Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §9.3
'Hellenizers' or 'Hellenists'. Some such term certainly can be used for those
Judeans who supported the 'Hellenization' (2 Mace. 4.13) programme of
Antiochus Epiphanes, which provoked the Maccabean revolt, as described in
1 Mace. 1-2. As already noted, the term 'Judaism' emerged to describe the opposition
to 'Hellenization', understood as an attempt to dissolve the distinctives of
Israel's covenant tradition (Torah, circumcision, food laws). Although the terms
'Hellenizers' and 'Hellenists' were not actually used, they can serve for those
who supported a policy of rapprochement with what we might call 'international
Hellenism', including in one degree or another the Hasmonean and Herodian aristocracy.
108 There would be considerable overlap between them, their retainers
and those who settled in the Hellenistic cities on the Mediterranean coast
(Caesarea Maritima and Ptolemais, Galilee's nearest port) and in Transjordan
(the Decapolis, but including Scythopolis on the west bank), cities so characterised
because they were thoroughly Greek in political and social structure. In Galilee
itself the city of Sepphoris was rebuilt by Herod Antipas after its destruction
in the unrest of 4 BCE, and served as Galilee's capital till 18 CE, before Antipas
transferred his capital to the newly built Tiberias. 109 As we shall see below
(§9.6b), these are not properly to be described as 'Hellenistic cities', but there
was considerable hostility among ordinary Galileans towards these cities and
their more Hellenised residents.
Nor should we forget the large amorphous body who are in fact identified
simply as 'Hellenists' in the NT (Acts 6.1; 9.29; 11.20). Broadly speaking, the
term designates those influenced in significant degree by Greek language and
culture. Of course, as is now acknowledged, all Judaism was influenced by Hellenistic
culture in some measure; it was simply the international culture of the
day. 110 But some were evidently so Greek-ized that they were known as 'Greekspeakers'
= 'Hellenists' (that is, in an Aramaic context they probably could speak
only Greek). 111 They were probably Jews returned from the Greek diaspora (in
effect all Jews living in the western diaspora would have been 'Hellenists'). And
in Jerusalem they seem to have had their own assemblies/synagogue(s), where,
presumably, the language of communication was Greek (Acts 6.1, 9). These too
have to be included within Palestinian Judaism in the first century.
(6) A survey of groups within the land of Israel in the first century cannot
108. The ambivalence of feelings towards Herod the Great in particular is illustrated by
Josephus' designation of him as a 'half-Jew', because of his Idumean birth {Ant. 14.430).
109. See J. F. Strange, 'Sepphoris' ABD 5.1090-93 and 'Tiberias', ABD 6.547-49; also
J. Murphy-O'Connor, The Holy Land (Oxford: Oxford University, 4 1998) 412-18 and 455-60;
on Sepphoris see also C. L. Meyers and E. M. Meyers, 'Sepphoris', OEANE 4.527-36.
110. See M. Hengel, The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century after Christ
(London: SCM, 1989).
111. See further below, vol. 2.
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