Not Hellenes but Philistines? The Maccabees and Josephus defining the 'Other'

Journal of Jewish Studies

Volumn 53, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 246-263

  Lieu, Judith ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 60949600462     PISSN: 00222097     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.18647/2425/JJS-2002     Document Type: Review

References (54)

1. In August 2000 one guide informed us that 'Palestine', was introduced after the Arab invasions-which is simply wrong-another dated it after the Bar Kochba revolt-which can be justified by the introduction in the mid-second century of the name as an official designation in the ensuing reorganisation of the provincial structure of the area. L. Feldman, 'Some Observations on the Name of Palestine', HUCA 61 (1990), pp. 1-23
2. 'Some Observations', p. 13; also repeated in the abstract on p. 1. Feldman attributes the change of name to Hadrian 'since he is, it would seem, responsible for a number of decrees that sought to crush the national and religious spirit of the Jews' (p. 19)
3. M. Noth, 'Zur Geschichte des Namens Palästina', ZDPV 62 (1939), pp. 125-44, 143
4. K. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (Routledge, London, 1996)
5. Invention of Ancient Israel, p. 137. Whitelam appeals to a few Ancient Near Eastern sources but does not discuss the geographical extent which is indicated in them, an issue which occupies most other discussions of the issue
6. M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine [sic] during the Early Hellenistic Period (SCM, London, 1974)
7. F. Millar, The Roman Near East 31 BC-AD 337 (Harvard UP, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1993)
8. So OED 'Hellenise' s.v. 1b which quotes the Preface of Arnold's Cult and Anarchy (1875), p. 47: 'Now, and for us it is a time to Hellenise and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraised too much, and have over-valued doing'. See also T. Rajak, 'Jews and Greeks: the invention and exploitation of polarities in the nineteenth century', in M. Biddiss and M. Wyke, eds, The Uses and Abuses of Antiquity (P. Lang, Bern, 1999). pp. 57-77
9. See the special number of Poetics Today 19.1-2 (1998); T. Rajak, 'Jews and Greeks'
10. OED s.v. A4 quoting M. Arnold, Essays Critic., Heine (1865), p. 157; but cf. also the quotation from The Quarterly Review (April 1899), p. 438: '"Philistinism", after all, stands for two great habits, decency and order'
11. M. Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985 (Free Assoc., London, 1987). The discussion in M. Lefkowitz and G. McL. Rogers, Black Athena Revisited (Univ. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1996) does not directly address our concerns. Rajak, 'Jews and Greeks', p. 57 also notes the significance of Bernal
12. Black Athena, p. 449. Most discussions assume it is an Aramaic dialect
13. For references see Table 2 at the end of this paper
14. 2 Macc. 4:21; 14:26 of political disloyalty
15. It is a hapax, otherwise occuring only in a quotation of this passage in Origen's, Exhort. ad Mart. 22
16. On the ambiguities of 'Greek' in 2 Maccabees see T. Rajak, 'The Hasmonaeans and the Uses of Hellenism', in P. Davies and R. White, A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History (JSOT.SS 100; Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1990), pp. 261-80
17. Y. Amir, The Term (IOUDAISMOS): A Study in Jewish-Hellenistic Self-Definition', Immanuel 14 (1982), pp. 34-41
18. More ambiguous is 8:1, but this should not be read in the light of the remarkably similar sounding words of Paul in Gal. 1:13-14
19. See J. W. van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People (S.JSJ 57; Brill, Leiden, 1997)
20. But 5:7 is in the mouth of Antiochus, so perhaps not a self-definition
21. The NRSV reads 'Israelites' without comment
22. At 6:2 Sinaiticus reads
23. 'Israel' appears about 65 times in 1 Macc., 5 times in 2 Macc., 8 times in 3 Macc., and once in 4 Macc
24. 4 Macc. speaks of the Jews as an
25. 3:36, 45; 10:12; 1:38; 2:7; 3:36; cf. 15:33; at 3:36 they are alternative readings
26. So 4Q174 Florileg. where Deut. 23:3-4 is expanded by 'the foreigner and the ger.' Cf. 4Q513 frags. 1-2 II. 1.2
27. On the development of the way these women are viewed within Ezra and Nehemiah (MT) see H. Zlotnick-Sivan, The Silent Women of Yehud: Notes on Ezra 9-10', JJS 51 (2000), pp. 3-18
