JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ible
ity included paraphrases and analyses of biblical narratives,
philosophical commentaries, epic and dramatic poetry. Some
of these writings are strictly monotheistic; in others the pagan
influence is pronounced; and there are a few remnants
whose contents supposedly run counter to the current concepts
of monotheism. But, except in one or two instances,
the “Jewishness” of these fragments seems assured. The common
characteristic that distinguishes these writings from the
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature is that the names
of the authors, though sometimes pseudonymous, are almost
invariably known.
The tradition of the translation of the Torah by the Seventy
during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus presupposes
the existence of a professional cadre of translators in Alexandria,
who were the first Hellenistic Jewish literati. They coined
the term “Holy Bible” (ὴ ὲρἁ Βίβλος), recorded for the first
time during the last two decades of the third century B.C.E.
The Bible, or rather what is now known as the Pentateuch,
was also called the Law (a translation of Torah), to which
epithets were attached such as “the Holy,” “God’s,” “Moses’,”
or “Israel’s.”
*Demetrius, who flourished during the reign of Ptolemy
IV Philopater (221–204), may be regarded as a representative
of the Alexandrian school whose immediate antecedents
go back to the Septuagint translators. “Someone asked,” he
says, “‘After having come here unarmed, how did the Israelites
have weapons?’ (Ex. 13:18).” This suggests that his question had
been raised by other biblical commentators. It also shows that
the question and answer method, current among Alexandrian
pagan exegetes, was adopted by the Jews. Their rendition of
the Hebrew word va-ḥamushim (Ex. 13:18) differed from that
of the known versions of the Septuagint, which translate the
term as the fifth generation (of the Israelites in Egypt). In general,
in the extant fragments at least, Demetrius devotes most
of his comments to chronological and genealogical problems.
Chronology was also of great concern for a certain Philo, who
may not be identical with *Philo the Elder, mentioned in *Josephus
(Apion, 1:218), or Philo the Epicist; *Eupolemus, and
Josephus’ rival – Justus of *Tiberias.
In contrast to Demetrius and *Aristeas, the author of a
history On the Jews, who show no direct awareness of the pagan
world, writers such as *Pseudo-Eupolemus and *Artapanus
reflect syncretistic traditions of biblical Hellenistic historiography.
Pseudo-Eupolemus identified Enoch with the
Hellenic Atlas, the reputed discoverer of astrology; Noah with
Belus, the traditional founder of Babylon; and Melchizedek
with the king and priest of the temple on Mount Gerizim. The
last identification indicates that syncretistic and Euhemeristic
tendencies were prevalent also among the Samaritans. Artapanus,
who flourished during the second century B.C.E., represents
the most extreme syncretistic school. According to him,
Abraham, Joseph, and primarily Moses developed Egypt’s science,
statecraft, and religion. The story of Moses’ war against
Ethiopia, found in Artapanus and Josephus (Ant., 2:238–53),
may be due to a common source. There is no evidence for the
suggestion, maintained by Freudenthal, that Artapanus was a
Jew who paraded as an Egyptian priest.
Alexandrian scholars in the middle of the second century
B.C.E. also published commentaries that began to interpret
Scripture allegorically, somewhat as many Greek exegetes
explained Homer. *Aristobulus, “the teacher of Ptolemy”
(II Macc. 1:10), argued that anthropomorphic expressions of
the Bible such as “God’s hand” must be understood as God’s
power. This may not seem to be quite allegory as the term is
now understood, but Aristobulus’ censure of the literalists’
understanding of Scripture suggests the beginnings of a symbolic
exegesis of Scripture (see above Allegorical Interpretations).
Interestingly, Aristobulus says that there had existed a
Greek translation of the Torah prior to the Septuagint which
Homer, Hesiod, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Hecataeus of Abdera
and others had allegedly utilized. This indicates that the
Jewish forgeries of Greek poets that extolled Jewish religion
antedate the middle of the second century B.C.E.
From a literary point of view, the great achievement of
the Greco-Jewish writers was in the field of poetry and drama.
Philo the Elder composed an epic in Homeric hexameters
on Jerusalem; short fragments on Abraham, Joseph, and the
fountains and canals of Jerusalem survive. An epic by a Samaritan,
*Theodotus, recounts the rape of Dinah (Gen. 34).
Without introducing radical changes in the biblical story,
there is considerable invention in the remaining 48 lines, attesting
to a high degree of poetic inspiration and technical
proficiency. Hellenistic Jewish literature attained its zenith in
the drama Exagoge (Exodus) by *Ezekiel the Poet. In a sense
this work seems but a paraphrase of the relevant chapters of
the Septuagint Book of Exodus. But the dramatist was able to
weave into the play interpretations that had been proposed by
biblical commentators. Thus Zipporah, Moses’ wife, is said to
have been identical with the “Ethiopian woman” (Num. 12:1), a
view earlier put forward by Demetrius. The heathen environment
supplied Ezekiel the Poet with the forms of the play; the
Torah, with its content and meaning. The same may be said of
most of the Greco-Jewish literature – it was primarily Jewish
and secondarily Greek.
See also *Apocrypha, *Josephus, *Pseudo-Philo.
[Ben Zion Wacholder]
Talmud and Medieval Times
With the famous convocation of the people called by Ezra
in the fifth century B.C.E., at which the Bible was solemnly
and publicly read to the assembled people – “they read in the
book, in the law of God, distinctly, and they gave the sense
and caused them to understand the reading” (Neh. 8:8) – the
Bible became for centuries the main, and for a long time the
sole, intellectual preoccupation of the Jewish people. The talmudic
interpretations (Meg. 3a) that “they read in the book”
refers to the Hebrew text, and “distinctly” (or “with an interpretation”)
to its translation into the Aramaic vernacular are
probably correct, and serve to indicate that for the first time
the Bible had become the common cultural and religious
660 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3