The Influence of the Lists of Virtues and Vices in the Jewish Literature of the First Century

Abstract

Biblical texts were part of a broader literary context. Indeed, the Greco-Roman literature influenced of the first century the intertestamental literature and other Jewish Apocryphal books. One of these influences was the lists of virtues and vices from the popular philosophical schools of the time. These lists presented a group of attitudes and behaviors that should be applied or rejected for the proper functioning of society. Different Jewish groups of the Second Temple Period adapted such lists to their teachings, presenting, in a concise manner, those attitudes that did not correspond to their vocation, as well as confirming the morality proper of the “people of the covenant.”