Topic 10 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
Alexander and Hellenism
When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BCE at the age of 32, he had conquered an empire stretching from Greece to the borders of India in just over a decade. More consequential than any of his military victories was what he left behind: Hellenism - the spread of Greek language, Greek culture, Greek philosophy, and Greek ways of organizing social life across the entire ancient Near East. This cultural transformation shaped the world the New Testament was written in more profoundly than any political event between the Testaments.
The practical consequences for Judaism were immediate and lasting. Greek became the common language of the eastern Mediterranean, which is why the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek (the Septuagint) in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE, and why every book of the New Testament was written in Greek rather than Hebrew or Aramaic. Jewish communities throughout the diaspora increasingly conducted their religious and civic life in Greek. By the time Paul wrote his letters, he could address communities from Corinth to Rome to Colossae in a single shared language.
But Hellenism also created a cultural and religious crisis for Jewish communities. Greek culture brought with it Greek religion, Greek philosophy, Greek athletics, Greek sexual ethics, and Greek political organization - all of which conflicted in various ways with Jewish practice and identity. How should a faithful Jew live in a world saturated with Greek culture? This question divided Jewish communities sharply. Some embraced Hellenism enthusiastically, adopting Greek names, sending their sons to Greek gymnasiums, and minimizing the distinctive practices that set Jews apart. Others resisted fiercely, insisting that Torah observance, circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath keeping were non-negotiable markers of Jewish identity.
The tension between accommodation and resistance was not merely cultural. It was theological. The question was whether Israel's God was truly the God of all creation - in which case engagement with the wider world was appropriate - or whether Israel's distinctive identity required separation from the cultures surrounding it. That tension runs through the entire intertestamental period and was still very much alive in the world Jesus entered. The Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots all represent different answers to the question of how to be Jewish in a Hellenistic and then Roman world.