The Hellenistic World and Rome
of the s arose from an attempt by Antiochus Epiphanes to impose by force
the abolition of Judaism and the adoption of paganism; (d) that, while many
Jews certainly assented to this, the evidence for a Hellenising party having
instigated it is very slight; and (e) that we should not look for the intellectual
background of a syncretistic reform movement within Judaism, because we
have no clear evidence that such a movement existed.