In recent years, an increasing amount of scholarly time and attention has been devoted to the literature written in Greek by the Jews of the hellenistic age. Interest in this literature is hardly surprising in an intellectual tradition founded on the Graeco–Roman classics and the Judaeo–Christian scriptures. Most scholars, however, have been content to focus on the more classical writings or on the Hebrew scriptures; the hellenistic literature, whether from the Greek or the Jewish world, has been of more limited interest. But in the last century there has been new emphasis on the importance of the links in the hellenistic period between the Greek world and the Jewish world.

The history of Greek contact with the Levant is a long one. As early as the fifteenth century bc Mycenaean pottery was beginning to reach Late Bronze–Age sites on both sides of the Jordan. In the tenth century bc King David apparently employed mercenaries from Crete (Kerethites: 2 Sam. 8: 18) in his army; in the late seventh century bc Greek mercenaries fought in Palestine in the pay of the Egyptian Pharaohs. In the fifth and fourth centuries Persian rule reached west from Susa to the shores of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, where it clashed with the maritime interests of the Athenians and other Greeks.