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“Hellenistic Judaism” in the Works of Edwyn Robert Bevan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2013
Extract
Elias Bickerman did not like teleologies, and sought, by recognizing their influence, to resist “the teleological point of view,” which he thought he detected behind documents such as Daniel, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the works of Josephus. All are important source texts for the persecution of the Jews of Palestine under the Seleucid monarch Antiochus IV in the second century b.c.e. In their different ways, he believed, these accounts all arose “not out of historical, but out of theological or political considerations.” Adopting a more Rankean approach to the sources, Bickerman reached a very different interpretation of events. Focusing instead on clues regarding the infighting among factions at Jerusalem, he concluded that the Jews had, in effect, been the authors and even the agents of their own persecution. This conclusion still elicits controversy, not least because Bickerman was himself a Jew. In trying to account for this, the Israeli historian Victor Tcherikover thought he discerned the undue influence of, among others, the English scholar Edwyn Bevan—a name that to modern readers is likely to be less familiar than those of Bickerman or Tcherikover.
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References
1 Bickerman, Elias J., The God of the Maccabees: Studies on the Meaning and Origin of the Maccabean Revolt (trans. Moehring, Horst R.; SJLA; Leiden: Brill, 1979) 23Google Scholar.
2 Ibid. For the political character of the account of Josephus, see esp. 9–12. (For the original German edition of Bickerman's work, see idem, Der Gott der Makkabäer. Untersuchungen über Sinn und Ursprung der makkabäischen Erhebung [Berlin: Schocken, 1937].)
3 Tcherikover, Avigdor (Victor), Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (trans. Applebaum, S.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959) 473 n. 17Google Scholar, where Tcherikover points to the “particularly sharp emphasis” on the role of the “Jewish hellenizers” in the works of both Bevan and W. O. E. Oesterley. Other scholars have accounted for Bickerman's conclusions in different ways. Solomon Zeitlin suggested that Bickerman had been “carried away by the theories and ideas of Eduard Meyer,” an author “well known for his anti-Semitic tendencies” (“The Maccabean Struggle,” JQR 31 [1940] 199–204, at 199). More recently, Albert Baumgarten has argued that Bickerman was unduly influenced by personal experience of “the disastrously erroneous policies” of Jewish communists in his native Russia, and that in equating these modern communists with ancient Jewish hellenizers, Bickerman “succumbed to the pitfalls of anachronism” (“Elias Bickerman on the Hellenizing Reformers: A Case Study of an Unconvincing Case,” JQR 97 [2007] 149–79, esp. 160 and 167).
4 Murray, Gilbert, Four Stages of Greek Religion: Studies Based on a Course of Lectures Delivered in April 1912 at Columbia University (New York: Columbia University Press, 1912) xivGoogle Scholar.
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7 Murray, Gilbert and Webb, Clement C. J., “Bevan, Edwyn Robert (1870–1943),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (rev. Crawford, Michael H.) n.p.Google Scholar, accessed July 7, 2010, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31869. A striking recent exception to this general trend is Simon Sebag-Montefiore's Jerusalem: The Biography (London: Orion, 2011), which follows Bevan closely for the persecution under Antiochus. See esp. 60–64.
8 Bevan, Edwyn Robert, The House of Seleucus (2 vols.; London: Edward Arnold, 1902) 1:1Google Scholar.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: Strahan & Cadell, 1776–1789; repr., ed. J. B. Bury; 6 vols.; Everyman's Library; London: Dent, 1980) 6:548Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
12 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:2.
13 Ibid., 1:1.
14 Ibid., 1:v.
15 Ibid., 1:2.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 1:19.
20 Momigliano, Arnaldo D., “J. G. Droysen between Greeks and Jews,” History and Theory 9 (1970) 139–53Google Scholar, at 142.
21 “One's obligations to Droysen and Niese are . . . so constant and extensive, that they must in the majority of cases be taken for granted” (Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:vi).
22 I am very grateful to the reviewers at Harvard Theological Review for drawing my attention to Momigliano's use of Bouché-Leclercq's French translation of Droysen, in which “juif”(Jew) is repeatedly replaced with “Hindou” (Hindu) (Momigliano, “Droysen between Greeks and Jews”). This would seem to open up the intriguing possibility that Momigliano may have exaggerated Droysen's apparent indifference to the Jews in history. It may be noted, however, that Bevan—for whom the Jews were a matter of central concern—also used Bouché-Leclercq, as he acknowledged in House of Seleucus, 1:vi. While research in this interesting area may eventually modify Momigliano's assessment of Droysen vis-à-vis the Jews (though this is by no means certain), it does not affect the interpretations of either Bevan or of Droysen's underlying teleology offered below.
