The Odyssey - Manual of Secret Teachings?

[Hesper]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

You don't have to race through it, either. Taking your time and thinking about what you have read and trying to "see the unseen" meaning might be useful!

Thanks Laura, sounds exciting!

 

[Laura]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

I don't know if I touched anything interesting in my post but that's what is bothering me in these epics as well as other small details in composition of both epics and influences of the gods on man and political complexity in Iliad.

Well, read these two posts carefully:
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=23803.msg265491#msg265491

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=23803.msg265495#msg265495

and subsequent posts I'm going to be making from several intensely interesting works, and you'll get your answers, I think!

 

[StrangeCaptain]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

It occurs to me that if Wilkens' hypothesis is correct, and keeping in mind that it is certain that the Greeks and Celtics (a people who memorized things instead of writing them) had some kind of relationship, then Homer's work may be the sole extant view of the monolith builders of Europe.

 

[Laura]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

It occurs to me that if Wilkens' hypothesis is correct, and keeping in mind that it is certain that the Greeks and Celtics (a people who memorized things instead of writing them) had some kind of relationship, then Homer's work may be the sole extant view of the monolith builders of Europe.

Yup. That's kinda what I'm thinking.

Louden argues for a strong near eastern influence but if one considers that the near east may have been where a whole lot of people migrated to following the Trojan War, taking their beliefs, customs, stories, names, etc, with them, and then mixing with the locals with subsequent dilution/changes, then it all makes perfect sense.

 

[Don Diego]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Here in France when you enter college, at around 12 year's old you are given the first layer of propaganda as the History course begins by Antiquity... So I had the chance to read it once and remember the huge impression we had because at the same time there was a weekly TV serie (around'74).Very moving and impressive reading for a kid.

Few months ago I found the book again in a box and read the very last sentences when,at last, Ulysses lies in his own bed, Homer uses a pretty and rather funny expression...(IMO)

Exciting to "have" to read it again.Thanks Laura! :)

 

[mcb]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

...A good awareness of the structure aids interpretation and boy, is that the truth! It is in the structure that you find the points that the text is seeking to convey, to emphasize, to teach...

Indeed. When I read the story the first time, over 45 years ago, I had no clue. I read it on my own, when I was in Jr. high or high school.

It is in studying the patterns of repetition that you discover the structure. The Odyssey incorporates all kinds of repetitive elements from repeating words that make a point, repeating whole lines, repeating dramatic scenes/scenarios, and larger unit repetition.

And this is the main feature that I remember from decades ago. I thought then that the repetition must have been an aid in transmitting the story orally, and that Homer based his book on an earlier oral tradition. Repetition is actually very helpful, though, for understanding the story now, especially if you happening to be listening to it as an audiobook. Toward the beginning, as I was listening today, the story seemed to jump suddenly into the account of Penelope's suitors, as though I had missed a transition. Perhaps I had, but going back I couldn't find it, so I continued listening. But then the narrative repeated and clarified. Now I just let it go, expecting that what is not clear at first will become clear.

One scholar compared the repetitive elements in the Odyssey to a then living oral tradition in the former Yugoslavia. He then concluded that the repeated verbal and line formulas allowed the bard to improvise performances. It is thought that this accounts for the presence of the various repetitive elements - they are there so that a single bard could perform ex tempore, a work as lengthy and intricate as the Odyssey...

That is an interesting possibility, but if you are listening to the story rather than reading it, the repetition contributes quite a lot to the experience. When you are reading a book, you can glance backward a sentence, a paragraph, or even a few pages to clarify something that you missed. When someone is telling you the story, it is not as easy to go back.

Hearing a story could help to understand it in a more right-brained way. I always turn books into "plays" in my mind, whether reading or listening to them, but the writing style of The Odyssey seems particularly well suited for doing so. Perhaps there is a deeper way, though, to listen, suggested by the structural elements that you have noted. I will see what I can hear.

 

[Laura]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

A little background on the comparisons between the Odyssey and the Bible will be helpful here. Russel Gmirkin has proposed a somewhat revolutionary hypothesis that he argues very well and the only criticisms I've found of it are very weak and come from people with a vested interest in the Bible being "the word of God."

The following excerpts lay out Gmirkin's hypothesis and I've also included his synopses of the work of some of my favorite authors on the topic ... he also includes the arch-enemy, Dever - the true believer. Garbini is my all-time favorite from this list, but van Seters, Lemche, Thompson and Davies run close behind. All of the books mentioned here are among those I have read over the past few years.

This book proposes a new theory regarding the date and circumstances of the
composition of the Pentateuch. The central thesis of this book is that the Hebrew
Pentateuch was composed in its entirety about 273-272 BCE by Jewish scholars
at Alexandria that later traditions credited with the Septuagint translation of the
Pentateuch into Greek. The primary evidence is literary dependence of Gen 1—
11 on Berossus's Babyloniaca (278 BCE), literary dependence of the Exodus
story on Manetho's Aegyptiaca (ca. 285-280 BCE), and datable geo-political references
in the Table of Nations.

