The Hellenistic World and Rome
portant task is to try to sum up Hengel’s achievement, and to ask from what
different perspectives we might approach the events of the s—which on
any view were fundamental to the future of Judaism, and hence of Chris-
tianity and Islam. If there ever was an identifiable ‘‘turning point in history’’
it was the years to ..in Palestine.
Hengel’s Interpretation
It is the essential characteristic of Hengel’s approach that, in spite of the im-
mense historical learning and real historical understanding employed in it,
his thesis is that of a Christian theologian: that the early Hellenistic period
saw a significant process of mutual assimilation and comprehension between
Judaism and paganism, which was brought to a halt by the nationalistic re-
action under the Maccabees, and was only resumed and brought to fruition
in the preaching of Christianity to gentiles. To arrive at this conclusion Hen-
gel starts (–) with a survey of Hellenistic political, administrative, eco-
nomic, and cultural influences in Palestine which represents one of the best
studies of any region of the Hellenistic world. It would not be possible to
point to any general survey of a similar quality for Anatolia, Syria proper,
Babylonia, or Egypt. The conclusion (–) is that Palestinian Judaism was
as much a ‘‘Hellenistic’’ Judaism as that of the diaspora.
From there Hengel moves to Greek influence on the Jewish literature
and philosophy of the Hellenistic period, and to movements within Juda-
ism which he takes as being in reaction to this, the growth of hasidism and
apocalyptic and the emergence of Essenism—which itself, in his view, had
Hellenistic features. The final section, on the Hellenistic re-interpretation of
Judaism and the reform attempt, begins, perhaps surprisingly, with literary
evidence for Greek views, starting with Hecataeus of Abdera, of the Jews as a
species of philosophers; it then moves to the (very slight) evidence forJewish
identifications of the Jewish God with the supreme God (Zeus or Dis) wor-
shipped by the pagans; indeed the evidence from the Hellenistic period is
confined precisely to twoAlexandrianwriters, Aristobulus and the author of
theLetter of Aristeas. Finally, Hengel comes to a sketch of the reform move-
ment of – itself and an attempt, following E. Bickermann,Der Gott
der Makkabäer(), to identify the ideology of the reforms and the nature
of the cult briefly established in the Temple. It is the fact, which Hengel of
course clearly admits (), that we cannot securely establish the nature of
this cult which is the fundamental weakness of the book’s main thesis. For
we donotknow, though we may wish to argue, that it was in any sense syn-