New Testament History: A Narrative Account

1–32.

Chapter 1

From Alexander to Alexandra and Beyond

356–67 B.C.

To the casual reader of the Bible who proceeds directly from Malachi to Matthew, it can come as something of a shock to discover the gap of several hundred years between the end of the narrative in the Hebrew Scriptures and the beginning of the narrative in Matthew. It is not just the time lag that surprises, however, but also the difference in the character of the people of God. During the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Hebrews had returned from Babylonian exile and tried to reestablish themselves in Israel. While they may well have picked up various Persian customs and indeed many gained some facility in Aramaic, none of that could account for the following two facts: (1) the entire New Testament is written (by Jews!) in Greek; (2) the most widely used version of the Old Testament by the turn of the era was also in Greek—the Septuagint. How had it happened that Jews had become so Hellenized between the end of the Old Testament era and the beginning of the New Testament era? To answer this question we must consider the remarkable figure of Alexander the Great and the legacy he and his successors left to early Judaism.

Illustration 1.1 Jewish History before Roman Occupation

Alexander

Born in 356 B.C. in Pella, Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon. His father, while not quite the world ruler Alexander became, provided the pattern of aggressive military behavior that his son later would follow. One of the main motivating factors for this warlike behavior of both Philip and Alexander seems to have been that Macedonians were viewed by the Greeks who lived in the city-states south of Macedon as uncouth of speech, unsophisticated in culture, ethically unreliable, politically inept, and militarily weak. In other words, Philip and Alexander suffered from a cultural inferiority complex, and they were determined to prove the Greeks wrong at every point of their characterization of Macedonians. It needs to be borne steadily in view that the ancients viewed human personality as determined by geography, generation, and gender. By and large, they did not judge people as individuals, but according to their ethnic or geographical group. What we would call a stereotype, they would call an ethnic character type (cf., e.g., the evaluation by a Cretan poet of the character of his own people in Titus 1:12).

Illustration 1.2 The chief symbol of classical Greek culture—the Parthenon.

At the birth of Alexander, Philip had just come off of four years’ worth of military triumphs that had transformed Macedonia from a backwater into one of the most powerful states in all of the Greek mainland. It would be helpful if we knew more about the childhood of Alexander, but most of the evidence we have from Plutarch and others is the stuff of legend. There is some reason to think that he was indeed precocious as a young man, and we know that he identified himself with Achilles, who was said to be an ancestor of his mother. On his father’s side, the lineage was traced back to Heracles (whom we call Hercules), thus providing Alexander with two powerful figures from his past to emulate. But the one he admired and emulated the most was his own father.

Of his tutors, two stand out as worthy of comment. There was Leonidas, a strong disciplinarian who placed great emphasis on physical training and endurance. The most famous anecdote of this period was that Alexander complained that Leonidas’s idea of breakfast was a long night march, and of supper a light breakfast.[1] Yet this physical regimen was to serve him well when he went out on campaign. I will say more of his other and more famous tutor, Aristotle, shortly.

Another important trait of Alexander was that he had a remarkable memory, seldom forgot a slight, and certainly never forgave one. When Leonidas chastised the boy for throwing too much incense into the sacrificial fire and sarcastically suggested that he could be so extravagant only after he conquered the spice-bearing regions of the world, Alexander answered years later by conquering Gaza and sending his former teacher eighteen tons of incense and spices. Alexander was not a man to be taunted or crossed. Nor was he a man who ever lacked courage. The story of the young man Alexander taming the wild horse Bucephalas when others much older than he had failed is typical.

In March of 346, after various notable Macedonian military triumphs had come to the attention of the Athenians, the famous rhetorician Isocrates published his Address to Philip, calling for a crusade by all true Hellenes against Persia. Isocrates had made such an appeal before (in 380) to the democratic states of Greece to no avail, but now his speech notes the advantages of one-man rule as a way of uniting all of Hellas. Indeed, in a notable piece of rhetorical flourish he encourages Philip to consider all Hellas your fatherland, a piece of advice Philip was to take quite literally as he took over Greece. Philip liked the sound of these suggestions, but he knew there was preparatory work to be done first. Accordingly, in the winter of 343-342 Philip sent out an invitation to a boyhood friend to return to the Macedonian court and become the main tutor of his son. This man had studied with the famous Plato and had been serving for some time as an emissary between Philip and other rulers. His name was Aristotle. Philip decided that Alexander needed to be removed from the distractions of the court and the capital, and so Aristotle and Alexander were sent to a small village north of Beroea to complete his education. Alexander was already concerned even as a young teenager that he get the proper training so that he might be a great king.