A number of indications point to a provenance
of Alexandria in Egypt for at least some portions of the Pentateuch. That the
Pentateuch, utilizing literary sources found at the Great Library of Alexandria,
was composed at almost the same date as the Alexandrian Septuagint translation
provides compelling evidence for some level of communication and collaboration
between the authors of the Pentateuch and the Septuagint scholars at
Alexandria's Museum.

The late date of the Pentateuch, as demonstrated by
literary dependence on Berossus and Manetho, has two important consequences:
the definitive overthrow of the chronological framework of the Documentary
Hypothesis, and a third-century BCE or later date for other portions of the
Hebrew Bible that show literary dependence on the Pentateuch.

The crucial first step in dating the Pentateuch is establishing a true
terminus ad quem. Chapter 2 shows that the early date of Pentateuchal sources
according to the Documentary Hypothesis is entirely lacking in external corroboration,
since archaeological evidence, including an analysis of written finds
in Judea and at Elephantine, does not support the existence of any written Pentateuchal
materials prior to the third century BCE.

The first evidence of the existence
of the Pentateuch has commonly been taken to be Hecataeus of Abdera's
Aegyptiaca, usually dated to the period 320-300 BCE. One literary fragment
almost universally attributed to Hecataeus (namely Diodorus Siculus, Library
40.3.1-8) mentioned Jewish books of the law and even quoted a passage that
appears to come from Deuteronomy. This seemingly establishes a terminus ad
quern of ca. 320-300 BCE for the composition of the Pentateuch.

Chapter 3 shows this commonly accepted conclusion is in error, since it can be demonstrated
that the passage is not from Hecataeus at all, but from Theophanes of
Mytilene, writing in 62 BCE.

Chapter 4 shows that the Septuagint translation of
the Pentateuch into Greek is the first true evidence for Pentateuchal writings in
any language and yields a terminus ad quern of ca. 270 BCE. This is a conclusion
of major importance, for it opens up the possibility that the Pentateuch borrows
from or shows awareness of other literary texts written as late as ca. 270 BCE.

Specifically, this indicates the necessity for reappraising the relationship between
the Pentateuch and works by the historians Berossus (278 BCE) and Manetho
(ca. 285 BCE). The similarity of Gen 1-11 and Mesopotamian traditions in
Berossus such as the creation and flood stories has often been noted; likewise
the similarity of the Exodus story and two accounts of the expulsion of foreigners
from Egypt to Judea in Manetho. But a dependency of Genesis on Berossus
or Manetho has never been seriously considered before, since it was assumed
that the Pentateuch took shape by the time of Hecataeus of Abdera, that is, before
Berossus and Manetho wrote. Close similarities between Berossus and Genesis
have thus in some cases been attributed to Jewish interpolations in Berossus; the
many scholars who have posited a relationship between the expulsion stories in
Manetho and Exodus have unanimously assumed that Manetho engaged in
polemics against the Jewish account. The shift in the Pentateuch's terminus ad
quern from ca. 320-300 BCE to ca. 270 BCE raises for the first time the possibility
that the borrowing and polemics took place in the opposite direction: that the
Pentateuch drew on Berossus and polemicized against the Egyptian expulsion
stories in Manetho.

The next step in dating the Pentateuch is establishing a terminus a quo. This
is done using a number of independent arguments. Chapter 5 argues that all of
the well-known Mesopotamian influences on Gen 1-11 are best explained by
knowledge of Berossus, who translated all the relevant Mesopotamian traditions
into Greek in 278 BCE, and whose Babyloniaca is often closer to the biblical text
than were the original cuneiform texts.


Chapter 6 shows that the geographical
information in the Table of Nations reflected the political divisions into Seleucid,
Ptolemaic and disputed territories after 278 BCE, and that the related story of the
Curse of Canaan reflected circumstances at the end of the First Syrian War, in
ca. 273-272 BCE.

Chapters 7 and 8 argue that the Exodus story was based on
Manetho's account of the expulsion of foreigners from Egypt into Judea. The
traditions in Manetho can be demonstrated to have drawn exclusively on native
Egyptian sources and display no awareness of the biblical account.

The Exodus story, meanwhile, shows considerable knowledge of Manetho's accounts regarding
Hyksos and expelled Egyptians, showing systematic agreement with
Manetho in all details favorable or neutral to the Jews but containing polemics
against precisely those points in Manetho that reflected unfavorably on the Jews.

The Exodus story thus appears to have originated in reaction to Manetho's
Aegyptiaca written in ca. 285 BCE.

Chapter 9 argues that the figure of Moses as a
magician and deliverer of the Jews was modeled on Nectanebos II, the last
pharaoh of Egypt, as portrayed in legends of the late fourth and early third century
BCE.

Chapter 10 shows that the geography of the Exodus reflects toponyms
of the early Ptolemaic period and may allude to certain features of the Ptolemaic
Nile-to-Red-Sea canal in place in ca. 273 BCE.

As summarized in Chapter 11, these multiple lines of evidence are consistent
with the composition of the Pentateuch having taken place in 273-272 BCE.

