king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, had disrupted the Jerusalem cult and given
the Temple over to a Syrian garrison. The revolt was not directed against
Hellenistic culture but against the policies of the king, especially with re-
gard to the cult. Judas allegedly sent an embassy to Rome and availed him-
self of the services of one Eupolemus, who was sufficiently proficient in
Greek to write an account of Jewish history. The successors of the Macca-
bees, the Hasmoneans, freely adopted Greek customs and even Greek
names. Arnaldo Momigliano wrote that “the penetration of Greek words,
customs, and intellectual modes in Judaea during the rule of the Hasmo-
neans and the following Kingdom of Herod has no limits” (Momigliano
1994: 22; see also Hengel 1989; Levine 1998). Herod established athletic
contests in honor of Caesar and built a large amphitheater, and even estab-
lished Roman-style gladiatorial contests. He also built temples for pagan
cults, but not in Jewish territory, and he had to yield to protests by remov-
ing trophies, which involved images surrounded by weapons, from the
Temple. In all cases where we find resistance to Hellenism in Judea, the is-
sue involves cult or worship (Collins 2005: 21-43). Many aspects of Greek
culture, including most obviously the language, were inoffensive. The re-
volt against Rome was sparked not by cultural conflict but by Roman mis-
management and social tensions.
Because of the extensive Hellenization of Judea, the old distinction be-
tween “Palestinian” Judaism and “Hellenistic” (= Diaspora) Judaism has
been eroded to a great degree in modern scholarship. Nonetheless, the sit-
uation of Jews in the Diaspora was different in degree, as they were a mi-
nority in a pagan, Greek-speaking environment, and the Greek language
and cultural forms provided their natural means of expression (Gruen
1998, 2002). The Jewish community in Alexandria, the Diaspora commu-
nity of which we are most fully informed, regarded themselves as akin to
the Greeks, in contrast to the Egyptians and otherBarbaroi.The Torah was
translated into Greek already in the third centuryb.c.e.Thereafter, Jewish
authors experimented with Greek genres — epic, tragedy, Sibylline oracles,
philosophical treatises (Goodman in Vermes et al. 1973-1987: 3:1.470-704;
Collins 2000). This considerable literary production reached its apex in
the voluminous work of the philosopher Philo in the early first century
c.e.This Greco-Jewish literature has often been categorized as apologetic,
on the assumption that it was addressed to Gentiles. Since the work of Vic-
tor Tcherikover (1956), it is generally recognized that it is rather directed to
the Jewish community. Nonetheless, it has a certain apologetic dimension
(Collins 2005: 1-20). It is greatly concerned to claim Gentile approval for21Early Judaism in Modern ScholarshipEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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