The Cultural Dimension Judaism & Hellenism

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1
The Cultural
Dimension
Judaism & Hellenism
This is a book about the history of the early church. So why do we begin our
story in 167/166 B.C.? That may seem all too early.
The reason is simple: Modern Christians in general assume that the Judaism that
was the mother soil of Jesus, the apostles and the earliest Christian communities was
the Judaism Christians know from the Bible. And Protestant Bibles do not include the
Old Testament Apocrypha (roughly 200 B.C.-A.D. 1). The common assumption is
therefore that the Judaism of, let’s say, A.D. 30 was more or less the same as the Juda-
ism of the Mosaic books, the Prophets, the Psalms and the Wisdom books.
This assumption is fundamentally misleading, and many phenomena in the New
Testament and the early church are not properly understood unless this assumption is
corrected. To put it briefly: Some very important things happened to Judaism and the
Jewish people in the period “between the Testaments,” and these are essential for
understanding the origin of the Jesus movement and the early church. That is why our
story begins in the middle of the great historical drama that unfolded in the 160s B.C.
After the Babylonian exile (587-538 B.C.) the Jews in Judea lived under foreign
rule for almost four centuries. Persian, Greek and Egyptian rulers generally left the
Jews to themselves with regard to their religion. Jewish customs and traditions which
centered around the temple and the high priest were respected. Thus the Jews in some

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respects enjoyed a limited autonomy, usually with the high priest as the official repre-
sentative of the people. This continued into the first decades after 200 B.C. when the
Syrians were the reigning power in the region. The ruling dynasty in Syria, the
Seleucids, had Greek origins from the time of Alexander the Great. Their capital was
Antioch. From the beginning, they continued the policy of cultural and religious tol-
erance.
Things changed with Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Syrian king who ruled from
175 B.C.
Introduction: The Maccabean Revolt
We begin with a story. The year is 167 or 166 B.C. and we are in the little village
of Modein, situated on a hill near Lydda (now Lod). There is great turmoil in
the village. One of King Antiochus’s officers is carrying a royal decree order-
ing every inhabitant to offer a sacrifice upon the altar of an idol that has been
erected in the marketplace. The Jews of the village are prepared for this. They
heard what happened in Jerusalem some months ago: an idolatrous altar was
erected on top of the altar in the temple itself, and sacrifices to the heathen
gods were now being offered on it—even pigs! And not only was the God of
Israel blasphemed and his temple profaned, but his people were brutally per-
secuted. All the scrolls of the law were sought out and burned. Any who were
found in possession of Torah scrolls were killed. Mothers who had their sons
circumcised were also put to death (1 Macc 1:44-64). Thus the inhabitants of
Modein knew what awaited them if they did not obey the royal decree and
offer the required sacrifices. As the author of 1 Maccabees soberly records:
“Many Israelites in Modein went over to the king’s officers” (1 Macc 2:15).
In a group by themselves in the marketplace stood the elderly priest Mat-
tathias and his sons, Johanan, Simon, Judas (called Maccabee), Eliezer and
Jonathan, their faces tense with sorrow and anger at what was about to take
place. The tension increased as the king’s officers turned their attention
toward Mattathias:
“You are a leader, honored and great in this town, and supported by sons and
brothers. Now be the first to come and do what the king commands, as all the
Gentiles and the people of Judah and those that are left in Jerusalem have done.
Then you and your sons will be numbered among the Friends of the king, and
you and your sons will be honoured with silver and gold and many gifts.”
But Mattathias answered and said in a loud voice: “Even if all the nations that
live under the rule of the king obey him, and have chosen to obey his command-
ments, everyone of them abandoning the religion of their ancestors, I and my

