JEWS AND GREEKS, JUDAISM AND HELLENISM
Course Description:
A study of the encounter between Judaism and Hellenism in antiquity, from the
Hasmonean revolt until the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism. The course will focus
on the land of Israel but some attention, for purposes of contrast, will also
be paid to the diaspora. Themes: definitions of “Judaism”and “Hellenism,”
religious and philosophical resistance and accommodation, knowledge of Greek,
literary forms, the “common culture” of Hellenistic near east, art and
architecture.
Requirements: preparation of the weekly readings; two papers (one on a Greek-Jewish document, the other on an Aramaic or Hebrew document; details to be discussed in class); final exam.
Office of Shaye J.D. Cohen: 6 Divinity Avenue (Semitic Museum) rm. 306
Hours: tba
Phone: 496-6422
E-mail: scohen@fas.harvard.edu
The following books which you will need for the course are (or will be) available for purchase at the Divinity School bookstore:
· Lee Levine, Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity (0295976829)
· Louis H. Feldman and Meyer Reinhold, Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans (0800629264)
· Erich Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism ((0520235061)
· Louis Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (0-691-02927)
You will also need a copy of the Apocrypha, available both on-line and in many editions of the Bible. Readings marked with an * are on reserve or will be distributed separately.
Week 1 (Th Jan 30): Introduction: Culture,
Identity, and the Other
Week 2 (Feb 4 and Feb 6): Greeks
and Jews in the Hellenistic World; What is Hellenism?
Gruen, Heritage xiii-xx
Feldman, Jew and Gentile 3-44
Levine, Judaism and Hellenism 3-32
Week 3 (Feb 11 and Feb 13): The
Greeks Discover the Jews and the Jews Discover the Greeks
Gruen, Heritage 189-245. (If there is no truth in the Jewish legends about contacts with kings and princes, what is their value?)
Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization 1-36
Feldman, Jewish Life and Thought 1-37
Week 4 (Feb 18 and Feb 20): The
Hasmonean Revolt
Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization 152-234 (Why did the Hasmoneans rebel agaisnt the state? Why did Antiochus Epiphanes persecute Judaism?)
1 Maccabees chapters 1-4 (How does this author understand the events he is narrating?)
2 Maccabees 2:19-32; 4:7-6:17; 10:1-8 (How does this author understand the events he is narrating?)
1. The Hasmoneans (Maccabees) are often portrayed as opposed to Hellenism, or, as saving Judaism from Hellenism. Is this correct?
2. What was the point of the literary retelling of scriptural stories?
READINGS:
Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism 110-188
Greek literature at the court of, and in the interests of, the Hasmoneans: *Theodotus, *Eupolemus (J. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 2, pp. 785-793, 861-882); colophon to Greek Esther
Week 6 (Mar 4 and Mar 6): Hasmonean Hellenism
Institution of Hanukah: 1 Macc. 4:36-59; cf. 1 Macc. 7:39- 50; 2 Macc. 1:1-2:18; 10:1-8; *B. Shabbat 21b; *‘al hanisim (from the siddur) (Are there any biblical precedents for the institution of an annual victory celebration?)
Connection of Jews and Spartans: 1 Macc. 12:1-23; 14:16-24; Gruen, Heritage 246-268 (Why would the Hasmoneans depict the Judaeans as related to the Spartans?)
A Greek novella: Judith
A treaty with Rome: 1 Maccabees 8; 14:24; 15:15-24
A Greek style decree: 1 Maccabees 14:25-49
* Shaye J.D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness 109-139 (Cohen’s discussion is based on texts that appear in Feldman, Jewish Life 124-125) (How did Hellenistic ideas affect the emergence of Judaism?)
Week 7 (Mar 11 and 13): Jewish
hostility to gentiles, gentile hostility to Jews
Is there a connection between Jewish hostility to gentiles (Greeks), and gentile (Greek) hostility to Jews?
READINGS:
Jewish hostility to gentiles:
Prohibition of Intermarriage: *Jubilees 30 (J. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 2, pp. 112-114); additions to Esther
Separation from gentiles: *Jubilees 22 (J. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 2, pp. 97-99)
Martyrdom stories: 2 Macc. 6-7
Impurity of idolatry and idolaters: 1 Macc. 7:34, 13:47-48, 50; 14:36 (cf. 14:7)
Destruction of pagan shrines: 1 Macc. 5:44 (cf. 2 Macc, 12:26), 5:68, 10:84
Gentile hostility to Jews:
Retellings of the Exodus: Feldman, Jewish Life and Thought 350-357; Gruen, Heritage 41-72.
Blood libel of Antiochus IV and VII: Feldman, Jewish Life 384-387.
Week 8 (Mar 18 and 20): “God-Fearers,” “conversion,” and “mission”
Week 9 Apr 1 and 3): Jews and Greeks in Egypt
Feldman, Jewish Life and Thought 321-331
Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization 269-332
*Third Maccabees (in most editions of the Apocrypha); Tcherikover discusses Third Maccabees in some detail, as does Gruen, Heritage 222-236
Week 10 (Apr 8): Hellenism in Judaea in the first Century;
Judaea vs. Diaspora
Week 10-11 (Apr 10 and 15; no
session Apr 17, Passover): Rabbinic Hellenism 1
Week 12 (Apr 22, no session Apr
24, Passover): Rabbinic Hellenism 2
Levine 96-138
Saul
Lieberman, “How much Greek in Jewish Palestine?” and Henry Fischel, “Story and
History,” both reprinted in Henry Fischel ed., Essays in Greco-Roman and
Related Talmudic Literature pp. 325-343 and 443-472
Shaye
J.D. Cohen, “Patriarchs and Scholarchs,” Proceedings of the American
Academy for Jewish Research 48 (1981) 57-85
Seth
Schwartz, “Gamaliel in Aphrodite’s Bath,” in Peter Schäfer, ed. The
Talmud Yerushalmi and Greco-Roman Culture vol. 1 (1998) 203-217
Week 13 (Apr 29 and May 1) Art,
Archaeology and Synagogues
Week 14 (May 6 and May 8) Reading period