23 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:19.
24 Rajak, Tessa, The Jewish Dialogue with Rome: Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction (AGJU; Leiden: Brill, 2001) esp. 545–48Google Scholar.
25 Ibid., 535.
26 Ibid., 7.
27 Arnold, Matthew, Culture and Anarchy (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1869; repr., ed. J. Dover Wilson; Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2009) 120Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
28 Ibid., 120
29 Ibid., 114.
30 Ibid., 97.
31 Said, Edward W., Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978; repr., London: Penguin Classics, 2003) 224Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
32 Bernal, Martin, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (London: Vintage Books, 1991) 347Google Scholar. For a more balanced account of Arnold, cf. Gossman, Lionel, “Philhellenism and Antisemitism: Matthew Arnold and His German Models,” Comparative Literature 46 (1994) 1–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 247; see also 489 n. 18. It is important to point out, however, that while Tcherikover explicitly numbered Meyer among “modern anti-Semites,” he made no such charge against Bevan (ibid., 369).
34 Bevan, Edwyn Robert, “Hellenistic Judaism,” in The Legacy of Israel (ed. idem and Charles Singer; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927) 29–67Google Scholar, at 30.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:6.
38 Ibid., 1:7.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 1:10.
43 Bevan, Edwyn Robert, Jerusalem under the High-Priests: Five Lectures on the Period between Nehemiah and the New Testament (London: Edward Arnold, 1904) 41Google Scholar.
44 Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 104.
45 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 41.
46 Ibid.
47 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:11.
48 Ibid.
49 Bevan, Edwyn Robert, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” in The Hellenistic Age: Aspects of Hellenistic Civilization (ed. Bury, J. B.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1925) 81Google Scholar.
50 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:11–12 [italics in original].
51 Bevan, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 79–80.
52 Ibid., 80.
53 Ibid., 79.
54 In the earlier edition, Four Stages of Greek Religion (1912), Murray attributed the title of this chapter to “a conversation with Professor J. B. Bury.” See 7–8.
55 Murray, Gilbert, Five Stages of Greek Religion: Studies Based on a Course of Lectures Delivered in April 1912 at Columbia University (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925; repr., London: Watts & Co., 1935) 127Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
56 Ibid.
57 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:100.
58 See Schürer, Emil, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (trans. Macpherson, John; 5 vols.; Clark's Foreign Theological Library; New York: Scribner, 1891) 1:201Google Scholar.
59 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 2:153.
60 Schürer, History of the Jewish People, 1:202; see also Mathews, Shailer, “Antiochus Epiphanes and the Jewish State,” The Biblical World 14 (1899) 13–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 22, and Phillips Barry, “Antiochus Epiphanes,” JBL 29 (1910) 126–38, at 127.
61 Tarn, W. W., Hellenistic Civilisation (rev. with Griffiths, G. T.; 3rd ed.; London: Edward Arnold, 1927; repr., London: Edward Arnold, 1966) 33–34, 215Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
62 Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 316.
63 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 2:129.
64 Ibid., 2:169.
65 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 51.
66 Ibid., 50–51.
67 Ibid., 53.
68 Ibid., 50.
69 Ibid., 56.
70 Ibid., 63.
71 Ibid., 68.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid., 53; see Bevan, Edwyn Robert, “The Jews,” in The Roman Republic, 133–44 B.C. (ed. Cook, S. A., Adcock, F. E., and Charlesworth, M. P.; vol. 9 of CAH; 1st ed.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1932) 397–436Google Scholar, at 415.
74 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 38.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Bevan, “The Jews,” 419; see also Finkelstein, Louis, “The Pharisees: Their Origin and Their Philosophy,” HTR 22 (1929) 185–261CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 233. Needless to say, although it was once widely held, this view has always had its opponents, both in the context of Jewish ideas of resurrection and in the historical development of the Pharisees, and has undergone significant revision. See, for example, Levenson, Jon D., Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.
78 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 42.
79 Ibid., 43.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid., 39–40. See also Cavafy's 1919 poem, “Of the Hebrews (A.D. 50)” (Complete Poems, 93).
82 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 43.
83 Ibid., 44.
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Bevan, Edwyn Robert, Sibyls and Seers: A Survey of Some Ancient Theories of Revelation and Inspiration (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1928) 168Google Scholar.
87 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 46; see also Chadwick, Henry, “Philo and the Beginnings of Christian Thought,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (ed. Armstrong, A. H.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 148Google Scholar.
88 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 50.
89 Ibid., 51.
90 Ibid., 61.
91 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 247.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid., 489 n.18.
94 Ibid. See Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 128.
95 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 247.