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THE CULTURAL DIMENSION-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25
sons and my brothers will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors. Far
be it from us to desert the law and the ordinances. We will not obey the king’s
words by turning aside from our religion to the right hand or to the left.”
When he had finished speaking these words, a Jew came forward in the sight of
all to offer a sacrifice on the altar in Modein, according to the king’s command.
When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was stirred. He gave
vent to righteous anger; he ran and killed him on the altar. At the same time he
killed the king’s officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the
altar. Thus he burned with zeal for the law, just as Phinehas did against Zimri
son of Salu.
Then Mattathias cried out in the town with a loud voice, saying: “Let everyone
who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come with me!” Then he
and his sons fled to the hills and left all that they had in the town. (1 Macc 2:17-
28)
In this way began the Maccabean revolt, a revolt which resulted in the
rededication of the temple in 164 B.C. (later celebrated in the festival of
Hanukkah), in the establishment of a partially autonomous Judean state rec-
ognized by the Syrians, and later in an independent Jewish state which lasted
until the Roman conquest in 63 B.C.
What was at stake in this revolt? The answer seems rather obvious: The
Maccabean uprising represented Judaism’s self-defense against the enforced
“Hellenization” carried out by Antiochus. The Maccabean uprising made evi-
dent the incompatibility of Judaism and Hellenism. The Maccabean fighters
and martyrs should be seen as prominent members in the long chain of Jew-
ish martyrs, who throughout the ages have preferred to give up their lives
rather than deny their God and his law. In fact, the martyrs of the Maccabean
uprising are probably included in the chain of witnesses to faith in God in
Hebrews 11:
Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resur-
rection.1 . . . [T]hey went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted,
tormented—of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.2 (Heb 11:35-38)3
1Cf. 2 Macc 6—7: the martyrdom of Eleazar and the seven brothers.
2Cf. 1 Macc 2:29-41: pious Jews fleeing to the wilderness and hiding in caves.
3On the popularity of the Maccabean martyrs in Christian tradition, cf. Frend, Martyrdom
and Persecution, pp. 19-22. Cf. also on Heb 11 Pamela Michelle Eisenbaum, The Jewish Heroes
of Christian History: Hebrews 11 in Literary Context, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation
Series 156 (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1997).

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Nevertheless, if we look at the background and consequences of the Mac-
cabean revolt, it cannot escape us that the encounter between Judaism and
Hellenism was a far more complex phenomenon than suggested above.
In a now classic study4 on the Maccabean uprising, the German Jewish
scholar Elias Bickerman made two main points. First, the Jews of Israel were
exposed to massive influence from Hellenistic culture long before the
attempted “Hellenization” by Antiochus. The violent Hellenization of Jerusa-
lem was instigated not by Antiochus but by influential circles within the
political and religious leadership of Jerusalem itself.
“Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us, for since we sepa-
rated from them many disasters have come upon us.” This proposal pleased
them, and some of the people eagerly went to the king, who authorized them to observe
the ordinances of the Gentiles. So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according
to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the
holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil. (1
Macc 1:11-15, italics added)5
Thus, the whole question of “Hellenization” was to a great extent an intra-
Jewish conflict, and in the beginning the Maccabees turned their weapons
mostly against fellow Jews, not against the representatives of the Seleucid
king (1 Macc 2:43-46; 3:5-9).6
4Elias J. Bickerman, Der Gott der Makkabäer (Berlin: Schocken, 1937); English ed.: The God of
the Maccabees: Studies on the Meaning and Origin of the Maccabean Revolt, Studies in Judaism
in late Antiquity 32 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979).
5Cf. also the more extensive presentation of the Jewish Hellenizers’ program in 2 Macc 4:7-
16.
6Bickerman’s interpretation of the events—that King Antiochus was more or less used by
rival factions within the Jewish elite at Jerusalem—has not gone uncontested. Victor Tcherik-
over, Hellenistic Civilization, pp. 187-203, has argued that the aim of the Jewish Hellenizing
party was only to make Jerusalem a Greek city in a political sense, and that the religious
persecution was not instigated by them, but by Antiochus, as a punitive action in response
to a pro-Torah Jewish rebellion against the king and his Jewish allies. Martin Hengel in
Judaism and Hellenism, however, has defended the main lines of Bickerman’s theory and
brought more nuance to it (1:267-309). Cf. also the instructive review of recent discussion in
P. Schäfer, Geschichte der Juden in der Antike: Die Juden Palästinas von Alexander dem Grossen
bis zur arabischen Eroberung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983), pp. 52-62. Cf.
also the full treatment of the whole question in J. Goldstein’s commentaries on 1 and 2
Maccabees in the Anchor Bible series; and in his essays “The Hasmonean Revolt and the
Hasmonean Dynasty,” in Davies/Finkelstein, Judaism, pp. 292-351; “Jewish Acceptance
and Rejection of Hellenism,” in Sanders, Self-Definition 2:64-87. Further: K. Bringmann, Hel-
lenistische Reform und Religionsverfolgung in Judäa: Eine Untersuchung zur jüdisch-hellenistis-
chen Geschichte (175-163 v. Chr.) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983). Probably one
should not think of a strict either/or with regard to the initiation of the Hellenizing pro-

