Transatlantic crossing: Did Phoenicians beat Columbus by 2000 years? CNN
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New Roman Temple Discovered in Ancient Phoenician City of Tyre – ARTnews
By Jesse Holth
A new Roman temple has been discovered by archaeologists in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre, located off the coast of Lebanon. The joint excavation, led by María Eugenia Aubet (Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona), Ali Badawi (General Directorate of Antiquities of Lebanon), and Francisco J. Núñez (Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw), focused on the massive structure.
Two phases of construction have been identified, placing the temple in the early Roman period (about 31 B.C.E. to 193 C.E.) with a major modification in the late Roman period (about 284 C.E. to 476 C.E.). The temple is situated in the Tyre Acropolis, the highest point of the land mass, which Greek and Phoenician inscriptions describe as a sacred area. Researchers believe many cult-related rituals and worship activities would have taken place here.
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“Its location on a podium in the most elevated area of the ancient island highlights this building’s particular status,” said Núñez in an email.
The rectangular building is east-west in orientation, with a vestibule flanked by two columns, and a podium on the other side. Temple walls were originally comprised of sandstone blocks, and the building stood on a platform made of limestone and sandstone. The 26-foot-high columns were made of Egyptian pink granite, and the stepped entryway was decorated with engraved slabs featuring geometric motifs.
“It is one of but a few buildings of this character found in Tyre to date,” Núñez wrote. “Our knowledge of Tyre in Antiquity, despite the great prominence of the city, is unfortunately quite limited.”
Researchers believe there may have been a subterranean chamber located south of the entrance. The exact object of veneration at the massive temple remains a mystery. “At least for now, the name of the deity worshipped in this building remains elusive to us,” wrote Núñez.
The porticoed street that descends from the temple intersects with a narrower street leading to a nearby shrine, with two rooms and a courtyard. This smaller structure is oriented north-south, with one room featuring an Egyptian relief that portrays the goddess Isis breastfeeding her son Horus as a child.
Tyre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a long history of settlement dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C.E. It has long been a significant port and trading center in the Mediterranean region. During the Bronze Age and Iron Age, around 1,200 B.C.E. to 868 B.C.E., it was an independent Phoenician city and a site of major economic importance, including industry, commerce, and crafts.Originally located on an offshore island, Tyre was connected to the mainland by a causeway built by Alexander the Great.
Buildings constructed over five millennia by various cultures have made Tyre a difficult archaeological site to investigate, with layers of occupation overlapping each other. “The superimposed architectural remains, along with natural catastrophes, the rise of the sea level, and the dynamic land development and public works in the recent decades efficiently obscured the character of ancient architecture,” Núñez said in a statement.
The area around the temple was severely damaged and reconstructed in the Early Byzantine era. The temple itself was dismantled and replaced by a large basilica, which was eventually destroyed along with other parts of the city during a tsunami in the 6th century C.E.
Work will continue at the site in 2022, with further investigations of the Roman temple and surrounding area. Researchers plan to determine whether a second monumental building, located to the north, is another temple.
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Gene study shows the Phoenicians still with us – Reuters
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The seafaring Phoenicians left the world more than a legacy of alphabets and purple dye — they left their DNA scattered throughout Mediterranean men, as well, according to a report published on Thursday.
As many as one in 17 men living in the Mediterranean region carries a Y-chromosome handed down from a male Phoenician ancestor, the team at National Geographic and IBM reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
“One boy in each school class from Cyprus to Tunis may be a direct male-line descendant of the Phoenician traders,” IBM’s Daniel Platt said in a statement.
“The results are important because they show that the Phoenician settlement sites are marked by a genetic signature distinct from any that might have been left by other trading and settlement expansions through history, or which may have emerged by chance.”
The researchers are part of the Genographic Project, launched in April 2005 to investigate human origins and migrations.
The five-year project aims to collect more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous and traditional peoples around the world and trace how humans migrated from Africa to nearly every corner of the globe.
In 2003, an international team of researchers reported in the same journal they had found genetic evidence that 8 percent of men in Central Asia, 0.5 percent of men globally, carried genes that could arguably be linked to the Mongol invader Genghis Khan.
The Phoenicians, who thrived from 1500 BC to 300 BC, were headquartered in the coastal areas of present-day Lebanon and Syria. Demand for Tyrian Purple, a dye made from shell of the Murex sea snail, drove much of their trade.
“When we started, we knew nothing about the genetics of the Phoenicians,” Chris Tyler-Smith of Britain’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said in a statement.
“All we had to guide us was history: We knew where they had and hadn’t settled. But this simple information turned out to be enough, with the help of modern genetics, to trace a vanished people.”
The researchers used a simple tool — the Y chromosome. Females do not carry it and it is passed down, with the occasional mutation, intact from father to son, so it can be used as a kind of genetic clock to gauge how one man is related to another.