Analysis of the sources utilized in the Pentateuch point to Jewish access to Greek
manuscripts of the Great Library in Alexandria. Authorship of key portions of
the Pentateuch by Jewish scholars knowledgeable in Greek, and having access to
Alexandria's library in 273-272 BCE, points to the identity of the authors of the
Pentateuch with the team of seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars whom
tradition credited with having created the Septuagint translation about this same
time through the generous patronage of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The objective
of the Septuagint scholars' literary activities is best understood as the composition
of the Hebrew Pentateuch itself, and only secondarily its translation into
Greek. The diverse Pentateuchal sources J, E, D, P and H are best interpreted as
illustrating the different social strata and interests among the scholars at work on
the project.

The dominant theory on the composition of the Pentateuch is still the Documentary
Hypothesis. The version of the Documentary Hypothesis summarized (and
somewhat oversimplified) here is that of J. Wellhausen.2 Wellhausen believed
that the various sources of the Pentateuch represented different phases in the
development of the Jewish religion and could be correlated with Jewish history
as presented in the Hebrew Bible.

The Documentary Hypothesis as presented by
Wellhausen identified four distinct sources in the Pentateuch and sought to date
each.

The oldest was thought to have been J, reflecting a phase when the worship
of Yahweh was not yet centralized in Jerusalem. This was thought to correlate
with the historical period before Solomon's temple; but since J also made
allusions to a period of rule under kings, J was dated to the early monarchy, ca.
850-800 BCE.

Next came E, the Elohist, with similar perspectives as J, but
characteristically using the name El rather than Yahweh. Since it was thought
that E was added onto the existing narrative of J, it was dated somewhat later.

The combined source document JE is thought to have taken shape in 850-750
BCE, in the "golden age of Hebrew literature."3

D was dated to 621 BCE, the eighteenth year of Josiah, when a book of the
covenant was allegedly discovered in the temple according to 2 Kgs 22-23.
Wellhausen believed Deuteronomy was a new composition intended to bolster
Josiah's intended cult reforms that centralized worship of Yahweh at Jerusalem
and eliminated competing cults.

Wellhausen convinced the scholarly world that P, the Priestly Code, was written last.
Wellhausen argued that P reflected the period when Second Temple Judaism
began to emerge among priests of the Babylonian exile, and that P was officially
introduced by Ezra in Judea in 458 BCE.

Wellhausen believed that the different Pentateuchal sources represented
different stages in a linear evolution of Jewish religion from primitive, decentralized
polytheism to a centralized monotheistic cult of Yahweh at Jerusalem to
the priest-dominated Judaism of the post-exilic period.

Wellhausen's application of historico-critical methods sought not only to date the Pentateuchal sources,
but also to construct a picture of the historical developments that had prompted
dating of Pentateuchal sources. Thus, for instance, he posited that the
legal scroll discovered in the course of temple renovations
under Josiah's reign was actually a new composition—the book of
Deuteronomy—which the religious leaders introduced as an ancient and authoritative
Mosaic text in order to lend authority to the proposed reforms of Josiah
centralizing the cult of Yahweh at Jerusalem.

He similarly posited that the
ancient and authoritative scroll of the law that Ezra reportedly brought from
Babylon and read in Jerusalem had been recently composed by exilic priests.

As discussed in Chapter 2 below, archaeological evidence fails to support the historicity
of Josiah's reforms, essential for Wellhausen's theory of the historical
circumstances which produced—and dated—D. The Elephantine Papyri show
no evidence of the existence of any Pentateuchal writings as late as 400 BCE.
Wellhausen's dating theories largely founder on the collapse of his view of
Israel's historical and religious development.

Wellhausen's dating of sources relied heavily on using biblical historiographical
texts as a springboard for creative historical constructs that proposed to
explain the specific circumstances behind the composition and introduction of
Pentateuchal materials. This entangling of dating issues with subjective historical
constructs was a major methodological flaw in Wellhausen's approach.7 The
Documentary Hypothesis as developed by Wellhausen illustrates the grave
danger of circular reasoning inherent in dating texts by means of a historical
construct created to facilitate the dating of these same texts. Under the methodology
advocated in this book, the dating of texts is properly an enterprise
prior to and entirely separate from the writing of history.

In his important and influential 1983 book, In Search of History, J. Van Seters
articulated the idea that the Hebrew Bible should be viewed as historiography
rather than historical fact8 and systematically compared the historiography of the
Hebrew Bible with that of other peoples in the ancient world, notably the
Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Levantines and Greeks.

Van Seters found the closest parallels with Mesopotamian historiography to occur in the book of Kings,
which contained some stories of later kings that closely resembled the relatively
objective Babylonian Chronicle Series of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.9

Van Seters also found a number of parallels with Greek historiography, such as the
Hebrew Bible's use of eponyms, etiologies, stories about inventors,10 and histories
built around genealogies."

