Vom Volk zur Stadt? Ethnos und Polis im hellenistischen Orient

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" Vom Volk zur Stadt? Ethnos und Polis im hellenistischen Orient "
Benedikt Eckhardt

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	1075297
Doc. No	:	LA118926
Call No	:	‭10.1163/15700631-00000393‬
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Benedikt Eckhardt
Title & Author	:	Vom Volk zur Stadt? Ethnos und Polis im hellenistischen Orient [Article]\ Benedikt Eckhardt
Publication Statement	:	Leiden: Brill
Title of Periodical	:	Journal for the Study of Judaism
Date	:	2014
Volume/ Issue Number	:	45/2
Page No	:	199–228
Abstract	:	It is often stated in handbooks that in 175 b.c.e., Judaea (or Jerusalem) was transformed from an ethnos to a polis. This statement is based on received opinions about Hellenistic (and especially Seleucid) administrative categories that can no longer be maintained. A re-examination of the relevant literary and epigraphic evidence shows that ethnos was not used as an antonym to polis in Hellenistic sources. The article then tries to explain the emergence of a scholarly paradigm that took ethnos to be precisely that: the designation for oriental, non-urbanized communities that were inferior in important regards to the Greek polis. The main influence is argued to have been Aristotle’s peculiar use of the two terms. The scholarly concept of an ethnos/polis-divide can be traced back to nineteenth-century scholarship and its “orientalist” conceptions. This is important for appreciating recent discussions of the nature of Jewish identity in antiquity (“people” or “religion”), and for an increased awareness in Jewish studies of the discourses that have shaped common knowledge about the Hellenistic Orient in general and Judaism in particular. It is often stated in handbooks that in 175 b.c.e., Judaea (or Jerusalem) was transformed from an ethnos to a polis. This statement is based on received opinions about Hellenistic (and especially Seleucid) administrative categories that can no longer be maintained. A re-examination of the relevant literary and epigraphic evidence shows that ethnos was not used as an antonym to polis in Hellenistic sources. The article then tries to explain the emergence of a scholarly paradigm that took ethnos to be precisely that: the designation for oriental, non-urbanized communities that were inferior in important regards to the Greek polis. The main influence is argued to have been Aristotle’s peculiar use of the two terms. The scholarly concept of an ethnos/polis-divide can be traced back to nineteenth-century scholarship and its “orientalist” conceptions. This is important for appreciating recent discussions of the nature of Jewish identity in antiquity (“people” or “religion”), and for an increased awareness in Jewish studies of the discourses that have shaped common knowledge about the Hellenistic Orient in general and Judaism in particular.
Descriptor	:	ethnos
Descriptor	:	Hellenizing reform
Descriptor	:	history of scholarship
Descriptor	:	Jerusalem
Descriptor	:	polis
Descriptor	:	Seleucid period
Location & Call number	:	‭10.1163/15700631-00000393‬