Undoubtedly, Alexander learned many things from Aristotle. Recall that in his Politics, Aristotle argues that the only justification for a monarchy rather than a republic is that a particular leader have such outstanding areté (moral excellence) that a royal ruler becomes preferable to a more democratic arrangement. Aristotle was, furthermore, extremely ethnocentric. The Persians were barbarians ruled by their passions, and when Alexander conquered them, he was to rule them like a despot, while it would only be necessary to lead the Greeks. Barbaroi (a word that originally meant non-Greek-speaking peoples), reasoned Aristotle, were slaves by nature and needed to be treated as such. The opposite of a barbarian was a well-educated Greek-speaking person who valued most highly the virtues of self-denial and self-control. This basic teaching Alexander put rigorously into practice, treating Greeks as near equals and all others as peoples who required an iron authoritarian hand to rule them. Alexander studied a variety of subjects with Aristotle: medicine, biology, geometry, astronomy, and rhetoric (particularly the art of arguing both sides of a question equally well). For three years Alexander studied with Aristotle, and what he learned then would shape him for the rest of his life, especially the lesson about the inherent superiority of the Greek language and culture to all other forms of human expression.

When one considers the later period in Alexander’s life, with all of his military victories across Asia Minor into Babylonia and indeed on to India, it is good to bear in mind that it was not his idea but Philip’s to engage in a panhellenic crusade against Persia. Alexander, to be sure, though only a lad of eighteen, had been instrumental in the victory against the Greek forces at Chaeronea in 339, which in effect united Greece under Philip’s rule; but it was Philip’s dream originally to be the great Persian conqueror and he who originally had set up the Hellenic League. But Philip and Alexander were all too well aware that Greece would remain a divided land, not least because Darius already had some fifteen thousand Greek mercenaries on his payroll in 338, which is more than twice as many Greek men as the Hellenic League would initially muster to fight against Darius!

Yet Philip was undaunted, and in the early spring of 336 his troops crossed over into Asia Minor and met with success; indeed, they were welcomed with open arms by some of the Greek cities, including Ephesus, which placed a statue of Philip next to that of Artemis in the great temple of Artemis in the city. Coupled with a coup in Persia that led to the assassination of Darius II, things looked good for Philip’s crusade against Persia. But in June of 336 all this was to change suddenly when one of Philip’s own bodyguards stabbed him when the games were about to be celebrated. Historians have long debated whether Alexander, or Alexander’s mother, or others might have long been plotting against Philip, since he seemed determined to raise up another heir to rule instead of allowing Alexander to do so, but the verdict on this must be unproved.[2] In any event, the outcome was that Alexander assumed the mantle of kingship and the task of completing the job his father had begun in conquering Persia. It took him a while to consolidate his control of his kingdom, but in the early spring of 334 he was finally ready to cross the Dardanelles into Asia Minor and begin the campaign.

The Hellenization of the Holy Land

The Hellenizing of the Holy Land was not merely intensive in some places but also extensive. From Tel Dan in the far northern part of the land comes a bilingual inscription from the late third or early second century B.C. The text is in Greek (at the top) and Aramaic, and reads, To the god in Dan, Zoilos discharges his vow. Notice that the god in question is not given a name, which in theory could mean that the Hebrew God is being referred to, but most scholars have thought it more likely that some pagan or non-Jewish Semitic (Nabatean?) god is meant. The name Zoilos may be a barbarism for Silas. Whatever we conclude about the god addressed in this inscription, the fact that the inscription is in both Greek and Aramaic suggests that we are dealing with a Jewish, or at least a Semitic, person who also knows some Greek. We see evidence already well before the time of Christ of the influence of Hellenism on the region, even when it came to matters of religion. (NewDocs 1:105)

