Review - Hengel

Hengel's Judaism and Hellenism in Retrospect
Author(s): Louis H. Feldman

Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 96, No. 3 (Sep., 1977), pp. 371-382
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3266191
Accessed: 19-08-2019 10:07 UTC
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JBL 96/ 3 (1977) 371-82
HENGEL'S JUDAISM AND HELLENISM

IN RETROSPECT
LOUIS H. FELDMAN
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NY 10033
T is usually said that the Maccabees marked a turning point in Jewish

history in that Judaism in the land of Israel, in contrast to the Diaspora,
successfully resisted the inroads of Hellenism. In this most learned work, the
first volume (in the English translation) consisting of text and the second of
notes, bibliography, and indices, Martin Hengell argues two basic theses: (1)
we must cease to differentiate the Judaism of the land of Israel from
Hellenistic Judaism, since both show deep Greek influence; and (2) th
influence was pervasive at a much earlier point than had been previousl
thought, in fact at least a century before the Maccabean revolt in 168 B.C.E. H
thus takes issue with the contention that a religious and cultural revolution
occurred in Judaea in the middle of the second century B.C.E.2
Hengel states that in this work he is restricting himself to the impact of
Hellenism upon Judaism from the time of Alexander the Great's visit t
Jerusalem in 330 B.C.E. to the Maccabean revolt in 168 B.C.E. He is particular
concerned with showing that the background of the NT in Palestine was
Judaism that had been highly hellenized for the preceding 360 years. There
actually very little in Hengel that has not been said before. It is, however, t
sheer accumulation and evaluation of evidence that is impressive.
The evidence adduced by Hengel for advancing the date of Hellenism
inroads on Palestinian Judaism is as follows:
(1) Hengel (1. 15-18) notes that mercenaries served in Palestine even
before Alexander and that Jewish mercenaries in turn served in the armies of
Alexander and of his successors. Moreover, the Jews were greatly impressed
with the Macedonian techniques of war. The apocalypses of the Jews are
consequently couched in military terms. The Zeno papyri show that the Greek
IM. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Be-
riicksichtigung Paldstinas bis zur Mitte des 2 Jh.s v. Chr. (WUNT 10; Tiibingen: Mohr, 1969; 2d
ed., 1973). English trans. by J. Bowden, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in
Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974). All references
in this article are to the English translation.
2For this view see now E. Rivkin, "Pharisaism and the Crisis of the Individual in the Greco-
Roman World," JQR 61 (1970-71) 27-53.
371
372 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE
language was known in aristocratic and military circles of

Judaism between 260 and 250 B.C.E.
(2) In Palestine there were a large number of "free" or "semi-free" cities
with constitutions following the Greek models. Hengel (1. 23-25) concludes
that Judaea was a temple-state similar to other temple-states of the period.
(3) During the Ptolemaic rule of Palestine in the third century B.C.E.,
Hengel (1. 25-27) notes that the Jews developed an aristocratic ruling body
known as the gerousia modeled on the Greek system and limiting the
authority of the high priest.
(4) During this early Hellenistic period the Jews, according to Hengel (1.
29-32), held very positive judgments toward the foreign state and its rulers.
(5) Hengel (1. 32-57) points to the evidence of commerce between the Jews
of the land of Israel and their non-Jewish neighbors before the time of the
Maccabees. Moreover, the Greek system of tax-farming was employed by the
Egyptian Ptolemies in Palestine during their century-long rule prior to their
displacement by the Syrian Seleucids in 200 B.C.E. During this period the
Ptolemies introduced Greek weights, coins, and trade usage. Finds of coins
and pottery indicate that there was a commercial boom in Palestine favored
by the long period of relative peace in the third century. Economic ties led to
social relations, as we see in the story of the Tobiad family in Josephus (Ant.
12.4. 1-11??158-236).
(6) In an exhaustive survey, Hengel (1. 58-60) notes that the Greek
language strongly penetrated Palestine, so that from the third century B.C.E.
on, we find inscriptions almost exclusively in Greek. Even graffiti are often
written in Greek. The fact that there is a tradition about seventy-two elders in
the third century from Palestine who translated the Torah into Greek shows
that a knowledge of Greek can be taken for granted among Palestinian Jewish
aristocracy. The story of the Greek-educated Palestinian Jew who so
impressed Aristotle (Josephus, AgAp 1.22??176-182) when they met in Asia
Minor about 345 shows that at least in the time of Clearchus, who tells the
story in the mid-third century, there were Jews from Palestine to whom thd
description that "he was Greek not only in language but also in his soul" could
be applied.
(7) In particular, Hengel (1. 60-61) finds that Greek words have penetrated
the bible itself, notably Hebrew darkemonim (Ezra 2:69, Neh 7:69-71), where
in view of the context it must mean Greek drachmas; 'appiryon (Cant 3:9) =
Greek phoreion ("sedan-chair"); qter5os (Dan 3:5, 3:7) = Greek kithara
("lyre"); pesanterin (Dan 3:5, 3:7, 3:10, 3:15) = psalterion ("harp");
sumponeya' (Dan 3:5, 3:15) = symphonia ("harmony," "orchestra"); and
sabbeka' (Dan 3:7, 3:10, 3:15) = sambyke (a triangular musical instrument
with four strings). Furthermore he cites Greek papyrus fragments found at
Qumran and says that the origin of the widespread borrowing of Greek words
in the Talmudic corpus goes back well before the Christian era. He cites the
word perozebbol (Greek prosbole), used by Hillel for his device to annul the
sabbatical release of debts, as a sign that even at that time rabbinic legal
language was shot through with Greek.
FELDMAN: HENGEL'S JUDAISM AND HELLENISM 373
(8) Hengel (1. 61-65) notes the increasing prevalence of G

