No problem has so stubbornly accompanied the investigation of Second Temple period Judaism and of early Christianity -- and the nature of the relationship between the two -- as that of "Hellenism". How deeply were both Judaism and Christianity in their formative stages influenced by the larger cultural and religious streams of the Greco-Roman age? To what extent did the phenomenon of "Hellenism" -- in its varied literary, social and political expression -- shape the defining characteristics of Jewish and Christian belief and practice in the period between Alexander and Constantine? What role did the medium of the Greek language and of Hellenistic cultural forms play in the translation of ideas and allegiances from Judaism to Christianity during the early centuries of the Common Era?

Our group will focus on precisely this problem and these questions, addressing the pendular tendency of modern scholarship to wholeheartedly affirm or passionately deny the hellenization of early Judaism and Christianity. The general orientation of recent research has been toward the Palestinian Jewish background of the early Church, with a clear proclivity for sources preserved in either Hebrew or Aramaic. In light of this trend, we will attempt to reassess the role of Greek-speaking, Hellenistic Judaism as a fertile context for Christian origins.

 

Few areas of the world have played as prominent a role in human evolution as the Levantine Corridor, a comparatively narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the expanse of inhospitable desert to the east. The first hominids to leave Africa, over 1.5 million years ago, first entered the Levant before spreading into what is now Europe and Asia. About 100,000 years ago another African exodus, this time of anatomically modern humans, colonized the Levant before expanding into Eurasia. Toward the end of the Pleistocene, this Corridor also witnessed some of the earliest steps toward economic and social intensification, perhaps the most radical change in hominid lifestyle that ultimately paved the way for sedentary communities wholly dependent on domestic animals and cultivated plants.