In regard to Alexander’s activities in the region of prime concern for this study, we know that after the long siege and capture of Tyre in 332, he proceeded down the coastal plain with only Gaza offering resistance. Ant. 11.326–According to a surely legendary account, Josephus (339) reports that Alexander visited Jerusalem and was greeted by an elaborately robed high priest named Jaddua, who presented to Alexander the acknowledgement of the capitulation of the city. The tale further relates that Alexander offered sacrifice in the temple and read the Book of Daniel, in which his conquest had been recorded! What is noteworthy about this account, which is surely mostly fiction, is that it contains no evidence of conflict between the representative of Hellenism and the representative of Judaism.[3] It is probably true that Alexander largely left intact the Persian structures of governance in Jerusalem, and perhaps also true that he allowed some Jews to join his military forces, permitting them to continue to observe their own religious customs (see Josephus, Ant. 11.338–339).

Alexander then proceeded on to Egypt, where he was crowned pharaoh in November of that same year (332). His first royal act, prompted by a dream, was to plan the building of a great port city (Alexandria). Especially from Egypt was the Hellenizing influence to radiate into the promised land over the succeeding centuries. It is no accident that the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek took place in the Jewish community in Egypt and from thence came to influence the believing community in Jerusalem, Judea, and even Galilee.

When finally Alexander engaged and defeated Darius III in 331, it became evident that he would be a world ruler quite unlike the Persian kings. His desire was for a unified world culture of a Hellenized type, to which end he forced ten thousand of his Greek soldiers to marry ten thousand Persian women. The experiment does not seem to have accomplished a great deal in itself, but it revealed the pattern that Alexander saw as desirable. His successors were to implement the policy of Hellenization to one degree or another over the coming century and a half.

It is not necessary to chronicle the long string of battles and victories Alexander was involved in during the last decade of his life (333–323), but several crucial points need to be made: First, Alexander conquered the entire region surrounding Israel, including Syria and Egypt. Second, the Hellenizing influence on the region was not limited to the time of Alexander’s conquests, but continued during the era of his successors, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, who consolidated the cultural impact of the Greek invasions. Third, while Alexander was a conqueror, and his true genius was as a field commander, his successors were rulers and administrators, and it is to them that we may credit the lion’s share of Hellenizing influence on Jewish peoples both in the Holy Land and in the Diaspora. Fourth, and perhaps the most crucial point to bear in mind, many Jews during the period of 332–67 B.C. came to believe the claim that Greek culture and language were superior forms of human culture and expression and sought to emulate that culture by (1) adopting Greek educational practices (including learning rhetoric); (2) embracing Greek views about physical education and training, to the extent of being willing to build gymnasia even in Israel and to participate in Olympic style games (even if it required surgery to remove the marks of circumcision!); (3) accepting Greek ideals about independence and democracy. Let us consider how this transpired during the time of Alexander’s successors, 323–167 B.C.

Alexander’s Successors

Ptolemy, a high-ranking Macedonian general and longtime confidant of Alexander, was perhaps the wisest of his successors. Rather than becoming embroiled in disputes over who would rule the entire Alexandrian empire, Ptolemy chose to try to gain control over the region he saw as most strategic and promising within that empire—Egypt. It was Ptolemy who stole the body of Alexander and took it to Egypt, where he constructed a great tomb in Alexandria for his former friend. Ptolemy was initially content with the title of satrap (a Persian term) over the region, until in 321 he was challenged for the territory by another former comrade of Alexander, Perdiccas. This attack on his realm was unsuccessful, and in due course it precipitated Ptolemy assuming the title of king in 305. To further legitimate his control over the region, each of the succeeding kings in the Ptolemaic dynasty was to assume the name Ptolemy, and the queens were all to call themselves Cleopatra. If one were to take Egypt as a test case as to whether Hellenization could happen successfully in a land with radically different language and customs and a long and proud history and heritage, the answer must be an emphatic yes.

In fact, Ptolemy II and III managed to take dominion over Cyrenaica, Cyprus, many of the Aegean isles, and parts of Asia Minor and Israel. The domestic policy of the Ptolemies was to leave in place as much of the native culture as possible, and also to leave control over the running of the economic and business affairs of the country in the hands of the natives. Yes, there was a centralized bureaucracy for the collection of taxes and for public works projects such as expanding the canal system to increase the amount of arable land, but this affected the day-to-day living of most Egyptians very little. More intrusive was the control of banking and of imports and exports, as well as of the production of various kinds of oil. But the Ptolemies knew that if they were to successfully Hellenize Egypt, they also had to Egyptianize themselves, and so they adopted and adapted many of the old pharaonic customs and habits.