He also compared the collection and utilization of logoi by the Deuteronomist to that of Herodotus.12

In Van Seters' later 1992 book, Prologue to History, he cited further instances of possible borrowing from
the Greeks in J portions of Genesis, notably the idea that the gods cohabited
with human women and begat superhuman, gigantic offspring.13

The Table of Nations, with its interest in eponymous ancestors and in genealogies of ancient
heroes, also strongly paralleled Greek historiographical interests as reflected, for
instance, in the Hesiodic Catalog of Women. and Mesopotamian histoiriography,
with its "antiquarian" interest in the Flood and the pre-Flood world, also substantially
influenced early Genesis.15

Van Seters thus saw both Greek and Mesopotamian
influence on the Hebrew Bible. Van Seters dated J to the exilic, pre-
Persian period, based on the land-promises in Genesis, stories of patriarchs
sending their sons back to Mesopotamia for wives, and especially in Babylonian
influences on the primeval history.16

A major defect in Van Seters' dating is that the pioneering Greek prose writers
that Van Seters cited as displaying close parallels to biblical historiography,
notably Hecataeus of Miletus and Herodotus, wrote in the fifth century BCE and
later, after the exilic period.17

Another major problem for Van Seters is the lack
of a plausible mechanism for transmission of Greek and Mesopotamian historiographical
ideas to reach the Jews in the period he considered, since Greeks
and Hebrews had almost no direct contact before the fourth century BCE.18

Noting Greek-Phoenician trade contact in the pre-Persian period, he therefore
proposed the Phoenicians as transmitters of Greek historiographical traditions to
the Jews around the close of the sixth century BCE. This suggestion is unconvincing,
since Phoenician historiography—as known from the writings of Philo
of Byblos—contained almost none of the Greek features one would expect from
Van Seters' analysis.19

Van Seters attempted to account for the influence of
Mesopotamian historiographical traditions on the Pentateuch by positing that the
Pentateuch was composed during the Babylonian exile. Van Seters appears not
to have considered the problem of Jewish access to cuneiform traditions, which
were first made available to the larger world by Berossus's translations in the
Babyloniaca in 278 BCE.20 This book proposes that Jewish scholars were
exposed to Greek and Mesopotamian historiographical tradition (the two already
fused in Berossus's Babyloniaca) from scrolls they had access to at the Alexandrian
Library in ca. 273-272 BCE (see Chapter 11).

Another influential book, published not long after Van Seters' In Search of History,
was G. Garbini's History and Ideology in Ancient Israel in 1988. Garbini
followed Van Seters in recognizing the influence of Greek historiography in the
Hebrew Bible's use of genealogies, eponyms and logoi.21

Like Van Seters, Garbini saw the need to posit an intermediary between Greek and Jews, but
instead of the Phoenicians, Garbini proposed the Philistines.22 Garbini made the
interesting proposal that the references to Ur and Harran in the story of Abraham
dated the tale (that is, the logos) to the time of Nabonidus (555-539 BCE), who
promoted temple cults of the moon god Sin in those two cities. Garbini suggested
that the Jews in Nabonidus's time traced their ancestry to Mesopotamia much as
Jews of later times claimed kinship with the Spartans or the Damascenes.23

One of Garbini's more important contributions was his close attention to evidence
for terminus ad quem dates of biblical books.

Garbini considered a passage routinely attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera, variously dated to 320-300 BCE, as
the earliest evidence for Pentateuchal writings in some form.24 References by
Aristobulus (ca. 150 BCE) and The Letter.ofAristeas to a previous defective
translation of the Pentateuch into Greek corrected by the Septuagint were also
considered significant evidence of early Pentateuchal writings. Aristobulus's
summary of an alleged translation preceding the Septuagint lacked any mention
of events from the book of Genesis. Garbini took this to indicate that Genesis
may have been composed as late as the time of the Septuagint translation,25
which he considered a major new redaction of the Pentateuchal traditions.26

Though Garbini emphasized terminus ad quem data, he never developed any
rigorous arguments regarding terminus a quo dates. As a result of Garbini's
dating of biblical texts at or close to the terminus ad quem, his conclusions seem
highly subjective.

As a whole, Garbini's intuitions with respect to the late dating of biblical
materials are broadly confirmed in this book. In some cases, this book proposes
even later dates than that of Garbini, but within a more rigorous logical framework.

Theophanes of Mytilene, writing in 62 BCE, is shown to have been the
true author of the passage on the Jews usually attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera
and mistakenly thought by Garbini (among others) to demonstrate the existence
of Jewish writings ca. 320-300 BCE (see Chapter 3).

References to an alleged Greek translation of the Pentateuch earlier than the Septuagint in Aristobulus
and The Letter ofAristeas1(which Garbini took at face value). are shown to have
no historical foundation: these were based entirely on Egyptian claims to have
colonized Judea as reported in genuine passages of Hecataeus of Abdera, which
later Jewish authors believed must have relied on some defective early Greek
translation of the Jewish Exodus story (see Chapter 4, §§1-3).

All evidence for Jewish writings in Greek or Hebrew prior to the Septuagint thus evaporates and
the Septuagint translation in ca. 272-269 BCE becomes the true terminus ad
quem for the Pentateuch (see Chapter 4, §4).

