by Lewis Loflin
Judah had been under Persian rule from 520 B.C.E. until Alexander the Great defeated them in 332 B.C.E. The close, friendly relationship with Persia had lasted for 188 years. Alexander died soon after the conquest of Persia; his empire fell apart and was divided between his bickering generals.
One part would become Ptolemaic Egypt, the other Seleucid Syria. Judah was caught not only in a power struggle between the two Greek powers but a culture war within itself.
The Galilee had been seized from Seleucid control and forcibly converted to Judaism around 103 BCE, the Maccabees viewing this as a rightful restoration of part of the ancient kingdom of Israel, wiped out by the Assyrians six centuries earlier. This forced conversion also occurred in the south with Idumeans and Arabs.
1 and 2 Maccabees were removed by Protestants, but retained by Catholics and the Orthodox. As stated in the New American Bible, this war of independence wasn’t just about foreign rule, but about those Jews embracing Hellenism. In reality, Maccabees is more about a civil war between Orthodox and Hellenistic Judaism. There never was a single Judaism in the 1st century as Christians try to pretend. In fact, Christianity is an off-shoot of Hellenistic Judaism.
In particular, educated Jews were attracted to Greek language, philosophy, science, and astrology. They wanted to join the rest of the world and go beyond the cloistered and isolated world of Orthodox/Pharisee Rabbis. They wanted to join the Greek world; the Maccabee victory in 129 BCE put a check on the advance of Hellenism. Rome had defeated the Maccabees in 63 BCE and returned much of Samaria to Roman Syrian control.
But outside Judea in the Diaspora the opposite happened. Jews weren’t under the thumbs and harsh control of the Temple or the Maccabees. They didn’t isolate themselves from the world and they sought converts. Many pagans were attracted to Judaism for its moral values on family, social welfare, and monotheism of a caring God.
Jews assimilated Greek science, reason, philosophy, and language into a more universal vision of One God. In addition to the Hellenistic Jews there were the Proselytes, Gentiles that now followed all the rules of Torah. The Torah would be translated into Greek for even non-Jews to read, and most Hellenistic Jews spoke only Greek.
In addition, there were Gentiles who followed the meaning but not all of the Laws; these were called God-Fearers. These people in many cases were allowed to attend Synagogue services but had separate seating, as did women. In one abandoned Synagogue in Syria, men and women and everyone sat together while the walls were filled with biblical paintings and artwork.
They were so successful that by Jesus’ time, estimates suggest the Roman Empire had between 8-10 percent of the population as Jewish. In Alexandria, a city of one million, there were 300,000 Jews. Only two million Jews lived in Judea, five million outside, including over a million in Babylon. The Romans gave a recognized legal status and protection to Judaism that was revoked only after Christianity came to power.
A similar struggle like that between humanism and Judaism occurred within Christianity. Christianity outlawed any contact between Christians and Jews and conversion to Judaism carried a death penalty. Many of the various Jewish/Christian groups were declared heretics and wiped out. Pauline Christianity had done to the Roman world what the Maccabees had done to Judea. Like the Maccabees, Christianity rejected Greek humanism along with Judaism.
What happens to the various players?
The Christians remained a branch of Judaism for some time. Even Paul taught that Torah was the model for behavior. But since they developed the notion that membership in their community, equated with acceptance of the freedom offered by Jesus, was congruent with salvation, they eventually dropped their ties to Judaism. Also, by allowing Gentiles full membership (none of the Hellenistic social classicism) they became both quite popular and majority Gentile.
The Hellenistic Jews survive until Constantine adopts Christianity as the official religion. Since the Christians have a better marketing message the Hellenists mostly disappeared. However until that time they were a popular and universal movement.
The Pharisees had developed a notion of there being both a written Torah and an oral law, the latter passed on from Moses. This had put them in conflict with the Sadducees—the Priests—because the Pharisees claimed that the Priests had never been true transmitters of the law, but rather only cultic functionaries. The Pharisees claimed that the members of the scholarly class were the true transmitters, because only they had the oral completion of the Law.
What is the Platonic Logos?
The Logos is an important concept that arises from Hellenistic Judaism.
In Hellenistic thought the Logos (the Word of God or Reason of God) is related to the notion that the universe itself is divine, a living being whose soul is God. God is everywhere and within everything. In Hellenistic Judaism as developed by Philo, this notion of Logos is unacceptable, because the Jewish God created the universe and transcends it.
Logos is thought of as God creating the plan of the universe, the mind of God in the act of creation. Christian notions (as in John) of Jesus as the Logos derive by adoption of Hellenistic ideas within the Jesus sect. The Christian notion that the Logos was preexistent, though debated as divine or created, derives from Philo and was settled at Nicaea in 325 that declared Jesus and God the same.
Logos (Greek, "word," "reason," "ratio"), in ancient philosophy, is the divine reason that acts as the ordering principle of the universe.
The 6th-century BC Greek philosopher Heraclitus asserted that the world is governed by a firelike Logos, a divine force producing order in nature’s flux, akin to human reason.
In Stoicism, after the 4th century BC, the Logos is a rational divine power directing the universe, identified with God, nature, and fate. It is "present everywhere," acting as both a divine mind and a force through space and time. Humans share in this divine reason, urged to resist passions and "follow where Reason [Logos] leads."
The 1st-century AD Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher Philo Judaeus synthesized Jewish tradition and Platonism, viewing the Logos as a mediating principle—God’s Word or Divine Wisdom—immanent in the world.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ is identified with the Logos incarnate: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1-3, 14). Early Christian theologians developed this in Platonic and Neoplatonic terms, linking the Logos to God’s will or Platonic Forms.
From Robert S. Brumbaugh
The word *logos* (from Greek *lego*, "to say") varies in meaning—"argument," "rational principle," "reason"—complicating its history across doctrines.
Heraclitus made logos central, urging attention to it as governing all, encountered daily, tied to language and order over scientific or religious views.
In the 3rd century BC, Stoics borrowed from Heraclitus, using logos for the universe’s rational structure. Nature and logos align, but only humans possess reason within, urged to "live consistently with logos."
In the New Testament, John’s Gospel describes the Logos as God, the Creative Word, incarnate in Jesus Christ. Scholars trace this to Greek origins via Philo, though Old Testament concepts of God’s Word also contribute.
From Martha C. Nussbaum
John 1 differs from philosophic usage—Greeks saw Logos as reason, John as word. Philo’s Logos is an "It," John’s a "He," incarnate and redemptive, not just a creative agent. Philo avoids incarnation or Messiahship.
The source of John’s Logos is the historical Christ, expressed via Old Testament "word" and wisdom personification (e.g., Proverbs 8). "Jesus is not interpreted by Logos: Logos is intelligible only as we think of Jesus" (W. F. Howard, IB, VIII, 442).
From A. F. Walls (Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.
