An Overview of the Volume

Animosity and enmity against those believing in the biblical God Yhwh is old and deeply rooted. Already Exodus 1 tells of Pharaoh's attempts to decimate the "Sons of Israel." On their way to Mount Sinai, Amalek comes to encounter them in battle (Exod 17:8). These are only two examples, signs of the start of a long history of persecution.

The brutal attack on the Nova Festival in October 2023, the following terrible war in Gaza, and the continuing assaults from Southern Lebanon on Israel have given rise to a wave of anti-Semitic declarations and manifestations in many parts of the world, unprecedented in recent years. It is within this context that our book gains special relevance. It appears amid a desire and a need to address, even on an academic level, the roots and the complexities of anti-Judaism.1

The present volume contains papers from two different occasions. The first one were the sessions of the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Program Unit on the annual meetings of the Society for Biblical Literature held in 2021 and 2022 in San Antonio and Denver organized by Barbara Schmitz and Frank Ueberschaer. The second one was the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Salzburg in July 2022. There, Benedikt Collinet and I chaired three sessions entitled "Antisemitism in Second Temple Literature" (on July 19th) including eight speakers all together. The sessions of these two conferences and of other congresses2 clearly attest that it is essential to deal with this topic. In the following I briefly introduce the contributions of this volume.3

The first two contributions deal with the book of Esther. Karin Finsterbusch starts by quoting the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as a basis for investigating "Antisemitic Motives for the Persecution of Jews in the Second Temple Period." She focuses first on Esther 3 and shows how the accusations increase in the Old Greek version vis-à-vis MT. In Haman's edict, Jews are additionally charged with conspiracy and blamed for things going wrong. Finsterbusch's second example is Philo's In Flaccum, which mentions several manifestations of anti-Semitism in connection with the pogrom in Alexandria in 38 CE.

More specifically, Helge Bezold and Kristin De Troyer concentrate on Esther 3:8 in the various textual traditions. They can prove in even more detail a development from the Hebrew to the Old Greek and further on to the Alpha Text which appears to be the latest version. The allegations against Jews start with their disobeying imperial law, continuing on to their general hostility, and ultimately to viewing them as "a warlike and rebellious people."

The next three articles treat the books of the Maccabees and Jewish identity. Jana Hock points to testimonies of inclusion and exclusion of Judean groups. First Maccabees 5:9-36 and 2 Macc 12:3-7 demonstrate that Judeans of Galilee and Gilead as well as of Joppa are understood as belonging to the "in-group." On the other hand, 1 Macc 5:55-62 and 2 Macc 14:18-30 provide examples for barring Judeans from being part of the same community, in the first instance Joseph and Azariah, in the second case Nicanor. This is a sign of the flexible boundaries.

Jan Willem van Henten investigates the techniques of characterization in 2 Maccabees. Its black-and-white pattern does not coincide with the distinction between Jews and others. Moreover, he presents bad and good characters in the book; the latter serve as "prototypes" offering orientation.

Jordan Schmidt's contribution on 2 Macc 7 fittingly follows. Therein, the mother and her seven sons appear as positive examples. Their faith, courage, and martyrdom are expressions of Jewish paideia. Especially the mother's speeches testify to her being a wisdom figure, using the motif of her birth pangs in a unique way as motivation for offering one's life on God's behalf, knowing that it is a "loan" upon which God will return on the investment.

Third Maccabees provides the focus of the two next articles. Stefan Pfeiffer, author of the very recent commentary on this book,4 develops a differentiated picture of the situation of the Jewish diaspora in Egypt in the volume's singular German contribution. There are three actors hostile to the Jews: the king starting the ethnocide, the council of his friends, and a part of the population of kingdom. Accordingly, the reasons for Jew-hatred vary. They are considered enemies of the state and reproached not to share common life. However, there are also Greek groups befriended with the Jews.

Frank Ueberschaer, an editor of this volume, similarly concentrates on the various social groups and their different attitudes towards the Jews in 3 Maccabees, systematically pointing out their characteristics. He reads it as a psychological study in the form of a piece of literature and thereby sheds light on the book's highly sophisticated view on different attitudes, their nuances, and changes in the course of the plot.

Seeking the reasons for the emerging anti-Judaism, Katell Berthelot investigates several early writers and succeeds in making a Stoic background plausible. Philosophers belonging to this school of thought are Posidonius of Apamea, Strabo, Diodorus, as well as, later, Apion and Euphrates. The universalism typical for this kind of philosophy perceives a contrast with the particular features of Judaism and thus becomes one source for the accusation of misanthropy against Jews and hostility towards them.

Sung Soo Hong analyses the term f??? in Philo's writings. It appears to form part of the Hellenistic philosophical discourse on exile, receiving even moral connotations, negatively as vice, positively as virtue. He also distinguishes, with Philo, two types of the negative "fleeing": one that permits returning home, and the other that indicates eternal banishment.

The excursus on the Jews in Tacitus's Historiae is the object of Torsten Jantsch's investigation. He situates it in the growing anti-Judaism during the Flavian era, resulting from the Jewish war and the conquest of Jerusalem. There is a clear difference regarding the stance towards the Jews between the earlier Roman sources, which are predominantly neutral, and later writers during the Flavian dynasty, when most of them evaluate Jewish characteristics like the Sabbath, circumcision, and imageless worship critically. Jantsch additionally attributes this significant change to Roman imperial propaganda.

The final contribution takes up this line, treating Juvenal and his Satira 14. Massimo Gargiulo focuses in his treatment of it on the concept of "hidden" (arcanus) and the teaching of secrets, regarded as a sign of misanthropy. Nevertheless, he can show that the roots for such transmission of mysteries may be seen in the motif of a "fountain of wisdom," present in several Jewish writings of the Second Temple period.

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The range of the articles of this volume is wide. They cover many aspects of Jew-hatred in antiquity. First signs of its emergence appeared in the third century BCE. The Esther texts clearly display a tendency of growing anti-Judaism. Although the dominant cultures showed contempt against other ethnic groups, too, the case of the Jews was distinct. They were perceived as very different, much more so than others.

The main reason for this lied in their religious orientation and the practices following from it. The laws of the Torah were more binding than those of the state - this created contrast and problems with official authorities and the majority of the population. Jews lived a "separate life" because of their dietary rules, circumcision, a tendency toward endogamy, and uncommon forms of worship. Outsiders often regarded this demeanor as rebellious, hostile, and segregationist and accused the Jews of misanthropy, disloyalty, and disobedience. Envy, competition, and some privileges may have been further reasons for viewing Jews critically and even coming to hate them.

Looking back upon these articles, one can perceive the fear emerging from the challenge to relate with such a different group. Many of those accusing Jews did not perceive the gift inherent to Judaism and its valuable traditions, but felt themselves confronted and questioned in their identity. Without dialogue, this naturally led to misunderstanding and enmity, and, as a consequence, to the fragile and endangered existence of those regarded from such a biased viewpoint as "strange" - a fate that accompanies and marks Jews and their lives even today.

Notes

Recent books dealing with this topic are Meyer-Blank, Michael. Glaube und Hass. Antisemitismus im Christentum. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2024; Rutishauser, Christian M. / Barbara Schmitz / Jan Woppowa (eds.). Jüdisch-christlicher Dialog. Ein Studienhandbuch für Lehre und Praxis. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2024 (UTB); see also the enlightening article of Benk, Andreas. "Christentum und Antisemitismus". In: BiKi 79/2 (2024) 62-69.