among Jews. He cites the adoption of Greek names by Phoenicia
century before Alexander, followed by the adoption of double n
and Greek) by Phoenicians in the third century, and intima
practice must have spread to the Jews. From the moment when t
Palestinian Judaism become fuller, with the books of Maccab
across an abundance of Greek names. The tendency must hav
before Antiochus Epiphanes. As an illustration Hengel cites s
Antigonus of Socho (m. 'Abot 1:3) at the end of the third centur
Greek names of the ambassadors sent by the Hasmoneans J
Simon to Sparta, a number of Greek names among the seventy-two
Palestinian elders among the translators of the LXX, and the fact that in the
Hellenistic-Roman period up to about 200 C.E. the name Simeon (which is
almost identical with the Greek name Simon) is the most frequent name in
Palestine all point to Greek influence.
(9) Since Alexandria is close geographically to Palestine, Hengel (1. 69-70)
assumes that the connections between the two were also of a cultural kind. He
argues that Alexandrian wisdom speculation, which we meet for the first time
in the Graeco-Jewish philosopher Aristobulus, had Palestinian origins. He
notes the existence of gymnasia in Phoenician and other cities in Palestine and
cites at length the intellectual influence of Hellenism in non-Jewish Palestine,
especially in Gadara, where we find such names as Menippus the satirist in the
fourth century B. C.E., Meleager the poet in the mid-second century B.C.E., and
Philodemus the philosopher in the mid-first century B.C.E.
(10) 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as Josephus, assert that the Jews and the
Spartans are related. Moreover, the high priest Jason, the author of the
Hellenistic reform in Jerusalem, ended his life in Sparta. Hence Hengel (1. 72)
concludes that the link between the two was not regarded as impossible.
(11) Hengel (1. 75-76) asserts that Homer was recognized as the canonical
book of Greek education in Jewish Palestinian circles. He cites the criticism
made by the sadducees in the first century C.E. in the Mishnah (Yadaim 4:6)
that the books of Homer do not make the hands unclean. The "books of
Homer" is a phrase for Greek literature in general, and we may see here a sign
that the phrase had found its way into the everyday language of Palestinian
Jews a long time before, perhaps going back to the period of acute
Hellenization after 175 B.C.E. Even in the later rabbinic period Homer wa
read in more exalted circles close to Graeco-Roman civilization. Such writers
as the Jewish Aristobulus and the Jewish Sibyl cite him.
(12) There is, says Hengel (1. 88-92), Jewish literature in Greek from
Palestine, notably the anonymous Samaritan (pseudo-Eupolemus), who
probably wrote in Palestine between 200 and the Maccabean revolt a history,
fragments of which have survived, identifying Noah, Nimrod, Bel, and
Kronos, and describing Abraham as the discoverer of astrology.
(13) The work in Greek, fragments of which have come down to us, of the
Jewish historian Eupolemus has serious linguistic and stylistic deficiences,
and for that reason alone, according to Hengel (1. 92-95), can hardly have
been composed in Alexandria.

