Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity

Conflict or Confluence?

Lee I. Levine

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780295803821
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Jewish Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Generations of scholars have debated the influence of Greco-Roman culture on Jewish society and the degree of its impact on Jewish material culture and religious practice in Palestine and the Diaspora of antiquity. Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity examines this phenomenon from the aftermath of Alexander's conquest to the Byzantine era, offering a balanced view of the literary, epigraphical, and archeological evidence attesting to the process of Hellenization in Jewish life and its impact on several aspects of Judaism as we know it today. Lee Levine approaches this broad subject in three essays, each focusing on diverse issues in Jewish culture: Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period, rabbinic tradition, and the ancient synagogue. With his comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the intricate dynamics of the Jewish and Greco-Roman societies, the author demonstrates the complexities of Hellenization and its role in shaping many aspects of Jewish life—economic, social, political, cultural, and religious. He argues against oversimplification and encourages a more nuanced view, whereby the Jews of antiquity survived and prospered, despite the social and political upheavals of this era, emerging as perpetuators of their own Jewish traditions while open to change from the outside world.

CHAPTER I

Hellenism and the Jewish World of Antiquity

ONE OF THE MOST ENGAGING AND PRODUCTIVE AREAS OF research in the modern study of Jewish history in antiquity is the issue of Hellenization. In attempting to legitimize the scientific study of Jewish topics, nineteenth-century scholars often highlighted phenomena common to Jews and their surrounding society.¹ Only in the twentieth century, however, has this field become central to the concerns of both Jewish and Christian scholars.

A number of factors—some academic, others of a quite different nature—come into play in bringing this subject to the fore. Prominent in the latter category is the Jewish experience in the modern era. Given an open cosmopolitan setting in the Western world, Jews have been able to navigate relatively freely and unencumbered. This freedom affects where they live, and has socioeconomic, political, and cultural implications as well. Jews have not only become integrated into the wider society, but they have also brought many elements of the outside world into their homes, organizations, schools, and synagogues. Not surprisingly, then, the involvement of Jews in the outside world and the profound influences that this contact has had upon them have stimulated scholars to investigate the Greco-Roman (and medieval Spanish) experience, which in many ways is analogous to the Jewish situation today.

Moreover, many Jewish scholars were especially interested in exploring this realm owing to their own religious biases. For those of more liberal persuasion the implications of discovering outside influences are clear. Indication of such contacts and their salutary effects on the Jews serves to strengthen the hand of these scholars in contemporary debates. Indeed, arguing for religious change in light of new developments in the modern world gains a measure of legitimacy if one can demonstrate that similar dynamics were operative in both the Second Temple and rabbinic periods. It is thus not coincidental that research in this area has often emanated from those associated in some way with the Reform and Conservative movements, such as L. Zunz, A. Geiger, L. Herzfeld, K. Kohler, I. Elbogen, I. Davidson, L. Finkelstein, S. W. Baron, G. Cohen, B. Cohen, S. J. D. Cohen, and others.²

On an academic level, the nature and extent of such outside influences are continuously being highlighted by the ongoing discovery of ancient materials. Ancient texts often point to the commonality between biblical practices and those of the surrounding cultures, and to the apparent influences of the latter on the former. The discoveries of Nuzi, Mari, Ugarit, and Ebla are cases in point for the biblical period, and the many documents that have surfaced over this last century relating to Greco-Roman Egypt and elsewhere tell the same story for later antiquity.³ A number of studies have dealt with Hellenism specifically and the Roman East generally, further highlighting this widespread cultural influence in various parts of the region.⁴

Of no less importance is the steady stream of archeological discoveries brought to light over the last century which not only have added to our knowledge of antiquity but, more specifically, have had a considerable impact on the study of Hellenization. Throughout antiquity the material culture of the Jews was heavily indebted to, and in many cases totally dependent on, that of the regnant contemporary culture. The Jews never boasted an architectural or artistic tradition of their own (save, perhaps, a limited cluster of symbols that evolved only in late antiquity). In scores of excavations at Jewish sites, evidence for the impact of contemporary civilization is discernible at every turn, from architecture and art to small finds and epigraphical remains. Thus, archeological data continuously enhance our awareness of the extent of Hellenization, while serving to open new avenues of investigation and research.⁵

THE ISSUE OF “HELLENISM” AND “HELLENIZATION” IN MODERN RESEARCH

Two studies on Hellenization and the Jews in the Greco-Roman period, conducted in the 1930s and 1940s, constituted major contributions in their own right and have also had a profound influence on subsequent research. Two scholars, living on separate continents and investigating very different historical contexts on the basis of entirely different sources, published within five years of each other what proved to be pioneering studies in the field. E. Bickerman's monograph Der Gott der Makkabäer (1937; English trans. The God of the Maccabee's, 1979), with its revolutionary interpretation of the causes of Antiochus IV's persecutions in 167 B.C.E., focused on the Seleucid context of this period of Jewish history and the key role of Jewish Hellenizers in promoting these events. In subsequent years, Bickerman published a series of seminal studies elucidating the wider context of events and documents relating to Jewish history in the Hellenistic era. His other two books on the subject, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabee's (1962) and his posthumous The Jews in the Greek Age (1988), further elaborate on the extensive influence of Hellenism on the Jews in the period between the conquest of Alexander and the Maccabean uprising. Bickerman, one of the foremost scholars of ancient history in the twentieth century, approached Jewish history with an unmatched command of Greco-Roman sources as well as a profound understanding of classical society and culture.