Indeed, this book ultimately concludes
that the Hebrew text behind the Septuagint represents the original Pentateuch
itself, newly composed in 273-272 BCE (see Chapter 11), not a redaction
of some earlier version as Garbini held.

Building on Garbini's book, P. R. Davies presented a case for dating the Pentateuch
and other biblical texts to the Persian period in his 1992 book, In Search
of "Ancient Israel". Davies' proposed dates for biblical texts centered on arguments
that the concept of Israel itself only emerged in the Persian period. Davies
argued that a reconstituted Israel was the ideological creation of the Persian
Empire, pointing out that Persian policies implementing the organization of the
Persian Empire included the restoration or creation of temples, the establishment
of law codes, and the conscious creation of feelings of new ethnic identity among
relocated populations.27

Davies proposed that Jewish laws were codified at the initiative of Darius I.
Davies appeared particularly impressed by Darius I's instruction for Egyptian
scholars of the House of Life to produce a new edition of Egyptian legal texts
(which J. Blenkinsopp compared to Ezra's mission).28 But Darius I's instructions
to restore Egyptian temples and legal institutions in 518 BCE were clearly a local
concession intended to mollify Egyptians for the excesses of Cambyses, including
the destruction of legal and religious texts.29

The Jews, in direct contrast to the Egyptians, suffered no disruptions of their temples under Cambyses and
remained loyal during the uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere that followed Cambyses'
death in 522 BCE.30 The known historical forces that prompted Darius I's
legal initiative in Egypt were thus absent in Judea, undermining Davies' theory.
Additionally, while Darius I actively promoted his own reputation as lawgiver in
Persia and Egypt,31 his name was not associated with Jewish law in either
biblical or extra-biblical sources.

Davies dated Deuteronomy to the sixth or fifth century32 and other materials
mostly in the Persian period hypothetically emanating from temple scribal
schools that continued producing biblical texts down into the third century BCE.33

Davies' theory of different scribal schools or "colleges" specializing in producing
legal materials, historiography, wisdom literature, etc., was "an exercise in
imagination," as he himself acknowledged.34

Like Garbini, Davies put little confidence in the historical value of the Kings
tradition. Davies pointed out the circularity in making biblical texts contemporary
witnesses to the history they related by assuming that their earliest possible
date of composition represented their actual date of composition.35 Although
acknowledging the doubtful historical content of Ezra-Nehemiah, he also
invoked these books as describing Persian initiatives in establishing religious
institutions in Yehud.37

Although Davies' book was extremely valuable in questioning the historical
presuppositions of the Documentary Hypothesis,38 Davies' own approach was
highly reminiscent of that of Wellhausen. Both were concerned with constructing
histories of the Jews, but for slightly different reasons. Whereas Wellhausen's
major interest was tracing the emergence of centralized worship at
Jerusalem and the creation of the familiar institutions of Second Temple
Judaism, Davies' interest was in investigating the emerging idea of Israel itself.

Much as Wellhausen proposed that Deuteronomy was promulgated among the
Jews to support Josiah's reforms, Davies believed the Pentateuchal and historiographical
literature, and even the idea of Israel itself, were created at Persian
initiative. Wellhausen and Davies largely agreed on Ezra's role, although Davies
saw Ezra as an agent of the Persians (and as less than historical). Davies'
historical theories regarding the Persians as creators of the idea of Israel were
hypothetical at best and very hard to separate from his theories on dating of
biblical materials. The same criticism made regarding Wellhausen's mingling of
history-writing and dating of texts also applies here.

In an article published in 1993, N. P. Lemche listed four major reasons for dating
the Hebrew Bible to the Hellenistic period.39

First, he asserted that a lack of reliable historical content in the historiographical
books of the Hebrew Bible pointed to a late date of composition.

This argument does not appear sound, since there are many examples of late
historical texts that drew on old reliable sources, and older historical texts,
nearly contemporary with the events they relate, that are known to have been
inaccurate.40

Second, following Van Seters, Lemche suggested that the idea of (re-establishing
a Jewish kingdom in Palestine likely arose in the Jewish Diaspora still
living in Mesopotamia.41 (By contrast, Davies had argued that the idea of Israel
arose among populations transplanted from Mesopotamia to Judea by the
Persians.)

Third, also following Van Seters, Lemche noted that the Hebrew Bible
reflected Greek and Mesopotamian historiography. Lemche suggested that the
historiographical books of the Hebrew Bible were patterned after the structure of
Herodotus, which, if true, would exclude Van Seters' dating of the Deuteronomist
historian and JE to the exile.

However, the structural parallels Lemche
attempted to show between Herodotus's History and Genesis-Kings are forced
and unconvincing. Further, one would expect that if the authors of the histories
of the Hebrew Bible had been substantially influenced by Herodotus, quotations
or ideas from Herodotus would be found somewhere in Jewish historiographical
writings, but direct borrowing from Herodotus has never been detected.

