The broad compartmentalizing segregation of “Judaism” (and here I include emerging “Christianity”) from “Hellenism” is invalid. All religions of this period, including all major manifestations of “Judaisms,” are Hellenistic religions. They all should be viewed and understood in these broader contexts. In this regard, even various forms of “gnosticism” represent a radicalized structural possibility within this same general history, rather than genuinely “new” religions.