(14) Because the contents of the five books of Jason of Cyre
history is summarized in 2 Maccabees, refer completely to Judaea,
96) concludes that the author had a lengthy stay in Palestine
Aramaic and Hebrew.
(15) The fact that the Torah itself was, at least according to tradition
translated into Greek about 270 B.C.E. by Palestinian Jews shows that Greek
was known or at least thought to be known in Palestine at that time.
Moreover, there were Greek translations of later Jewish writings in Palestine.
Thus the translator of Esther says that he was from Jerusalem. This indicates,
says Hengel (1. 100-102), a close connection between Jerusalem and the
Egyptian Diaspora.
(16) Hengel (1. 110- 15) claims that there is Greek influence on ideas in th
bible, the apocrypha, and the pseudepigrapha. He says that narrative romanc
with erotic motifs, such as Esther, Tobit, Judith, and the Testament of Joseph
derives its form from the Hellenistic period, and that the Testament of Joseph
in particular, shows the influence of Euripides' Hippolytus. The
Pseudepigraphon, a typical Hellenistic product, has abundant Greek
parallels.
(17) Ecclesiastes, which Hengel dates to 270-220, has contacts with the
spirit of Hellenism in both ideas and mood (Hengel, 1. 115-30). The breach
with faith in the efficacy of divine righteousness in reward and punishment
had already been introduced into Greece a considerable time earlier, as we see
in the views of Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic. Ecclesiastes has parallels
with the comic poet Menander (third century) and Cercidas (c. 290-220), a
politician and poet influenced by Cynic philosophy in such a sentiment as that
one should not fight against G-d (Eccl 6:10). The concept of miqre (= tyche)
and of heleq (= moira) influenced Ecclesiastes, who encountered not the
school opinions of the philosophers but the popular views of the Greek
bourgeoisie.
(18) Ben Sira (c. 180-175 B.C.E.), though he is at war with Hellenism and
though he refutes the denial of free will and "Epicureanism," shows Greek
influence, according to Hengel (1. 131-53). In his theodicy, notably in his great
confidence in the possibility of a rational understanding of the world, a spirit
emerges which is related to Hellenistic popular philosophy. Ben Sira has close
contacts with Stoic conceptions, especially the purposefulness of individual
phenomena and the phrase "He is all." In fact, the hymn to Zeus of the Stoic
Cleanthes could well have come from Ben Sira. Ben Sira shared with the
Stoics the notion that the whole world is a single cosmos which is permeated
and shaped down to its smallest part by a rational power. He rediscovered a
number of other important elements in Stoic thought: a drive toward ethical
conduct, an attempt at a balance between human freedom and divine
providence, the value of man as G-d's first creation, and even the identity of
the divine reason (or wisdom) of the world and the moral law that is binding
on all men. This borrowing was all the easier for him, as the Stoics had grown
up on Semitic soil. In the statements made by wisdom about herself (Sir 24:3-
7) there are unmistakable parallels to similar discussions of

