 inscriptions in the cata logue , 228 have writ ing on them:138 of these are in Je w ish script , 71 in Greek, 15 (or 16) in b oth , 2in Latin, 1 in Palmyrene . It should be observed that from manygrou ps of grav es often o nly the ossuaries with writ ing or or n ame n tson them found their way into the collection; the majority bearneither decoration nor inscript ion.Formal phrases in Ara m aic rarely appear, as Rahmani expla ins in

the introduction to one item in the catalogue:'It may, however, st il l be significant that of the few formulasappear ing contain ing a short warning intended to protect theremains of the deceased , one - short and s imple - is in Ar amaic ,while three are contained in a somewhat larger Greek sentence. . .conso latory inscriptions are represented by a sole Ar am aic ep igra m ,clearly influenced byGreek in contents and l iterary form (! ) . 3 7 In afew bilinguals, the ma in inscription is the one inGreek, the H e b r e wone added being short , as though mere ly summariz ing the maininformation. . . ' In a Greek warning inscript ion with a quotat ionfrom Deut .28.28 or Z e c h . 1 2 . 4 the writer evidently could not recallthe Greek expression (dopaaia/diroTU^Xcdais) 'and thus transcribed the H e b r e w 'wrwn as ovpov. In general one can thussummarize that the meagre evidence emerging from the ossuaryinscriptions as to the know ledge of Greek in Jeru salem and Jeric hoand their environments is at the t ime in question rather similar tothat noted for a somewhat later period at Beth She'arim: litt lesystemat ic knowledge of l an gu age , gr ammar or literature, butrather a knowledge of speech, probably also in everyday use; andthis also by lower c lasses of the local Je wi sh pop ulat ion . 'If one cou nts the bilingua l texts asGreek, the num ber of Greek (and

Latin) oss uary inscriptions in Jer usa lem and its environs am ounts to3 9 % . If one proceeds on the basis that it would make sense for onlythose ossuaries to be inscribed in Greek in the case of wh ich the deador their fam ilies used Greek as the vernacular or their mother tongue,w e m a y put the proport ion of the pop ulat ion as a w h o l e at around 10-20% as a m i n i m u m . In a populat ion of between 80 ,000 and 100,000inhabitants that would give a n u m b e r of between 8 ,000 and 16,000Greek-speaking J ew s in gr eate r Je r u s a le m , 3 8 to which w ould be ad d e dthe numerous pilgrims from the Diasp or a who lodged in the city at


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The Linguistic Question and its Cultural Background 11the great festivals. Given so great a proportion of Greek speakers inthe pop ulat ion , we have to assum e an indepen dent Jew ish He l len i s t i cculture in Jer usa lem and i ts env irons , w hic h w as di fferent from thatof Alex and ria or An tioch . W e shal l be com ing back to this s ignif icantpoint on a num ber of occas ion s .

The few place names which appear on the ossuary inscript ions inno way indicate that the dead came exclusively from the Diaspora;alongside places l ike Alexandria, Cyrene (possibly including thefami l y o f S i mon o f C yr e n e ) 3 9 and Capua in I ta ly , good Palest in ianplaces l ike Bethe l and Scythopol i s /Beth-shean a l so appear . 4 0 T h etom b of the 'Go l iath family' in Je rich o is a sensat ion; i t conta ins m oreGreek inscr ipt ions and nam es than Ar am aic and the m ost im portantperson i t m ention s is a 'T he od otu s, freema n of the em press Ag rippina ' ,i .e . the wife of the Em peror Clau dius and m other of Ner o; by con trasth i s wi fe and daughter have s imple Aramaic names . 4 1 Th e Gr e e knames are better written than the Aramaic ones. In addit ion there i sa l so men t ion of a num ber of prose lytes in Je ru sa lem . 4 2 The s i tuat ionis di f ferent with the later synagogue inscript ions scattered round thecountry, extending from the f irst century to the seventh. Here Greekinscript ions (around 30) are to be found predominantly in the c i t ies ,whi le there are about 110 Hebrew (and Aramaic) inscript ions in thenumerous synagogues al l over the country, above al l in Gal i lee andthe G olan . Of course people were re lat ively conservat ive in w or sh ip . 4 3Here, too, again i t i s not sheer chance that the earl iest synagogueinscript ion that w e know from Je w ish Pa lest ine (at the sam e t ime i ti s the only one so far to com e from Je ru sa lem ), the T he od otu sinscript ion, i s written in Greek. T he ruler of the synag ogu e a nd priestTh e od o tu s , son o f V e t t e n u s , is p r e su m ab l y d e sc e n d e d fr om Je w i shfreemen from Rome {gens Vettena).** We shal l be frequently be concerned with this important text later .

T his sp ecial s ignif icance of the Greek lang ua ge in Jer usa lem in thefirst centuries before and after Christ is no co inc ide nc e. I n the tim e ofH ero d and the Ro m an prefects or procurators u p to the Je w ish warJeru salem wa s not on ly the cap i ta l o fJewish Palest ine but was at thesam e t ime a m etropo l is of internationa l , wo rld-w ide s ignif icance, agreat 'attra ction' in the l iteral sense , the cen tre of the w ho le inh ab itedwo rld. No r wa s it the 'navel ' only for pious J ew s of the Dias po ra but alsoan in terest ing p lace for educated Greeks , pagans and adventurers . 4 5

T h e court of H ero d, w hic h wa s entire ly dom ina ted by the spir it ofHel len i sm and game-hunt ing , gymnast ics , musica l performances ,


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12 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eadramatic spectacles , chariot races. . . a l l const i tuted a powerfulcentre of attraction for strangers. Foreigners who took an active ora passive part in the contests , writers and other educated Greeks,were guests at the Herodian court . To these were added the manyoff ic ial connect ions which Herod maintained, as did Agrippa I;these brought ambassadors , messengers and fore ign bodyguards . 4 6

With splendid bui ldings in the style of Hel lenist ic architecture theci ty could stand comparison with the prest igious bui ldings of othermajor H el lenist ic c i t ies , inde ed it eve n surpassed these . T h e discove ries in excavat ions in the Je w ish O ld C i ty of Jeru salem and on theformer Temple Mount have produced an e loquent example of th i s . 4 7Alongside the use of Greek was the ' language of forms' representedby the predominant Hel lenist ic architecture and domest ic culture .T h e exca vation s of a bu i lding like a pa lace on the east s ide of the W estHi l l , w i th ornam ental wal l -paint ings in the second s ty le of P om pe i i , 4 8i l lustrate the qual i ty of domest ic l i fe among the upper c lasses inJerus alem . T he d i scovery of a beauti fu l Cor inth ian and Ion ianc a p i t a l 4 9 in the exc av ation s in the old c ity dem onstr ate the extent andthe qual i ty of Hel lenist ic provincial architecture . The same is true ofthe tombs in the Kidron val ley which have already been known for al o n g t i m e . 5 0 In the case of the capitals the degree of perfection of thesty le , compared wi th the s t i l l re lat ive ly s imple Hasmonaean tombs,is striking.