The other seminal work, appearing in 1942, was S. Lieberman's Greek in Jewish Palestine. Here, for the first time, in a series of incisive and wide-ranging studies by one who was later recognized as the foremost talmudic scholar of the century, was an exposition of the extent to which the rabbis knew Greek and were familiar with Greek culture. A companion volume, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, appeared eight years later. True enough, the existence of well over three thousand Greek and Latin loanwords in rabbinic literature had already been noted for decades, since the appearance of S. Krauss's monumental Griechische und Lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmudy Midrasch und Targum (1899). Lieberman, however, went beyond the use of Greek and Latin words and phrases to demonstrate just how extensive this familiarity was—embracing rabbinic knowledge of pagan customs, administrative organization, legal terminology, and the natural sciences. The timing of Lieberman's first publication was influenced by the discovery of the Bet She

carim necropolis in the southwestern Galilee in the late 1930s. Having been in constant contact with the site's excavator, B. Mazar, Lieberman learned of the high degree of Hellenization at this major Jewish necropolis that has come to be identified with R. Judah the Prince, editor of the Mishnah, as well as with later Patriarchs and several rabbinic figures. How, it was asked, could one explain such widespread Hellenization in a supposedly rabbinic cemetery? Such a correlation, according to Lieberman, should not be surprising, for indeed many rabbis were well versed in contemporary Greco-Roman culture.

The studies of Bickerman and Lieberman signaled a surge of investigations over the ensuing decades, all relating to Hellenistic contacts and influences on the Jews and Judaism.⁶ E. R. Good-enough, having devoted many years to compiling data regarding Jewish art in this period, presented the material in a fully documented and accessible fashion in his multivolume work Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (1953-68). In fact, Good-enough is to be credited with having a major hand in creating the field of ancient Jewish art history, which hitherto had been largely unknown. However, as Goodenough emphasized on a number of occasions, his collection of Jewish art was not assembled for its own sake but served as a stepping stone for a grand theory regarding the meaning of these Jewish symbols and the nature of Judaism at this time. His claim was that Jewish art is the most important evidence for understanding popular Judaism in antiquity, and that the most fundamental beliefs of the Jews revolved around the ideas of mysticism and salvation—ideas that he claimed were common themes in popular Greco-Roman religions of the time. Thus, Jewish art forms, and the religious beliefs reflected therein, can only be understood within their Greco-Roman setting. While Goodenough's suggested reconstruction of popular mystical religion among Jews was severely criticized by both Jewish and non-Jewish scholars, his notions regarding the extensive Hellenization of Jewish art and its nonrabbinic provenance gained much acceptance in subsequent years.⁷

During the fifteen years in which Goodenough's volumes were published, other scholars were addressing the issue of Hellenism from various perspectives. M. Smiths popular article entitled “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century” (1956) made a brief but trenchant statement regarding the impact of Hellenism before 70 C.E. on Jewish society in general and on the Pharisees in particular. A year later, S. Stein's article on the relationship of the Passover seder and Haggadah to Greco-Roman symposia pointed to the remarkable parallels between these two religious and social frameworks,⁸ and B. Cohen's two-volume Jewish and Roman Law: A Comparative Study (1966) suggested many points of contact between these two legal corpora (see below, chapter III).

In the 1960s, a number of Israeli scholars further highlighted a wide variety of Hellenistic influences on Jewish civilization in antiquity. A. Schalit's King Herod (1960, Hebrew) and V. Tcherikover's Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (1931, Hebrew; rev. ed. in English, 1961) addressed the Hellenistic and Roman contexts as vital to understanding the historical developments in Palestine during the last three centuries B.C.E. In particular, Schalit stressed the political and cultural setting under Augustus necessary to gain a full appreciation of Herod and his policies. In describing Hellenistic and Hasmonean Palestine, Tcherikover took pains to point out the broad political and socioeconomic setting that influenced much of Jewish history during these centuries. Moreover, he devoted the last half of his book to the Jews of Egypt, pointing out the ways this large Diaspora community adjusted to its surroundings— politically, socially, economically, and culturally. Tcherikover had already addressed some of these issues in his prolegomenon to Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum in 1957 (with A. Fuks and M. Stern, 3 vols., 1957-64). Likewise, in the early 1960s, Y. Gutman examined Jewish authors of Hellenistic Egypt and the impact of Greek culture on their writings. In an entirely different area, G. Scholem's monograph Jewish Gnosticism, Merkavah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (1960) served to further demonstrate the impact of foreign cultures—this time gnostic circles—on Jewish mysticism of the first centuries C.E. Finally, in 1966, M. Margalioth published his reconstruction of Sepher Ha-Razim, a fourth-century Jewish handbook of practical magic that was heavily indebted to popular pagan (later Christian) traditions and practices ubiquitous throughout the ambient Roman-Byzantine world.

