Alexander of Macedon, or Alexander the Great as he is better known, is one of the most iconic of all conquerors. The blonde boy-genius who obsessed with the poetry of Homer conquered most of the known world including the most powerful empire in it: Persia. Alexander was as celebrated in antiquity as he is today: anyone who has read any history at all has heard of Alexander. Like any great hero of antiquity however there is a great urge to attach one’s own people to his rise: such a story occurs among the jews.
The story derived singly as far as we know from the pen of Josephus who mentions it in his ‘Jewish Antiquities’. (1)
To summarize it goes something like this:
When Alexander was besieging the port city of Tyre: he sent an emissary or an embassy to Jerusalem (i.e., to the jews) with the message that he required them to send him troops and supplies to support his campaign. In Josephus’ words: they were to render to him what they had formerly rendered to the Persian king Darius. The jews rejected this stating that they were the loyal subjects of Darius, which caused Alexander to become very angry swearing vengeance against the jews but yet he cannot take revenge because he is occupied besieging the strategically vital cities of Tyre and Gaza.
Then a party of seven thousand jews - led by a member of the priestly class called Sanballat - journeyed to Alexander’s camp outside the city of Tyre and explained that the jews would now be happy to render to Alexander what they had previously rendered to Darius. Sanballat then went on to make the (not unsurprising) claim that the jews were primarily responsible for the successes of the Persian Empire (but note not its failures surprise surprise) and that if he would have Sanballat’s seven thousand jews. Then (because the jews were just too amazing apparently) it would be best that Israel be split out to prevent it eclipsing Alexander with its overbearing shadow of alleged genius (as it had the Kings of Assyria causing them to become annoyed at having to move to get more limelight).
After the siege of Gaza however Sanballat died (presumably crushed to death under his own over-inflated ego) and Alexander - apparently inconsolable - decided to journey to Jerusalem where the rest of Sanballat’s people were and Yahweh had for reasons unknown fixed his terrestrial abode. The high priest of Jerusalem Jaddua was absolutely terrified (since he believed he was going to be torn apart by the vengeful Macedonians much like the leaders of Gaza had just been) and started desperately offering sacrifices (of what isn't stated) to Yahweh.
Yahweh then (supposedly) deigned to inform Jaddua that all he needed to do was make public sacrifices to him, adorn Jerusalem as if for a festival and then appear to Alexander with the rest of the jewish priestly class in their white robes of office (while Jaddua wore purple [aka the imperial colour meaning he was basically declaring himself Emperor of the world. Notice the attempt by Josephus to imply that jews are the titular rulers of the world and that everyone else is just squatting on their property]). Jaddua then gathered together his officious and ever fractious priests (after a good old-fashioned squabble about just who got to read the chicken’s entrails) and processed off to a place called Sapha where he would get a good view of Alexander as he came to visit Jerusalem.
The Syrians and Phoenicians were pleased at all this, because they knew that the jews had publicly refused to give their allegiance to Alexander (except for Sanballat and his seven thousand) and expected to be able to occupy and loot Jerusalem a-la Tyre and Gaza. However Alexander promptly went up to Jaddua and publicly reverenced Yahweh while acknowledging him to be the one true god and that Jaddua was his divine representative on earth (albeit one with issues relating to hygiene and dentistry).
When asked by one of his generals (the famous Parmenion) about why he acknowledged Yahweh over almighty Zeus. Alexander replied that he had had a dream many years before where he was told that a priest who looked just like was the priest of the one true god and who would allow him to conquer the known world (specially the Persian Empire as Yahweh had apparently forgotten about India, the Americas, Pacific Asia and sub-Saharan Africa). The Syrians and Phoenicians were by this point of the belief that Alexander had finally lost his marbles and needed to be sent to the nearest temple of Asklepios (the Greek god of Healing and Medicine) so that he could be nursed back to sanity.
Alexander however - having the power of a few thousand seasoned troops with very sharp weapons behind him - ignored this advice and instead went to the Temple of Solomon proceeding to worship Yahweh and reward Jaddua and the priestly class royally for the apparent privilege of ‘sacrificing to Yahweh’. Then to complete the impression Jaddua and his priests showed Alexander the book of Daniel where they claimed it was ‘prophesied’ that he would conquer Persia (strange that they hadn't noticed this ‘prophecy’ before they got their knickers in a twist about Alexander coming to slaughter them: isn't it?), which causes an apparently gullible Alexander to grant the jews any boon they wish to ask.