Money f lowed into the c i ty from the didrachma tax, which Herodhad ha d safe ly transferred to Je rus ale m thanks to the p ax Romana* 1and a goo d deal more m on ey ca m e into the c i ty throug h the sacrif icesof the fest ival p i lgr im s. Th e tem ple with i ts bank wa s one of the r ichestin antiquity, and t ime and again tem pted R om an generals and officialsto lay hand s on its treasure. T h e Je w ish pop ulat ion reacted to thissacr il ege wi th d i s tur ba nce s . 5 2 T h e da ily l ife of at least th e uppe r cla ssesfully m atch ed the stand ard of luxury and comfort to w hic h peop le int he R o m a n e m p ir e w e r e a c c u s t o m e d . 5 3

Pausan ias says that the tom b of Q ue en H elen a of Ad iabe ne inParthia, w ho with her son I zates an d other m em bers of her fam ilyhad gone over to Ju da ism , cou ld be comp ared on ly wi th the tom b ofK ing M aus olus in H al icarnassu s , which was one of the seven w onderso f the w o r l d . 5 4 Her son, King Izates , sent f ive sons to be educated inthe Ho l y C i ty Q ose p h u s , Antt. 20.71) . Two relat ives of Izates' brotherand successor M on ob azu s , w ho l ike h i s m other and brother had a l sogo ne over to Ju da ism (20 .75 ) , fe ll on the Je w ish s ide during the defence


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The Linguistic Question and its Cultural Background 13of the city in 70 CE (BJ2.520), and other sons andbrothers of Izatessurrendered shortly before the conquest of the capital by the Ro ma nsand were brought to R o m e as h o s t a g e s ( 5 / 6 . 3 5 6 ) .

So J erusa lem was without doubt one of the most impress ive andfamous temple ci t ies in the Ro ma n empire , and even for pa g a ns wassurrounded with analmost 'myst ica l ' aura . 5 5

T h e n u m b e r of pilgrims from the Dia spo ra at the great festivalsexceeded that of the inha b i ta n ts . 5 6 Even Phi lo w ho v is ited Jeru sa lemat least once (fragment of De Providentia, in Euseb ius , PE VIII, 14 .64) ,calls it his real 'ancestral city (irotTpis), the metropol i s not o n ly of aJe w ish lan d but of m ost other land s becau se of the colonies wh ich i t .. .sent out' (Leg.Gai. 281, cf. Flacc. 46; Leg.Gai. 203, etc.).

It was probably the part icular achievement of H e r o d , who hadtaken over the role of patron of D iaspo ra Ju da ism , that hehelped theH oly City to hav e this international s ignif icance in the Rom an em pire,a s ignif icance which impressed even pagans andw h i c h he strengthened byhis restless building activity in the G r a e c o -R o m a n s t y l e . 5 7

P resuma bly he also facilitated the return of prominent DiasporaJ e w s . T h u s the beginnings of the sy na g o g ue of Theo do tus , which isperhaps connected wi th that of the 'Libertines' , i.e. the R o m a nfreemen of A c t s 6.9, and w h i c h is k n o w n to us through the fa mo usinscription of the grandson of the founder, who completed it, go backto H ero d ia n t imes . 5 8 The bui ld ing inc luded not only the l iturgicalroom 'for read ing out the law a nd instr uctio n in t he c o m m a n d m e n t s ' ,but a hospice andarrangements for ritual ba th ing for pilgrim s 'fromabroad ' . Th ere wer e certainly a lso other 'diaspora synago gue s' in thec i t y . 5 9 Acts 6.9 ment io ns so me of t h e m , in first place that of theAiBepTivo i , i.e. the Jew ish freemen from R om e. Perhaps the synag o g ue o f Th eo do tus and that of the Libertines are identical.

In these Greek-speaking syn agogu e com m unit ies in Jeru sa lem theSeptuagint was used, andwhi le on the one hand there was teachingin the style of the Hel lenis t ic Judaism of Alexandria , on the otherthere was an attempt to m a k e the unders ta nd ing of the Law w h i c hwa s predo mina nt a mo ng the Pharisees in Pales t ine known to thefest ival pi lgrims from the D iaspor a. T hi s is the env ironm ent in w h i c hSha'ul-Paul from Tarsus wil l have grown up (Acts 22.4; cf.26.4;R o m . 1 5 . 1 9 ) . 6 0 To some degree the variety of J u d a i s m as a w h o l e ,inc luding theDiaspora , was therefore best represented in Jer usa lem .People met there from all parts of the Roman empire: Rome, As iaM ino r , Ant io ch and Egypt (Acts 2 .9-11; cf .6 .9) , butalso from Babylonia , Media and Arabia felix. The finance minister of the Ethiopian


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14 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eak i n gd om of N a p ata -M e r oe (A c t s 8 .2 7 ) , 6 1 presum ably a godfearer , w aso n e e x a m p l e a m o n g m a n y .

There was a constant and l ive ly interchange with al l the centres ofthe Diasp ora . T hu s He rod fir st brought the pr iest An ane l Q osep hus ,Antiquities 15.22 , 34 , 39ff., 51) from Babylonia and later the priestS im on, son of Bo ethus , from Alexandr ia to Jeru salem , both presum ably from the old Zadokite family of the Oniads, in order to appointth e m h i gh p r i e s t s . 6 2 Boethus cou ld have been a descendant of OniasIV of Leontopol is who f led to Egypt in 164 BCE: that would explainthe later status of h is fam ily in Je rus alem . T h e successful S im on , so nof Bo ethus , w ho marr ied a daugh ter , M ariam ne , to H ero d , succeed edin founding the richest high priestly family after the clan of Annasand at the same t ime a part icu lar group among the Sadducees , theBoethusians , who were ev ident ly c lose to the Herodian ru lers . Thebones of the r ich Alexandrian Nicanor, who had the doors of theN i c a n o r g a t e m a d e , 6 3 wer e also laid to rest in Je ru sale m . Po ssibly, l ikethe proselytes from the royal hou se of A dia be ne (see ab ove , p . l2 f . ) ,he had co m e to l ive there in his old ag e . A m ore recent interpretat ionconjectures that the remains of h is sons Nicanor and Alexas foundrest in the inscribed ossuary. 6 4

Be th is as it m ay, w e can assum e that Greek w as spoken a m on g thefamilies of these aristocrats who had returned. It wil l also be the casethat Greek was no less establ ished among the leading famil ies ofJerusalem than in the scr iptoria and the bazaars of the c i ty or at thetables of the money changers in the temple forecourt . 6 5