From the outset, Ptolemy I’s plan was to make Egypt into a showplace of learning and culture for the Mediterranean world, and so he and his successors offered major inducements of patronage so that the artists and educators and rhetoricians of the Greek world would move to Alexandria. One of the great drawing cards was the development of an unparalleled library with its huge collections of scrolls. Soon enough, even great figures from Athens, such as Demetrius of Phalerum, relocated to Alexandria so that they could practice their philosophy and statecraft in this new Hellenistic environment. Like the Romans after them, the Ptolemies were wise enough to encourage the continuation of the traditional Egyptian cults without change, but they added to this their own patron deity, Sarapis, which involved a syncretism of Egyptian and Greek religion.

Through commerce more than military exploits, Egypt under the Ptolemies had considerable influence over what transpired in Israel. The Temple state, comprised of Judah and Jerusalem, was incorporated into the highly organized economic administration of the Ptolemies. The community was subject to the system of heavy taxation, royal monopolies, and land lease policy that the Ptolemies maintained.[4]

Jews also found life in Egypt acceptable as they were allowed to practice their own religion, as was also true in Israel. Naturally, the Ptolemaic influence waxed and waned as stronger and weaker rulers came and went. Near the very end of the Ptolemaic period there still stood the imposing figure of Cleopatra VII, who had revived the sagging economy and was well supported by her native peasants. Her downfall came, however, due to her ambition to become queen of the entire Mediterranean world, which led to the courting of first Julius Caesar and then Marc Antony. When both of these had died, and Octavian (i.e., Augustus) could not be enticed, Cleopatra sealed the fate of the Ptolemaic dynasty by taking her own life, thus in effect handing Egypt over to the rising power in the west—Rome.[5]

The other major dynasty deriving from the partitioning of the Alexandrian Empire was the Seleucid dynasty. This kingdom basically extended from Asia Minor east to the limits of Persian territory. In fact, this kingdom had two capitals (one at Antioch in Syria, the other at Seleucia on the Tigris in Mesopotamia). Like the Ptolemies, the Seleucids remained Greek in language and culture but in their style of autocratic rule they followed the example of their Persian predecessors, and perhaps most importantly, they began to be worshiped as gods as early as Antiochus II (who ruled from 261 to 247 B.C.). The major rulers of this dynasty were Seleucus I (312–280 B.C.), Antiochus I (280–261 B.C.), Antiochus II, Antiochus III (223–187 B.C.), and, most notoriously from a Jewish point of view, Antiochus IV (175–163 B.C.), who dubbed himself Epiphanes (god manifest). It is important to note that already in his day, Seleucus I began the policy of founding cities in Asia Minor designed to foster the spread of Hellenism in the region. As part of the same operation he settled Jews in these cities to whom he gave citizenship rights (Appian, Syriaca 57). Hellenized Jews at the turn of the third century B.C. were already being used as agents of Hellenization in Asia Minor. It is perhaps also of significance that Syrian Antioch proved to be the first city where Jewish and Gentile Christians seem to have shared fellowship meals together (cf. Galatians 1–2), and that same city is where the name Christianoi first seems to have been applied to Christians (Acts 11:26). In a city that had long sought to foster oikoumen (community) between various ethnic groups through the syncretizing influences of Hellenism, it is not surprising to find such things happening.

Furthermore, Greek cities were established in and around the Holy Land to further the influence of Hellenism on the region. In some cases this meant the reconstituting of existing cities such as Gaza or Acco (renamed Ptolemais) or Beth Shean (Scythopolis) or Gadara in a more Greek mold, and in other cases the founding of new cities in the Trans-Jordan such as Philadelphia, Pella, and Philotera. Each of these cities not only had a Greek constitution or political organization, but also was organized around the gymnasium with a focus on socializing the youth into Greek culture (the body of youth being called the eph beion ).

