One of the major themes of Professor Daviesâs work has been the interpenetration of Hellenism and Judaism. His principal concern has been to deny that Palestinian Judaism can be viewed âas a watertight compartment closed against all Hellenistic influences,â since âthere was a Graeco-Jewish âatmosphereâ even at Jerusalem itself.â[1] His conclusion with regard to Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism was that there is âno justification for making too rigid a separation between the Judaism of the Diaspora and that of Palestine.â[2] He put the matter more bluntly in a later essay: âthe traditional convenient dichotomy between Judaism and Hellenism [is] largely false.â[3] In a still later essay summarizing the state of the question on Paul and Judaism, he argued against âthe assumption [made in Albert Schweitzerâs day] that it is possible to make a clear distinction between what was Semitic or Palestinian Judaism and Hellenistic or Diaspora Judaism in the first century.â[4]
Although there may be some New Testament scholars who still think in terms of âwatertight compartments,â they are probably now in the minority. All accept or at least âpay lip-serviceâ to Professor Daviesâs protest. It is not that Davies was the first to observe Hellenistic influences in Palestinian Judaism or Jewish influences in Hellenismâin his comments on these points he always refers to the work of others[5]âor that he himself spent his research time in investigating and exploring the interpenetration. Rather he helped call the interpenetration to the attention of New Testament scholars and showed that ignoring it had led to an oversimplified view of New Testament backgrounds. Professor Daviesâs voice has been one of the principal factors in making the current generation of New Testament scholars aware of the complexities of the question of the conceptual thought-worlds in which the New Testament literature was written.
The intention of Paul and Rabbinic Judaism was to argue that some of the elements in Paulâs thought which had generally been labeled âHellenisticâ could in fact have come from Palestinian Judaism. The book was published at about the time that the Dead Sea Scrolls became known,[6] and their discovery greatly intensified the scholarly search for Jewish parallels to the New Testament. In subsequent years it came to be argued that the two New Testament works generally regarded as most HellenisticâJohn and Hebrewsâcould in fact be explained against the conceptual background provided by the Scrolls.[7] Thus Daviesâs pre-Scroll view that one should look first to Judaism as the background for the New Testament, even for parts traditionally thought to be Hellenistic, was published at a time when the discoveries by the Dead Sea inclined scholars to do just that.
I should immediately confess that a great deal of this latter researchâor at least of the conclusions drawn from itâis not persuasive to me. This is not the place to try to argue case by case what the most pertinent conceptual background for understanding the various New Testament books is.[8] Some indication of the reason for not being persuaded, however, may be given. To take one case in which a careful scholar diligently sought and found parallels between a New Testament book and the Scrolls and concluded from them that the Scrolls constitute the conceptual background for the New Testament book, one may refer to the well-known study of Hebrews by Yigael Yadin. On the basis of certain similarities of motifs in Hebrews and the Scrolls, Yadin concluded that Hebrews was addressed not to Gentiles (as most New Testament scholars thought before the discovery of the Scrolls), but to Jewish Christians âdescending from the DSS Sect.â[9] Without quibbling over any of the similarities cited by Yadin (although some could be quibbled over), one may question the conclusion. Where in the Scrolls (or elsewhere in Palestinian Jewish literature) will one find the distinction between what is real (incorporeal, changeless) and the copy or shadow of the real (earthly, mutable)? This distinction is essential to the argument of Hebrews with regard to how Christ brings a real salvation (see chapters 8â10, especially 8:2, 5; 9:11f.; 23f.; 10:1). Here is an integral and essential part of the argument of Hebrews which has, as far as I see, no conceptual background in the Scrolls, but which has a clear conceptual background in Hellenism and in Hellenistic Judaism. In light of this, how will one assess the overall conceptual background of Hebrews?[10]
