can no longer be held. Particularly influential here has been the work of Martin Hengel, especially his massive study of the same title.40 The basic point which he makes is that Hellenistic influences had penetrated into Palestine for centuries before Jesus—from Alexander the Great onwards in particular, but even before then. So, for example, for the time of Jesus we can say with confidence that Greek would have been widely known and used in Palestine. We know from inscriptions that people in Jerusalem
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