No real evidence exists that the Jewish authors of the Pentateuch or the Deuteronomist
knew Herodotus.

This book will argue that the Jewish historical writings closely
followed a different pattern, that of Berossus's Babyloniaca, which contained a
connected narrative that included creation, the flood and a history of the kings of
Babylon and Persia down to Alexander's conquest. Direct borrowing from
Berossus will be demonstrated in the primordial history of Gen 1-11 (see
Chapter 5).

Fourth, Lemche argued that the Neo-BabyIonian or Persian periods did not
provide a realistic opportunity for Greek ideas about historiography to have
reached the Jews. Lemche accepted Van Seters' suggestion that the Jews of the
exile could have been exposed to ideas of Mesopotamian historiography, but
pointed out that for the majority of Jews who chose to stay in Mesopotamia
rather than return to Judea, the exile did not end in 538 BCE.42 He rejected Van
Seters' idea that Jews in the exilic period were exposed to Greek historical traditions
by way of the Phoenicians as lacking any real evidence. Instead, Lemche
suggested that Jews in Mesopotamia as late as the early Hellenistic period could
have been exposed to both Greek and Mesopotamian historiographical
traditions.43 This last argument appears to have been Lemche's main reason both
for dating Jewish historical writings to the Hellenistic period and his suggestion
of a Seleucid, Mesopotamian provenance.

There appears to be considerable merit to Lemche's fourth argument that
Jews learned of Greek ideas of historiography during the Hellenistic period,
when Jews and Greeks came into direct contact. But both Van Seters and
Lemche assumed that Jewish exposure to Mesopotamian (Babylonian) ideas of
historiography must have taken place among Jews living in Mesopotamia. Yet
given that Babylonian historiographical writings existed only in cuneiform texts
stored in temple libraries until the translations made by Berossus,44 it seems
unlikely that Jewish residents in Mesopotamia would in fact have been exposed
to Babylonian literary traditions. This book will argue that Jewish Alexandrian
scholars were exposed to Mesopotamian historiography through Berossus's
Babyloniaca.

In 1994, T. L. Thompson attempted the first history of South Syria based solely
on archaeological data without utilizing biblical historiographical accounts.45

Thompson extended his history down to the Persian period, when Thompson
dated the emergence of Israel among new populations transplanted to South
Syria from Mesopotamia.46 Thompson considered the Persian period the terminus
a quo and the middle of the second century BCE as the terminus ad quem for
the composition of biblical manuscripts figuring Israel.47 At the time, Thompson
largely rested his dating arguments on interpretations of Ezra as documenting
Persian restoration (creation) of Jewish identity and national literature.48 In
1997, Thompson acknowledged that his historical reconstruction of the Persian
period had relied too heavily on biblical materials, but still viewed the Persian
period as a valid terminus a quo for the development of the idea of Israel
expressed in the biblical texts.49

While Thompson considered it possible that Genesis-Kings existed in some
form in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, he argued that these texts were still
undergoing revisions as late as the Hasmonean period.50 Thompson's argument
largely rested on a scheme of biblical chronology that calculated exactly 4000
years between the creation of the world in 4164 BCE and the Maccabean
restoration of the temple in 164 BCE. Thompson argued that the chronology in
the historiographical materials in the Hebrew Bible was revised after that date.51

Thompson's argument required that Jewish chronographers possessed an accurate
calculation of the interval of 374 years between the Cyrus Decree in 538
BCE and the restoration of the temple in 164 BCE,52 whereas it is well known that
no extant Jewish sources from the Second Temple period correctly calculated
these dates.53 If a 4000-year scheme was being promoted after the Maccabean
restoration of the temple in 164 BCE, it is strange that Eupolemus, the Maccabean
envoy and the author of a book The Judean Kings in 158/157 BCE, knew
nothing about it, but calculated 5149 years between Adam and his day.54 Additionally,
the book of Sirach, conventionally dated to ca. 180 BCE, attests to
various episodes in the Hebrew Bible that Thompson proposed were written in
the Hasmonean period.55

According to A History of Israelite Religion by R. Albertz of the Heidelberg
School,56 Persian authorities required a formal Jewish law code in order to grant
local autonomy in the province of Yehud. Albertz argued that a law code was
created by the Jerusalem priests together with the council of elders (the later
gerousia), i.e. the constituted authorities in Persian Yehud, who respectively
contributed the Priestly Code and the non-priestly Deuteronomistic composition
(which included JE materials). The Heidelberg School viewed the Pentateuch as
a compromise text which included oftentimes contradictory material from lay
and priestly groups. The authority of the Pentateuch was said to derive from the
ruling status of the elders and priestly college.

