“assimilation” and “accommodation” deliver misleading impressions that
are best avoided, suggesting that the Jews needed to transform themselves
in order to fit into an alien environment. On the contrary, they unabash-
edly called attention to their own characteristic features.
The issue of endogamy, for instance, recurs in Second Temple litera-
ture. The book of Tobit, among other things, exhorts those dwelling in the
Diaspora to adhere to the teachings of their fathers, to hold their
coreligionists to the highest ideals, and to reinforce the solidarity of the
clan. The work enjoins Jews in the lands of the Gentiles to maintain their
special identity through strict endogamy, a theme that runs throughout
the tale, thus assuring survival of the tribe. The author of Tobit may indeed
take the point too far, deliberately so, with a touch of irony. He has almost
every character in the narrative, even husbands and wives, greet one an-
other as brother and sister, with numbing repetition. This is endogamy
with a vengeance, perhaps a parody of the practice — but also testimony to
the practice. The author himself is evidently not partial to clannishness.
He has Tobit’s deathbed speech offer a broader vision in which Jerusalem
will eventually encompass Jew and Gentile alike, attracting all the nations
of the world to its light.
The matter of endogamy surfaces prominently also in the Jewish no-
vella,Joseph and Aseneth,a grandiose elaboration on the brief scriptural
notice of Joseph’s marriage to the daughter of an Egyptian priest. The ro-
mantic story underscores in no uncertain terms Joseph’s unbending resis-
tance to marriage outside the clan, relenting only when Aseneth abandons
all her heresies, smashes her idols, and seeks forgiveness through abject
prayers to the god of Joseph. The author here too, by exaggerating Joseph’s
priggishness and Aseneth’s debasement, may suggest the disadvantages of
taking endogamy to extremes. But the importance of the practice as high-
lighting Jewish particularity is plain.
Jews seem quite uninhibited in displaying in the Diaspora traits pecu-
liar to their ancestral traditions. One need only think of those practices re-
marked upon most often by Greek and Roman authors: observance of the
Sabbath, dietary laws, and circumcision. The institution of the Sabbath
frequently drew comment, generally amused comment. Pagan writers
found it quite incomprehensible that Jews refused to fight on the Sabbath
— thus causing Jerusalem to fall on three different occasions. And even if
the prohibition did not cause disaster, it seemed a colossal waste of time:
why did Jews waste one-seventh of their lives in idleness? Comparable
mirth directed itself against the abstention from eating pork. Even Em-107Judaism in the DiasporaEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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