Hellenistic, it did not mean to be transformed into Greek. Rather, it was to be something new; between Near Eastern and Greek, as it was a
“synthetic” process of combining two different cultures. William Cerighton Graham in his journal,
“The Jewish World in which Jesus Lived”, mentioned that at that time of Greek rule, the Jews reflected the spirit of Hellenism in some aspects of their life. Love
of pleasure, luxury, and the material refinements of life was the Hellenistic spirit expressed by the Jews from the taste of foods, house furnishing, and clothes. In
this case, they imposed Greek customs. Greek money was also circulated Graham 1928: 5. It was important also to know that the Old Testament, Torah was also
translated and written in Greek Gilbert, 1909: 524. This was the way the empire got opportunity to control the ideology of the society. The influence of Greek
Empire through Hellenism was really internalized by the Jews. As this process kept going on during the time, the Jews did not consider the process as
“borrowing” one‟s culture but they considered it as “thoroughly assimilating”. It is not only in the time of Persian rule that Torah was used as the imperial tool. In
this era, at Ptolemaic times, Torah was also used as the media of imperialism. In this era, in about the middle of third century B.C.E., Torah or Pentateuch was
translated into Greek for the benefit of the Alexandrian Grabbe, 2010:40.
b. Maccabean Revolt
There were no such serious problems the Jews realized until 175 BCE, when Antiochus IV took control over Palestine after the death of Alexander the
Great. In his era, he completely outlawed Judaism, the religion of the Jews, and many cultures of them such as the tradition of circumcision, Sabbath observance,
and celebration of religious festivals and the teaching of Torah Palmer, 2002: 3. He forced the Jews to worship Zeus, God of the Greek. He desecrated the temple
by sacrifice a swine on the altar. He even forced the priest in local areas to sacrifice swine to Zeus and if they rejected it, their position as priests were
immediately replaced by anyone who were ready to do it. Some of the Jews agreed with this as it brought them to the new paradigm of the Jews. However,
some of them did not. It was Mattathias, a local priest in Modein who rejected it. He and his five sons then rebelled. Many of the Jews then joined them and most
of them were the peasants. It was first started by Judas, first son of Mattathias. Judas was called
“Maccabeus” or “the hammer” as their braveness and struggles to fight the well trained and well equipped troops Palmer, 2002: 4. They
attacked Selucid troops and in 164 BCE, the temple was cleansed again. In 142, under the control of Simon, the fifth son of Mattathias, the Greek was defeated
and Jews finally got its independence. All these struggles then were called as the “Maccabean Revolt” Palmer, 2002: 4.
4. The Jews under Roman Rule
Francois Houtart in his journal, “Palestine in Jesus Time” explains some
important information about the history of the Jews which in this case was lived in Palestine at the time of Jesus. In this journal, he explained how Palestine at the
time lived under control of the Roman Empire began from the arrival of Pompey in 63 BCE. After being freed from the conquest of the Greek, Palestine then
subjugated by the empire Rome though there were some wealthy landowning class of people. Roman Empire gained the whole regions of Palestine then