Isis. In view of archaeological finds in Jerusalem pertaining to
cannot exclude the possibility that in the third century B.C.E
attempted to penetrate even Jerusalem.
(19) Hengel (1. 169-75) accepts the analogies cited by Jud
Wilhelm Bacher, Armand Kaminka, and Yitzhak Baer3 bet
thought and Greek philosophy in cosmology, the immortality o
ethics. The Talmudic curse on those who instruct their sons in
says Hengel (1. 76) goes back to the period of Antiochus
indicates that before that time Greek wisdom was studied.
(20) The book of Daniel, according to Hengel (1. 180-210), shows that
even themes that were originally oriental were mediated by Hellenistic
sources. For example, the idea of four world kingdoms is Greek, being found
in Orphic as well as Hermetic writings. The idea of the four metals of
increasingly inferior quality corresponding to the ages of man finds its nearest
parallel in Hesiod (Hengel, 1. 182). Hengel adopts from Adolf Schlatter4 the
view that Daniel took over from the Greeks a reverence for the power created
by knowledge. He also draws attention to the analogy between Hesiod's three
times 10,000 immortal watchers of men, "who observe decisions of law and
unwholesome deeds and go about the whole earth clothed in air," and
watcher-angels in Daniel and 1 Enoch.
(21) Analyzing the picture of the underworld in 1 Enoch 12-36, especially
the stream of fire, Hengel (1. 197-202) shows contacts at many points with
Greek and Babylonian mythology. The idea that after death the souls undergo
different fates and can be punished or rewarded had probably been long
familiar to the Greek world because of Orphic and Pythagorean doctrines. It
occurs both in the philosophers, such as Plato and the Stoics, and in the
mysteries and popular beliefs.
(22) Assuming the identification of the Dead Sea sect with the Essenes,
Hengel (1. 218-47) proceeds to assert that the Essenes' stress on ordering of the
world, even before creation, in the divine plans, points to analogies with the
hymn to Zeus of Cleanthes. Noting that astrological fragments have been
found among the Dead Sea fragments, Hengel declares that astral and solar
theologizing could never have gained such significance had it not been for the
victorious progress of astrology in the Hellenistic era. Moreover, Hengel
connects the form of the Essene community with the law of associations in the
Hellenistic period, though he admits that direct dependence upon
Pythagoreans, as suggested by Levy,5 is improbable because the Essenes
3J. Bergmann, "Die stoische Philosophie und die jiidischen Fr6mmigkeit," Judaica
(Festschrift Hermann Cohen; Berlin: Cassirer, 1912) 143-66; W. Bacher, Die Agada der
Tannaiten (Strassburg: Triibner, 1903) vol. 1; A. Kaminka, "Les rapports entre le rabbinisme et la
philosophie stoicienne," REJ 82 (1926) 233-52; Y. Baer, Yisrael Bacamim (Jerusalem: Bialik,
1955).
4A. Schlatter, Geschichte Israels von Alexander dem Grossen bis Hadrian (2d ed., Stuttgart:
Calwer 1906) 109-10.
5I. Levy, La. lgende de Pythagore de Grece en Palestine (Bibliotheque de l'&cole des hautes
Etudes, Sciences historiques et philologiques, 250; Paris: Champion, 1927).
wanted to defend their own Jewish heritage against all alien influen
Hengel has a massive apparatus of notes and bibliography to supp
views. But has he succeeded in proving them?
(1) As for Jewish mercenaries, we hear in the papyri found in Egy
deal about Jewish military colonies there, but there is no evid
Palestinian Jewish mercenaries in Greek and Macedonian armies,
accept the clearly apologetic account in Josephus (AgAp 1.22 ?192), b
pseudo-Hecataeus, that Jews served in Alexander's army.6
(2) Hengel errs in assuming that what was true of the non-
Palestinian cities must have been true also of the Jewish cities. To j
the pages of Josephus, to be sure at a somewhat later period, the attit
Jews toward the non-Jews in Palestine was one of conflict and even
(3) As to the gerousia or the Sanhedrin, for that matter, there ca
doubt that the name was borrowed from the Greek, but whether m
than the name was borrowed has not yet been proven.7
(4) Hengel implies that the positive attitude of the Jews toward
states made them more susceptible to influence from them. But we
the prophet Isaiah and in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah that even
the Hellenistic period the Jews were favorably inclined toward the
presumably because they realized that the Persian policy of grantin
autonomy to their subject states was preferable to war with a high
outcome. Inasmuch as Alexander and his successors continued this p
laissez faire in religious matters, the Jews later continued, as we se
second-century Mishnah ('Abot 3:2), to pray for the welfa
government. But this is a purely pragmatic relationship, as we see f
advice, also in 'Abot (1:10), that one should seek no intimacy with t
power.
(5) As to Greek commercial influence on the Jews, aside from the highly
assimilated-and highly exceptional-family of the Tobiads, there is little
indication of influence among the masses. It would be as if someone were to
draw conclusions as to the extent of assimilation of American Jews from the
wealthiest German Jewish families at the end of the nineteenth century.
Despite the fact that during the third century B.C.E. the Ptolemies ruled both
Egypt and Palestine, there is hardly any indication that the Jewish
communities of these areas had more contact with each other and drew closer
together.
(6) No one will dispute that many Jews in the land of Israel had a
smattering of Greek, though our evidence, both epigraphical and literary, is
predominantly from the period after the Maccabees. If we hear that seventy-
two elders in the third century knew enough Greek to be able to translate the
Torah into that language, the question still remains how many others
