The critique of traditional religious symbols and practices is exemplified in Jeremiah’s temple sermon: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’…You are trusting in deceptive words to no avail” (Jer 7.3–8). In a situation in which the people are morally corrupt, even the temple—the religious institution par excellence—is devoid of value. In the absence of ethical behavior, all religious symbols and rituals are vacant.
As part of the prophets’ religious critique, the divine realm is reconceived such that Yahweh becomes the sole high god of all the nations. Rather than being the best of gods, as in older texts, Yahweh is the only god: “The LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King” (Jer 10.10). The gods of other nations are mere illusions. Second Isaiah (Isa 40–55) makes this point in the exilic oracles: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me” (Isa 46.9). In this new conception of God, the former anthropomorphic traits are purged: God is beyond human imagination, omniscient, and omnipresent. The prophetic critique produced the classical monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Scripturalization of Religion
DURING THE PREEXILIC PERIOD, religious knowledge circulated orally, particularly in the rites and festivals of family, local, and state religion. Elders, priests, and prophets were the primary religious authorities. Toward the end of the monarchical period a shift begins to occur in the locus of religious knowledge from oral tradition to the written word. 2 Kings 22 describes the discovery in the Jerusalem temple of “the book of the law” (sefer hatorah, probably an early version of the book of Deuteronomy) that authorizes King Josiah’s religious reforms. Deut 17.18–20 instructs the king to read a scroll that is “a copy of this law” throughout his days to ensure his just rule. In these scenes the authority of the written word begins to take the place of the prophets and priests—the latter are limited to copying the scroll or pronouncing on its authenticity. The image of God’s word as a textual product is vividly portrayed in the initiatory vision of the prophet Ezekiel, who becomes a prophet when God commands him to swallow a scroll: “I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey” (Ezek 3.3). God’s word has become a text, which the prophet recites to the people.
Henceforth the history of Israelite religion is inseparable from the history of the text and its interpretation. The canonical moment for this history, according to the biblical portrayal, is Ezra’s reading of “the book of the law of Moses” (sefer torah moshe, an early version of the Pentateuch, i.e., the first five books of the Bible) accompanied by learned men who “helped the people to understand the law” (Neh 8.1–7). The function of religious specialists was now to read and interpret the authoritative text to discern the true meaning of God’s textualized word. A striking example of the new concept of divine revelation during the Second Temple period 539 BCE–70 CE is Daniel’s vision in Dan 9, in which the pious Daniel reads the book of Jeremiah to learn when the redemption of Jerusalem will occur; then he prays, mourns, and fasts. The angel Gabriel arrives from heaven to reveal the scriptural secrets: “Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding” (Dan 9.22). God’s word is contained in a text, but it takes further divine revelation to understand its true meaning.
Once religion becomes textualized, each community needs a divinely inspired or authorized interpreter or class of interpreters to discern the scriptural secrets. The Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran and Jesus of Nazareth are prominent examples of inspired teachers of scriptural secrets during the latter part of the Second Temple period. New institutions arose, such as the Pharisees and rabbis, whose authority was rooted in their ability to interpret scripture. Commentary became the major vehicle for religious discourse. In Christianity “the Word be came flesh and lived among us” (Jn 1.14), but its gospel was also a text, and Christianity preserved its Jewish origins as a scriptural religion. By the end of the Second Temple period, Israelite religion had been transformed into a plurality of cultures of interpretation, including Essenes, Pharisees, Samaritans, and various types of Christians.
The Greco-Roman Context of the New Testament
DAVID E. AUNE
THE HYPHENATED ADJECTIVE “GRECO-ROMAN” reflects the convergence of two great political and cultural empires that together exercised a profound effect on Western civilization and on Christianity. The older centered in Greece and Macedonia and under Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) eventually came to control not only the lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean, but also much of central Asia. The younger, centered in the Italian peninsula and the regions surrounding the western Mediterranean, eventually took over a good deal of the empire conquered by Alexander. Each culture contributed important components to the Greco-Roman mix: the Romans contributed political organization, administrative skill, a sophisticated legal system, a nearly invincible army, and expert engineering; the Greeks contributed the liberal arts: philosophy, history, literature, oratory, art, and music.
