The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation

(Rick Simeone) #1

Lecture 3: The First Cultural Context—Judaism


Assimilation and Separation in the Diaspora
• Jews in the Diaspora experienced the same tension between the
desire to assimilate and the desire to separate that similar minority
groups often do.
o Assimilation was expressed by adoption of the majority
language, the change of names, and participation in shared
cultural pursuits (as at the gymnasium); thus, in Alexandria,
Jews read the Bible in Greek and interpreted it allegorically, as
Greek philosophers did Homer.

o Separation was expressed by the maintenance of “holiness”
(difference) in assembly (the synagogue), in worship (the
Sabbath), and in ancestral identity markers (circumcision).

•    Gentiles, in turn, responded ambivalently to the presence of Jewish
communities in their midst.
o Many Gentiles were attracted to Judaism because of its
antiquity, moral teaching, and bloodless worship; some became
converts (proselytes), and others were “God-fearers” who
frequented synagogues but resisted full initiation.

o Other Gentiles engaged in anti-Semitic attacks, accusing Jews
of a variety of crimes, including “atheism.” These crimes can
be summed up by the terms amixia (“failure to mingle”) or
misanthropia (“hatred of humans”).

•    Jews in the Diaspora responded to attacks by developing a wide-
ranging apologetic literature based on the Septuagint (the Greek
Bible), using a variety of genres (history, poetry, moral instruction)
to demonstrate that Jews were philanthropic (“lovers of humanity”).
o One of the most famous of these writers was Philo of
Alexandria, whose allegorical interpretations of Scripture were
influential on later Christians.

o Many of the apologetic arguments used by Diaspora Jews
would be employed by Christians when they later faced
similar attacks.
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