Generations of scholars have debated the influence of Greco-Roman culture on Jewish society and the degree of its impact on Jewish material culture and religious practice in Palestine and the Diaspora of antiquity. Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity examines this phenomenon from the aftermath of Alexander’s conquest to the Byzantine era, offering a balanced view of the literary, epigraphical, and archeological evidence attesting to the process of Hellenization in Jewish life and its impact on several aspects of Judaism as we know it today. Lee Levine approaches this broad subject in three essays, each focusing on diverse issues in Jewish culture: Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period, rabbinic tradition, and the ancient synagogue. With his comprehensive and thorough knowledge of the intricate dynamics of the Jewish and Greco-Roman societies, the author demonstrates the complexities of Hellenization and its role in shaping many aspects of Jewish life—economic, social, political, cultural, and religious. He argues against oversimplification and encourages a more nuanced view, whereby the Jews of antiquity survived and prospered, despite the social and political upheavals of this era, emerging as perpetuators of their own Jewish traditions while open to change from the outside world.

This book examines the influence of Greco-Roman culture on Jewish society from the aftermath of Alexander’s conquest to the Byzantine era. It offers a balanced view of the literary, epigraphical, and archeological evidence attesting to the process of Hellenization in Jewish life and its impact on several aspects of Judaism as we know it today.

This book collects twenty two previously published essays and one new one by Erich S. Gruen who has written extensively on the literature and history of early Judaism and the experience of the Jews in the Greco-Roman world. His many articles on this subject have, however, appeared mostly in conference volumes and Festschriften, and have therefore not had wide circulation. By putting them together in a single work, this will bring the essays to the attention of a much broader scholarly readership and make them more readily available to students in the fields of ancient history and early Judaism. The pieces are quite varied, but develop a number of connected and related themes: Jewish identity in the pagan world, the literary representations by Jews and pagans of one another, the interconnections of Hellenism and Judaism, and the Jewish experience under Hellenistic monarchies and the Roman empire.

Presents a collection of 26 articles, with an introduction on "The Influence of Hellenism on Jews in Palestine in the Hellenistic Period.".

This book is a collection of essays that explore the variety of ways in which Jews in Israel responded to and appropriated Greek culture. In various ways the contributors provide corroborating evidence of the influence of Greek culture in Judea and Galilee, from before the Maccabean revolt on into the rabbinic period. At the same time, they probe the limits of that influence, the persistence of Semitic languages and thought patterns, and especially the exclusiveness of Jewish religion.

A collection of fifteen essays, most of them published previously. Ch. 6 (pp. 109-118), "Jews and Christians in Antioch at the End of the Fourth Century" [appeared in "Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries" (2000)], contrasts the vitriolic anti-Jewish polemics of John Chrysostom in regard to Judaizing with the attitude of the "Apostolic Constitutions" (material on ecclesiastical law). The latter, instead of denigrating the Jews, borrowed from them aspects of Judaism that local Christians found attractive. Ch. 12 (pp. 207-221), "Who Was Apion?" [unpublished], focuses on Apion's "scholarship" and writing, i.e. activities other than his anti-Jewish polemics. However, notes that Apion's self-proclaimed originality included his invention of the libel of Jewish cannibalism.

In these fictive creations, Jewish writers reinvented their own past, offering us vital insights into Jewish self-perception.