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Bickerman’s second point is that the Maccabean fighters, who eventually
established the Hasmonean Kingdom,7 were themselves deeply influenced
by Hellenism. But theirs was a Hellenism of a different sort—a Hellenism
adjusted so as not to contradict the fundamental truths of Judaism. At the
same time, as the Maccabees secured political freedom for Judea, their reli-
gious supporters—the forerunners of the Pharisees—were able to integrate
important elements of Hellenistic culture into Judaism in such a way that it
was no longer felt as a threat, but as an enrichment. It is this process we are
going to study a little later in this chapter.
In this way, the story of the Maccabean uprising against violent Helleniza-
tion is seen to represent only one side of the coin, one aspect of the rather
complex story of Judaism’s encounter with Hellenism. And it is to this more
constructive encounter and its effect upon the Judaism of our period that we
now turn.
Alexander the Great and the Triumph of Hellenism
In order to understand the issues at stake in the Maccabean revolt, we should
do as the author of 1 Maccabees does: place the whole process in a wider
framework:
After Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came from the land of Kit-
tim [Macedonia and Greece], had defeated King Darius of the Persians and the
Medes [at the battles of Issos, 333 B.C., and Gaugamela, 331 B.C.], he succeeded
him as king. (He had previously become king of Greece.) He fought many bat-
tles, conquered strongholds, and put to death the kings of the earth. He
advanced to the ends of the earth, and plundered many nations. When the earth
became quiet before him, he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. He gath-
ered a very strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and princes, and they
became tributary to him. (1 Macc 1:1-4)
When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. he had succeeded not only in
conquering all the important lands around the eastern half of the Mediterra-
nean, but had also laid the foundation of a cultural revolution that would
change the character of the ancient world for centuries to come. Alexander
6cess; there was likely a measure of mutual understanding and collaboration between the
Seleucid king and the Hellenizing circles within Jerusalem right from the beginning. But
the king went further in his measures during the persecution period than any Jew could
defend.
7The first generation of Mattathias’s sons is usually referred to as “the Maccabees,” while
the later dynasty is called “the Hasmoneans,” probably after one of their forefathers.

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Box 1.1. From Alexander the Great to Herod the Great: Main Events
Greek period:
332 B.C.
Alexander conquers the Persian Empire, including the land of Israel.
323
Death of Alexander, his empire divided among four generals.
Egyptian (Ptolemaic) period:
320-198 B.C. Judea ruled by Ptolemies.
Syrian (Seleucid) period:
198-143 B.C. Judea ruled by Seleucids.
175-163
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
From 175
“Hellenization” of Jerusalem, led by the High Priest Jason.
Gymnasium built.
167
Temple desecrated (followed by persecution for 3 [or 3.5] years).
166
Mattathias’s uprising; Mattathias’s son, Judah the Maccabee, leads the revolt.
164
Temple rededicated, 25 Kislev.
160
Major defeat for Maccabees; death of Judah.
Seleucids regain control in Judea.
Jonathan succeeds his brother Judah.
152
Jonathan occupies Jerusalem and is proclaimed high priest.
Jewish independence:
143-63 B.C.
Judea ruled by Hasmoneans; Galilee colonized.
143
Death of Jonathan; his brother Simon succeeds him.
142
Simon established as high priest and prince of the people.
134
Death of Simon; his descendants rule as princes and high priests
(the Hasmonean Dynasty).
Roman period:
67 B.C.
Romans defeat the Seleucid Kingdom.
63
The Roman general Pompey conquers Jerusalem.
40-37
Herod made Roman vassal king over Judea and after three years gains control.
27
Theater and amphitheater built in Jerusalem.
20/19
Rebuilding of the temple started.
4
Death of Herod the Great.
himself had envisaged a synthesis between the classical Greek culture and
the old cultures of the Orient, and although his empire split apart soon after
his death, his visions concerning this cultural synthesis were to a large
extent fulfilled. But it should be emphasized that the two elements
involved—Greece and the Orient—were not equally balanced. Greek cul-
ture was the culture of the conquerors, the rulers, the armies and the new
business elite. Greek was the language of government and administration,
business and commerce. And Greek literature was taken as the supreme
model for all kinds of literary production. In other words, Greek culture
was the culture of the new era, and anyone who would belong to the new
elite had to adopt it.
The languages and the old cultures of Persia, Syria, Judea and Egypt did
not enjoy the same prestige because they were the cultures of peoples who