H ow eve r, the s ignif icance of lang uag e w as not ju st lim ited toJeru salem . T hu s a substant ia l Je w ish pop ulat ion l ived in the H el len-ized c i t ies of the coastal p lain from Gaza to Dor or Ptolemais-Acco:in Caesa rea they ma de up a lm ost hal f the pop ulat ion , and in Ja m niacerta in ly and Ashdod probably they outnumbered the Hel len izedGe n t i l e p op u l a t i on . 6 6 Phi l ip , who came from the group around Ste ph en, m ay ha ve preach ed primari ly in Greek in the coastal p la in an dpart icu larly in C ae sa re a . 6 7 That Greek was the principal language inthese c i t ies i s aga in confirmed b y Je w ish epitap hs and syn ag og uei n sc r i p t i on s . 6 8

The same may a l so be true of Pe l la , Samaria-Sebaste and theonly poleis founded by Ant ipas in Gal i l ee : Tiber ias and Sepphor i s . 6 9G a l i l e e , 7 0 complete ly encirc led by the terri tories of the Hel lenizedcit ies of Ptolemais , Tyre and Sidon in the west and north-west , byPanias-Caesarea Phi l ippi , Hippos and Gadara in the north-east , eastan d sou th -e as t , 7 1 and f inal ly by Scythopol is and Gaba, a mil i tary


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The Linguistic Question and its Cultural Background 15settlement founded by Herod," in the south, will similarly have beenlargely bilingual. Scythopolis, theold Beth-shean, presumably derivedits remarkable name from the fact that in the third century BCE thePtolemies settled cavalry there from the kingdom on the Bosphorus('Scythians').7 3 Under the mythical name Nysa it was a particularcult place of Dionysus; according to tradition the nurse of the god wasburied there.7 4 On coins and in an inscription the city calls itself'EXX'nvis iroXis, which is perhaps meant to guard against a misunderstanding of the place name: in antiquity the Scythians were regardedas the barbarians par excellence.75 Pompey restored the city, which hadbeen sacked by Alexander Jannaeus; it was the only city west of theJordan to be incorporated into the Decapolis. Anyone who wants todiscover Dionysian features in John 2.1-11 should not forget that therewas an old centre of Dionysus worship about eighteen miles southeast of Cana and Nazareth, 7 6 and a mosaic with a Dionysus cycle onit has also recently been excavated in Sepphoris (though this is later:third century CE) . 7 7 In Hellenistic, pre-Roman times Tell Anafa-Arsinoe flourished just next to the northern frontier in the easternpart of the Hule valley. 7 8 It was presumably destroyed by AlexanderJannaeus around 80 BCE. Another Hellenistic city founded bythe Ptolemies which disappeared when it was conquered by theHasmonaeans was Philotheria (Beth-Jerach) at the south end of LakeTiberias. When Antiochus III captured it in 220 BCE it was asignificant fortress (Polybius, 5.70.3f.). Because of its Greek name,Tarichaea, the Jewish Magdala, around four miles north of Tiberiason the same lake, seems to have been a Hellenistic foundation as thecentre of the fishing industry. As early as Herodotus, Tapixeioa areprobably factories for the production of salt fish.79 Presumably therewas a whole series of smaller Macedonian-Greek settlements inPalestine which did not develop into real cities and did not have anyrights as cities.8 0 In economic terms Galileee was to a large extentdependent on the completely Hellenized Phoenician cities, especiallyAcco/Ptolemais and Tyre. The great cemetery in Beth-shearimbetween Nazareth and Haifa which comes from between the secondand fourth centuries CE contains predominantly Greek inscriptions.81Some of those buried there come from the Phoenician metropolises.After the death of RJehuda han-Nasi (after 200) the tombs of Beth-shearim took on a more than regional significance, like the Holy Citybefore 70 CE. The marked increase in Greek inscriptions comparedto those in Hebrew and Aramaic (218 to 28) is bound up with thefurther development of the process of Hellenization in the second to


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16 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eafourth centuries C E , the proxim ity to Ph oen ic ian c i t ies and the socialstructure of the users, w ho evide ntly quite ove rw helm ingly c am e fromthe upper c lass . We may assume that the rabbinic teachers from theTannait ic period al l also spoke Greek.

T he l et ters of Bar Ko siba from the wi lderness of Ju da ea hav eprovided us with further material ; they sho w that the Je w ish pse ud o-m essiah (or on e of h is off icers) got on better in Greek than in H e b re w . 8 2

W e ma y also draw con clusion s from this backgrou nd for the Je su sm ovem ent . Am on g the twe lve d i sc ip les of Jes us tw o, An drew andPhi l ip , bear purely Greek names, and in the case of two others theor ig inal Greek name has been Aramaized . Thaddaeus (tadda'j) isprobably a short form of Th eod otu s (or som eth ing s im i lar ) , andBar th o l ome w (Bartholomaios = bar-talmaj) derives from (bar) Ptole-m aios . T he b l ind beggar Bar t imaeu s (Ba r-Tim aios) in Jer icho , w hobecom es a fo llower of jesu s , can a lso be m ent ioned in th i s co nn ect ion . 8 3Such G reek nam es are often attested for Je w s in Palest ine an d Eg ypt.S h i m ' on / S i m on , th e most fr eq u e nt Je w i sh n am e in Pa le s t in e , w as soprized because on the one hand i t recal led the most successfulMac c ab ae an b r o th e r w h o ac h i e ve d i n d e p e n d e n c e an d fou n d e d th eHasmonaean dynasty , and on the other hand i t cou ld be turnedinto Greek without any trouble . Shim e on an d S i mon w e r e a l mosti n t e r c h a n g e a b l e . 8 4 The in format ion that S imon Peter , Andrew andPhi l ip cam e from B ethsa ida (Joh n 1 .44) cou ld perhap s have h istoricalvalue , s ince Herod's son Phi l ip refounded this p lace soon after hisaccession as the polis Julias (before 2 BCE) in honour of Augustus 'daug hter Ju l ia and i t w as therefore m ore m arkedly 'H el lenize d' tha nthe surrounding v i l lages . 8 5 The name Phi l ip was then presumably atoken of respect to the ruler of the country , wh o ac cord ing to Jo se ph us ,Antiquities 18.106f., w as regarded as be ing p art icu larly ju st . 8 6 T h eplace seem s to have h ad so m e signif icance in the first century , even i fi t could not maintain this in the long run. At al l events , S imon Peterm ust have been b i l ingual , s ince otherwise he cou ld not hav e enga gedso successful ly in mission ary work outside Ju da ea from Ant ioch viaCorinth to Rome. It i s remarkable that Luke does not know ofPeter having any problems wi th language - say in connect ion wi thCo rnelius ; this arises for him only in the case of Pa ul before the c row din Jer usa lem an d the tr ibune C laud ius L ysias (A cts 21 .37 ,40; cf. a lso2 2 . 2 ) . 8 '

Of course there was a knowledge of Greek espec ia l ly among theupper c lasses , though the qual i ty of this knowledge varied quiteconsiderably, from the basic knowledge need to make onesel f under-


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The Linguistic Qjtestion and its Cultural Background 17s tood to higher l i terary skil ls which few p osse sse d - we shal l go intothis in more detai l later . Such knowledge was a prerequisi te forupward social mobi l i ty , both in crafts and trade and in the service ofthe pol i t ical powers, the Herodian ru lers , the ci t ies , the t e mp l eadm inis trat ion and the other Je w ish au thor i t ie s and ev en m ore in theservice of R o m e . The better the k n ow l e d ge o f l an gu age a Palest in ianJe w ac q u i r e d , the m ore easi ly he could rise in the social scale.