This approach attempted to extract sociological information from the Pentateuchal
and other sources—for instance, claiming that the seventy elders under
Moses reflected political institutions of JE's authorial group. Albertz sought to
reconstruct historical and sociological developments in Yehud during the
Persian period from such considerations.57 A defect of his approach was the
absence of rigor in dating the texts from which such information was extracted,
which led to historical insights which may be valid for the groups behind specific
texts, but for a different period than that proposed for the given text.58

While the Heidelberg School's model of the composition of the Pentateuch
served to explain, plausibly, both the authority of the Pentateuch and the unresolved
contradictions of its sources, there is no direct biblical or extra-biblical
evidence of a Persian initiative behind the composition of the Pentateuch.59

What the Heidelberg School hypothesized for the Persian period appears to be
documented for the Hellenistic era in The Letter of Aristeas, which claimed that
Ptolemy II Philadelphus requested the Jewish priests and lay council of elders to
produce an official copy of the Jewish legislation—in both Hebrew and Greek—
for the Great Library of Alexandria. Taking The Letter of Aristeas to refer to the
composition as well as translation of the Pentateuch (see Chapter 11, §3), many
of Albertz's astute sociological observations still apply within this later historical
context.

Egyptological data relevant to the Joseph story and the Exodus have been studied
by D. Redford.60 Redford systematically analyzed details of both accounts
and found that the stories reflected topographic, onomastic and other data of the
Saite, Persian and Ptolemaic periods.61 Interestingly, Redford concluded that a
Saite or Persian period date of composition should be assigned to both the
Joseph and Exodus stories,62 although a Ptolemaic period dating was equally
consistent with the data he analyzed. Redford did not state his reason for excluding
a Ptolemaic period dating of composition in either study,63 but it seems
likely he was influenced by the Documentary Hypothesis, which held that the
Pentateuch was finalized by Ezra.64

A recent attempt to date biblical texts by means of archaeological data was made
by W. Dever in What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know
It?65 Dever's highly polemical book, when it discussed archaeological issues,
was primarily concerned with finding "convergences"66 between Iron I and II
archaeological data and biblical accounts from the Judges period to the fall of
Jerusalem. Dever argued that such convergences showed that biblical historiographical
texts (primarily Judges-Kings), as well as some of the Prophets,
reflect Iron Age "realia" and therefore could not have been composed in the
Persian or Hellenistic periods.67 Dever recognized the possibility that certain
books such as Kings may have been edited and redacted in the exilic period, but
considered convergences with Iron II archaeology to demonstrate that significant
portions were composed during the monarchy.68 Although Dever invoked oral
traditions to explain how Iron Age realia occasionally appeared in documents
composed in the exilic period, Dever did not allow for the possibility that oral
traditions could have persisted into the Persian or Hellenistic eras.69

The raw archaeological data Dever assembled are important and relevant, but
Dever's analysis of their significance failed to take into account key issues of a
source-critical nature. A major defect in Dever's book—given its central thesis
of archaeology's relevance to textual criticism70—is its uncritical acceptance of
the Documentary Hypothesis, despite a lack of any corroborating archaeological
evidence (see Chapter 2).

Another problem in terms of basic methodology is
Dever's general application of archaeological dating arguments without sufficient
care to determine what specific source documents those arguments apply
to. One can agree with Dever on the need for textual criticism to come to terms
with the archaeological data;71 the desirability of "isolating a reliable 'historical
core' of events" in the Hebrew Bible—especially in Kings—and the utility of
archaeological data in progressing toward that objective;72 and that certain parts
of the Hebrew Bible corroborated by archaeological evidence might be useful as
a "possible source for history-writing."73 But Dever failed to correlate archaeological
evidence properly with specific sources, instead arriving at the over-general
conclusion that the biblical writers "knew a lot, and they knew it early."74

A more careful methodological approach is to refrain from making broad
statements on the historical reliability of composite documents, but instead
identify specific source documents and analyze their antiquity and historical
content individually. With respect to the book of Kings, for instance, archaeological
evidence tends to corroborate the antiquity of the Royal Chronicles of
Judah and Israel, but a pre-exilic date for this source does not affect the dating of
the Pentateuch, since these chronicles did not draw on Pentateuchal materials.

On the other hand, archaeological evidence casts doubt on the antiquity and
historical reliability of both the Deuteronomistic ethical commentary on the
kings of the Divided Monarchy and the novelistic Tales of the Prophets that also
drew on the Pentateuch.75

The Prophets, like Kings, were composite documents
combining ancient and late materials, and archaeological evidence supporting an
Iron II date for prophetic texts utilizing the Pentateuch is lacking. The archaeological
data that Dever cited thus have value in corroborating the antiquity and
possible historical usefulness of select biblical source materials, but do not
exclude a Hellenistic Era date for the composition and final redaction of Kings
and other biblical texts as Dever attempted to persuade.

Being able to disabuse oneself of the notion that the Bible is at all as ancient as say, The Odyssey or Mesopotamian texts, really helps to get the cobwebs out of the brain so that texts can be looked at more objectively.

 

[Juba]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

I don't know if I touched anything interesting in my post but that's what is bothering me in these epics as well as other small details in composition of both epics and influences of the gods on man and political complexity in Iliad.

Well, read these two posts carefully:
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=23803.msg265491#msg265491

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=23803.msg265495#msg265495

and subsequent posts I'm going to be making from several intensely interesting works, and you'll get your answers, I think!