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had been conquered, peoples who had not been able to withstand the supe-
rior power of Alexander and his successors. It was therefore natural that the
representatives of the conquerors should regard these native oriental cultures
as inferior. And—as often happens in similar circumstances—this attitude
was also adopted by the most socially ambitious elements within the con-
quered societies. We shall see the relevance of this phenomenon when we
turn to the history of the Jews in the last two centuries B.C.
There is, however, another aspect of the picture that somewhat balances
the above description. The Greeks may have despised much of the culture of
the Orient—the “barbaric” culture—but at the same time they had a great
deal of secret admiration for it. Plato told a well-known story in which an
Egyptian priest says to the Greek sage Solon, “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are
always children: there is not such a thing as an old Greek. . . . You are young
in soul, every one of you. For therein you possess not a single belief that is
ancient and derives from old tradition, nor yet one science that is hoary with
age.”8 Plato seems to accept this statement, and in fact many Greeks seem to
have felt that their culture was inferior to that of the Orient precisely due to
its lack of ancient tradition. The Greeks were conscious of having created
something new concerning democracy, science, philosophy, the theater and
other innovations. They were proud of this, but at the same time felt like
newcomers, inferior to those peoples who could boast ancient traditions as
the basis of their institutions and cultic rites. A profound respect and admira-
tion of “oriental wisdom” gradually developed among the representatives of
Greek culture—not least among the philosophers. To take just one illustrative
example, in the second century A.D. one of the leading Platonic philosophers,
Numenius, claimed that Plato inherited his most profound teachings from
the Semites, and that Plato was, quite simply, a “Moses speaking in Greek.”9
There were, in fact, two respects in which classical Greek culture was quite
incapable of filling the role of the new common culture of the Alexandrian
empire:
8Plato, Timaeus 22B (Loeb ed., 9:33).
9As Martin Hengel remarks, many of the leading philosophers of the last two centuries B.C.
were themselves Semites (Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism 1:86-88). One of the founders of
the very influential “New Academy” (or, in a more modern term, Middle Platonism), was
Antiochus of Ashkelon (ca. 130-68 B.C.). Numenius himself was from Apamea in Syria. Cf.
M. J. Edwards, “Atticizing Moses? Numenius, the Fathers and the Jews,” Vigiliae Christianae
44 (1990): 64-75. In a scholarly tour de force Martin Bernal has argued, quite convincingly,
that the ancient writers who claimed Greek culture was in large measure derivative from
Semitic and Egyptian cultures were in fact right. See his multivolume work Black Athena:
The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (London: Free Association Books, 1987-1991).