T h e larger c i t ies , primari ly Je ru sale m , but also Sepphoris andTi b e r i as , had Greek schools which presumably went as far as ane lementary tra in ing in rhetoric. An institution l ike the t e mp l e mu sth ave h ad a well-staffed Greek secretariat for more than two centuries(see below, 22f.) .

Fr om the beginning, those trained in such schools wi th a highersocial status gained part icular s ignif icance for th e Je su s m ove m e n t .W e may assu m e that Jes us h imse lf , who as a bui lding craftsmanbelo nge d to the m iddle c lass , and to an even greater degree his brotherJ a m e s , was c ap ab l e of carrying on a conversat ion in Greek. Thesynoptic tradit ion presupposes without further ado that he could talkw i th the capta in from Capernaum, Pi late or the Syro-Phoenic ianw oman ( ' EX V n vi s , Mar k 7 .26 ) . 8 8 T he si tuation of h is nat ive Na zar ethon the border of Gali lee and f ive ki lometres from Sepphoris , the oldcapi ta l of the region, offered a variety of pos sibil i t ies of con tacts withnon-Jews. Poss ib ly as a bui lding craftsman (6 T K T I O V , M a r k 6 . 3 ) wJe su s w or k e d on the rebui ld ing of Sepphor i s . 9 0

H o w e v e r , we do not necessari ly have to go so far as Zahn, G.Ki t te la n d J . N . S e v e n s t e r 9 1 in supposing that Ja m es in any case h imse l f wrotehis le tter , composed in excel lent Greek, even if the the good s ty le isnot in i tse l f an arg um ent ag ainst a Palest inian origin for the letter. Asleader of the earl ie s t com m unity in Jeru salem he could certainly alsoh a v e had the use of a secretary. The discuss ion at the 'apostol iccoun ci l ' wi l l at least have b een carried on also in Greek, otherwise thepresence of a Greek l ike Titus wi l l hardly have made sense . We cantherefore spare ourselves the hyp othes is of an Ara m aic pro toc ol 9 2 fromw h i c h Pau l is su p p ose d to be q u ot i n g .

Th ere are m an y references tow h at w e re in all probabi l i ty bi l ingualm e m b e r s of the community from the upper and middle c lasses:ment ion should be m a d e of J o h a n n a , the wife of C h u z a , thee m T p o i T o s of H ero d An tip as , i .e . his steward ; the tax farm ers, l ike thedpxiTeXiovns Zac c h ae u s in Jer icho; then men l i k e N i c od e mu s andJ o s e p h of A r i math ae a . The m y s t e r i o u s M a n a e n ( M e n a c h e m ) inA n t i oc h , w h ose m oth er is p e r h ap s me n t i on e d b y Pa p i a s , 9 3 the boyh ood


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18 The 'Hellenization' of Judaeafriend (?


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3

Henri Irenee Marrou defined the Hellenistic world between Alexanderand the early empire as a 'civilization of paideia'.9' At this point weencounter a converging tendency which dominated both the Jewishwisdom schools with their invitation to accept musar and learn hokhma,and the new Graeco-Macedonian plantation cities of the new worldwith their ideal of education.9 8 Though the goal of education mightinitially be different, indeed contrary, in the long run there could notfail to be an influence of each side on the other. As social status andprofessional success for orientals - Syrians, Phoenicians, Egyptiansor Jews - to a great extent depended on an acceptance of the elementsof Greek education, to begin with Greek influence was greater. Indeedif we leave Judaism aside as a special case, the Greek element ineducation was dominant in the upper classes of Syria and Palestine -which were the only important ones. Here Fergus Millar stresses apoint which we must keep in mind if we are to have a correct estimationof the spiritual power of the Judaism of that time:

One of the most successful achievements of Graeco-Roman civilization was the removal of the memories and identities of the peoplewhom it absorbed. Alone of all the peoples under Roman rule, theJews not only had a long recorded history but kept it, re-interpretedit and acted on it.9 9But even where there was opposition and conflict involving vigorous

argument with the new pagan civilization, as in Judaism, peoplebecame more strongly 'infected' by it than they realized. 1 0 0

If we want to define the difficult concept of 'Hellenization' moreclosely, over and above the dissemination of the Greek language butin the closest connection with it, we come up against the ideal of Greek

Greek Education and Literature inJewish Palestine


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20 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eaedu cation , regardless of w heth er we wa nt to und erstan d i t m ore interms of technology , mi l itary matters and sports and the gy m na sium ,or in terms of rhetorical , l i terary and phi losophical education. Therel igious motive which interests theologians most here fades into thebackg round - at least to beg in with .

I t i s amazing how many s ign i f i cant Greek academics , men ofle t ters and th inkers were produced by the new Graeco-Macedonianfounda tions or the Grae cized c i t ies of Palest ine an d Tra nsjord an fromthe second century BCE onwards . Gadara , about s ix mi les from thesouthern border of Gal i lee as the crow f l ies , was the home town ofM en ipp us , the inventor o f sat ire from the fourth to third centuryB C E ; 1 0 1 M eleag er, the founder of the Greek antho logy from the seco ndc e n t u r y ; 1 0 2 and the Epicurean Phi lodemus, for whose l ibrary we areindebted to the papyrus discoveries in Herculaneum, from the f irstc e n t u r y B C E . 1 0 3 The orator Theodore of Gadara , who instructed thefuture emperor T iberius, l ived at the end of the f irst century B C E , 1 0 4and at the beginning of the second century CE the Cy nic O en om au so f G a d a r a , 1 0 5 w ho i s presum ably m ent ioned in a very pos i tive wa y inthe T alm ud , but a l so meets w i th the approval o f Eu seb ius , so that hehands down some substant ia l passages about h im in h i s PraeparatioEvangelica.10 6 In an epigram Meleager praises the c i ty as the 'Athenso f S yr i a ' , 1 0 ' and an epitaph from Hippo calls it xptlOTO(xovtria, 'anexce l l ent abode of l ea rn ing ' . 1 0 8 Step hen of B yza ntium l ists two o ratorsand a sophist as coming from Gerasa , and the neo-Pythagoreanand mathemat ic ian Nicomachus from the second century CE i spart icu larly we l l k n o w n . 1 0 9 A s com ing from Ash ke lon , the on ly coasta lc i ty , w h i c h th e Hasmon ae an s w e r e u n ab l e to c ap tu r e , 1 1 0 Stephen ofBy zant ium m ent ions not on ly the we l l know n An t iochu s , w ho rev ivedPl a ton ism an d w as a c on te mp or ar y o f C i c e r o , 1 1 1 but also three Stoicphi losophers , two gram m arians and two h i s torians . T he gram m arianPtolemaeus taught in Rome during the early period of the Empire .Ev en i f these scholars did not usual ly rem ain in the country b ut m ad etheir fortunes in the cultural centres of the W est , w e m ust as su m e thatthere was a firm and lasting scholarly tradition in the places I havementioned - to which should also be added the Phoenic ian c i t ies ofTyre and Sidon, which whi le preserving their own tradit ion at thesame t ime achieved a considerable cultural c l imax. Al l these townsprovided a sol id education and also enjoyed an inf luence to match.

