Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

ochus IV Epiphanes as a rebellion against Seleucid rule, this provoked

not only a military reaction but also an enforced Hellenization. Jews

were compelled “to depart from the laws of their fathers and to cease liv-

ing by the laws of God. Further, the sanctuary in Jerusalem was to be

polluted and called after Zeus Olympius” (2 Macc. 6:1-2). This forced

Hellenization lasted only a few years, but it made clear that Jewish free-

dom always depended on the personal goodwill of the ruler who hap-

pened to be in power.

Cultural Antagonism between Jews and Greeks in Egypt

Since the beginning of their settlement in Egypt early in the third century

b.c.e., the Jews were active in most branches of economic activity. Extant

papyri show them as farmers, artisans (CPJ1:33-47), tax farmers and tax

collectors, bankers, granary officials (CPJ1:48-124, 127, 132, 137), and sol-

diers, even officers, in the Ptolemaic army (CPJ1:18-32; Josephus,J.W.1.175,

190-92;Ant.14.99, 131-32;Ag. Ap.1.200-204; 2.64). The Jews were a strong

presence in the economic life of the country, a fact that created competi-

tion and perhaps friction between them and their Greco-Egyptian neigh-

bors. This was all the more the case because the Jews insisted on forming

their own separate communities and refused to participate in the religious

activities of the Greek cities. The issue was particularly problematic be-

cause these activities often had civil and economic underpinnings; identi-

fication with the gods of one’s city was a fundamental aspect of civic iden-

tity, as in the cases of the cult of the deified Alexander and Ptolemies and

of the patron deities of the Greek city.

Cultural antagonism may have developed in the third centuryb.c.e.

also on account of the translations of the Pentateuch into Greek that were

circulating in Egypt — the best known was the Septuagint — which made

generally known the account of the Exodus, with its strong anti-Egyptian

bias. No source tells us how extensively it may have been read and known,

but there are a number of parallels between the biblical account of the Ex-

odus and its counter-version in the work of Manetho, a priest of the

Greco-Egyptian god Serapis who was influential in the court of Ptolemy

Philadelphus. One of the two passages of Manetho quoted by Josephus as-

sociates the Jews with the tyrannical Hyksos regime, a foreign dynasty that

had ruled Egypt harshly. After five hundred years of domination, they left

Egypt “with their possessions...andjourneyed over the desert into

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Jews among Greeks and Romans

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