Thank you Laura, once more, it is really unbelievable how all this ancient myths are all entangled together, (sorry for writting my post before reading page 7 and your posts) you really answered in details on my questions. :)

Is it too pushy to think that these myths including Odyssey epic are going far behind Mesopotamia and early Middle East cultures? Perhaps not before the flood of Noah because global Atlantean culture was probably well aware of "Atlantic"ocean (I don't know if they used ships at all instead of some other much advanced ways of transportation). On other hand, war between "Greeks and Troyans" could be even older than Odyssey itself, for me it seems like clash of major forces, like clash of different cultures & different religions, do we have that kind of forces after the flood of Noah? (of course in case these aren't just a fictions without any historical background) I'm sorry if I wrote something silly but this is going trough my mind for some time.

 

[mcb]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Whew! -- there is more background material here than I can absorb all at once.

As I was listening to the story, though, I was thinking about where it might have originally been situated, and suddenly the words "red-haired king" flew by. That sounded a bit farther to the north to me. I then located this comment in WikiPedia:

Several accounts by Greek writers mention redheaded people. A fragment by the Greek poet Xenophanes describes the Thracians as blue-eyed and red haired. The Greek historian Herodotus described the "Budini" (probably Udmurts and Permyak located on the Volga in what is modern-day Russia) as being predominantly redheaded. The Greek historian Dio Cassius described Boudica, the famous Celtic Queen of the Iceni, to be "tall and terrifying in appearance... a great mass of red hair... over her shoulders." Also, several mythological characters from Homer's Iliad (themselves purportedly Greek) are described as being "red haired" including Menelaus and Achilles.

The Roman author Tacitus commented on the "red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia (Scotland)", which he connected with some red haired Gaulish tribes of Germanic and Belgic relation.

Red hair has also been found in Asia, notably among the Tocharians, who occupied the Tarim Basin in what is now the northwesternmost province of China. Many of 2nd millennium BC Caucasian Tarim mummies in China have been found with red and blonde hair.

Could this be a hint as to the origin of this and other "Greek" stories?

 

[Zadius Sky]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

This is interesting. I've only read some excerpts of it in college, but never read the whole thing. Now I'm gotta.

:)

 

[Akopirnas]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

The three large sequences are interlocking ring compositions: A1 B1 C1 C2 B2 A2.

It can be result of procedure of recording of remained oral versions which Pisistratus (Peisistratus, 546 to 527/8 BC), son of Hippocrates, hypothetical descendant Homer's Pisistratus has organized. Perhaps, this sequence belonged personally to Homer - here, at a clever forum, anyone completely didn't read Odyssey, but blind poet held 350 pages in memory by means of this constuct...
That is, we have the same history, as with Bible's FBIs, but without accused: obvious absurdities have remained here too.
To be able to return through deep Africa... only REAL heroes can do this! ;) It's like with rests of words in our history "beauty and the beast" - not Sargon, but Sar(r)a(h/i)...

But, yes, without reading and understanding Odissey nobody can enter into reality of that fairy tales country.

 

[cubbex]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

I knew that mythology has a real deep meaning. But I think just some can find its meanings, especially as Laura is doing, you know, reading about the context, intepretation, even a map.

 

[findit]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

I was intrigued after reading Iman Wilkens book to pick up a copy of the Iliad and the Odyssey and had just started reading the first few chapters of both, but after reading this thread, I'm going to focus on the Odyssey. As mentioned before, the background reading on this is intense, but I will look forward to reading this in a new light. Thanks for background info as I'm sure I will be revisiting this thread quite a few times...

 

[StrangeCaptain]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Is it too pushy to think that these myths including Odyssey epic are going far behind Mesopotamia and early Middle East cultures? Perhaps not before the flood of Noah because global Atlantean culture was probably well aware of "Atlantic"ocean (I don't know if they used ships at all instead of some other much advanced ways of transportation). On other hand, war between "Greeks and Troyans" could be even older than Odyssey itself, for me it seems like clash of major forces, like clash of different cultures & different religions, do we have that kind of forces after the flood of Noah? (of course in case these aren't just a fictions without any historical background) I'm sorry if I wrote something silly but this is going trough my mind for some time.

You might want to check out this article:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/article-lkj-04-03-06-h.htm

 

[Juba]

Re: The Odyssey - question for all!

Is it too pushy to think that these myths including Odyssey epic are going far behind Mesopotamia and early Middle East cultures? Perhaps not before the flood of Noah because global Atlantean culture was probably well aware of "Atlantic"ocean (I don't know if they used ships at all instead of some other much advanced ways of transportation). On other hand, war between "Greeks and Troyans" could be even older than Odyssey itself, for me it seems like clash of major forces, like clash of different cultures & different religions, do we have that kind of forces after the flood of Noah? (of course in case these aren't just a fictions without any historical background) I'm sorry if I wrote something silly but this is going trough my mind for some time.

You might want to check out this article:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/article-lkj-04-03-06-h.htm

Thank you Patience, definitely great Laura's article!!!! All I can say is WOW!