possessed such a knowledge. As late as the time of Josephus at the end of the
6For reasons for this skepticism see V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959) 272.
7See H. Mantel, Studies in the History of the Sanhedrin (Cambridge: Harvard University,
1961).
first century C.E., he states (Ant 20.12.1 ?264) that the Jews do not
persons who have mastered the speech of many nations and that, in
ordinary freemen and even slaves had attained a mastery of the sty
languages, few born Jews had done so. That few attained the mast
language necessary for reading and understanding Greek litera
seen from the fact that Josephus admits (AgAp 1.9?50) that
assistants in composing the Greek version of the Jewish War. The i
cited by Hengel reveal an elementary acquaintance with Greek but
mastery of style.
(7) Even if we are not ready to go as far as Cyrus Gordon, Mich
and Saul Levin8 in their attempts to show a relationship between t
and biblical Hebrew languages and thought, we cannot deny th
similarities, not noted by Hengel, between a number of words in
often in Homer, and biblical Hebrew: Greek maza ("barley
Hebrew massa ("unleavened bread"); tauros ("bull") and sor (to
erebos ("darkness") and cereb ("evening"); amumon ("blameless"
("blemish"); arrabon ("earnest-money") and cerabon ("sure
("pitcher") and kad ("pitcher"); keras ("horn") and qeren ("hor
("torch") and lappid ("torch"); agelaia ("heifer") and cegel ("calf
("large knife") and mekerot ("swords," so explained by Rashi on
But these similarities reflect commercial contacts between the Isr
the Greeks, presumably in the Mycenaean period. And yet we are
the fact that there are so few Greek words in the bible or, for that m
apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and extra-biblical Qumran texts.
Greek papyrus fragments found at Qumran, there is considerable d
regard to their dating; but even if we assume the earliest possible d
later than the Maccabean revolt and consequently after the date w
has chosen as his terminus ante quem for Greek penetration. More
there may be as many as two thousand or more Greek words in th
corpus, it is significant that these words appear in such realms
affairs, politics, law, administration, trade, items of food, clothing
utensils, and building materials, and almost never in the field
addition, while there is no indication as to when these words were
they appear in the Talmudic corpus, which dates from the first fi
C.E. Even the word perozebbol dates from the time of Hillel, a cen
half after the Maccabean revolt. Finally, it is a gross exaggeration
to say that at the time of Hillel the legal[my italics] language of the
shot through with Greek, since the great majority of the Greek w
Talmudic corpus occur in midrashic rather than in legal contex
(8) The fact that the Phoenicians in the third century adopted Gr
does not mean that the Jews did so. Indeed, Hengel himself is forc
8C. H. Gordon, Before the Bible (New York: Harper, 1962) 218-302; M. C. Asto
semitica: An Ethnic and Cultural Study in West Semitic Impact on Mycenaean G
Brill, 1965); S. Levin, The Indo-European and Semitic Languages; an exploration
similarities related to accent, chiefly in Greek, Sanskrit, and Hebrew (Albany: State
New York, 1971).
that little can be said about Jewish names in Palestine during the thi
B.C.E., as we have almost no Judaeo-Palestinian material from that c
At this point Hengel turns to the Jews of Egypt for illustrations, se
the same tendency toward double names and toward the altering of
names that he finds among the Phoenicians. But the question sti
whether the tendency applied to the same degree among Palestin
(9) Since Alexandria, according to Hengel, was so easily accessi
Palestine, we may assume connections. And yet we hear amazingl
Philo, Josephus, or the Talmud of contact between the two. A gymna
not established in Jerusalem until 175 B.C.E., when it was set u
Hellenizers. Hengel (1. 68) says that the view of Applebaum9 that a
education must have been purchased by the betrayal of Judaism is p
too sweeping; but inasmuch as attendance in the gymnasium i
observing pagan festivals, it is hard not to agree with Applebaum. A
fact, pointed out by Hengel, that there were gymnasia in Phoenician
cities in Palestine does not mean that Jews attended them, and inde
no evidence that they did. To argue, moreover, that since Hellen
profound influence on several non-Jewish writers in Palestine it m
influenced Jews is again based on the unproven assumption that th
meaningful contacts between them and Jews. Moreover, Mele
Philodemus date from the mid-second and the mid-first centur
period later than the Maccabean revolt.
(10) We may here suggest that the theory of a connection betwee
and Spartans may have come about through the fact that the mythic
of Thebes, Cadmus, whose very name is probably Semitic (fro
"east") and who, indeed, is reported to have come to Thebes from P
is said to have sown a serpent's teeth in the ground, from which spr
men who were called Spartoi, i.e. "sown men." Though there is appa
connection between spartos, "sown," and Sparte, "Sparta," the word
similar, and folk etymologists may well have connected them, thus
Cadmus of Phoenicia into juxtaposition with Sparta. The next step w
to connect the Phoenicians' neighbors, the Judaeans, with Spart
(11) The mention in the Mishnah of the books of Homer, eve
reading, which is disputed,10 is correct, and even if the reference
famous epic poet," does not show that the books were known b
B.C.E. To present as evidence of Jewish knowledge of Homer in Pale
fact that he is cited by the Jewish Aristobulus and the Jewish Siby
relevant, since these are Alexandrians (and the Sibyl dates from
9S. Applebaum, review (in Hebrew) of V. A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks, Corpus P