Ev en Je w ish Palest ine cou ld not escape the attract ion of Greeked uca tion , w hic h flourished in the H elle nis tic cit ies al l arou nd it . He rewe must also take into account the growing inf luence of the most


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Greek Education and Literature in Jewish Palestine 21significant centres of the Greek-speaking Diaspora l ike Alexandr ia ,A n t i o c h and R o m e , but also the nearby Phoenic ian c i t ies . Thestart ing point was a basic e lementary instruct ion in g r a m m a r by the7pajijiaTumiis, which cou ld a l so be g i ve n i n Ju d ae a . The author ofthe Letter of Aristeas, writ ing in Alex and ria, takes it for granted arou nd140 BCE that the seventy-two translators who came from Palest ineh ad all had a sol id Greek education, and converse ly the T a l m u d i cl iterature also know s the Septuagint l egends in their more developedform, corresponding to that in Phi lo , in which each ind iv idualtranslator was i n s p i r e d . 1 1 2 The contrary verdict to this very positiveinterpretat ion, that the c omp os i t i on of the S e p tu ag i n t had b e e n acatastro phe for Israel, l ike the day o n w hic h the golde n cal f w as m ad e,on ly shows that at a later date the quest ion of the significance of th eGreek Bible was controversial in Palest in ian Ju da ism i tse lf and thati t w as notused there with out ob ject ions. After the second century CEit was increasingly rejected because of the rivalry of the Christ iansand rep laced by Aquila's translat ion. There can be no doubt that itwas used frequently in Je r u sa l e m, p r ob ab l y in the s y n a g o g u e ofTh eod otu s . Fra gm ents of Greek trans lat ions of the Hebre w Bib le hav ebeen found both in Q u m r a n and in the W a d i M u r a b b a a t , 1 1 3 and inaddit ion numerous Greek legal texts have been found in the W a d iM u r a b b a ' a t and N a h a l H e v e r . 1 1 4 The scroll of the twelve prophetsf r om W ad i Mu r ab b a at 1 1 5 indicates that at an earlier stage, longbefore Aqui la , Theodot ion and S y m m a c h u s , the revisions in thesecond century CE, there were dist inct ive Palest inian recensions ofthe Septua gint wh ich corrected the text with ph i lological accuracy onthe basis of the He bre w o riginal. The editors must have learned theirGreek grammar wel l . Paul h imse l f was a lready working wi th such arevised text of the books of I sa i ah , Job and K i n g s , and it is qui tepossible that he made this cr i t ical revis ion himself . 1 1 6 One can nolonger make use of the Septuagint as an ind icat ion that a text cameinto being outside P alest ine; inde ed it i s necessa ry to ask wh ether laterparts o f i t were not translated in Palest ine (see below, 24f . ) .

H o w e v e r , the influence of Greek educat ion and l i terature extendsvery much wider . We already find it in la te Hebrew and A r a m a i cliterature, for e x a m p l e in K o h e l e t h , Ben Sira, Danie l or the E n o c hwri t ings . The first Palest inian Je w ish autho r know n to us who w r otei n Gr e ek , th e an on y m ou s S a m ar i ta n , 1 " was w r i t ing at the t im e of BenSira. He identif ies E noc h, the primal sag e of G en .5.2 2, with Atla s, thebrother of Pro m etheu s, w ho wa s s im ilarly regarded asan ou t s tan d i n gastronomer , mathemat ic ian and phi losopher . King Nimrod of Baby-


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22 The 'Hellenization' of JudaeaIon is associated in euhemeristic fashion with the God Bel in Babylon,and Abraham becomes the one who brought the cult to Phoenicia andEgypt, and therefore indirectly to the Greeks also. It was in this earlyperiod, presumably injerusalem and on the basis of ajewish initiative,that the legend came into being of the primal affinity between Jewsand Spartans through Abraham.1 1 8 The Graecizing of Jerusalem asIcpoo'oXvu.a is along the same lines; the designation first identifiedthe city as a Hellenistic holy temple city, 'the holy Solyma' (lep6iroXi


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Greek E ducation an d Literature in Jewish Palestine 23below , 77 n .1 18 ) . T he presu m ably forged letter of the peo ple ofJeru salem under the l eadersh ip ofJu d as Mac c ab ae u s to A r i s tob u l u sand the Je w s in Alexa ndria in II M acc.2.14f . refers to the tem plel ibrary new ly se t up by Ju da s M acc ab aeu s a nd invi tes the A lexandr i ans to m ake use of i t w he n they nee d, presu m ably u sing writ ings inG r e e k . 1 2 1 Arou nd the middle of the second century B C E the Je w ishPalest in ian pr iest Eu polem us, son of Jo hn , w ho m Ju da s had probablysent to Rome wi th a de legat ion in 161 BCE, composed in Greek aJe w ish h i s tory wi th the t it le 'Abou t the Kin gs of Ju da h' d esp i te ,indeed perhaps because of , the Maccabaean f ight for freedom, to thegreater glory of freedom -loving Jew s.B .Z .W ac h o l d e r , w h o an a l yse s th is w or k , 1 2 2 goes very thoroughly inthe last chapter of h is bo o k 1 2 3 into further Jew ish-P ales t inia n l iteraturein Greek and traces it do w n to Ju stu s of Tib erias a nd Jo se ph us . In hisview, its origin l ies in the priesdy aristocracy, the leading representat ives of w hich had a lwa ys also had a certain degree of Greek edu catio nfrom the second or even third century BCE. It had its focus in amarkedly national ist ic h istoriography orientated on the sanctuary,and i ts greatest representat ive , Jo sep hu s, wa s also i ts last - bec au seof the destruct ion of the temple and the annihi lat ion of the priesdynobi l i ty . D iaspo ra Ju da ism d id not produce anyth ing com parab le inthe Greek langu ag e in the sphere of Je w ish historiography . Its m ostimp ortan t historian, Ja so n of Cy rene , author of a five-volume historyof the origins and beginnings of the Maccabaean revolt , whichan unknown wri ter summarized in II Maccabees , was s imi lar lycom plete ly or ientated on the h is tory of Palest in ian Ju da ism and wa spresum ably l iv ing in Ju da ea dur ing the revol t ( see be low, 2 5 f . ) . 1 2 4

