Doug64 wrote:@noemon, while @Odiseizam is correct about the problem with your reference to Paul, you are right that the Jews of the Roman diaspora were very Greek in sympathies even while holding to the Law of Moses—there was Philo of Alexandria, a fine example of a Jewish philosopher seeking to harmonize Jewish doctrine and Greek philosophy, and the Septuagint for the Jews that couldn’t speak Hebrew. So you could call the Jews of the Roman diaspora a fifth group, though you wouldn’t have found many of them in Judaea and they can most likely be considered a variety of the Pharisees since they were (naturally enough) centered around the synagogues. Most of them eventually converted to Christianity, along with the God-fearers.
There is not much of a difference between Jews in Judea or Jews in Egypt and Greece. The entire realm had been either Greek or Roman under Greek governors for around 400 years before Jesus, that is more time than the entire existence of the USA and almost all Jews in Judea bore Greek names, spoke Greek and used Greek titles. The same Greek spoken by Jews in Egypt was also spoken by Jews in Judea. Hellenism was as spread in Judea as it was in Egypt, Syria & Anatolia.
Jewish extremists had a chip on their shoulder against Hellenism(and its liberalism & individualism), not as a result of Antiochus's short-lived measures which were also a symptom of this fighting, but in a deeper level, in the same way Muslim extremists today have a chip on their shoulder against Hollywood, democracy and western civilization.
This started out as a civil war between pro-Greek Jews and anti-Greek Jews 200 years before Jesus, while both factions were supported by a Greek Emperor, the pro-Greek establishment Jews were supported by the Emperor of Syria & Persia and the anti-Greek rebel Jews were supported by the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt. This issue remained an ongoing thing well after Jesus. It came to a head a few times until Rome decided to put a permanent end to it by razing the Temple, renaming Judea and banning all Jews from the area.
The pro-Greek Jews were usually the
establishment party during this infighting except during the shortlived Hasmonean kingdom, the pro-Greek Jews were represented by the Sadducees and then by the Christians who openly sought to make Jewish extremists stop hating on Hellenism by telling them explicitly that Greeks and Jews are both the same, unlike the Pharisees who did not want their people going to the theater, gym and agora and adopting such Hellenic habits by calling these things "darkness of the devil" and such.
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...