Judaicarum, Tarbiz 28 (1958-59) 423-4.
'?For the alternate readings see S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950) 106, n. 39.
"The matter is thoroughly discussed by Lieberman (above, n. 10) 108-13, who,
serious objections to the identification with Homer, concludes that the reference is to
the books of Homer were probably not included in the category of "Greek wisdom," a
were employed as exercises for those children who did not in any case study Tora
Maccabees); and it is begging the question to assume that th

contacts with Palestinians. In any case, despite all his efforts, Lie
forced to admit that it is very hard to prove that the rabbis made
the Iliad or of the Odyssey.
(12) Since it is clear from the Talmud, Josephus, and the NT tha
avoided contact with the Samaritans, it is hardly likely that the
Samaritan, pseudo-Eupolemus, had any significant influence
Moreover, since we know that there was a Samaritan colony
speaking Egypt, it is more likely that he wrote there than in Pal
(13) To say that the Jewish historian Eupolemus must have com
work in Palestine rather than in Alexandria because his Greek is deficient is to
assume that every Alexandrian Jew wrote Greek as well as Philo. Moreover,
his history begins after 158 B. C.E., which again is later than the beginning of the
Maccabean revolt.
(14) Most scholars regard Jason of Cyrene as having written in
Alexandria. Zeitlin13 cites evidence to support his view that he was from
Antioch. The evidence that he spent a lengthy period in Palestine is at best
circumstantial.
(15) No one doubts that at the time when the LXX translation was
composed there were some Palestinian Jews who knew Greek: the question is
how many and how well. As to the translator of Esther, the fact that he is from
Jerusalem indicates a literary connection between Hasmonean Jerusalem and
the Egyptian Diaspora. Moreover, the lively translation activity referred to by
Hengel took place after 175 B.C.E.
(16) To speak, as does Hengel, of Greek influence on the erotic motifs of
certain books of the bible, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha, is unwarranted,
since he himself admits that such motifs are found in Egyptian and Persian
sources also, and may have influenced the bible by that route.
(17) As to the alleged Greek influence on Ecclesiastes, the question of
theodicy need not go back to the Greeks since it is found in the book of Job.
(1Q8 To
\ Ujsay
I ay+tat ,theLI11.
3<IY LIIIIL ratioal uInderstarldig
. I.I1jia , LII..i3LaII.U.III I6fLII,
the world,
VI.1 l.l, down to the
smallest detail, in Ben Sira has a Greek source, notably in the Stoic conce
of the purposefulness of individual phenomena, is to disregard the fact t
such an understanding of the world is implicit in the latter chapters of
book of Job. Hengel himself, moreover, is forced to admit that the phrase
is all" may go back to Jer 23:29 and Ps 139:7-12. The ethical ideas in Ben
as well as the delicate balance between human freedom and divine provid
are to be found in the bible and in the oral Torah and need hardly be tra
back to the Greeks. Hengel asserts that it was all the easier for Ben S
borrow from the Stoics since several of the important Stoic thinker
grown up on Semitic soil. He thus implies that the Stoics had borrowed f
the bible, at least indirectly, and that Ben Sira had thereafter borrowed
the Stoics. But why not say that Ben Sira did what the Stoics had alle
12Lieberman (above, n. 10) 113-14.

