Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

JBL 123/2 (2004) 329–389
BOOK REVIEWS
Book reviews are also published online at the Society of Biblical Literature’s WWW site:
http://www.bookreviews.org. For a list of books received by the Journal, see
http://www.bookreviews.org/books-received.html
[Editor’s note: The first of the following two reviews, by Kevin G. O’Connell, S.J., was
originally published in JBL 90 (1971): 228–31. A longer JBL review of Martin Hengel’s
Judaism and Hellenism, not reprinted here, came out six years later (see Louis H. Feldman,
“Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism in Retrospect,” JBL 96 [1977]: 371–82). The second
review included here, by J. K. Aitken, represents a reassessment of Hengel’s seminal
work some thirty years later.]
Judentum und Hellenismus: Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung
Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh.s v. Chr, by Martin Hengel. WUNT 10. Tübingen:
Mohr-Siebeck, 1969; 2nd ed., 1973. ISBN 3161452704 (paper); 3161452712 (cloth).
Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic
Period. 2 vols. Translated by J. Bowden. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974 (a onevolume,
paperback edition was issued by Fortress in 1981). ISBN 0800602935.
This is a massive, detailed, and often complex study of Judaism’s relation to Hellenism
in Palestine during the third and the first half of the second centuries B.C.E. The
book was prepared as a Habilitationsschrift, and its four chapters treat successively: the
encounter of Judaism in Palestine with the civilization of early Hellenism as a technically
determined political and economic force, Hellenism in Palestine as a cultural force
and its influence on the Jews, Palestinian Judaism’s encounter and struggle with the
spirit of the Hellenistic age, the interpretatio graeca of Judaism and the reform efforts of
the Hellenists in Jerusalem. The language is generally clear, but sentences are sometimes
too cumbersome for effective communication. Most printing errors have been
listed at the end of the book, but the following additional corrections are necessary:
p. 262, 1ine 9, bestritten for bestitten; p. 438, 1ine 23, 7 for 6; p. 545, n. 242, 1ine 19,
ejktivsq[h] for ejktivsq[h.
The book’s main thesis is that all Judaism from about the mid-third century B.C.E.
must be regarded as Hellenistic in the strict sense, because it had all received strong
Hellenistic influence. The evidence amassed in support of this thesis should overwhelm
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