Jewish Paideia: Greek Education in the Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees
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The substantial corpus of Jewish literature surviving in Greek shows that some Jews appropriated Greek literature and philosophy in highly sophisticated ways. This article argues that Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees are examples of a Jewish paideia, a Jewish cultural literacy in Greek. This Jewish paideia was indebted to the language, literary forms, and philosophy of Hellas, but was set apart by endorsing the Torah as its foundation text. The difference between Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees is not in their appropriation of Greek paideia but rather in how they endorse the Greek Torah in relation to the ideals of Greek paideia. The Letter of Aristeas invokes the ideals of Greek paideia to substantiate a Jewish paideia while 2 Maccabees places Jewish ideals in competition with those of Athens. Both works, however, articulate a Jewish paideia.
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2
Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) is driven by the question: “how did Jews accommodate themselves to the larger cultural world of the Mediterranean while at the same time reasserting the character of their own heritage within it?” (xiv); similarly, John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 261. In ancient sources Jews are often referred to as a race of philosophers (Herodotus, Hist. 1.131; Strabo, Geogr. 16.35; cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.181-182; Origen, Cels. 1.15). Numenius of Apamea famously declared in the second century ce: “For what is Plato, but Moses speaking Attic?” (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.22.150.4).
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3
Carl R. Holladay, “Jewish Responses to Hellenistic Culture in Early Ptolemaic Egypt” in Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, ed. P. Bilde, shc 3 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1992), 139-63, here 144.
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Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (New York: Routledge, 2003), 13-35; Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 51-53.
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Cited by Cicero, Nat. d. 1.32. Cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.1-19.
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Gregory E. Sterling, “Philosophy as the Handmaid of Wisdom: Philosophy in the Exegetical Traditions of Alexandrian Jews,” in Religiöse Philosophie und philosophische Religion der frühen Kaiserzeit (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 67-98, here 84. Sterling cites even more evidence for monistic conceptions of the divine in antiquity.
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16
John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE-117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 143.
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Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 259-60. Wright argues that Aristeas’s critique is also more mild than the more vitriolic criticism of gentile idolatry found in Wisdom of Solomon and the Epistle of Jeremiah.
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Johnson, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity, 37.
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Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.80-81. Diogenes claimed, “For in learning [εὐπαίδ and versatility he has no equal.” Cf. Cicero, Fin. 5.19.53-54. Unfortunately, none of Demetrius’s writings have survived.
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34
Cicero, Rep. 2.1.2 claims that the law of Athens “was revived by the learned man from Phalerum, Demetrius.”
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35
Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria 1:114-15; Aelian, Misc. Hist. 3.17.
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36
See Aristobulus, frag. 3 (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 13.12.1; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.22.150); cf. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.154-156. Philo employs this strategy to appropriate Zeno (Prob. 57), but not Plato. On this issue in Philo, see Gregory E. Sterling, “Platonizing Moses: Philo and Middle Platonism,” SPhiloA 5 (1993): 96-111, esp. 101.
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Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, 57. She refers to Plato’s Republic as the source of the twelve tribes discussion, but never cites an explicit passage. The only reference to twelve tribes in the ideal city of Plato that I can find is in the Laws (745d-e). Still, her point stands. She also notes that this connection is further strengthened by the description of Jerusalem “as the ideal Greek polis in the Travelogue” (Let. Aris. 83-120). It is interesting to observe that Plato’s logic in the Laws is explicitly theological. The reason for twelve tribes was to reflect the twelve gods, and this was a deviation from the ten tribe division in Athens at the time. See Charlotte R. Long, The Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 176. Cf. Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 151-53 where he identifies a similar focus on twelve tribes in Hecataeus of Abdera and Philo (Fug. 183-184; Mos. 1.188-190).
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Xenophon, Mem. 1.6.14; Aristotle, Eth. nic. 1124a; Herodotus, Hist. 1.30; Aristophanes, Eq. 185, 735; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 3.89.
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H. Gregory Snyder, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews, and Christians (New York: Routledge, 2000), on Epicurean (53-56), peripatetic (82-86), and Platonist epitomes (107). Epicureans had a particular affinity for epitomes as aids to memorization. Specific examples of epitomes are typically summaries of teachings rather than narratives. See, for example, Alcinous’s Didaskalikos which is a summary of Platonic doctrine. Also the Diatribes of Epictetus which are based on Arrian’s lecture notes (Diatr. 1.1).
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55
Getzel M. Cohen, “The ‘Antiochenes in Jerusalem’: Again,” in Pursuing the Text: Studies in Honor of Ben Zion Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. John C. Reeves and John Kampen, JSOTSup 184 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 243-59 applies Winston Churchill’s famous description of 1939 Russia to 2 Macc 4:9: “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (243). As Cohen points out, there are numerous ways to interpret this passage depending on how one reconstructs the political relationship between Jerusalem and Antiochus iv, among other issues. I find the parallels between 2 Macc 4:9 and the Tyriaion inscription instructive, as noted by Nigel M. Kennell, “New Light on 2 Maccabees 4:7-15,” jjs56 (2005): 10-24 alongside the appropriately cautious commentary of Robert Doran 2 Maccabees, 96-101.
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Christine E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 19-44.
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Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities, 46-67. See, e.g., Sir 11:34; Philo, Virt. 102-104; Praem. 152; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.209-210, 259; 3 Macc 3:3-10.
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Jewish Paideia: Greek Education in the Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismSearch for other papers by Tyler A. Stewart in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
The substantial corpus of Jewish literature surviving in Greek shows that some Jews appropriated Greek literature and philosophy in highly sophisticated ways. This article argues that Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees are examples of a Jewish paideia, a Jewish cultural literacy in Greek. This Jewish paideia was indebted to the language, literary forms, and philosophy of Hellas, but was set apart by endorsing the Torah as its foundation text. The difference between Letter of Aristeas and 2 Maccabees is not in their appropriation of Greek paideia but rather in how they endorse the Greek Torah in relation to the ideals of Greek paideia. The Letter of Aristeas invokes the ideals of Greek paideia to substantiate a Jewish paideia while 2 Maccabees places Jewish ideals in competition with those of Athens. Both works, however, articulate a Jewish paideia.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 422 | 81 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 327 | 16 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 190 | 40 | 3 |