13S. Zeitlin, ed., The Second Book of Maccabees (New York: Harper, 1954) 18-30.
done before him, namely borrow from the bible? The statement that
is paralleled by the descriptions of Isis and that archaeologists corrob
possibility that Isis had penetrated even Jerusalem rests upon the ass
hardly proven, that these remains are those of Jews, whereas they
well be shrines of Ptolemaic administrators or soldiers.
(19) As to the Stoic influence on the rabbis, Lieberman'4 rightly states that
many of the ethical aphorisms alleged to be derived from the Stoics might
have been formulated by any intelligent person raised on the teachings of the
bible. Others are commonplaces found among various peoples. The passages
cited by Baer as indicating Platonic influence are explained by Lieberman as
being misinterpreted by Baer. Wolfson, who, in our generation, knew both the
Greek philosophical and rabbinic traditions with equal thoroughness, says15
that he is unable to find any Greek philosophic term in rabbinic literature. As
to the curse against teaching Greek wisdom, the context in all three passages in
the Talmud (Baba Qamma 82b, Sota 49b, Menahot 64b) where it occurs is the
civil war between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II in 65 B.C.E. The parallel
passage in Josephus (Ant. 14.2.2??25-28), while differing in a number of
details, agrees in referring the incident to the same civil war.
(20) To trace back to the Greeks the reverence in Daniel for the power
created by knowledge is to disregard the emphasis on study and teaching
clearly stated as a commandment in the Torah (Deut 6:7). Again, to call
attention to the analogy between Hesiod's watcher-angels and those in Daniel
and 1 Enoch is to disregard the theory, held by many in scholarly circles, that
Hesiod himself was dependent on Near Eastern sources.16 Moreover, the
kingdoms in Daniel differ considerably from Hesiod's five ages; in particular
Daniel's fourth kingdom is partly of iron and partly of clay, indicating a
divided kingdom. In addition, there is a fifth kingdom which shall never be
destroyed, symbolized by a stone, whereas the fifth age in Hesiod is the worst
age, that of iron,
(21) The picture of the Lower World in 1 Enoch is not relevant to Hengel's
discussion since this book was probably written in the course of the century
from 163 to 63 B.C.E. and perhaps even later, inasmuch as 1 Enoch 67:6-8
seems to allude to Herod or possibly to an even later period, that of the
procurators. Moreover, many of the themes in 1 Enoch have parallels in
Babylonian or Iranian sources and need not necessarily be derived from
Orphic literature, of which we know almost nothing.
(22) Hengel assumes that the Dead Sea sect are Essenes, whereas there are
a number of differences between them, such as a different calendar, a different
attitude toward slavery and private property, etc. Hengel himself, moreover,
dates the origin of the Essenes at about 150 B.C.E. and says that this date is too
14S. Lieberman, "How Much Greek in Jewish PalestineT' Studies and Texts, vol. 1: Biblical
ami Other Studies, ed. A. Altmann (Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies,
Brandeis University; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1963) 123-41.
5H. A. Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1947) 1. 92.
ISee, e.g., H. G. Guterbock, "The Hittite Version of the Hurrian Kumarbi Myths: Oriental
Forerunners of Hesiod," AJA 52 (1948) 123-34.
early to make it likely that the chief Essene writings were in