Since the Greeks’ own self-designation was “Hellenes,” Greek culture from its prehistoric beginnings to the death of Alexander is generally referred to as “Hellenic,” a term describing the period before the Greeks developed any more comprehensive form of political union than the independent city-state (polis) and the league of relatively independent city-states. “Hellenism” as the designation for a historical era was coined by the great historian J. G. Droysen (1808–84) to describe the mixture of Greek and oriental culture that paved the way for Christianity. The term “Hellenism” has thus come to characterize the dominative interaction of Greek culture with other indigenous cultures of the ancient world during the period between Alexander and Cleopatra. The Hellenistic period (323–31 BCE), then, is conventionally regarded as beginning with the politically significant event of the death of Alexander the Great, though of course the phenomenon of hellenization predated that event. Alexander’s death was quickly followed by the fragmentation of his vast empire into a number of major and minor Hellenistic monarchies.
The Greco-Roman period, also referred to as the period of Roman Hellenism, began when the Hellenistic period ended, in 31 BCE. In that year, Octavian’s admiral Agrippa defeated Mark Antony in a decisive sea battle near Actium, Greece, on September 2. This was followed by the suicides of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII (the last pharaoh of the thirty-second dynasty) in Alexandria in 30. The year 31 BCE is the date of an important symbolic political event, but can not be considered in itself a culturally significant event, given the continued dominance of Hellenism during the Roman period.
Alexander and the Hellenistic Monarchies
THE TRANSITION FROM THE HELLENIC to the Hellenistic period began when Alexander III, who became king of Macedon when his father, Philip II, was assassinated in 336 BCE, determined to invade the sprawling but well-organized Persian Empire in retaliation for the destructive invasions of Ionia, Greece, and Macedonia by the Persian kings Darius I and his son Xerxes I a century and a half earlier. In 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Persian-controlled Asia Minor with a force of at least thirty thousand foot soldiers and five thousand cavalry and a retinue of hired philosophers and historians. Using the superior Macedonian phalanx formation and a Greek fleet, Alexander routed the Persian forces and their Greek mercenaries at the Granicus River, near the site of Troy, in June 334. Proceeding south along the coast of Asia Minor, he freed Greek cities from tyrants and oligarchies sponsored by Persia, established democracies, giving each city its own laws, and abolished the hated Persian tribute. He also besieged, captured, and punished cities that resisted.
Turning inland, he went northeast to Gordium (where he cut the famous Gordian knot with a sword), then southeast to Issus, where he defeated a large Persian force under Darius in October 333 (Callisthenes in Polybius 12.17–22). Marching south along
the coast of Palestine, he besieged the recalcitrant island city of Tyre (January–July 332), which fell after seven months (Arrian 2.16–24). After besieging and conquering Gaza, he entered Egypt, which he liberated from Persian domination. On November 14, 332, he became pharaoh of Egypt, traditionally regarded as an incarnation of Amon-Ra. According to Callisthenes, the oracle of Apollo at Didyma affirmed Alexander’s descent from Zeus (Strabo 17.1.43), and the prophet of Ammon at the Oasis of Siwah reportedly addressed Alexander as the son of Zeus (Plutarch, Alexander 27.5–11); thereafter he began to designate himself as Zeus-Ammon (following the traditional Greek interpretation of foreign cults that equated Amon-Ra with Zeus).
Alexander next met and decisively defeated Darius III and the Persian forces at Gaugamela on October 1, 331, near the Tigris River (Diodorus Siculus 17.61). He then assumed the Persian royal title Shahanshah (“King of kings”) and proceeded to Babylon and Susa, both of which surrendered immediately. In January 330, Alexander looted and destroyed Persepolis (in southern Iran), the immensely wealthy capital of the Persian Empire (Diodorus 17.70.1–73.2).
Alexander then set out to conquer central Asia, convinced that India was the last eastern region before the world-encircling ocean. An increasing number of Persians were incorporated into Alexander’s army because of the continuing need for reinforcements due to casualties and desertions (according to Arrian 7.7, thirty thousand young Persian soldiers joined Alexander’s army following the mutiny at Opis in 327 BCE). Eventually thousands of Indians became part of his force as well. The cavalry (comprised of both Macedonians and Greeks) was a key part of Alexander’s force, and Persians were not integrated into it until ca. 328 BCE (Arrian 4.17.3).
