The Greek period (332–63 bce)

Question 1

Hellenism and Judaism

Answer 1

• It is not until the end of the 4th century, however, that Jews are first mentioned by Greek writers, who praise them as brave, self-disciplined, and philosophical.
• After being conquered by Alexander the Great (332 bce), Palestine became part of the Hellenistic kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt, the policy of which was to permit the Jews considerable cultural and religious freedom
• in 198 Palestine was conquered by King Antiochus III (reigned 223–187 bce)
• In the early part of the 2nd century bce, Hellenizing Jews took control of the high priesthood itself.
• As high priest from 175 to 172, Jason established Jerusalem as a Greek city, with Greek educational institutions
• chief supporters of the Hellenizers were members of the wealthy urban population, while the Maccabees were supported by the peasants and the urban masses.
• Greek influence reached its peak under King Herod I of Judaea (reigned 37–4 bce), who built a Greek theatre, amphitheatre, and hippodrome in or near Jerusalem.

Question 2

Social, political, and religious divisions

Answer 2

• During the Hellenistic period the priests were both the wealthiest class and the strongest political group among the Jews of Jerusalem
• wealthiest of the priests were the members of the Oniad family, who held the hereditary office of high priest until they were replaced by the Hasmoneans; the Temple that they supervised also functioned as a bank, where the wealth of the Temple was stored and where private individuals also deposited their money
• A special group of scribes known as Hasidim, or “Pietists,” became the forerunners of the Pharisees, or “Separatists”—middle-class Jewish scholars who reinterpreted the Torah and the prophetic writings to meet the needs of their times.
• The chief doctrine of the Pharisees was that the Oral Law had been revealed to Moses at the same time as the Written Law.
• believed in the providential guidance of the universe, in angels, in reward and punishment in the world to come, and in resurrection of the dead, all of which were opposed by the Sadducees
• The Sadducees and their subsidiary group, the Boethusians (Boethosaeans), who were identified with the great landowners and priestly families, were more deeply influenced by Hellenization
• Not constituting any particular party were the unlearned rural masses known as ʿamme ha-aretz (“people of the land”), who were found among both the Pharisees and the Sadducees and even among the Samaritans.
• Proselytes (converts) to Judaism, though not constituting a class, became increasingly numerous in Palestine and especially in the Diaspora
• Outside the pale of Judaism in most, though not all, respects were the Samaritans, who, like the Sadducees, refused to recognize the validity of the Oral Law
• Scholars have revised the conception of a “normative” Pharisaic Judaism dominant in Palestine and a deviant Judaism dominant in the Diaspora
• synagogues of the period are modeled after Hellenistic-Roman basilicas, with inscriptions in Greek and even pagan motifs

Question 3

Religious rites and customs in Palestine: the Temple and the synagogues

Answer 3

• Until its destruction in 70 ce, the most important religious institution of the Jews was the Temple in Jerusalem (the Second Temple, erected 538–516 bce)
• Although the Temple remained central in Jewish worship, synagogues had already emerged as places for Torah reading and communal prayer and worship during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century bce, if not even earlier
• The chief legislative, judicial, and educational body of the Palestinian Jews during the period of the Second Temple was the Great Sanhedrin (council court), consisting of 71 members, among whom the Sadducees were an important party.

Question 4

Religious and cultural life in the Diaspora

Answer 4

• During the Hellenistic-Roman period the chief centres of Jewish population outside Palestine were in Syria, Asia Minor, Babylonia, and Egypt, each of which is estimated to have had at least one million Jews.
• The largest and most important Jewish settlement in the Diaspora was in Egypt
• Alexandria, the most populous and most influential Hellenistic Jewish community in the Diaspora, originated when Alexander the Great assigned a quarter of the city to the Jews.
• The most important work of the early Hellenistic period—dating, according to tradition, from the 3rd century bce—is the Septuagint, a translation into Greek of the Hebrew Scriptures, including some works not found in the traditional Hebrew canon
• The chief religious institutions of the Egyptian Diaspora were synagogues.

Question 5

Egyptian Jewish literature

Answer 5

• In Egypt the Jews produced a considerable literature (most of it now lost), intended to inculcate in Greek-speaking Jews a pride in their past and to counteract a sense of inferiority that some of them felt about Jewish cultural achievements.
• Egyptian Jews also composed poems and plays, now extant only in fragments, to glorify their history
• A Jewish dramatist of the period, Ezekiel (c. 100 bce), composed tragedies in Greek
• The greatest achievements of Alexandrian Judaism were in the realm of wisdom literature and philosophy.
• By far the greatest figure in Alexandrian Jewish literature is Philo, who has come to be recognized as the first Jewish theologian
• There was also a Jewish community in Rome, which numbered perhaps 50,000.
• The Hellenization of the Diaspora Jews is reflected not merely in their literature but even more in various papyri and art objects.

Question 6

Palestinian literature

Answer 6

• During this period, literature was composed in Palestine in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek; the original language of many of these texts remains disputed by scholars, and the works that have survived were apparently composed by more than one author over a considerable period of time.
• Of the wisdom literature composed in Hebrew, the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus (c. 180–175 bce), modeled on the book of Proverbs, identified Wisdom with the observance of the Torah
• The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, probably written in the latter half of the 2nd century bce, patterned on Jacob’s blessings to his sons, is thought to belong to eschatological literature related to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• Books such as the Testament of Job, Genesis Apocryphon, the Book of Jubilees and Biblical Antiquities, as well as the first half of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, often show affinities with rabbinic Midrashim (interpretive works) in their legendary accretions of biblical details.
• Apocalyptic trends, given considerable impetus by the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, were not (as was formerly thought) restricted to Pharisaic circles.
• The sole Palestinian Jewish author writing in Greek whose works are preserved is Josephus.