They had a fascination with Egypt since their original sojourn there, and the large Jewish community in Alexandria also provided a kinship with them. Nevertheless, the Jews of Alexandria were very proud of their accomplishments and felt that Alexandria was more entitled to the Temple than Jerusalem. The Jews were super-Germans, super-Socialists, and are super-Americans, because the burden is upon them to prove themselves. Many Hellenists consider themselves Reconstructionists. After Acts 6, the Hellenists appear again in Acts 9:29, when Paul “talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him” in Jerusalem. Perhaps the reason was because they saw that the translation would open the door for usurpers and new religions claiming to supplant or succeed the Torah. The Talmud (Menachos 109b) describes a synagogue of immense proportions that the community built. Jews true to Judaism were an increasingly shrinking island awash in a sea of Greek culture. Despite being Jewish, the Hellenists had adopted Greek cultural elements and spoke Greek. One of the reasons the Protestants departed from the Catholic Church many centuries later was because Luther and others complained about that mistranslation. Only the Oral Law — the transmission and interpretation of the Torah, which later became written down and called the Talmud – would remain a “sealed book.”. It had 8-10,000 seats. In Jewish history, there are a number of such aberrations, of great Jewish communities that looked like they would last forever, and then it was as if somebody just pulled the plug on them. Consequently, the emperor of the southern kingdom, Ptolemy,[1] commissioned the first translation of the Torah into a foreign language: Greek. Justin Martyr was a key figure during this period who helped reconcile Hellenism with Christian teachings. Copyright © JewishHistory.com & The Destiny Foundation. Language is an important issue, but it is not the only issue separating the Greek from Judean Jew. Our great temptation is that we may compromise and live as Hellenists or Humanists, and lose the opportunity to bring God's life-transforming love and truth to a spiritually needy world. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. As such, "they [the 'Hellenists'] maintained a more liberal outlook than the 'Hebrews,' including the apostles" (F.F. That is just one example. Watch. However, from the second century BCE on the Torah became the open book for the world, which it is today. He found about 700 such variations — and he had an explanation in every one of the places why they did it. In the ancient world, the Jews and some Arabs were the only people who were circumcised. The Hellenistic Period is a part of the Ancient Period for the European and Near Asian space. Hellenistic Culture The influence of Greek language, philosophy and culture on Jews and early Christians. This is the basic translation of the Bible that much of the non-Jewish world has today. Alexander the Great, who was taught by Aristotle, devoted his life to … In 146 BCE the Hellenistic region became a Protectorate of Rome; it was then that Romans began imitating Hellenic (Greek) clothing, religion, and ideas. What did the Hellenistic culture believe in? Maimonides identifies a number of places where the basic ideas of Christianity are based simply on bad knowledge of Hebrew or on the lack of a translation. It was a dynamic phenomenon, with the ever-­evolving Hellenistic (“Greek‑like”) culture continually becoming the raw material for new syntheses with other native cultures not yet under its sway. 0 0 1. The situation was similar to the way the Jews of New York sometimes feel vis-a-vis anywhere else in the world. How did Hellenism positively and negatively impact the Jews? 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