When Alexander died on June 10, 323, he had been on the march for eleven years, covered more than twenty thousand miles, and dealt with many mutinies and revolts, yet he had cobbled together a vast empire of about 2.1 million square miles; he had forever changed the political and cultural climate of the lands clustered around the eastern Mediterranean east to central Asia. Alexander founded a number of cities (the number is often exaggerated; Plutarch claims he founded seventy [On the Fortune of Alexander 328e]), at least seventeen of which are reliably attested, though little or nothing is known about most of them, and only three or four can be identified with modern localities. His foundations, invariably named Alexandria, were strategically located near large, rich oases close to existing Persian centers. These foundations were part of a deliberate colonization program; each city was populated by natives (“barbarians”) from the surrounding area (including some nomads) together with Greek or Macedonian settlers. Many of these were Greek veterans and Macedonian soldiers, who had completed their tour of duty; the “barbarians” were never integrated into city life as equals with the Greeks and Macedonians. Contrary to a widespread and ancient notion, popularized in Plutarch’s On the For tune of Alexander, Alexander did not intend the adoption of Greek culture as a tool for improving the native population. Alexandria in Egypt was the most famous of these foundations and was the farthest west; the foundation farthest east was Alexandria Eschate, a frontier city on the Jaxartes River (the modern Syr Darya in Uzbekistan). In Alexander’s lifetime new foundations were ruled by governors appointed by him and subject to him (or his satraps) and were unlike the democratically constituted Greek cities he had liberated.
The enormous Macedonian-Iranian empire forged by Alexander fell apart shortly after his unexpected death of natural causes in 323 BCE. The internecine conflicts that erupted among powerful members of Alexander’s court were temporarily resolved at the battle of Ipsus in 301, as a result of which Alexander’s empire was carved into three spheres of influence. The political turmoil in the ancient Near East during the third and second centuries BCE is presented from a Jewish perspective in the apocalyptic visions of Dan 11.1–12.13.
Antigonus I Monophthalmos, “the One-eyed” (382–301 BCE), one of Alexander’s generals, took control of Greece, Macedonia, and eventually Asia Minor and declared himself king in 306. He was killed at the decisive battle of Ipsus in 301, but his dynasty survived intact until 168. This Antigonid dynasty was involved in a series of unlucky Macedonian wars with Rome and finally came to an end with the defeat of Perseus (212–166 BCE), the last Antigonid, at the Battle of Pydna (June 22, 168), when Macedonia came under Roman rule.
Egypt and Palestine came under the control of Ptolemy Lagus (ca. 364–282 BCE), one of Alexander’s generals, who was initially appointed governor of Egypt after Alexander’s death by Perdiccas, his vizier. He became pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BCE, taking the Egyptian throne name Meryamun Setepenre (“Beloved of Amun, Chosen of Re”); he was also known as Ptolemy I Soter. Ptolemy Lagus had kidnapped the body of Alexander from Damascus in 322, when it was en route to Aegae in Macedonia, and interred it in Alexandria, Egypt, in order to give his claim legitimacy. Ptolemy I Soter was the founder of the thirty-second pharaonic dynasty, which lasted until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE.
Seleucus I Nicator (358–281 BCE), another of Alexander’s generals, established his control over Babylon, including all of Mesopotamia and the regions east to Afghanistan, in 312, the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The Seleucid kingdom began as the largest of the three major Hellenistic monarchies, and its disparate population included the largest number of peoples and languages. At its greatest extent, from western Anatolia to Afghanistan, it comprised about 1.3 million square miles of territory. Allied with Lysimachus, Seleucus I defeated Antigonus I at the battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE, taking over northern Syria and eastern Anatolia. The Seleucids followed Alexander’s example by founding Hellenistic cities, particularly in Asia Minor and Syria, each an island of Greek culture in a barbarian sea. The Seleucid Empire had two capitals, both Seleucid foundations, Antioch on the Orontes in Syria and Seleucia in Mesopotamia. Smaller Hellenistic monarchies were formed when local rulers broke away from Seleucid control, including the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum as well as Bithynia, Pontus, and Cappadocia. The Seleucids had a series of conflicts with Rome during the third and second centuries BCE but always came out second best. One of the more ambitious of the Seleucids, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–165 BCE), was turned back from invading Alexandria by the Roman governor Popilius Laenas. By 100, the Seleucid “Empire” had collapsed and consisted only of Antioch and a few Syrian cities, and the brief attempt at restoration by Antiochus XIII in 69 was embroiled in civil war. Pompey the Great ended the dynasty when he made Syria a Roman province in 63 BCE.
