100 A History of Judaism
were capable of thinking and writing in Greek by the end of the Second
Temple period is of course clear from the compositions of the historian
Josephus at the end of the first century ce. Josephus was certainly not
alone, since he devoted a portion of his autobiography to a polemic
against the contemporary history composed by a rival, Justus of Tiberias,
whom he described specifically as a man of good Greek education.^16
Jewish responses to Greek culture were evidently complex. Much
of the worldview revealed in the Dead Sea scrolls (see Chapter 6) can
be categorized as a rejection of Hellenism, but the preservation of
some Greek biblical scrolls in the Qumran caves suggests knowledge
and use of Greek among at least some Jews down by the Dead Sea. It is
more complex to discern elements of Greek thought in the Hebrew and
Aramaic texts among the Dead Sea scrolls, but a search for parallels
between motifs in, for instance, Hebrew wisdom writings and Greek
philosophy is not unreasonable, since the production in this period of
a large quantity of Jewish texts translated from Hebrew into Greek
provides clear evidence that some Jews at least were fluent in both
languages.^17
The capture of Jerusalem by Pompey the Great on the Day of Atone-
ment in 63 bce – ‘in the third month, on the Fast Day, in the hundred
and seventy- ninth Olympiad, in the consulship of Gaius Antonius and
Marcus Tullius Cicero’ – was only a minor victory in the glorious cam-
paigns of the Roman general which consolidated Roman control of the
territories bordering the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean, but for
the Jews this difficult beginning of a difficult relationship with the new
superpower was to transform the fortunes of the nation and, in due
course, their religion.^18
Pompey’s excuse for intervention in the politics of Judaea was the
struggle for power between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, the two
sons of Alexandra Jannaea. Both sought to elicit Roman backing with
massive bribes – Aristobulus sent Pompey a grape- vine made out of
gold which was worth the fabulous sum of 500 talents and was later
exhibited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. Josephus records
that neither Hasmonaean had much popular support and that ‘the
nation was against them both and asked not to be ruled by a king, say-
ing that it was the custom of their country to obey the priests of the god
who was venerated by them, but that these two, who were descended
from the priests, were seeking to change their form of government in
order that they might become a nation of slaves.’ If Josephus recorded