What is the Jewish attitude towards Greek? On the one hand, the Greek language attained a status in Jewish tradition that was unparalleled, being regarded as the purest language there was with the exception of Hebrew. Thus, according to the Rabbinic sages, the two languages that should be spoken in the land of Israel are Hebrew or Greek,[1] while the only language apart from Hebrew in which it was permissible for a sefer torah to be written, or for the book of Esther to be read, was Greek.[2] In Alexandria it is possible that the sefer torah was even read from, not in Hebrew, which most Jews no longer understood, but in the more familiar Greek, and that this unfamiliarity with the holy language was the impulse behind the writing of the Septuagint.[3] Greek was thought to be the language of poetry,[4] and was an ‘adornment’ for a young woman.[5] More than this, Greek mythology itself was far from unknown to the Jews of the ancient world; they lived in that world, where the Hellenistic culture was predominant, and they constantly encountered Greek mythology in literature, art, and other aspects of their life. Jewish-Hellenistic authors engaged with Greek myth in different ways, and while they were often critical of the myths, it cannot be denied that they were an integral part of their social context at this time.
On the other hand, the ‘Greeks’, in the form of the Hellenistic Syrian kingdom, and the Romans, as destroyers of the second temple and authors of the two thousand year exile and diaspora, were as conquerors and oppressors of the land of Israel and its people. Not only were they the physical adversaries however; they were also the spiritual enemy of Judaism, against whose enticements and customs rabbinic tradition warned. Judaism was in many ways directly opposed to the Greek way of life. To the Hebrew religion, with its emphasis upon purity and modesty, the Greek gods and stress upon nudity were violently distasteful and immoral. At the same time, the Greek way of life and learning was attractive and assimilation was a problem. Thus, there are references in the Mishnah and Talmud to a decree against studying “Greek wisdom”,[7] and the translation of the Hebrew bible into Greek, mentioned above, came to be regarded as a tragedy and is still mourned on the fast of the 10th of Tevet. There is, even today, a general suspicion of learning Greek at all; it is notable that the introductory Greek textbook written by David Schaps in Israel opens with an introduction entitled “Is Learning Greek permitted?”, discussing this question from the standpoint of Orthodox Judaism.[8]
How do these conflicting ideas translate into attitudes towards the classical world in later Judaism and modern Israel? I'll be sharing some thought
s about this in later blog posts, so watch this space...
[1] Talmud Bavli, Bava Kama 82b-83a
[2] Talmud Yerushalmi, Megilah 1:9; Maimonides on Mishnah Megilah 2:1
[3] See e.g. A. Momigliano The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography, Sather Classical Lectures, 54, Berkley: University of California Press, 1990, p. 25; Joseph Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, p.100.
[4] Talmud Yerushalmi Megilah 1:9.
[5] Talmud Yerushalmi, Peah 1.1, 15c; Sotah 9.16, 24c.
[6] See René Bloch, Moses und der Mythos: die Auseinandersetzung mit der griechischen Mythologie bei jüdisch-hellenistischen Autoren. Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, 145, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011; F. Siegert, Griechische Mythen im hellenistischen Judentum, in: R. von Haehling, ed., Griechische Mythologie und frühes Christentum. Die antiken Götter und der eine Gott, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005, pp. 132-152; Yaacov Shavit, The Reception of Greek Mythology in Modern Hebrew Culture, in: Asher Ovadiah, Hellenic and Jewish Arts, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1998, pp. 432-438.
[7] See Sotah 49.b and Saul Lieberman, The Alleged Ban on Greek Wisdom, in: Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, 1950, pp. 110-114.
[8] David Schaps, Yofioto Shel Yafet, Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1996, pp. v-vi.