Roman Conquest of the Mediterranean
THE COMPLEX HISTORIES of each of the three major Hellenistic kingdoms is a story of intermittent conflict with Roman interests in the eastern Mediterranean that ended with the subjugation of all of them by Rome. Rome had gained complete political and economic control of the western Mediterranean by defeating its chief rival, Carthage, originally a Phoenician colony and the greatest naval power in the Mediterranean, in the Second Punic War (218–202 BCE). Eventually Rome permanently eliminated the economic competition of Carthage by completely destroying the North African city at the end of the Third Punic War (149–146). Rome had made a practice of forging mutual alliances with many Greek cities in the east, and when they were threatened by one or another of the Hellenistic kingdoms, they turned to Rome for help. For this reason, Rome turned eastward to halt the expansionist policies of Philip V of Macedonia (reigned 221–179), who was defeated in 197 BCE at Cynocephalae in Thessaly by the Roman general Titus Flamininus. By the mid-second century, cities of the Achaean League were trying to stop Roman expansion in Greece. Corinth, one of these cities, was punished with complete destruction in 146 (Polybius 28.3–11); replaced more than a century later by Julius Caesar with a Roman colony in 44 BCE, it became the capital of the province of Achaea in 27. By the time Paul arrived in Corinth in 51 CE (Acts 18.1–17), the city was more Roman than Greek and had been completely rebuilt.
Rome had gradually organized the Mediterranean world into two types of provi
nces. Imperial provinces were controlled directly by the emperor through a praetor who headed the locally stationed Roman legion. Senatorial provinces were under the formal control of the Roman Senate and governed by proconsuls (former consuls or praetors). The power of provincial proconsuls was enormous, and they were frequently corrupt. The number of provinces increased over the years as Rome annexed more territory, turned regions nominally ruled by client kings into provinces, and subdivided larger provinces for more effective management. At the end of the Roman Republic (ca. 29 CE), there were fifteen Republican provinces; when Augustus died in 14 CE, there were thirty-one Roman provinces; by 120, the number had grown to forty-nine. When Herod Archelaus was deposed in 6 CE, Judea temporarily became a Roman province governed by a series of equestrian prefects, including Pontius Pilatus (ca. 26–37 CE), who was appointed by Tiberius but eventually recalled for incompetence.
The Spread of Koine Greek
ALEXANDER, LIKE HIS FATHER, PHILIP II, made Attic Greek, the dialect of Athens, the official language of his court and his diplomatic correspondence. A form of the language that developed after that time became known as Koine (“common”), or Hellenistic, Greek. The Greeks in Alexander’s army and navy were drawn from all over the Greek world (Quintus Curtius Rufus 5.39; Diodorus Siculus 17.17.3), and Koine Greek became their common dialect. Because Greek language and culture were thought superior to indigenous languages and cultures, Koine quickly became the spoken and written language of the ruling elite as well as of upwardly mo bile natives. Following the death of Alexander in 323 BCE, Koine Greek became the official language of the three major Hellenistic kingdoms.
Two languages were used in the administration of the sixteen eastern Roman provinces, Latin and Greek. Latin was the language of administration; it was used for communication between the central government and Roman magistrates, between Roman magistrates and Roman colonies, and when Roman citizens were involved. The language of the native population was nearly always Greek. The language of the NT is Koine Greek, though different linguistic registers are evident. The Gospels of Mark and John belong to the lowest level, Luke-Acts to an intermediate level, and Hebrews and 1 Peter to the highest level.
HarperCollins Study Bible Page 7