96 Ibid., 241, citing Bevan, Edwyn Robert, “Syria and the Jews,” in Rome and the Mediterranean, 218–133 B.C. (ed. Cook, S. A., Adcock, F. E., and Charlesworth, M. P.; vol. 8 of CAH; 1st ed.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1930) 495–533Google Scholar, at 528. The other historians Tcherikover named are Emil Schürer, Eduard Meyer, and W. Kolbe.
97 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 489 n. 18.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Although this lies outside the passage cited by Tcherikover, it appears further down the same page (98) in Jerusalem under the High-Priests.
101 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 490. “Denn die Taten der Makkabäer sind nur darum ewig denkwürdig, weil sie die Rettung des Monotheismus bewirkten” (Bickerman, Der Gott der Makkabäer, 138; in the English translation see idem, God of the Maccabees, 92).
102 Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 490.
103 Albert Baumgarten provides a more concrete connection between the two men: Bickerman wrote to Bevan and several other scholars in 1933 (including Michael Rostovtzeff and Franz Cumont) in urgent search of work outside Germany (Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews: A Twentieth Century Tale [Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 131; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010] 119).
104 Bickerman, God of the Maccabees, 1.
105 Ibid., 87.
106 See, e.g., House of Seleucus, 2:172.
107 Tcherikover wrote that “throughout the entire brief period of the flourishing of Hellenism in Jerusalem, lust for profit and pursuit of power were among the most pronounced marks of the new movement” (Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 142).
108 Zeitlin, “Maccabean Struggle,” 199.
109 Ibid., 199 [italics in original].
110 Bickerman, God of the Maccabees, 87
111 Zeitlin, “Maccabean Struggle,” 203. For similar views, see Feldman, Louis, “How Much Hellenism in the Land of Israel?,” JSJ 33 (2002) 290–313Google Scholar, at 295; and Heinemann, Isaak, “Wer veranlasste den Glaubenszwang der Makkabäerzeit?,” MGWJ 82 (1938) 145–72Google Scholar, at 159.
112 Zeitlin, “Maccabean Struggle,” 201.
113 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 42.
114 McNeill, John T., “Catholic Modernism and Catholic Dogma,” The Biblical World 53 (1919) 507–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 511.
115 Ibid., 507.
116 Ibid., 510.
117 Ibid., 509.
118 For an account of the relevant background and wider meaning of the concept of Bildung, see Mosse, George L., German Jews beyond Judaism (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1985; repr., Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Although I have supplied the word “culture” here, this does not really do justice to the more subtle connotations of Bildung as it was understood at the time.
119 Sharot, Stephen, “Reform and Liberal Judaism in London: 1840–1940,” Jewish Social Studies 41 (1979) 211–28Google Scholar, at 213.
120 Langton, Daniel R., “Claude Montefiore and Christianity: Did the Founder of Anglo-Liberal Judaism Lean Too Far?,” JJS 50 (1999) 98–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 98. I am grateful to Professor Langton for supplying me with a copy of his essay.
121 Montefiore, Claude G., “The Religious Teaching of Jowett,” JQR 12 (1900) 299–377CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 376.
122 Ibid., 377.
123 Ibid., 375.
124 Montefiore, Claude G., Liberal Judaism and Hellenism, and Other Essays (London: MacMillan, 1918), 320Google Scholar.
125 Montefiore, “Religious Teaching of Jowett,” 375.
126 McNeill, “Catholic Modernism,” 511.
127 Montefiore, Liberal Judaism and Hellenism, 189.
128 Ibid., 190.
129 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 2:168 [italics in original].
130 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 79, echoing 2 Macc 4:12–13.
131 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 79.
132 Ibid.
133 Bevan, “Syria and the Jews,” 502.
134 Ibid., 502–3.
135 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 79.
136 “Von ernstem, schmerzlichen Ringen zwischen hellenischer Wissenschaft und jüdischer Frömmigkeit ist hier nichts zu spüren” (Heinemann, “Wer veranlasste den Glaubenszwang der Makkabäerzeit?,” 159). Bickerman acknowledged the importance of Heinemann's arguments (see God of the Maccabees, xii). Hengel, Martin, however, defended Bickerman (see Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period [trans. Bowden, John; 2 vols.; London: SCM Press, 1974] 1:299)Google Scholar. For a useful discussion of the arguments, see Baumgarten, Albert, “Elias Bickerman on the Hellenizing Reformers: A Case Study of an Unconvincing Case,” JQR 97 (2007) 149–79Google Scholar.
137 Millar, Fergus, “The Background to the Maccabean Revolution: Reflections on Martin Hengel's Judaism and Hellenism,” in The Greek World, the Jews, and the East (ed. Hannah M. Cotton and Guy M. Rogers; vol. 3 of Rome, the Greek World, and the East [collections of essays by Fergus Millar] [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006] 77Google Scholar.
