The style of the Jewish-Greek historiographers Eupolemus and Demetrius has often been evaluated as “bad Greek.” This is generally seen as evidence of their lack of education. The negative views on the language of Demetrius and Eupolemus are illustrative of a broader issue in the study of Hellenistic Judaism: language usage has been a key element in the discussion on the societal position of Jews in the Hellenistic world. In this article, I assess the style of the historiographers in the context of post-classical Greek, and conclude that their language reflects standard Hellenistic Greek. The linguistic analysis then becomes a starting point to reflect on the level of integration of Jews in the Greek-speaking world as well as to consider the nature of Jewish multilingualism in the late Second Temple period.

犹太希腊史学家Eupolemus和Demetrius的风格经常被认为是“坏希腊”。通常认为这是他们缺乏教育的证据。对德米特里和尤波勒姆斯语言的否定观点说明了希腊化犹太教研究中的一个更广泛的问题：语言使用一直是讨论犹太人在希腊化世界中社会地位的关键因素。在本文中，我评估了后古典希腊语背景下史学家的风格，并得出结论说他们的语言反映了标准的希腊希腊语。语言分析随后成为反思犹太人在希腊语世界中的融合程度以及考虑第二圣殿后期犹太多语言主义性质的起点。