After 250 B.C. the Seleucids gradually lost control of the land east of the Euphrates, which made them concentrate all the more on the lands in the region of Syria and Asia Minor. The Seleucids had won a decisive victory at Paneion (Caesarea Philippi) over the Ptolemies in 198 B.C., and Israel was governed by these rulers from Antioch for the next fifty years. By the end of 198 the Seleucids, through Antiochus II, were in rather firm control of Israel militarily, and they went about dictating policy to the local town councils (synedrion ), siding with one and then the other of the Jewish priestly lines in these councils as they sought to have power. The one exception to this rule seems to be Jerusalem and a few square miles outside of it, which was called Judea. Under the Persians this city-state had had considerable internal autonomy (cf. Ezra 7:14), a policy that was largely continued by the Seleucids. It had been organized as a temple-state with the Pentateuch serving as its constitution. The high priest was in charge of this minuscule kingdom except, of course, for military matters, which rested in the hands of the imperial governor. Yet the reminder of Hayes and Mandell is salutary: Clearly there was far more Hellenization in the Jewish Temple state than 1 or 2 Maccabees or even Josephus openly acknowledged.[6] This was true both before and during the Maccabean era.

Less than nine years after the Seleucids gained a firm grip on the Holy Land, in 190 B.C. they suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Magnesia, causing them to lose control of Asia Minor to the rising power in the West—Rome. But the peace proved to be more costly to the Seleucids than the war, for the terms imposed in 188 at Apamea not only formalized the loss of Asia Minor but also forced on the Selecuids a huge tax to be paid twelve times a year. This enormous financial burden was to a large extent responsible for the way Antiochus IV related to the various candidates vying for the high priest’s post in Jerusalem. First there was the bribe that Jason (note the Greek name), the brother of the then existing Zadokite priest Onias III, offered to Antiochus to make him high priest. Antiochus accepted; he could hardly afford to do otherwise. But Jason had also promised, with the bribe, to accelerate the pace of the Hellenization of Judea. Only a few years later, in 171 B.C., a man named Menelaus, who could not even claim Zadokite heritage and who was an even more ardent Hellenizer, offered an even bigger bribe to have himself made high priest. This bribe was also accepted. It should also be kept in mind that tax farming was already a practice of both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids well before the Romans were involved in the region. The Romans in this matter, as well as in others, simply continued the practices of their predecessor rulers.

But Antiochus IV was not satisfied with controlling just Israel. He took his troops and attempted to annex Egypt, an effort that likely would have succeeded had not the Romans intervened on the side of the Ptolemies in 168 B.C. When news of this defeat reached Jerusalem, there was an attempt to reinstate Jason in the office of high priest, ousting Menelaus. Antiochus was in no mood for such treason, and on his way back from Egypt he demolished Jerusalem’s city walls, looted the temple treasury, and sought to give the city a new constitution, including a new cultic orientation. The temple was again placed under the control of Menelaus, only now the god to be worshiped there was Olympian Zeus, also identified as the Syrian god Ba’al Shammen (the lord of heaven). From December 167 to December 164 Judean Jews endured some of the darkest days in their history. The activities going on in the temple during this time came to be called the abomination of desolation, or put another way, the appalling sacrilege (cf. 1 Macc. 1:54; Dan. 11:31; Mark 13:14). The extent of the progress of Hellenization in Judea at this juncture is shown by the fact that the Judean aristocratic and educated classes in particular willingly consented to the Hellenising programme of Antiochus Epiphanes, and indeed promoted it.[7]

Needless to say, many Jews did not accept this desecration of their holy place and paid for the rejection of the royal decrees with their lives. The Hasmoneans[8] were a priestly family who rejected the radical Hellenizing policies of Menelaus. The elderly Mattathias not only refused to offer the sacrifice prescribed by Antiochus IV, but also killed a Jew and an officer on the spot who were undertaking such a sacrifice in the town of Modein. Mattathias immediately fled to the hills and died soon thereafter. His five sons, and in particular his son Judas, would lead the rebellion against Antiochus.