By contrast , as a Jeru salem pr iest, Jo sep hu s , w ho w as proud ofh i s H a s m o n a e a n d e s c e n t , 1 2 5 must already have received the basicfoundation of h is amazingly broad Greek education in the holy c i ty;i t ena bled h im as a yo un g m an to undertak e a m ission to the imperialcourt which in troduced h im to the Empress Poppaea and whichul t imate ly became very successfu l . 1 2 6 No one would ever have beenchosen for such a purpose whose Greek was tor tuous . However , hehad to resort even later to l i terary helpers in his l i terary works (butnot in the Vita and Contra Apionem). Sti l l , as a rule non-Germandoctoral candidates from the An glo-Sa xon wor ld ha ve to do that, ev enif they ha ve already l ived in Germ an y for years. A nd for a Sem iteGreek was even more di ff icult to learn. Despite their outwardlyH el lenist ic garb, Jo sep hu s's later works - ab ov e all the Antiquities an dContra Apionem - are very m uch mo re m arkedly stam ped by P alest inian


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24 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eaha gga da h and halak ah than for exa m ple the exeget ical wo rks of Phi lo .Therefore Jo se ph us stresses at the end of his Antiquities that h i s Je w isheducation was more perfect than his Greek, and that he st i l l founddiff icult ies in speaking impeccable Greek (Antt. 20.262-4) - here anEngl i sh-speaking Swabian can have sympath ies . Presumably he a l sorefers to this def ic iency bec au se his r ival and op po nen t Ju stu s ofTiber ias had had a better l inguist ic and rhetorical edu catio n. Jo se ph ushad to stress this against his wil l (Vita 40) . The patr iarch Phot ius ofConstantinople (c .820-886) st i l l praised the styl ist ic precis ion andevocat ive character of Ju stu s ' h i s tory of the Je w ish k ings , wh ichextended from M ose s to the death ofA gr i p p a I I , th e l a s t j e w i sh k i n g . 1 2 'Wachholder bel ieves that the rhetorical training which Justusrece ived in the Tiber ias of Herod Ant ipas and Agr ippa II was on apar wi th the ' cosmo pol i tan Greek of An t ioch or A lex an dr ia ' , 1 2 8whereas Jeru salem could n ot offer Jos eph us educat iona l poss ib i li t ie sof the same high qual i ty . I would doubt that , s ince we do not knowwhether the you ng pr iest Jo sep h ben M attath ia hu in it ia lly had aparticular interest in an ad van ced rhetorical training, or wh ether w iththe arrogance of a mem ber of the priest ly aristocracy he did no t b eginby contenting himself with learning to speak and write koine Greekfluently.129 According to h i s Vita, as a young man he concentratedmo re on the s tudy of the Je w ish trad i tion , inc luding the E ss en es . 1 3 0

Th ere is no qu est ion th at there is a substa ntial d i f ference bet w eenthe style of Eu po lem us, w hich is st il l 'Jewish-Greek' a nd c lose to tha tof the Septu agin t , and that of the last two Je w ish historians. T he levelo f th e je w i sh sc ri ba l s c h oo l in Je r u sa l e m i n M ac c a b ae an -H asm on a e antimes was probably not yet (or no longer) on a par with grammaticaland rhetorical training; it was a more workmanlike affair, as too arethe translat ions of the various books of the Greek Bible . T he colo pho nto the Greek book of Esther shows that the rendering of the books ofthe O ld Testa m ent , the Ap ocryp ha and Pseudep igrapha in to Greekneed not a lways have taken p lace in the Greek-speaking Diaspora ,abov e a ll in Alexan dr ia .

In the fourth year of the re ign of Ptolemaeus and Cleopatra,Dositheus who, as he said, was a priest and levite ( i .e . of the tribeof Levi) brou ght the fol lowing (festal le tter) a bou t Purim , of w hic hthey said that i t was ( the correct one) and Lysimachus, the son ofPto lem aeus , o f those in Jeru salem , trans lated i t . 1 3 1The date on which i t was brought i s usual ly supposed to be 114

BCE. T he w hole m atter is to be understood as a p iece of H as m on ae an


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Greek E ducation and Literature in Jewish Palestine 25prop agan da a m on g the Je w s of Eg ypt , as indeed i s a l so ind icated inII Macc.2.14f . The extended translat ion, with re l igious e laborations,has an 'an ti -M ace do nia n' character; in part icular the royal do cum en tsin the addit ions display a very mannered style . Probably here theauthor made part icular efforts over his style . And presumably bysending out such propa gand a doc um ents from Jeru salem a nd e l se where the Hasmonaeans also wanted to restrain the inf luence of ther iva l Oniad temple in Leontopol i s wi th i t s markedly Hel len izedpriestho od. I n al l probab i l ity not only w as the He bre w book of Esthertranslated into Greek in Jer usa lem , but at the sam e t ime this was alsothe scene of the compo si t ion of those xenop hob ic addi t ions in which ,for e xamp l e , th e A gag i t e Haman w as mad e i n to a Mac e d on i an w h owa nted to betray the Pers ian k ingd om to the M aced onia ns (E 10-14) .It is also striking that the Greek of the add ition s is sub stan tial ly betterthan that of the translated passages: in particular the royal lettersm atc h the cerem oniou s do cu m en t style of the t ime (B 1-7; E 1-23) .The author seems to have taken part icular care over the Greek ofthese addi t ions .

T he trans lat ions of I M acca bee s - a p iece of H asm on aea n propagan da - and of Ju di th , Tob i t , e tc . , m ay a l so very we ll have been m adein Palest ine . T h e sam e thing is true of the Greek version of Ch ronic les ,the version of I Esdras with i ts novel l i st ic addit ions and the laterrender ings of II Esdras (Ezra and Nehemiah) , the Song of Songs ,Lamentat ions and Kohele th . The last o f these works was on lytranslated very late , at the beginn ing of the secon d century C E , w ho l lyin the l inguist ic style of the version by A qu i la . H ow ev er, i t i s no longerpossible with any certainty to discover where these late works weret r a n s l a t e d . 1 3 2

T he gran dson of Ben S ira , w ho accord ing to the prologue em igratedto Egypt in 132 BCE and who, as he found there ' the beginnings of anot ins ign i f i cant educat ion ' , 1 3 3 m ad e a very pass able translat ion of h isgrandfather's work into Greek in order to satisfy this 'hunger foreducation' , wi l l have acquired his basic knowledge of Greek inJeru salem ; he bas ica lly wrote as a propaga ndist for the Jew ish-Palest in ian wisdom tradi t ion .

W e f ind the oppo si te possibi l i ty , that of a D iasp ora J ew writ ing ahistorical work on the basis of being a personal eyewitness of eventsin Palestine , in Ja so n of Cyren e , who m I have a lready m ent ioned:entire ly in the style of the solem n and d ram atic historiography of hist ime he composed a highly rhetorical work in f ive books. Thesecovered the prel iminary history of the He l lenist ic reform in Jer usa lem


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26 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eaan d the first part of the Maccabaean revol t , up to ar ou n d the d e atho f J u d a s M a c c a b a e u s in 161 BCE. J a s o n s e e m s to h a v e k n o w nE u p o l e m u s , as he m akes part icular men tion of h im at a str iking po intof his bo ok (II M a c c . 4 . 1 1 ) . 1 3 4 Jas on's know ledge of Je w ish Palest in ianwarfare , geography and piety seems tobe hard ly less prec ise than thato f J o s e p h u s .

