Biblical Characters in Hellenistic Judaism

The portrayal of biblical characters in Hellenistic Judaism exhibits a consistent, individual-centered approach to the interpretation of the Bible. Jewish Greek literary traditions (such the Septuagint, apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works composed in Greek, Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Greek fragmentary works by Jewish authors) promoted first the historical influence and relevance of biblical characters and subsequently their moral exemplarity or depravity. The latter trend was influenced by Hellenistic biographies, aretalogies, and the ideal of the Stoic sage. An interest in biblical figures and patriarchs as role models and anti-role models may also be seen in the Hellenized Jewish use of intertextuality, typology, ‘riffing’, or mirror narratives, as well as in pseudepigraphic attribution and composition, as a means to lend scriptural authority to new narratives and moral authority to the heroes and texts of the past. A similar focus on the virtues and vices of biblical characters in texts composed by Jews can be found in the use of the Hellenistic literary form known as the Beispeilreihe, in which exemplars are listed in a carefully crafted genre that argues a consistent theme in a poetic and condensed form.