Ptolemaic Rule over Judea Begins (301 BC)

The event

After the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC settled the long struggle among Alexander's successors, Judea came firmly under the control of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruling from Alexandria in Egypt. Compared to what would come later under the Seleucids, Ptolemaic rule over Judea was generally mild: Jews continued to govern their own religious and communal affairs under the high priest in Jerusalem, paying tribute to the Ptolemaic treasury but otherwise left largely alone.

This century of relative calm also saw a large and thriving Jewish community grow up in Alexandria itself, deeply engaged with Greek language and learning, which would soon bear remarkable fruit for the whole world in the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Because these were comparatively quiet decades, Scripture itself says almost nothing directly about them — but that very quiet was part of God's providence, allowing Jewish communities to spread throughout the Mediterranean world and Greek to become the common language into which the Old Testament, and eventually the New, would be given.

The stage this set matters enormously: by the time the apostles began preaching Christ, Jewish synagogues and Greek-speaking Jewish communities were already established across the Mediterranean, providing the very network the gospel would travel along in the book of Acts.

Dating

Ptolemy I Soter actually first seized Jerusalem by surprise on a Sabbath as early as 320 BC, but control shifted more than once amid the ongoing wars of the Successors until the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC secured Judea firmly for the Ptolemaic dynasty; historians conventionally date the settled 'Ptolemaic Period' in Judea from this later point.

Other witnesses

• Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12.1-2
• Letter of Aristeas