Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

institution of military settlement continued to be an important anchor for

Macedonian control in the region, and that Jews could and did acquire

power and prominence in other areas of life through that initial channel.

Another avenue of inquiry into the history of third-century Palestine

is afforded by coinage. A series of small silver denomination, dubbed by

numismatists “Yehud coins,” crosscuts the boundary between the Persian

and Hellenistic eras, and is coextensive with the period of Ptolemaic rule.

Two features of these coins have attracted historical notice. The first is the

fact that the name of the local governor (who apparently had acted as the

minting authority under the Persians) disappears from the third-century

issues. This absence, combined with the centrality of high priests in the lit-

erary sources, has led many to the conclusion that the Jewish high priest

assumed an enlarged secular role under the Ptolemies. In addition to the

Letter of Aristeasand the Tobiad romance, other texts referential to this pe-

riod (1 Macc. 12:20-23; Sirach 50; 3 Maccabees 2; HecataeusapudDiodorus

40.3.5-6) are unanimous in presenting the high priest as representative and

leader of the Jewish people. These portraits may well be idealized, but the

presumption that they reflect some degree of reality remains a defensible

hypothesis. The modification of the coin legendYehudtoYehudahon the

later groups may indicate an administrative reorganization (perhaps dur-

ing the reign of Ptolemy II). Advocates of the high priest-as-political-

leader thesis often see the coins as indirect corroboration that the office

was melding into a combination of cultic, diplomatic, and municipal roles.

Enticing as these theories are, the numismatic evidence remains mute and

therefore amenable to other interpretations. Whatever else they may point

to, the coins do reveal that the coming of Ptolemaic rule did not involve a

total break with existing institutions.

But Ptolemaic rule was not to last. Seleucus I’s claim upon the lands of

the Levant was never forgotten by his heirs, who, over the course of the

third century, launched no fewer than five successive campaigns to recover

the region. The last of these, fought between 202 and 198, definitively

wrested Palestine from the Ptolemies, ushering in a century of Seleucid

dominance (see map 4).

Antiochus III

With the reign of Antiochus III (223-187b.c.e.), Jewish history became in-

extricably bound up with the fortunes of the Seleucid dynasty. When he

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chris seeman and adam kolman marshak

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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