2 Enoch, Life of Adam and Eve). The decision to put aside Greek transla-
tions of texts originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic means that we will
not deal with the Septuagint as such. We will, however, discuss writings in
the Septuagint that were composed in Greek and have occasion to empha-
size that many Jewish authors writing in Greek used the Septuagint and
were influenced by its terminology.
Jewish writings composed in Greek are not the only documents to
qualify as Hellenistic Jewish literature or Judeo-Hellenistic literature. Ev-
ery piece of Jewish literature produced during the Hellenistic and early
Roman periods may be labeled “Hellenistic” regardless of the language in
which it was written. For this reason, “Hellenistic” is too vague a term, ex-
cept as a chronological label for the period extending from the conquests
of Alexander the Great in the fourth centuryb.c.e.to the end of the first
centuryb.c.e.It is also somewhat problematic: for those who think that
“authentic” Judaism necessarily expressed itself in Hebrew or Aramaic,
the term “Hellenistic” carries strong pejorative connotations. More to the
point, Hellenism was itself a mingling of different cultures, that of the
Greco-Macedonians and that of the Eastern peoples whom they con-
quered. To single out some Jewish texts written in Greek as “Hellenized”
implies that Hellenism and Judaism are two different and intrinsically an-
tagonist cultural phenomena, a view that is certainly advocated by the au-
thor of 2 Maccabees but that does not necessarily reflect the historical re-
ality of that time. The relationship between Greek and Jewish culture was
far more complex.
Since some of the relevant texts adapt distinctively Greek genres, such
as tragedy (Ezekiel the Tragedian) andepic poetry (Theodotus), one might
well speak of Greek literature that is Jewish instead of Jewish literature
written in Greek. When the latter expression is used, the focus is laid right
from the start on the Jewish character of this literature, implying that the
linguistic dimension is secondary. But how are we to define Jewish litera-
ture in antiquity? What makes an ancient text Jewish? Scholars have tradi-
tionally appealed to two criteria: (1) content based on biblical tradition or
containing distinctively Jewish themes or terminology; (2) the Jewishness
of the author, which may be attested by reliable external sources or in-
ferred from his name or from the topic (which takes us back to the first cri-
terion). These criteria have their limits in some cases. TheSentencesof
Pseudo-Phocylides offers a good example. For centuries this text was re-
garded as an original composition of Phocylides, a sixth-century-b.c.e.
Greek poet, and not as a Jewish text.It was only in the sixteenth century229Early Jewish Literature Written in GreekEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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