Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature

332 Journal of Biblical Literature
nell’s review above). Despite the recognition the book received, there were criticisms
from some. Feldman listed some twenty-two points in the book with which he took issue
(1977; cf. idem, “How much Hellenism in Jewish Palestine?” HUCA 57 [1986]: 83–111;
and Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to
Justinian [Princeton: Princeton University Press], 3–83, 416–22). M. S. Stern (review of
Hengel, Judentum und Hellensimus, Kiryath Sepher 46 [1970–71]: 94–99) noted many
points of detail that could be disputed, and Fergus Millar (“The Background to the Maccabean
Revolution: Reflections on Martin Hengel’s ‘Judaism and Hellenism,’” JJS 29
[1978]: 1–21) emphasized the role of politics in the interpretation of the Maccabean
revolt. But the importance of the theme is indicated by four recent books all addressing
the topic directly: Lee I. Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity: Conflict or Confluence?
[Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998]; John J. Collins and Gregory E.
Sterling, eds., Hellenism in the Land of Israel [Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity 13;
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001]; Troels Engberg-Pedersen,
ed., Paul beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide [Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
2001]; and Anders Gerdmar, Rethinking the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy: A Historiographical
Study of Second Peter and Jude (ConBNT 36; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell,
2001]). O’Connell’s original review (above), on the publication of the first edition, neatly
summarizes the argument. From a contemporary perspective, however, our perceptions
of the relationship between cultures in antiquity, the political situation of the eastern
empires, and the sociological role of religion call for a reevaluation of Hengel’s arguments.
The data remain the same and can be supported by additional finds (see Hengel,
“Judaism and Hellenism Revisited,” in Hellenism in the Land of Israel, ed. Collins and
Sterling, 26–28), but the larger theses of the book and the historical narrative are worthy
of renewed discussion.
The Thesis
There has often been an attraction for the opposition of polarities seen, for example,
in an orientalizing mentality (criticized by Edward Said, Orientalism [New York:
Pantheon, 1978]), or a counterpole to it (e.g., Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic
Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1, The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785–
1985 [London: Free Association Books, 1987]). For Hengel, the distinction between
Judaism and Hellenism was “unavoidable” (see D. Martin, “Paul, Hellenism, and
Judaism: Toward a Social History of the Question,” in Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism
Divide, ed. Engberg-Pedersen, 29–30). And yet he sought to break such neat distinctions
in other aspects of the study of ancient Judaism. The traditional opposition
between Diaspora and Palestinian Judaism (seen most clearly in G. F. Moore, Judaism
in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim [3 vols.; Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1927–30; 2nd ed., 1954), encapsulated in Hellenistic
Judaism and “traditional” Judaism respectively, could no longer hold sway. For, from as
early as at least the third century B.C.E., Palestinian Judaism was in fact Hellenistic
Judaism, having undergone a transformation under the influence of the dominant
Greek culture. Palestinian contact with Greeks began early, and by the third century
one can detect Greek influence in Jewish mercenaries, the language, and political relations.
Hengel thus explains the transformation in Judaism from Alexander the Great to
the time of the Maccabees, highlighting the fact that the issues in the Maccabean revolt
lay some way back in Jewish history. Even the Qumran community for him reveals