Judas’s guerrilla tactics proved successful against the much larger armies of Antiochus—so much so that Antiochus sought to come to terms with Judas (who had earned the nickname Maccabeus, hammer), having suffered several defeats in 166–165 B.C. In December of 165 Judas led his small army into Jerusalem and purified the temple. The ban on the worship of Yahweh was rescinded, and the traditional worship was resumed in the temple in Jerusalem in 164 even though Antiochus did not formally recognize Jewish religious liberty until 163. The purification and restoration of the cultus in Jerusalem is celebrated today as the Feast of Hanukkah (or Dedication). It is important to note that the Maccabees were not concerned just with the Jews of Judea. There must have been a considerable number of devout Jews in Galilee who had close fellowship with Judean Jews, because one of the first acts of the Maccabees after the restoration of the cult was to bring help to fellow-Jews in Galilee and Gilead who were oppressed by heathens, Simon going to Galilee and Judas to Gilead (1 Macc. 5:9–54).[9]

Yet the tenuous nature of Judaism in Galilee at this time seems to be demonstrated by the fact that Simon, after defeating the Gentiles in Galilee, led all the Jews and their families out of Galilee, settling them in Judea (1 Macc. 5:23). At that juncture the Maccabees were not prepared to Judaize Galilee or Gilead.

Yet having gained a taste for freedom, the Maccabees decided to struggle for political as well as religious independence, a struggle that was to continue for over twenty years. Judas won a major victory over the Seleucids at Beth Haran, northwest of Jerusalem in 161 B.C., but he lost his life soon thereafter in a subsequent battle at nearby Elsa. The youngest of the Maccabee brothers, Jonathan, succeeded Judas as the leader of the rebel army, a role he played for the next three years. In 157 the Seleucids made peace with Jonathan, and in 152 he was named high priest in Jerusalem as well as administrator of Judea. Jonathan engaged in a policy of diplomatic appeasement, supporting various Seleucid rulers or pretenders to the throne, all the while increasing the amount of territory under Jewish control. In 143 one of those pretenders, Tryphon, saw Jonathan as a threat to his own power and sought to crush him. Through deception Jonathan was taken prisoner near Beth Shean and later executed.

Illustration 1.3 The western retaining wall of the Herodian temple—known as the Wailing Wall.

Many of the Jewish insurgents had been uneasy with Jonathan because not only had he had dealings with the Seleucids, but he also owed his priesthood and administratorship to his negotiations with them. The case was different with Jonathan’s successor, Simon, the second son of Mattathias. He successfully negotiated a full peace treaty with the Seleucids in 142 B.C., making Judea politically independent, but only Simon among the original five brothers was still alive to celebrate that day. This peace treaty precipitated the expulsion of all Seleucid representatives from Jerusalem that same year. In 141 the Jewish people and their priests chose Simon to be their high priest and governor, and it was stated that this priesthood would stay in Simon’s family. All seemed well for almost six years, until Simon’s son-in-law assassinated him.

But the Maccabees were not to be shifted from power through an act of treachery. Simon’s youngest son, John Hyrcanus, was quickly established as the next ruler before his rivals could get their act together. He was to rule from 134 to 104 B.C. If Judas had been like a David to his people, it could be said that John Hyrcanus was like a Solomon, for he freed Judea from all remnants of Seleucid influence and expanded his realm to include Samaria, Idumea, parts of Galilee, and even some territory east of the Jordan. Furthermore, John deliberately set out to Judaize these territories and so reclaim their peoples as well as the land for Judaism. Though John never proclaimed himself king, he had coins struck with his name on them, and he ruled over a court, having designated himself high priest and leader of the Jewish nation.

We should note that John himself had a definite affinity for some Greek ideas, as is shown by his changing of his sons names from Hebrew names to Greek ones. His imitation of other world rulers, and of some of the Greek ideals, antagonized more traditional Jews who held to the earlier Hasmonean notions about purity. It was during this period that the group known as the Pharisees began to form and to protest the Hellenizing practices, which they saw as endangering Judaism.

Little can be said about Aristobulus I, the son and successor of John Hyrcanus, except that he married Salome Alexandra. His brother Alexander Janneus (again note the Greek name) became high priest and ruler through marrying his brother’s widow, Salome. He ruled from 103 to 76 B.C. and followed the expansionist and Judaizing practices of John Hyrcanus, extending the borders of Israel beyond even their Solomonic extent. His reign, however, was marred by his dictatorial manner and by the internal strife and intrigues that plagued the court. He lost his life while besieging a Greek city. His wife, Salome, succeeded him and ruled from 76 to 67, and she supported the Pharisees, who had become her closest advisors on religious matters.