Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

The Jews under Hellenistic Rule

The Legal Status of Jews under the Ptolemies and Seleucids

Already in the Persian period (539-332b.c.e.), the Torah was officially rec-

ognized as the law to which the Jews of Judea had to conform their lives

and by which their judicial cases were to be adjudicated (Ezra 7:25-26). The

same probably applied to Jews living in other provinces of the Persian Em-

pire, namely, in Egypt and in Babylon. It was not that the Persians had a

special regard for the needs of the Jews; they simply found it useful to cod-

ify the laws of subject peoples in order to consolidate their control. Thus,

for example, Darius ordered that “the law of Egypt that had formerly been

valid” be written down. The codified law, written in Aramaic and in De-

motic, was thereby introduced as the provincial law of Egypt. The same

policy was implemented after the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Josephus has Alexander grant the Jews of Judea the right “to observe their

country’s laws” (Ant.11.338), which was probably extended,de iureorde

facto,also to Jews living in the Diaspora.

In third-century-b.c.e.Egypt, the Greek translation of the Torah was

officially recognized by its integration into the judicial system created by

King Ptolemy II. It became a statute(nomos)to which Ptolemaic judges

had to accord their official sanction, in conformity with a royal decree di-

recting them to render judgments when a matter was not dealt with in the

royal legislation. In other words, the Greek Torah, as part of the legal sys-

tem of Ptolemaic Egypt, became one of the political laws, a kind of “civic

law for the Jews of Egypt.” In return, the Jews stressed their loyalty to the

government by dedicating their houses of worship(proseuchai)to the

king, his wife, and their children (JIGRE9, 13). In all the countries under

Ptolemaic rule — Judea, Libya, Cyprus, and Egypt — the Jews were free to

live according to their ancestral laws.

Evidently no major changes took place when Judea came under

Seleucid rule at the beginning of the second centuryb.c.e.A document

quoted by Josephus states that King Antiochus III allowed the Jews “to

have a form of government in accordance with the laws of their country”

(Ant.12.142); and in Asia Minor, too, the Jews seem to have had the right

“to use their own laws” (Ant.12.150). Yet there was probably no binding

royal legislation, and so Jewish rights could be revoked at any time for

any reason. In the first half of the second centuryb.c.e., when internal

Jewish struggles for power in Judea were interpreted by King Anti-

368

miriam pucci ben zeev

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:15 PM