Rethinking the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy: A Historiographical Case Study of Second Peter and Jude

Anders Gerdmar. Rethinking the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy: A Historiographical Case Study of Second Peter and Jude. Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series 36. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001. 382 pp. $62.50.

This is a doctoral dissertation that mercifully does not often read like one. It mostly avoids the pedantry, narrow focus, and repetitive quality dissertation readers normally reckon with. The author has avoided such pitfalls, it would appear, by reflecting on his subject not just for years but for decades: he began research, he acknowledges, in the 1970s. Moreover, final research and writing was not completed in just a year or two but over the period 1996-2001. The book is therefore characterized by a surprising and welcome breadth of coverage and maturity of perspective.

We have here some of the firstfruits of an increasingly prominent outlook in NT studies: a move away from the Judaism-Hellenism dichotomy made famous in German Lutheran NT scholarship (particularly by Tubingen's F. C. Baur in the 1830s and beyond). This dichotomy became, and persists as, a normative grid for many NT scholars because there was a certain aptness to it: historians can detect worldviews lying behind ancient literary works that are more reminiscent of Athens than Jerusalem and vice versa. By "rethinking" this dichotomy Gerdmar does not propose it never had any basis. But he does argue that its basis was more philosophical than factual. For that reason, "the dichotomy is obsolete and needs to be replaced because of ambiguities attached to the concepts [of Judaism and Hellenism]... and because of its ideological bias" (p. 18; Gerdmar's emphasis). He also argues, and succeeds at demonstrating, that the dichotomy has had baleful consequences for exegetical method.

Accordingly, Gerdmar calls for reconceptualizing of it as a heuristic tool. "Heuristic" here relates to a hypothetical vantage point or set of assumptions that help an interpreter see data in a more revealing light. The division of ancient writings into "Jewish" and "Hellenistic" categories was a heuristic device that helped scholars make sense (they felt) of these documents. But in light of current knowledge there may be better ways to conceive of the milieu out of which the documents emerged. Gerdmar's study explores a possible avenue for improved historical understanding by analyzing and then critiquing the overarching frameworks within which 2 Peter and Jude were interpreted in past generations. He calls his method "reversed heuristics." This means that he looks for "Jewish" features where prevailing assumptions assume there are primarily only "Hellenistic" and vice versa. The results are considerable for the interpretation of at least 2 Peter and Jude. They probably have significant ripple effects for the interpretation of other NT writings too.

Chapter 1 examines the way that the syntax, vocabulary, and style of 2 Peter and Jude are assessed under the dominant dichotomy. Gerdmar shows the conflicting assumptions and results that permeate scholarship and suggests that on these grounds alone, long-standing historiographical tendencies stand in need of revision. Chapter 2 sounds a similar note. Examining "Semitic linguistic influence in 2 Peter and Jude," he shows that scholars have overlooked Semitic dimensions of 2 Peter due to conventional wisdom that it was "Hellenistic." But "if the existence of Semitisms is a criterion of Jewishness, 2 Peter is more Jewish than Jude" (p. 91). Again this suggests the shortcoming of the received approach to these general epistles.

Chapter 3 takes up the issue of literary form. "There seems to be a greater readiness to trace a 'Hellenistic' genre in 2 Peter, whereas features supporting the Jewish characteristics are appreciated in Jude" (p. 92), Gerdmar notes. This is in keeping with the dichotomy he finds pervasive in scholarship treating these letters. But the dichotomy again turns out to be weakly supported, and Gerdmar concludes that the simplest and best hypothesis for characterizing their literary form is "the 'Jewish' official letter,' or Aramaic official letter" (p. 115). This means they have affinities with Paul's letters but connect most closely with the letter tradition that can be glimpsed in extant Aramaic correspondence or correspondence translated from Aramaic to Greek.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 take up the "ideological markers" of "the use of sacred texts" (ch. 4), "cosmology and eschatology" (ch. 5), and "ethos, soteriology and anthropology" (ch. 6). Gerdmar finds that in contrast to the putative findings of the dichotomous approach, 2 Peter and Jude alike "build their symbolic world with building blocks from Tanakh and Jewish aggadah and Jewish apocalypticism, constructed after a christological blueprint" (p. 160). This bespeaks a congruence that belies the alleged dichotomy, which Gerdmar again finds unattested in specific underlying data. Results are comparable in the next two chapters. Chapter 5 concludes that "there is no considerable difference between the world-views of Jude and 2 Peter" with respect to cosmology and eschatology (p. 182; cf. pp. 204-6; Gerdmar's emphasis). Chapter 6 claims that reversed heuristics opens up "a new avenue for understanding 2 Peter" as a representative of much the same ethical, soteriological, and anthropological worldview that Jude reflects (p. 243).