GREEK ATHLETICS AND THE JEWS: 165 B.C.-A.D. 70

The period discussed begins with the program of Hellenistic reform imposed on the Jews of Syria, Palestine, and the Levant by the Seleucid Antiochus IV, and extends to the destruction of the Jewish state by Rome. The Maccabean and Hasidic reaction focused on the gymnasium and Greek athletics, the institutions which embodied the Greek ideal. Beginning about 25 B.C., Herod the Great also promoted Greek athletics in Palestine. According to Josephus, Greek sports offended long-standing Jewish sensibilities. Traditional scholarship, influenced by the anti-Hellenic nature of the Rabbinic tradition, has thought of Jews, especially those in Palestine, as rejecting Greek athletics.;The discussion focuses on Paul, a Jew of the Pharisaic tradition who used explicit athletic metaphors in his epistles to the Church. The question is stated: How can the apparent acceptance of Greek athletics by Paul in A.D. 50-68 be reconciled with the antagonistic attitude of the Jews toward the gymnasium in 165 B.C., and toward the Herodian athletic festivals? The writer offers a reanalysis of the literary material and interprets it with reference to archaeological data. After identifying the Hellenic athletic ideal and its potential for infecting other cultures, he proceeds to examine the athletic metaphors as they appear in the Pauline text. Jewish literary sources include the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Talmudic Literature, Josephus, and Philo. Important inscriptional evidence of Jewish participation in the life of the gymnasium is available from Hypaepa in Lydia, Teucheira and Cyrene in Cyrenaica, Coronea in Messenia, and Iasos in Caria. Evidence from Aradus, Philadelphia, Herodium, Caesarea, Jericho, and Petra suggests the presence of pre-Herodian and Herodian athletic buildings in the general area occupied by the Jews. Other evidence is examined, including that which indicates that synagogues were built close to or connected with gymnasia at Sardis and Delos. The most direct evidence from a papyrus document is the letter from Claudius to the Jews of Alexandria warning them concerning their conduct in connection with athletic festivals.;The thesis is that there was a diachronic accomodation to Greek athletics by Jews at two identifiable levels: (1) positive assimilation, and (2) selective acceptance. The conclusion is that, because of this accomodation, Paul's literary imagery offended neither his tradition nor his readers.;Recent scholarship, influenced by archaeological material, has been more willing to interpret Judaism in this period in more Hellenistic terms. The most recent monograph on the subject, Greek Athletics and the Jews by H. A. Harris (1976), declares that Jews in Palestine freely embraced Hellenic sports.