Acts 24.1 indicates that there was advanced rhetorical training inJe r u sa l e m tow ar d s the mi d d l e of the first century; it depic ts how theh i gh pr ie st A n an i a s 1 3 5 c am e d ow n fr om Je r u sa l e m w i th som e me m b e r sof the Sanhed rin and the orator Te rtul lus to accuse Paul before Fel ix .The orator wi l l hardly have earned most of his pay - l ike most of hisco l l eagues in the R om an em pire - s imply by m aking speeches in trials;teaching wi l l have been them ain source of h is inco m e. Luk e exercisesal l h is styl ist ic ski ll in dev elop ing the speech in 24.2-8; the introd uctionto the speech is the finest Greek sentence in the New T e s t a m e n t . Inso doing he wan ts to sho w that the Je w ish leaders of the peop le sparedn o e xp e n se in their accusat ion against Paul , but b r ou gh t a real expertw i t h t h e m . 1 3 6 Later the rabbis knew not only the l oan w or d s ( S T J T ( J > Pand orocbiorifc, but also num ero us techn ical rhetorical terms from thel e ga l sp h e r e . 1 3 7

Th e se e xamp l e s sh ow th at it is not so s im ple todist inguish betweenthe 'Jewish-Hel lenist ic ' l i terature of the Diaspora and the 'genuineJe w ish ' l iterature of Palest ine . Alm ost al l acc ou nts of intertestam entalJewish l i terature suffer from their desire to m a k e too s i mp l e adist inct ion here . There were connect ions in all direct ions , and aconstant and l ive ly in terchange . Wacholder and others thereforeconsider that a wh ole ser ies o f 'Jew ish H el len i s t ic ' wr i tings or writersw ho are usual ly place d in Alex and ria cam e into being in , or originatedin an d were act ive in , the moth er country of Palest ine . Th e works theyhav e in m ind here are the Ale xan der legend w hic h has been preservedin J o s e p h u s , 1 3 8 the T o b i a d R o m a n c e , the fragments of P s e u d o - H e c a -t a e u s , 1 3 9 the c h r o n o g r a p h e r D e m e t r i u s , 1 4 0 the older Phi lo with hisdidact ic poem on J e r u s a l e m , 1 4 1 the S amar i tan Th e od otu s w i th hispraise of S h e c h e m and the son s of J a c o b , 1 4 2 and the tragedianE z e k i e l . 1 4 3

However , here bas ica l ly we c an n ot get further than conjectures,and this possibi l i ty should not be e xagge r a te d . A Palest inian origins e e m s to me to be most l ikely in the case of the epic poet Phi lo , whoin hexameters praises the aq u e d u c t s o fJerusalem constructed by theH a s m o n a e a n s , and to be probable in the case of T h e o d o t u s , w h o s ed idact ic poem on S h e c h e m , 'the holy city' , contrasts with the Letter


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Greek E ducation an d Literature in Jewish Palestine 27of Ar isteas in presupp osing a goo d kn ow ledg e of the place; i t mu sthave been written in the second century BCE. At least both authorsseem to have know n Jeru salem and Sh eche m respect ive ly fromp e r s o n a l a c q u a i n t a n c e . 1 4 4 T h e dist inct ive feature of m an y of thesewrit ings i s that in a w ay w hich sh ow s great se lf -awareness they p raiseJewish Palest ine , i ts inhabitants and i ts tradit ion part ly in typicalGreek forms of l iterature. T he To biad R om anc e Q osep hus , Antt.12.154-224 , 228-2 38) , both of w hos e heroes , Jo sep h and h i s sonH yrc anu s , are Palest in ian Je w s, pos es a part icu lar problem. H ere Iwo uld endorse Bickerman's verd ic t :

T h e s tory of the To biad s was ob vious ly wr i t ten in Palest ine . Read ersin Alexandr ia or Ascalon would hardly have been enthusiast i cabou t a tax co l lec tor wh o cheated the m . But Jeru salem w as proudof these native sons who did so wel l and who, l ike other successfulbusines sm en of the H el len i s t i c age , remem bered the ir hom et o w n s . 1 4 5

In that case here we would have probably the only direct l i terarytest imony from the sphere of the Je w ish H el len i s t s o f the M acc ab aea nper iod wh ich has com e dow n to us. Jo sep hu s m ent ions i t in h is h i s torybeca use in i t Je w ish Pa lest inian aristocrats were the heroes andbecause he could use i t to f i l l the great gap between Alexander andthe Maccabaean per iod . Neverthe less , even af ter two hundred yearshe seems to take del ight in this b iographical narrative in the samew ay a s Je w is h aristocrats in the early H el lenist ic period. H ere i t i sagain worth l i stening to Bickerman:

T he p ubl icat ion of the b iography of the T obia ds show s that a m on gthe contemporar ies of Ben S ira there were m any in Jeru salem w honot only read Greek but also appreciated a book, written to theGreek taste , one in which th e only Je w ish e lem ents w ere the propernam es of the heroes of the s to ry . 1 4 6T h e sam e problem of the imp ossibi l i ty of m akin g a sharp and c lear-

cut divis ion b etw een a 'Palest inian Je w ish ' li terature and a 'JewishHel lenist ic ' l i terature also appl ies to parts of the popular novel l i st icwisdom and apocalyptic writ ing; this was on quite a di fferent level ,which to the Greeks wi l l have been 'barbarian' . The boundarybetw een the original Greek l i terature of the Dia spo ra and the original lyA ra m aic and H eb re w 'Pa lest inian l iterature' i s not as easy to draw asi s general ly a ssum ed. M oreover the d i spute as to whether a work w asoriginal ly composed in Greek or in a Semit ic language is sometimes


