Living with Giants

Abstract This chapter details the transition of Judea and its environs from Persian to Greek rule during the reign of Alexander and his immediate successors. It then follows, after the fracturing of Alexander’s empire, the conditions of the region under Ptolemaic rule and the increasing Hellenization of Judea’s elite; the eventually successful attempts by the Seleucid king Antiochus III to gain control of Palestine; the measures Antiochus took to help the region recover; and the role of the high priest Simon II in governing on Antiochus’s behalf. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Hellenism, its inroads into Judea during this period, and the ways in which Hellenization would be compatible or incompatible with ongoing Jewish practice.