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1. The traditional Greek religion could not fill the role of religion for a
world empire. Wisely, Alexander and his successors did not try to suppress
local deities and their worship. As time went by, this resulted in a large
degree of religious syncretism. Oriental religions were Hellenized, but Greek
religion was also orientalized.
2. The democratic system of the ancient Greek city-state, the polis,10 could
not serve as a working model for the centralized authoritarian government
that was required by the new Alexandrian empires, since they were ruling
conquered peoples who had no democratic tradition. To maintain their rule,
the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria established centralized
authoritarian governments, which they conducted along traditional Near
Eastern lines as “divinely appointed kings.”
In two respects, therefore, the Orient had cultural elements to offer that
Greek culture could not be without if it was to serve as a common cultural
framework for the newly created empires: The Orient had religion, cults, age-
old wisdom traditions and the idea of divine kingship.
We can see that a complex process took place in the last three centuries B.C.
At the same time as the Orient was Hellenized, Greek culture was to a consid-
erable degree orientalized. It is the resultant mixed and complex culture that
we call Hellenism. This became the common cultural heritage of all “civi-
lized” people around the Mediterranean for centuries. This statement holds
true even for the land of Israel and the population there—although some
unique problems were involved, which created conflicts as well as attempts
at compromise and adjustment. Before we return to Jerusalem and the con-
flict there, we must add a few words on the main strategy followed by the
promoters of Hellenistic culture: the founding of Hellenistic cities, the poleis.11
The Hellenistic City: The Polis
One scholar has remarked that Aristotle’s famous definition of man as zoon
politikon should not be translated as “a political being,” but “a being living in a
polis.”12 To the Greek mind, the polis was the only framework within which a
full human life could be realized. In the Hellenistic period, Greek culture was
10The Greek polis (city) was a state in miniature, and had full independence in conducting its
internal affairs. Its residents were divided into two classes: citizens with full rights and
foreigners who paid a tax in order to reside in the polis. In time slaves were added to make
up a third group.
11On the classical Greek polis, see especially H. D. F. Kitto, The Greeks (Harmondsworth,
U.K.: Penguin, 1951 [several reprints], chap. 5: “The Polis,” pp. 64-79.
12Kitto, p. 78.

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propagated first and foremost by the establishment of new Hellenistic poleis
in the captured territories. Such cities were either founded in places where no
previous city existed—for example Caesarea by the sea in Israel, founded by
Herod13—or else existing cities were converted into poleis. A polis contained
some obligatory institutions: a public town center and marketplace (the
square agora); a hall for the city council (the bouleuterion); baths; temples to
the Greek (later Roman) gods; a theater; a gymnasium (a combined higher
school and sports training ground); preferably a library and a sports stadium;
and if a big city, also a hippodrome.
Of greater importance than the buildings were the activities going on in
these institutions. The theater and the gymnasium were, so to speak, mission
stations for propagating Hellenistic culture. The same can be said for the
entire polis in relationship to its surroundings.
In the Roman period the Hellenistic poleis became interconnected by an
excellent network of Roman roads—built so solidly that many of them remain
to this day, together with the equally solid aqueducts. The Hellenistic cities
and the Roman roads that connected them were the nerve system of the
Roman Empire and its spread of Hellenistic culture (see figures 1.1, 1.3 and
1.4). Within this nerve system commerce thrived, armies were transferred and
new ideas flowed from city to city. In the cities, a cosmopolitan outlook devel-
oped, and what Luke says about the Athenians was no doubt typical of Helle-
nistic city-dwellers in general: “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived
there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the lat-
est ideas” (Acts 17:21 NIV). We can think of the typical citizen of a Hellenistic
city as an intellectual, with considerable interest in religion and philosophy,
who was at the same time profoundly conservative in his political opinions so
long as his personal welfare or the prosperity of his city were not involved. If
the latter were threatened, he would react violently against any disturbance of
the public order—as Paul experienced in Ephesus (Acts 19).
When we speak of Hellenistic civilization, we mainly have in mind this
urban culture of the Greek and later Roman empires. It has been estimated
that approximately ten percent of the population of these empires lived in
Hellenistic cities. These ten percent were the main bearers of Hellenistic cul-
ture. The degree to which this culture penetrated into the countryside sur-
rounding the cities no doubt varied from region to region. Language barriers
13See Kenneth G. Holum and Robert L. Hohlfelder, eds., King Herod’s Dream: Caesarea on the
Sea (New York/London: W. W. Norton, 1988).

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Figure 1.1. Hellenistic Cities in the Land of Israel

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