28. At 3:24 1 Macc. does refer to the (only here in 1 Macc.)
29. So J. A. Goldstein, I Maccabees (A.B. 41; Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1976). p. 270
30. See the discussion by R. de Vaux, 'Les Philistins dans la Septante', in J. Schreiner, ed., Wort, Lied und Gottesspruch: Beiträge zur Septuaginta: Festschrift für Jospeh Ziegler (Echter Verlag, Wurzburg, 1972), pp. 185-94
31. So J. Brug, A Literary and Archaeological Study of the Philistines (BARInt Ser. 265; Oxford, 1985), pp. 9-10
32. T. Dothan and R. L. Cohn, The Philistines as Other: Biblical Rhetoric and Archaeological Reality', in L. Silberstein and R. L. Cohn, eds., The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity (New York U.P., New York and London, 1994), pp. 61-73
33. Another expansion of the MT; on this see H. Jacobson, A Commentary On Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (AGAJU 31; Brill, Leiden, 1996), vol. II, pp. 735-36
34. On the question of the identity of these gods, see Millar, Roman Near East, pp. 357-58
35. On Josephus' tendentious use of 1 Maccabees see I. M. Gafni, 'Josephus and 1 Mccabees', in L. Feldman and G. Hata, eds., Josephus, the Bible, and History (Wayne State UP, Detroit, 1989), pp. 116-31; his last alteration accords with the martyrological interest noted by Gafni
36. E.g. Thucydides, Hist. IV.86.5; Plutarch, Tit. Flamm. 2.5; Caes. 56.8
37. Prior to patristic authors, Cassius Dio (20) and Plutarch (19) come closest to Josephus in frequency. Some of these examples have been noted by G. Delling, Die Bewältigung der Diasporasituation durch das hellenistische Judentum (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1987), p. 14, but see below, p. 259 for a criticism of Delling's interpretation
38. See P. Spilsbury, The Image of the Jew in Flavius Josephus' Paraphrase of the Bible (TSAJ 69; Mohr, Tübingen, 1998), p. 12
39. Cf. B.J VI. 9.3 [427] for the exclusion of foreigners from the Passover
40. Cf. B.J. I.11.6 [229]. At. A.J XV.11.5 [147] is used; the surviving inscription uses
41. He also uses A.J. XI.5.3-4 [140, 145, 151]
42. As often noted, this appears to draw on Neh. 13:28 but is dated about a century later; see R. Coggins, 'The Samaritans in Josephus', in L. Feldman and G. Hata, eds., Josephus, Judaism and Christianity (Brill, Leiden, 1987), pp. 257-73, 262
43. L. Feldman, Studies in Josephus' Rewritten Bible (S.JSJ 58; Brill, Leiden, 1998), p. 544, argues that Josephus handles the issue of intermarriage with some dexterity, avoiding pagan charges of misanthropy; these examples give some support to his claim that Josephus puts a stress on the avoidance of passion as the rationale, but also suggest that the concern would not have seemed unreasonable to his readers. See also Spilsbury, Image of the Jew, pp. 77, 144-45
44. Ctr. G. Delling, Die Bewältigung, p. 14
45. There is no obvious explanation and considerable uneveness in the LXX manuscript tradition in these early references. Aquila and Symmachus also use or on some occasions where the LXX uses , particularly in the Psalms
46. Josephus does not name the other seven at this point, although he does so in the following sentence where he explains that only their names are known because they were destroyed in the Ethiopic war. E. Bickerman shows that the argument of the loss of the real name is a Greek strategy: E. Bickerman, 'Origines Gentium', Class. Philol. 47 (1952), pp. 65-81, 75
47. Feldman, 'Some Observations', pp. 11-12, explains the last of these as Josephus' use of a geographical rather than a political term out of concern for Roman sensitivities
48. Thus the periphrastic 'the land of the Philistines' is used in the narratives of the 'Philistine period'. Compare the way that Josephus uses only as the name of the land and otherwise uses periphrastic formulations for 'the land of the Hebrews' or 'the land of the Israelites': Spilsbury, Image of the Jew, pp. 39-40
49. Josephus uses the term only twice
50. Stern, GLAJJ I, pp. 348-49
51. On the rabbinic sources see Keel et al., One und Landschaften, vol. I, p. 282
52. Stern, GLAJJ II, p. 523
53. Siegert and Roulet, Prédications Synagogales, p. 216
54. See Eusebius, Dem Evang. III.2.40, where Isaiah 11:10 is interpreted of the conversion of 'the foreign nations, barbarians and Greeks, fierce and wild men'