What seems to me to be lacking in many of the studies cited in note 7 above is the ability to hold in balance similarity in certain details and a difference in the essential nature of the religious goal which is being described. Similarity in details seems to overwhelm essential differences. It may be that there are similarities between what the Scrolls and Hebrews say about angels, but are the fundamental posing of the religious problematic and the solution offered the same?[11] In this case I think not. Today we have little excuse for leaving out of account such questions, since they have been so clearly raised by E. R. Goodenough. In discussing Philoâs âJudaismââ and âHellenism,â he put the matter thus:
. . . Philo thought that the Patriarchs were mystic saviours of the Jewish people by their having gone from matter to the immaterial, and so having opened up the way for which hellenistic religions and mystic philosophies were, it seemed to him, vainly looking. The kind of salvation offered, the descriptions of the character and achievements of the Patriarchs, these are quite foreign to any Judaism of which I have heard, and entirely at home in Greek thought. But the idea that the Jewish people was to be saved, and had special access to God, because of the personal merits of Abraham, Moses, and the others, was just as common a Jewish notion as the other was foreign to Judaism.[12]
Here Goodenough argues that within a major similarity (the value of the patriarchs for subsequent Jewish generations) there is an essential and fundamental difference between Philo and other forms of Judaism: the patriarchs are mystic saviours rather than the establishers of a covenant of mutual obligation between God and Israel. This is precisely the sort of question which must be addressed if we are to assess conceptual backgrounds accurately.
To return to the beginning: there is no question that Professor Davies accurately criticized New Testament scholarship for being prone to put Judaism and Hellenism, and Palestinian Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism, into âwatertight compartments.â Yet as Professor Davies also stated, Palestinian Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism were not simply identical.[13] It is as possible to oversimplify the undoubted fact of interpenetration and to overlook essential differences as it is to oversimplify the differences and ignore interpenetration. It seems to be time now to begin an assessment of how Palestinian and Hellenistic Judaism were alike and different. In the present essay, we shall focus on this question, leaving aside the larger one of Hellenism and Judaism. Further, since this is an essay and not a library, it will be possible only to sketch one question as it appears in a few sources, in the hope that the sketch will be suggestive. Even within this limitation, it will be necessary to make some parts sketchier than others. Our procedure will be this: we shall pose the question of whether or not, in selected sources, the covenant is a soteriological category (i.e., does membership entail salvation and non-membership damnation?); secondly, we shall consider the nature of salvation which is in view.
Palestinian Jewish Literature
I have elsewhere argued at length a position which will be repeated here only very briefly in order to give some basis for a comparison with Hellenistic Jewish sources.[14] In the entire body of Palestinian Jewish literature between Ben Sirah and the redaction of the Mishnah, with only the exception of IV Ezra, membership in the covenant is considered salvation. What is required to join the covenant varies (usually birth as a Jew or proselytism, but in Qumran voluntary joining as an adult), what is required to remain in the covenant varies, and how salvation is conceived varies; but the positive (if not exclusive) connection between covenant and salvation is constant, except for IV Ezra. It will be useful to put at least a little flesh on the bones of this summary description.
Jubilees begins and ends with the promise of the redemption of Israel.[15] Despite Israelâs transgression of the covenant, God has never forsaken them (1:5). Even though God scatters them among the Gentiles in punishment for idolatry (1:13), Israel will turn again. And God promises: âI will be their God and they shall be My people in truth and righteousness. And I will not forsake them nor fail them; for I am the Lord their Godâ (1:17f.).[16] Further, God will cleanse Israel âso that they shall not turn away from Me from that day unto eternity. And their souls will cleave to Me and to all My commandments. . . . And they all shall be called children of the living Godâ (1:24f.). The prophecy of Israelâs ultimate cleansing, which leads to Godâs perpetual preservation of the people, is repeated in 50:5:
And the jubilees shall pass by, until Israel is cleansed from all guilt of fornication, and uncleanness, and pollution, and sin, and error, and dwells with confidence in all the land, and there shall be no more a Satan or an...