gnostic Hellenistic sources: such a date is after the time of
revolt. Hengel asserts the likelihood of Iranian influence on th
of dualism, yet he considers it possible that an Alexandrian J
involved. If so, we may respond, this is probably not a cas
influence, since Alexandria had, we are told (Hengel, 1. 230), t
of the writings of Zarathustra. As to the analogy between Ess
Cleanthes' hymn to Zeus, Hengel has the exasperating habit of
pointing this out, that there is no dependence and that the ana
irrelevant. Astrology, moreover, is much older than the
particular, was cultivated by the Babylonians; Isaiah (47:12-
an attack on astrologers. As to the monastic-like form o
community, just as Hengel rules out dependence on the Pytha
the Essenes avoided all alien influences, so, we may add, t
avoided drawing upon Hellenistic laws of association. We m
the possibility that they were indebted for their monastic ideals
of the Rechabites mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah (chap. 35
if there was Hellenistic influence on the Essenes, we must recal
Josephus agree in giving the total number of Essenes as only
the great attention given them by Josephus, their influence w
Like Bickerman,'8 Hengel (1. 287) says that the Jewish H
also were motivated by intellectual interests, in the days
Epiphanes knew that their rule could be assured only if they co
traditional Jewish religion; and so it was they who were respo
escalation of events in Judaea. Hengel (1. 300) suggests th
Hellenists perhaps denied the theory that the ritual comma
brought about the segregation of the Jews had come from Mos
reply, this would imply that they were ready to abide by the
whereas, in fact, they did not observe even the commandment
Again, Hengel (1. 301) cites the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 10:1) t
have a share in the world to come who asserts that there is no Torah from
heaven as referring perhaps to assimilationist Jews who believed that the
Torah had been modified after Moses' time. But again the implication of the
view that the Torah had been modified after Moses' time is not to deny that
Moses had received the Torah from G-d but rather that it had been emended
without authorization after his time.
Hengel's conclusion (1. 306) is that anti-Semitism during this period was
due to the Jews' self-segregation, coupled with the political expansion of the
Hasmoneans in Palestine and the political and military ascendancy of the
Jews under the Ptolemies. We may respond that there is no evidence of anti-
Semitism on the part of the Idumaeans who were forcibly converted to
Judaism. In Alexandria, at least, the more "liberal" Jews, who sought to gain
admittance to the pagan gymnasia and thus to social life with the pagans,
17Philo, Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit 75; Josephus, Ant. 18.1.5 ?20.
'8E. J. Bickerman(n). Der G-tt der Makkahber (Berlin: Schocken. 1937).
became the object of anti-Semitism on the part of those who so

them from being admitted to the gymnasia, even as assimilated l
Germany of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries discovered
Again, Hengel (1. 307) says that the connection between
religion prevented really extensive missionary success by t
according to Salo Baron's best estimates,19 there was an in
number of Jews from about 150,000 in 586 B.C.E. to perhaps as
million in 66 C.E. Only missionary success can account for th
growth.
Hengel is misleading when he declares (1. 309) that the failure of the
Hellenistic reformers to abolish the Torah meant that any fundamental
theological criticism of the law could no longer develop freely within Judaism.
We may comment, however, that the Talmud contains many examples of
adaptations of the law, such as the decrees of Rabban Gamaliel. His statement
that Jews found intolerable a critical consideration of their history and of
revelation is to disregard the fundamental nature of the Talmud as a work of
debate and of Judaism as a deed-centered rather than creed-centered religion.
Hengel reveals his theological bias when he states that Jesus, Stephen, and
Paul came to grief from their own people because the Jews were no longer in a
position to bring about a creative, self-critical transformation of the piety of
the law. Judaism's quarrel with Paul is not for adapting the law but for
repealing it and for combining pagan mystery-cult ideas with Judaism,
notably in the sacrament of the eucharist. To speak of the Torah, as does
Hengel, as rigidified and no longer measuring up to the message of the
prophets is to misread the sayings and deeds of the Pharisees and to disregard
the work of scholars such as Herford and Moore.
When this work appeared in German, it was met with an avalanche of
praise even from scholars as generally critical as Momigliano.20 No one will
deny that it is a thorough collection of the sources and of the secondary
literature on all major points of scholarship connected with the period. For
this and for a major statement of interpretation of that evidence all students
must be grateful.
"'S. W. Baron, 4 Social and Religious History of the Je\\'s (2d ed.; New York: Columbia
U niversity, 1952) 1.170 and especially 370-72, n. 7; itdetm. "Popuiation," EJ 13. 869.
"'A. I). Momigliano, rexiew of Hengel. JTS 21 (1970) 149-53.

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Hengel's Judaism and Hellenism in Retrospect

Author(s): Louis H. Feldman

HENGEL'S JUDAISM AND HELLENISM

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, NY 10033

T is usually said that the Maccabees marked a turning point in Jewish

language was known in aristocratic and military circles of

(8) Hengel (1. 61-65) notes the increasing prevalence of G

been composed in Alexandria.

7) there are unmistakable parallels to similar discussions of

9S. Applebaum, review (in Hebrew) of V. A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks, Corpus P

Maccabees); and it is begging the question to assume that th

12Lieberman (above, n. 10) 113-14.

early to make it likely that the chief Essene writings were in

became the object of anti-Semitism on the part of those who so

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