The Hellenistic World and Rome
that people in the inland areas could identify themselves as Phoenicians or
Sidonians. The history of the Jews, from the kingdom onwards, is in any case
to be seen as that of a small community in the hinterland, in the hills of
Judaea or Galilee, behind the Phoenician, and a bit later Phoenician-Greek,
cities of the coast; and the inland extension of Phoenician culture can only
have intensified contacts. Phoenician is also the closest Semitic language to
Hebrew; and to the very end Tyrian shekels were the standard currency in
which the Temple dues were to be paid.^14 Jesus and his followers did not have
to travel very far to cross into the territory of Tyre and Sidon, where they
met a woman whom Mark (:) calls a ‘‘Greek woman, a Syro-Phoenician
by birth,’’ and Matthew (:) a ‘‘Canaanite.’’ By comparison with the hope-
less confusingness of most ethnic labels from antiquity this contrasted pair
is actually quite informative.
Opinions of course differ on the question of how fundamentally the Juda-
ism which Jesus represented had itself been Hellenised. I would still hold to
the view that what is significant is not such Hellenisation as there was, but
the maintenance of a historical, religious, and cultural tradition enshrined
in sacred books in Hebrew (which were however available, even in Judaea,
in Greek translation) and which could generate further religious works in
both Hebrew and Aramaic.^15 Given the very close geographical, historical,
and linguistic links between Judaea and Phoenicia, we may reasonably allow
the vitality of Jewish historical and religious culture to pose the question as
to whether, or to what extent, the same might have been true of Phoenicia.
It is indeed at this level alone, or so it seems to me, that we can actually ap-
proach the question of the Hellenisation of the Phoenician cities: that is the
level of conscious historical tradition and identity. The archaeological record
for this period is extremely poor; nothing that I have found, at any rate,
has given me any clear conception of a material culture of Phoenicia in the
Persian period,^16 which might or might not have been transformed by Hel-
lenistic influences. Nor, I think, is it possible to discern anything about any
possible changes in the relations of production. Whether or not it is useful to
talk of an ‘‘Asiatic mode of production,’’^17 the question is often asked whether
. See A. Ben-David,Jerusalem und Tyros: ein Beitrag zu palästinensischen Münz-und Wirt-
schaftsgeschichte, a.c.– p.c. ().
. F. Millar, ‘‘The Background to the Maccabean Revolution: Reflections on Martin
Hengel’sJudaism and Hellenism,’’JJS (): ( chapter in the present volume).
. Compare, however, E. Stern,Material Culture of the Lands of the Bible in the Persian
Period, –..().
. See most recently L. Zaccagnini, ‘‘Modo di produzione asiatico e vicino Oriente
antico. Appunti per una discussione,’’Dial. di Arch. (): .