The jewish response was hilariously predictable: they don’t want to be taxed for the next six years if it pleases Alexander. Further the jews demanded that Alexander set the jews of Babylon and Persia up as his elite (the necessary implication of Alexander’s supposed reverence and the jews ‘following their own laws’ in Josephus’ account), while Alexander also promised that if any jews would come with his army then they would be allowed to observe their rites unimpeded (presumably as merchants waiting to purchase captives to be sold as slaves whenever Alexander took a town or city given the generally appalling military record of the jews this makes infinitely more sense than proverbial Israel ben Solomon challenging some grizzled Syrian mercenary to a bitch-slapping contest).
Alexander then granted the jews a diverse number of additional privileges, which Josephus does not describe but only states that they were given to them. Thus Josephus attempts once again to locate the privileges that the jews had been awarded by the Emperor Augustus [i.e., those held by them prior to the First Jewish Revolt] to Alexander (the original historical superstar to many Romans of imperialistic ambitions and/or militaristic aspirations) with the intention of claiming that because Alexander had been so kind and generous to the jews then the Romans should be too in order to imitate them.
Josephus’ account itself is certainly a post-Alexander tradition that grew up among the jews, (2) which Josephus is relating as a morality story in order to prove what he believed to be the manifest superiority of the jews over all non-jews (especially the Greeks about whom Josephus was especially derogatory in large part due to simple jealously concerning Greek achievement when compared to his own people’s singular lack of it [cf. his ‘Against Apion’ which is effectively a philippic against all things Greek]).
As Schaefer comments:
‘This story is for the most part legend without any historical foundation. The motif of the unexpected reverence of the heathen conqueror before the Jewish representative can also be found in other historical contexts and, like the visit to Jerusalem and the sacrifice in the Temple, serves to confirm the superiority of the Jewish God: that is, it belongs to the realm of religious propaganda.’ (3)
The idea that Alexander would have made every effort to meet the famous jews, visit the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem and acknowledge the supremacy of Yahweh is clearly a-historical. It does however pointedly inform us about both the origins of the story as a piece of jewish folklore describing the manifest superiority of the jews as well as suggesting that the claims of jewish genius/superiority are not a new phenomenon, but can be traced to before the involvement of the jews with Rome as well as plausibly located before Alexander’s birth (as Schaefer implies and which by necessary extension suggests that jewish supremacism is as old as the hills).
The simple fact is that there is no reason to suggest that the jews were particularly acknowledged by Alexander since the only major event in that area that is mentioned by our textual sources for detail about Alexander - such as the Roman writer Arrian - is his siege of Gaza (4) and the attendant brutal treatment of the population that has long come in for disapproving comment by historians. (5)
Even pro-Zionist historians - such as Victor Tcherikover - have long held that Josephus narrative is fictional, and that Alexander barely paid any attention to the jews other than as a subject population who came to pay him homage when he was already victorious (in the hope of avoiding the fate of Gaza no doubt). (6) The account from the Talmud - although composed significantly later than Josephus’ (albeit from similar folkloric sources) - seems eminently more plausible in that jews abased themselves before Alexander desperately confessing their loyalty to him and his cause somewhere in Syria after travelling to meet him not the other way around [rather like they were to do with Adolf Hitler in 1933]. (7)
This is a very plausible picture with the desperate jews grovelling pitifully before Alexander repeatedly acknowledging Macedonian Greek supremacy and hegemony over them knowing full well the awful fate that awaited them if their entreaties were unsuccessful or they betrayed their new ruler. In essence: the jews weren't receiving homage from Alexander, but rather he was receiving homage from them.
What this highlights however - and it is something I cannot emphasize enough - is that the jews historically were a people who were not even worth mentioning for the writers on Alexander, because they were historical nobodies.
There was no great jewish civilization or empire (as Judeo-Christians have an unfortunate tendency to want to imagine), but rather they were a group of largely illiterate provincial goat herders based around a weird and highly localized religious cult. That weird religious cult is the sole reason that writers in antiquity noticed them at all before the rise of Rome: the jews were a curiosity nothing more and because the writers on Alexander were not interested in religious curiosities they simply ignored the abasement of this group of people to Alexander. Since they looked much the same as everyone else in Greater Syria at the time and had little in the way of distinguishing features.
In other words: the jews were simply irrelevant.
References
(1) Joseph. Jud. Ant. 11:8-12:2
(2) Erich Gruen, 2002, ‘Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans’, 1st Edition, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, p. 179
(3) Peter Schaefer, 1995, ‘The History of the Jews in Antiquity: The Jews of Palestine from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest’, 1st Edition, Routledge: New York. p. 6
(4) Arr. Ana. 4:2-3
(5) J.F.C. Fuller, 1998, [1958], ‘The Generalship of Alexander the Great’, 1st Edition, Wordsworth: Ware, p. 104
(6) Victor Tcherikover, 1959, ‘Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews’, 1st Edition, The Magnes Press: Jerusalem, pp. 40-51
(7) Ibid., pp. 49-51; Schaefer, Op. Cit., pp. 6-7