At about this time Christian scholars became actively involved in the question of the Hellenization of Jewish society. The motivation for their studies differed from one person to another, but common to all was the desire to elucidate as fully as possible the world of Jesus and the early Jewish-Christian church in Jerusalem and Judaea. There was also the realization that the old dichotomy between Palestinian and Diaspora Judaism, with only the latter seen as profoundly Hellenized, was fast becoming obsolete. It had become evident that Palestinian Judaism itself was significantly Hellenized. Thus, if one wished to delineate the sources of Hellenistic influence on the early church, and particularly on Paul and other New Testament authors, one would have to consider Jerusalem, Judaea, and the Galilee and not only Alexandria, Antioch, Asia Minor, or Rome.

J. Sevenster's book Do You Know Greek? How Much Greek Could the First Jewish Christians Have Known? (1968) made a strong case for the knowledge of Greek among early Christians, including Jesus. The implications of such a thesis are far-reaching, for if indeed Jesus knew and spoke Greek, then the possibility that some of the gospel traditions have preserved his actual sayings would be that much greater. Sevenster's study was followed in 1970 by Fitzmyer's article on the languages of first-century C.E. Palestine which clearly and persuasively demonstrated the dominance of the two linguae francae of the time, Aramaic and Greek.⁹ In the following year, M. Smith published Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament, which spanned much of the first millennium B.C.E., from the First Temple to the Hellenistic periods. Among the studies therein, Smith devoted a chapter to Hellenization, in which he treated in detail the contributions of the Persian and Greek worlds to the development of Palestine in the pre-Alexandrian era. The roots of later Hellenization were to be found in this meeting of cultures as far back as the Persian period, the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E.

A landmark study, published in German in 1969 and appearing in English translation in 1974, was Hengel's two-volume Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period. Hengel claimed that Jews and Judaism had already encountered significant Hellenistic influence in the third century B.C.E. and that many Jewish groups had quickly absorbed and adapted themselves to the regnant cultural patterns of the Hellenistic world. He sought parallels to explain a wide range of developments within Jewish society in the 150 years between the death of Alexander the Great and the Maccabean revolt. Not only did Hengel claim to find Hellenistic elements in the Jewish books and sects of this era (e.g., Ben Sira, the Hasidim, the Dead Sea sect), but he canvassed Palestinian archeological and pagan evidence in order to paint as comprehensive a picture as possible of the cultural transformation in the region as a whole. Hengel also adopted Bickerman's thesis regarding the Hellenizers' role in instigating the persecutions of Antiochus IV in 167 B.C.E., carrying the theory a step further by attributing to these Jews a zealotry which advocated abrogation, or at least the radical curtailment, of the authority of the Law within Jewish society. Hengel subsequently followed this monumental study with a number of monographs that treated the question of Hellenization in the later Second Temple period,¹⁰ the most significant being The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ (1989).

Throughout the past few decades more focused studies have appeared, exploring specific aspects of Hellenization in greater depth. H. Fischer's work opened up new vistas of research vis-à-vis the ties between rabbinic midrash and the larger Greco-Roman world, as had D. Daubes studies on rabbinic hermeneutical rules several decades earlier.¹¹ Other studies, to mention but a representative sample, dealt with a range of topics: Hellenistic Jewish, especially apocalyptic, literature (J. J. Collins), Hellenistic Judaism (L. L. Grabbe), Philo (H. A. Wolfson, A. Mendelson), Ben Sira (J. T. Sanders), Qumran (D. Winston, S. Shaked, M. Hengel, D. Mendels), Pharisees (E. Bickerman, M. Geller), epigraphy (B. Lifshitz), Josephus' Greek milieu (T. Rajak), Josephus' use of Greek models and values in describing biblical figures (L. Feldman), Jewish nationalism (D. Mendels), Pharisaic-rabbinic schools and their teachings in light of parallel developments in Greek philosophical schools (J. Goldin, S. J. D. Cohen, S. Mason, P. Alexander), halakhah (B. Cohen, S. J. D. Cohen), and late antique Palestine (M. Avi-Yonah).¹² Recent articles by U. Rappaport and T. Rajak have treated the general phenomenon of Hellenism under the Hasmoneans with considerable insight and refinement.¹³

As might have been anticipated, this emphasis in scholarly literature during recent decades has not gone unanswered. The pendulum was bound to swing in the opposite direction, both for academic and, at times, nonacademic reasons. As early as 1961, S. Sandmel sounded a metho...