prefer it.) This can become complicated, because one group’s defector could
become another’s convert, in which case defection and conversion were
part of the same process. Yet we can still isolate for attention the two dif-
ferent moments: joining and leaving. Nor were these moments always con-
joined, since, as far as we can tell, some people seem to have drifted away
from their religious commitments without actively associating with an
alternative religious community, even though, in the pervasively religious
world of antiquity, some sort of religious activity was probably unavoidable.
There are few studies of defection or apostasy in the ancient world. The
Jewish evidence has been most discussed, though often in a peremptory
fashion.^1 The Christian evidence has rarely been considered, and possible
analogies within the pagan world, not at all (Harvey 1985; Marshall 1987).
There is, in fact, a considerable amount of evidence in all three areas, even
though defectors do not tend to advertise their position and ancient authors
would have had little reason to dwell on them, since they are not a success
story. In view of this book’s theme and the issues that animate it, I shall
dwell on the few examples that most sharply raise the questions associated
with rivalry, competition, interaction, that is, those where we have fairly
clear evidence that there was a desire, a tug, or even a political imperative
to move from one affiliation to another. These are, conveniently, the cases
where defection is fairly blatant, so that there is little doubt about what we
are dealing with.
DEFECTION FROM JUDAISM
One of the clearest examples of defection from Judaism occurred in Anti-
och during the Jewish War. A Jew named Antiochus threw over the traces,
denounced his fellow Jews, and accused them of setting the city centre on
fire. To prove the sincerity of his own conversion (metabolê) and his detes-
tation of Jewish customs, he sacrificed in the Greek fashion, denounced
(enedeiknyto) his father and other Jews, and forced as many as he was able
to abandon their customs and follow his lead (Josephus, B.J.7.46–52). As
a result, some Jews were apparently forced to apostatize under severe pres-
54 PART I •RIVALRIES?
1 For example, Tcherikover 1957, 1:37; Hengel 1974, 1:31; 2:25n. 224; Williams 1990, 200n. 22;
Grabbe 1992, 2:536–37. For Alexandrian Judaism, see Wolfson 1947, 1:73–85; Feldman
1960, 227–30; 1992, 65–83. H. Green (1985, 155–69), under the heading “Assimilation and
Apostasy,” in fact gives little evidence for apostasy, more for assimilation. Schiffman (1985,
41–49) discusses some of the rabbinic evidence. See, also, Stern (1994, 105–12). Useful
encyclopedia articles are found in JE1901–1906, 1:12ff; EJ1971–1972, 3:202–15; EOJ1989,
69–70;Enc.T.1969, 2:404–409. The best discussion, both for its range and sophistication,
is now Barclay (1995a, 1995b, 1998, and at various points in his survey of Diaspora Judaism,
1996).