historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

12 DAVID GOODBLATT
Millar is speaking of the first and second centuries CE but I think
that his explanation applies to the Second Temple era as well (leaving
aside the issues of schools and synagogues, which I will discuss
below). We can reduce the list to its first item, from which the others
follow. It was the biblical books that provided the foundation
and the building blocks for constructing the beliefs in shared descent
and common culture. First, the stories about the patriarchs and the
tribal eponyms in the Pentateuch established the shared ancestry of
all Israelites. The books that treated later history explained the connection
of the residents of Second Temple Judea with the founding
fathers and mothers of the Israelite people. Second, these same books
preserved the Hebrew language and saved it from sharing the fate
of Phoenician, Edomite and other languages that were swept away
by Aramaic. Even those who didn't speak Hebrew might still write,
read or hear Hebrew.
Paradoxically, the existence of the Hebrew books enabled people
to believe that their shared culture could exist in other languages.
We recall that the defense of 'Judeanness' in 2 Maccabees was written
in Greek. The existence of a Greek translation of the Pentateuch
and other books made possible the conception of a genuine Judean
culture in Greek. Similarly, parabiblical literature composed in
Aramaic, such as the Genesis Apocryphon, the Enoch literature and the
Levi materials, could also be considered part of Judean culture. The
transformation of biblical books into other languages by translation,
rewriting or supplementation provided a Judean vocabulary for those
languages.
In view of the evidence just presented, one can ask why so many
contemporary scholars are reluctant to use the categories of nation
and nationality with regard to the pre-modern world. After all, as
both Millar and Smith note, the Judeans appear to exhibit something
very close to modern national identity. For Smith, among the
factors that distinguish modern national identity from ethnic identity,
which could exist in pre-modern societies, is "a common, mass
public culture." 24 In the case of Second Temple Judea, however, this
was restricted to the religious sphere. Thus, he attributes the mass
culture aspect to "the rise of the synagogue and the Pharisees," at
a time when the hope of political autonomy had been extinguished. 25
24 Smith, National Identity, 14.
25 Smith, National Identity, 49-50.