King Antiochus III of the Seleucids took over the territory of Jerusalem and Judea from the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt. His son, King Antiochus IV, in an attempt to strengthen his southern border, and to prevent rebellion, tried to destroy the Jewish religion and tried to get the Jews to worship the Greek gods. It didn't work.

The Greeks came to Jerusalem and set up idols and honored their gods in the dramatic presentations. This created a cultural hostility with the Jewish prohibition on graven images. Greeks, and later some Christians, viewed the physical world as lowly, even sinful, but the Jews saw creation as good because God created it.

Philip of Macedon gained hegemony over the Greek states, and his son Alexander led the Greeks on an epic campaign to conquer the Persian Empire. Alexander died at the age of 33 years old, but not before spreading Greek culture into every corner of the previous Persian Empire.

After defeating the Persians, Athens established their empire, which was actually a hegemony, or domination of the other Greek states. This led to war against Sparta and disaster. Following the warfare, the giants of Greek philosophy emerged- Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who was the teacher of Alexander the Great.