138 Feldman, “How Much Hellenism,” 295–96.
139 Arnaldo D. Momigliano, review of Judentum und Hellenismus. Studien zu ihrer Begegnung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Palästinas bis zur Mitte des 2. Jh. v. Chr., by Hengel, Martin, JTS 21 (1970) 149–53Google Scholar.
140 Ibid., 150.
141 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 80.
142 See Heinemann, “Wer veranlasste den Glaubenszwang der Makkabäerzeit?,” 157–59.
143 Moore, George Foot, “Christian Writers on Judaism,” HTR 14 (1921) 197–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 245.
144 Droysen, Johann Gustav, Outline of the Principles of History (trans. Andrews, E. Benjamin; Boston: Ginn, 1893), 34Google Scholar.
145 Ibid., 10.
146 Ibid., 13.
147 Ibid.
148 Momigliano, “Droysen between Greeks and Jews,” 147. See above, n. 19.
149 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 31; for Hecataeus, see Stern, Menahem, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, Vol. 1: From Herodotus to Plutarch (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976) 20Google Scholar.
150 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 31; for Clearchus, see Stern, From Herodotus to Plutarch, 50.
151 Bevan, “Syria and the Jews,” 501.
152 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 127–28; see also Bevan, Edwyn Robert, “Syria and the Jews,” in Rome and the Mediterranean, 218–133 B.C. (ed. Cook, S. A., Adcock, F. E., and Charlesworth, M. P.; vol. 8 of CAH; 1st ed.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 532Google Scholar.
153 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 38.
154 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:15.
155 Bevan, “Syria and the Jews,” 533.
156 “Hellenistic Judaism,” 50.
157 Ibid.
158 Aristotle, Politics 1253a (trans. H. Rackham; LCL 264:13). For an anti-individualist interpretation of Greek political culture, see Martin, Luther H., “The Anti-Individualistic Ideology of Hellenistic Culture,” Numen 41 (1994) 117–40Google Scholar, at 24–31.
159 Bevan, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 99.
160 Bevan, House of Seleucus, 1:18.
161 Montefiore, Liberal Judaism and Hellenism, 327.
162 Bevan, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 105–6.
163 Bevan, “Hellenistic Judaism,” 38.
164 Bevan, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 106.
165 On Droysen see Burger, Thomas, “Droysen's Defense of Historiography: A Note,” History and Theory 16 (1977) 168–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 170; for Bevan see “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 106.
166 Here Bevan met regularly with prominent religious figures and scholars such as von Hügel, Montefiore, and Israel Abrahams. LSSR members gave papers, discussed points of similarity and difference between their faiths, and attempted to articulate possible responses to the common challenge of secularism. For the Society's origins, background, and aims, see Barmann, Lawrence F., “Confronting Secularization: Origins of the London Society for the Study of Religion,” CH 62 (1993) 22–40Google Scholar.
167 Bevan, “The Jews,” 436.
168 McGinn, Bernard, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979; repr., New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) 300Google Scholar. Page numbers are taken from the reprinted edition.
169 Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion, ix.
170 Dodds, E. R., “Plato and the Irrational,” JHS 65 (1945) 16–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 17.
171 Ibid.
172 Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951) 183Google Scholar.
173 Dodds, “Plato and the Irrational,” 16.
174 Ibid., 16 n. 2.
175 Joshua B. Stein, review of Claude Montefiore and Christianity, by Bowler, Maurice Gerald, JQR 82 (1992) 569–70Google Scholar, at 570.
176 Even as early as 1892, however, M. Friedländer had described Montefiore as “a writer filled with anti-Jewish ideas” whose “knowledge of Judaism seems to have been obtained from other than Jewish sources” (“Notes in Reply to My Critic,” JQR 4 [1892] 430–44, at 437, 432). For a summary of criticisms see Langton, “Claude Montefiore and Christianity,” 98–99.
177 Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 184.
178 Ibid., 224.
179 Ibid., 252–53.
180 McGlew, James F., “J. G. Droysen and the Aeschylean Hero,” CP 79 (1984) 1–14Google Scholar, at 13.
181 Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational, 254.
182 Ibid., 269 n. 107, citing Bevan, “Hellenistic Popular Philosophy,” 101.
183 Bevan, Jerusalem under the High-Priests, 53.
184 Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin Books, 1992) 3Google Scholar, citing Fackenheim, Emil L., God's Presence in History: Affirmations and Philosophical Reflections (New York: Harper and Row, 1972) 5–6Google Scholar.
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