Hellenic Culture and the New Testament

Abstract

The various distances separating us from the times of the New Testament –temporal, geographic, linguistic, cultural, social, political, economic, and religious – make it difficult to achieve a truly tangible and authentic interpretation, no matter how diligently one seeks familiarity with biblical texts through daily Scripture reading. Furthermore, the linguistic, literary, and cultural characteristics of the New Testament era were shaped by a strong Hellenistic influence. Hellenism emerged from the era of Alexander the Great (330 BC) and his successors, who bequeathed much of the Greek worldview while also adopting elements from the peoples they conquered. Thus, Hellenism represented a new Greek world; Alexander the Great’s strategy for governing conquered nations involved accommodation and assimilation. He encouraged soldiers to marry local women and subsequently remain as imperial officials. In this way, cities that had once been Persian, Egyptian, or Indian were transformed into Greek cities. It was an invasion of ideas that created a hybrid culture, which historians have termed Hellenism.