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28 The 'Hellenization' of Juda eainso luble . T he invest igat ion by Ulr ich F i sc he r , 1 4 7 for exa m ple , reckonsw ith the possibi l i ty that over an d abo ve the Ad dit ion s to Esther th oseto Danie l and the Ezekie l Apocryphon were written in the Greeklanguage in Palest ine , and he thinks that 'both the original languageand the plac e of or igin' of a further nu m ber of ap oca lyptic wo rks -the Zep han iah apo calypse w hich has com e dow n to us in Co pt ic , theT e s t a m e n t o f A b r a h a m 1 4 6 and individual fragments (Eldad andMedad, the El i jah apocalypse) are ' complete ly uncerta in ' . 1 4 9 On th eother hand he conjectures a Sem it ic original from the area of Palest inefor works the original language of which is equal ly quite uncertain ,as for exa m ple th e Paralipomena Jeremiae, the Ap oca lypse of M ose s (orthe Life of A da m and E ve) , the O ld S lavo nic Ap ocaly pse of Abra ham ,the greater part of the Vitae Prophetarum and the fragm ents of Ja nn esa nd J a m b r e s . 1 5 0 At least in the case of the V ita Jeremiae, however , anEgypt ian or ig in i s more probable , as the author h imse l f concedes . 1 5 1The place of or igin of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, forw hich a Greek original is no w u sual ly posi ted, i s also qu ite op en . T h eTe stam ents of Ju da h and Levi have more of a 'Palest in ian ' s tam p,and the T esta m ent of Jo se ph h as a markedly Eg ypt ian character ;how ever, this is also con nec ted w ith the them es of the writ ing, an d inadd it ion has strong echoe s of the Greek Phaedra leg end in the versionin Euripides' Hippolytus.xs2 In the later tradit ion of the Testaments ofthe Twelve Patriarchs the inf luence of the Palest inian AramaicTe s tame n t l i t e r a tu r e b e c ome s e v i d e n t . 1 5 3 Here too one cannot ge tvery far wi th an abru pt d iv i s ion between Palest in ian Ju da ism andHe l l e n is t ic D i asp or a Ju d a i sm .It is therefore often very difficult to attribute pa rticular theo logic alv iews predo m inant ly or exc lus ive ly to 'the H el len i s t i c Diasp ora' or to'Palest inian Ju da ism ' . In th e first p lace too l i tt le atten tion is paid tothe fact that Greek-spea king D iasp ora Ju da ism wa s eve n less a unitythan the Ju da ism of Palest ine before 70 C E , wh ich , as we no w know,was a very complex phenomenon. Furthermore we do not havevery much l i terary evidence that ( leaving aside the unique andfundamental ly incomparable work of Phi lo) we can assign to thisDiaspo ra Ju da ism w hich w as so d i sparate in itself, i f only for geographica l and soc ia l reasons . 1 5 4 From the great Je w ish co m m unity inRome, which was substantial ly di f ferent from that in Alexandria,apart from a few pieces of information from Phi lo and Josephus,virtual ly al l we have are epigraphic sources. Here i t in part icularhad espec ia l ly c lose t i e s wi th the mother country . 1 5 5 Mor e ove r ou rkno wled ge ab out Je w ish l i terature from Syrian Antio ch - apart from


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Greek Education and Literature in Jewish Palestine 29IV M acc ab ees , which probably comes from there - rema ins qu i teuncerta in .

In addit ion, the pre-rabbinic writ ings which certainly or probablycom e from Palest in ian Ju da ism and were or ig inally comp osed inAramaic or Hebrew have on ly come down to us by be ing trans latedinto Greek - in Palest ine or ou tside i t; w ho kno ws? - and were takenover by the Christ ian tradit ion. The only exceptions here are thenewly-discovered original texts from Qumran and their ' forerunners'from the Cairo Geniza: the Damascus Document and the fragmentsof S irach . The wr i t ings which are g iven the very vague des ignat ion'Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha' have a l l been handed down by theC h r i s t i an c h u r c h . 1 5 6 They for their part inf luenced the Diaspora,and later Ch rist ianity, ju st as conve rsely the li terature of D iasp oraJudaism was also read in Palest ine . Al l th is shows that with our usualstereotyped conceptions and labels we are no longer capable of doingjus t ice to the com plicate d historical reali ty of Ju da ism in antiqu ity,and often do i t v iolence instead .

Al l in al l , I w ou ld sup po se that as the metro pol is of Je w ish Palest inebetw een the Ma cca ba ean per iod and it s destruct ion , Jeru salem hada far greater spir itual inf luence with in the Je w ish D iasp ora in the e astand in the wes t than Je w ish Alexa ndr ia , an d that ( l eaving a s idePhi lo's magnum opus) the extent of its l iterary prod uction w as greaterthan that of the Je w s in Alexand r ia .

T h e view that basical ly only the rab binic Ju da ism that created abroad foundat ion of sources in Hebrew and Aramaic in the form ofthe Talmudic l i terature , the Midrash im and Targumim, might bedes igna ted 'Palest inian Ju da ism ' in the full sense of the wo rd and thateveryth ing e l se , inc luding the Pseudepigrapha, indeed u l t imate lyeven the Q um ra n l iterature , can be praised or dism issed - dep end ingon one's standpoint - as Hel lenist ic , i s part icularly pernic ious. Thisv iew, which for exam ple Gre ssm ann put forward in h is argum ent wi thMoore , but which s t i l l can be found today, 1 5 7 makes the confusioncomplete . In fact the mult i form 'Hel lenist ic ' inf luence on the rabbisi s m a n i f e s t , 1 5 8 and the early Pharisees were evidently more open totheir 'Hel lenist ic ' environment than the r igorist ic Essenes. They alsotravel led abroad more frequently (Matt .23.15) , though before 70there i s no eviden ce of any Pharisaic schoo ls outside Je w ish Pa lest ine .Rather , we m ust try to pass an ind iv idual jud gm en t on the geo graphi cal or igin and theological an d cultural context of eac h sing le text an deach single author, at the same t ime also taking note of the problemof the autho r's social posi t ion an d educa tiona l level .


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The pressure to accept the superior 'Hel lenist ic world c ivi l izat ion'ca m e from outside; i t w as a ma tter of pol i t ical , econ om ic, cultural andspiritual self-preservation. It was necessary to get to grips with theGreek spir it w hic h appar ently dom inat ed the wo rld in so m an y area s,by learning as m uc h as possible from i t . Therefore th e rul ing c las ses ,including the c lear-sighted rulers and popular leaders - r ight up toJe hu da han -nas i ' and the Je w ish patr iarchs - were in terested in Greekeducation, and even where everything foreign was abruptly rejected,as for e xamp l e amon g th e Esse n e s , 1 5 9 people were inf luenced by thenew spir it with out no tic ing the fact. T h e ma in hindran ce here - as inantiquity general ly - was the l imited range of social education. 'Theman who gu ides the p lough' or wie lds the 'ox-goad' had no t ime toacquire an educa t ion , Greek or even Je w ish (S ir .3 8 .24 f f . ) .

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Hil le l ,the immigrant from Babylon and day worker , 1 6 1 who virtual ly forcedhis w ay into schoo l , w as an exception , and at the sam e t ime the sym bo lof a new development for which the Pharisees were responsible: incontrast to the crowns of priests and kings, ' the crown of the Torah'is potential ly there for all; 16 2 their aim was to train the whole peoplei n th e l aw . 1 6 3

The Hasmonaean h igh pr iests and later k ings a lready had torecogn ize that for reasons of state they could n ot disp ense w ith Greektechnology , econ om ics , law and warfare , lang uage . So the Je w ishexpansion took place in Samaria, the coastal region, Gal i lee andTransjordan as in the H el len i s t i c m onarchies , am on g other th ings bythe found ation of Je w ish m il itary colonies . L ater , for exa m ple inGal i lee , these formed the main bases in the f ight against Herod andt h e R o m a n s . 1 6 4 According to Antiquities

The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century After Christ-Hengel

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