Jewish Attitudes Towards the Land of Israel during the Time of the Second Temple
Published January 20, 2015
2 Maccabees 2:19-23.
The author notes that his text is in fact a condensed version of an older, longer work by one Jason of Cyrene, himself a diasporan Jew. This original work has not survived. It is impossible to know for certain which elements of 2 Maccabees belong to the original author rather than the abridger. Because the abridger stands by the version of 2 Maccabees as we have it, I prefer to make conclusions about the abridger’s perspective rather than Jason of Cyrene’s. For more on the question of where 2 Maccabees was composed, see Jonathan A. Goldstein, II Maccabees (AB 41A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983) 113-21.
The writer set his scenes with a dramatic flair that are reminiscent of the ancient adventure novels written in Greek during this period. But he also would have been careful to provide historically accurate information, since his primary objective was to legitimize Jesus as the Son of God and attribute religious authority to his apostles.
Philo, Embassy to Gaius, XXII.155-156. Translations of Philo in this article are from C. D. Yonge, trans., The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993).
Philo, Flaccus, VII.46-47.
See, for instance, the following statement in On the Confusion of Tongues: “For this reason all the wise men mentioned in the books of Moses are represented as sojourners, for their souls are sent down from heaven upon earth as to a colony; and on account of their fondness for contemplation, and their love of learning, they are accustomed to migrate to the terrestrial nature. Since therefore having taken up their abode among bodies, they behold all the mortal objects of the outward senses by their means, they then subsequently return back from thence to the place from which they set out at first, looking upon the heavenly country in which they have the rights of citizens as their native land, and as the earthly abode in which they dwell for a while as in a foreign land. For to those who are sent to be the inhabitants of a colony, the country which has received them is in place of their original mother country; but still the land which has sent them forth remains to them as the house to which they desire to return.” (On the Confusion of Tongues, XVII.77-78).
See Bezalel Porten, The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millenia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change (Leiden: Brill 1996). A new edition of this book can be found online at http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/069552P.front.pdf. Scholars believe that in around the year 400 B.C.E., the Jewish community living on Elephantine was destroyed as a result of Egypt-Persia tensions. See Peg Kershenbaum, “Jews in Egypt: The Septuagint,” in Alan T. Levenson, The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) 122-124.
Josephus, Jewish War, 7:423-431 [ch. 10, 2-3].
Mishnah Menachot 13:10 (trans. Instonebrewer.com/rabbinictraditions). See also the rabbinic discussion of this question in the Babylonian Talmud: “R. Johanan is also of the same opinion as R. Hamnuna; for Rabbah b. Bar Hanah said in the name of R. Johanan, [If a man said,] ‘I take upon myself to offer a burnt-offering but I will offer it in the Temple of Onias’, and he offered it in the Land of Israel, he has fulfilled his obligation but he has incurred the penalty of kareth.There has also been taught [a Baraitha] to the same effect: [If a man said,] ‘I take upon myself to offer a burnt-offering but I will offer it in the wilderness’, and he offered it beyond the Jordan, he has fulfilled his obligation but he has incurred the penalty of kareth.” (Menachot 109a; trans. Soncino Talmud).
