Hellenistic Jews

An excerpt from: Mussar. Section: Hellenistic Jews

When Israel fell to the Empire of Babylon, scripture documents a great number of Israelites fleeing to Egypt for asylum (2 Kings 25; Jeremiah 41). 

According to the historian Josephus, when Alexander the Great died, one of his generals (Ptolemy) seized Jerusalem and took many Jewish captives to Egypt (Josephus, Ant. 12:1:1). Josephus writes that Ptolemy’s successor: Ptolemy Philadelphus, negotiated with the High Priest of Jerusalem to obtain a Greek translation of the Torah for the Library of Alexandria. In exchange, he agreed to liberate many Jewish slaves and prisoners. Seventy-two Jewish translators were chosen for the endeavor, leading to the translation of the “Septuagint” – Latin for “70” (referring to the 72 translators). Alexandria became a center of one of the largest Jewish communities outside of Israel during the Second Temple period. The community in Egypt became so large, the book of 2 Maccabees is specifically addressed to them:

“The brethren, the Jews that be at Jerusalem and in the land of Judea, wish unto the brethren, the Jews that are throughout Egypt, health and peace…” – 2 Maccabbees 1:1

The community had a lavish synagogue, described in the Talmud as one of the great glories of the Jewish people:

“it is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Yehuda says: One who did not see the great synagogue of Alexandria of Egypt never saw the glory of Israel. They said that its structure was like a large basilica, with a colonnade within a colonnade. At times there were six hundred thousand men and another six hundred thousand men in it, twice the number of those who left Egypt. In it there were seventy-one golden chairs, corresponding to the seventy-one members of the Great Sanhedrin, each of which consisted of no less than twenty-one thousand talents of gold. And there was a wooden platform at the center. The sexton of the synagogue would stand on it, with the scarves in his hand. And because the synagogue was so large and the people could not hear the communal prayer, when the prayer leader reached the conclusion of a blessing requiring the people to answer amen, the sexton waved the scarf and all the people would answer amen.” – Talmud, Sukkot 51b.

The Alexandrian Jewish Community were culturally Greek, accepted Greek Philosophy, spoke Greek and used the Septuagint. They were Torah observant, while at the same time accepting of Greek culture. One mention is made of “Hellenistic Jews” in the New Testament, and is found in Acts 6. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was also a Hellenistic Jew.

Hellenistic Jews did not merely embrace Greek Philosophy. They held the conviction that major tenets were derived from the Torah itself. They believed that either the Greek philosophers appropriated principles first found in the Torah, or they genuinely arrived at their conclusions by way of logic and observation. If so, Greek Philosophy represented the “long way” – the account of wisdom derived through observation and logic, when such insights were made available and explicit to the Jewish people through the Torah and the Prophets.

The Alexandrian Jewish writer Aristoblus writes:

“It is evident that Plato imitated our Torah and that he had investigated thoroughly each of the elements in it. For it had been translated by others before before Demetrius Phalereus, before the conquests of Alexander and the Persians.” – Aristoblus; Fragment 3; quoted in Eusebius 12:12:1f

“And it seems to me that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato with great care follow him [Moses] in all respects.  They copy him when they say they hear the voice of God, and they contemplate the arrangement of the universe, so carefully made and so unceasingly held together by God.  – Aristoblus; Fragment 4; quoted in Eusebius 13:13:4