54 CHAPTER TWO
There arealways grounds forsuspecting the reliability ofofficial documents
quotedbyhistoriographers.InJosephus’scasethegroundsareespeciallyabun-
dant. Nevertheless, that the documents he quotes have been systematically
and radically falsified—which would imply that the emperors never granted
the temple, its staff, and its la wany sort of public recognition—is at least as
unlikely as the supposition (which no one has ever seriously entertained, as
far as I am aware) that none of the documents was ever tampered with.^13
It is important to remember the social and cultural context ofAntiquities
12.137–44, assuming it isbasicallyauthentic. When Elias Bickerman called
it, in medievalizing fashion, “the Seleucid charter of Jerusalem,” he was to
some extent being self-consciously paradoxical.^14 Antiochus’s letter is not in
factastatementofimperialpolicyorlaw,butaprimeexampleofthefunction-
ing of the common Hellenistic royal ideology ofeuergesia, of the great man
expressing his gratitude to loyal inferiors by the bestowal of gifts. Many of the
gifts listed—to the extent that they are not the product of editorial tamper-
ing—were short term and transparently motivated by the desire to restore
Judaea to a productive and revenue-bearing condition. Furthermore, as Bick-
erman emphasized, the favors granted by such documents were valid only
whiletheroyal benefactorhimselfstilllived.Antiochus’sletter wasnot,strictly
speaking, aSeleucidcharter at all, and his son, Antiochus IV, failed in fact to
recognize the validity of its terms.
Nevertheless, the document is of great importance for demonstrating the
hierocratic character of Judaea. And the reaction, starting 167B.C.E., to Anti-
city in the first century, when it was a big, bustling place. But it is worth remembering that pre-
Maccabean Jerusalem was not a center of commerce but a tiny, inconsequential town within
small and easily patrolled walls. How do we know that animals were not barred? Also important
are the decrees of Julius Caesar and associates concerning the privileges of the high priest Hyrca-
nus II, quoted atAnt14.192–212; remaining documents inAnt14 (213–64) and 16 (162–73)
grant permission to Jewish communities in Greek cities, mostly in Asia Minor, to observe their
ancestral laws and send funds to Jerusalem. These documents are discussed in part 3.
(^13) That the documents are to be supposed forgeries unless proven otherwise was argued by H.
Moehring, “The Acta Pro Judaeis in the Antiquities of Flavius Josephus,” in J. Neusner, ed.,
Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty(Leiden:
Brill, 1975),3:124–58, refining along and not especiallyglorious tradition ofGerman scholarship
going back to H. Willrich; see also J.-D. Gauger,Beitra ̈ge zur ju ̈dischen Apologetik(Cologne: P.
Hanstein, 1977), who, however, examines only a few documents and is exemplarily careful to
avoidany sortof generalization;the classicdiscussionis E.J. Bickerman,“Une questiond’authen-
ticite ́: Les privile`ges juifs,”Studies in Jewish and Christian History(Leiden: Brill, 1980), 2:24–
43; for general discussion and bibliography, see Grabbe,Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, 1:259–
- Presumably, though some may be outright forgeries, the documents should be assumed to
be worked over, abbreviated, “revised,” slightly mistransmitted, etc., versions of genuine originals.
See M. Pucci Ben-Zeev, “Caesar and Jewish Law,”RB102 (1995): 29 n. 2; for a full account
with extensive commentary, Pucci Ben-Zeev,Jewish Rights in the Roman World: The Greek and
Roman Documents Quoted by Josephus Flavius(Tu ̈bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998); for a still more
optimistic view, see T. Rajak, “Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?”JRS74 (1984): 109.
(^14) “La charte se ́leucide de Je ́rusalem,”Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 2: 44–85.