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traces of Hellenistic philosophy (on which, see Levine, Judaism and Hellenism, 110
n. 15). As already noted, Feldman has been a strong critic of this position, although his
interpretations of points of detail are themselves open to question (see Lester L.
Grabbe, “The Jews and Hellenization: Hengel and his Critics,” in Second Temple Studies
III: Studies in Politics, Class and Material Culture [ed. Philip R. Davies and John M.
Halligan; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002], n. 9). Despite opposition to a Jewish
Greek synthesis, notably from the Maccabees, the Hellenistic Jewish culture of
Jerusalem prospered and gave birth to Christianity and to Rabbinic Judaism.
The Definition of Hellenism
Many writers who discuss the Jewish encounter with Hellenism do not attempt to
define what they mean by the terms. Any definition will, however, presuppose the interpretation
of the material evidence. As noted, Hengel took the term to denote a fusion of
cultures, and in this he distanced himself from the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule’s
understanding of a syncretistic Hellenism (despite his own use of the term “syncretism”).
By following Droysen, Hengel drew upon a long heritage of a positive attitude
to the Hellenistic epoch and its culture. Droysen (1808–1884) drew upon the German
neo-Hellenism of Johan Winckelmann and the historical philosophy of Hegel. He saw in
this new epoch a historical principle in which the Greeks progressed toward new
achievements, and he termed this epoch “Hellenismus” (Geschichte des Hellenismus
[2nd ed; 3 vols.; Hamburg, 1877–78]). Although Droysen believed that this was an
ancient term, it probably goes back no further than Scaliger and his pupils who discussed
the meaning of lingua Hellenistica as a special Greek dialect in the biblical texts.
Under the influence of Hegelian thought, Hellenism became an ideal with its opposition,
in Hegelian terms, being Judaism. Nineteenth-century writers, including Heinrich
Heine and Matthew Arnold, saw the synthesis of Hebraism (the ideal religion of Abraham
in the preexilic era) and Hellenism as being realized in Christianity (Yaacov Shavit,
Athens in Jerusalem: Classical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern
Secular Jew [Littman Library of Jewish Civilization; London/Portland, OR: Littman
Library, 1997; Tessa Rajak, “Jews and Greeks: The Invention and Exploitation of Polarities
in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: Studies
in Cultural and Social Interaction [AGJU 48; Leiden: Brill, 2001], 535–57; and Martin,
“Paul, Hellenism, and Judaism”). The nineteenth-century legacy does render it difficult
for the modern reader to distance himself or herself from the idea of two cultures in
opposition. But it probably does not have a counterpart in the ancient writers, and it
simplifies into polar opposites the complex social and cultural interactions. The famous
saying in 2 Maccabees that the Jews rebelled against “the highpoint of Hellenismos”
(4:13) complicates this further, especially when discussing the era of the Maccabees
itself.
The impression gained from Judentum und Hellenismus is that such opposition
still exists, and that Hellenism is to be accepted or rejected. Georg Fohrer’s statement
that the contrasts between Job and Greek tragedy are “in part of a fundamental nature”
(p. 109) is accepted without question. Hengel then suggests that the “intellectual development
was preparing to move in the direction of the Hellenistic epoch.” The use of the
term “fundamental” and the suggestion that an intellectual development was moving
toward an epoch do imply that we are dealing with two quite different thought-worlds (a
critique of which can be found in James Barr, The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old
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