Early Jewish Literature Written in Greek
Katell Berthelot
A large number and great variety of early Jewish works were composed in
Greek, but many of them survive only in excerpts quoted by church fa-
thers. Our knowledge of Jewish thought and literature in the Greek-
speaking Diaspora therefore depends to a large extent on the care with
which Christian authors and scribes quoted and copied their Jewish
sources. Yet the selective interests and apologetic agendas of the Christian
transmitters means that they handed on only what was of use to them.
These works not only enriched Judaism but also engaged Hellenism. Taken
together, they demonstrate that Jews were able to embrace several aspects
of Hellenistic culture while maintaining their Jewish identity in a creative,
critical, and at times even subversive appropriation of Greek literary gen-
res, mythological figures, and philosophical concepts. Many of these works
take their inspiration from biblical traditions and attempt to solve
exegetical problems or else refashion them. Others celebrate the superior-
ity of Judaism over pagan religions in an attempt to strengthen the identity
of their Jewish readerships.The Nature of the Corpus
Several Greek texts will be set aside here, either because their original lan-
guage was Hebrew or Aramaic (e.g., 1 Maccabees and Tobit), because their
Jewish origin is uncertain (e.g., Thallus and Theophilus, who were proba-
bly pagan writers), because they have been significantly altered or perhaps
even composed by Christians (e.g.,3 Baruch, 4 Baruch, Testament of Abra-
ham), or because their original language of composition is uncertain (e.g.,228EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:04 PM