A similar tool is found in mitochondrial DNA, which women pass on, again with only the occasional change, to their children.
Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Will Dunham
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Who created the first alphabet? – History
Before the alphabet was invented, early writing systems had been based on pictographic symbols known as hieroglyphics, or on cuneiform wedges, produced by pressing a stylus into soft clay. Because these methods required a plethora of symbols to identify each and every word, writing was complex and limited to a small group of highly-trained scribes. Sometime during the second millennium B.C. (estimated between 1850 and 1700 B.C.), a group of Semitic-speaking people adapted a subset of Egyptian hieroglyphics to represent the sounds of their language. This Proto-Sinaitic script is often considered the first alphabetic writing system, where unique symbols stood for single consonants (vowels were omitted). Written from right to left and spread by Phoenician maritime merchants who occupied part of modern Lebanon, Syria and Israel, this consonantal alphabet—also known as an abjad—consisted of 22 symbols simple enough for ordinary traders to learn and draw, making its use much more accessible and widespread.
By the 8th century B.C., the Phoenician alphabet had spread to Greece, where it was refined and enhanced to record the Greek language. Some Phoenician characters were kept, and others were removed, but the paramount innovation was the use of letters to represent vowels. Many scholars believe it was this addition—which allowed text to be read and pronounced without ambiguity—that marked the creation of the first “true” alphabet.
The Greek language was originally written from right to left, but eventually changed to boustrophedon (literally, turning like oxen)—where the direction of writing alternated with every line. By the 5th century B.C., the direction had settled into the pattern we use today, from left tor right. Over time, the Greek alphabet gave rise to several other alphabets, including Latin, which spread across Europe, and Cyrillic, the precursor of the modern Russian alphabet.
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Phoenicians Left Deep Genetic Mark, Study Shows – The New York Times
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The Phoenicians, enigmatic people from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, stamped their mark on maritime history, and now research has revealed that they also left a lasting genetic imprint.
Scientists reported Thursday that as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe may have a Phoenician direct male-line ancestor.
These men were found to retain identifiable genetic signatures from the nearly 1,000 years the Phoenicians were a dominant seafaring commercial power in the Mediterranean basin, until their conquest by Rome in the 2nd century B.C.
The Phoenicians who founded Carthage, a great city that rivaled Rome. They introduced the alphabet to writing systems, exported cedars of Lebanon for shipbuilding and marketed the regal purple dye made from the murex shell. The name Phoenica, for their base in what is present-day Lebanon and southern Syria, means “land of purple.”
Then the Phoenicians, their fortunes in sharp decline after defeat in the Punic Wars, disappeared as a distinct culture. The monumental ruins of Carthage, at modern Tunis, are about the only visible reminders of their former greatness.
The scientists who conducted the new research said this was the first application of a new analytic method for detecting especially subtle genetic influences of historical population migrations. Such investigations, supplementing the traditional stones-and-bones work of archaeology, are contributing to a deeper understanding of human mobility over time.
The study was directed by the Genographic Project, a partnership of the National Geographic Society and IBM Corporation, with additional support from the Waitt Family Foundation. The international team described the findings in the current American Journal of Human Genetics.
“When we started, we knew nothing about the genetics of the Phoenicians,” Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England, said in an announcement. “All we had to guide us was history: we knew where they had and hadn’t settled.”
It proved to be enough, Dr. Tyler-Smith and Spencer Wells, a geneticist who directs the Genographic Project, said in telephone interviews.
Samples of the male Y-chromosome were collected from 1,330 men now living at six sites known to have been settled in antiquity as colonies and trading outposts of the Phoenicians. The sites were in Cyprus, Malta, Morocco, the West Bank, Syria and Tunisia.
Each participant, whose inner cheek was swabbed for the samples, had at least three generations of indigenous ancestry at the site. To this was added data already available from Lebanon and previously published chromosome findings from nearly 6,000 men at 56 sites throughout the Mediterranean region. The data were then compared with similar research from neighboring communities having no link to Phoenician settlers.
From the research emerged a distinctive Phoenician genetic signature, in contrast to genetic traces spread by other migrations, like those of late Stone-Age farmers, Greek colonists and the Jewish Diaspora. The scientists thus concluded that, for example, one boy in each school class from Cyprus to Tunis may be a descendant of Phoenician traders.
“We were lucky in one respect,” Pierre A. Zalloua, a geneticist at Lebanese American University in Beirut who was a principal author of the journal report, said in an interview. “So many Phoenician settlement sites were geographically close to non-Phoenician sites, making it easier to distinguish differences in genetic patterns.”
In the journal article, the researchers wrote that the work “underscores the effectiveness of Y-chromosomal variability” in tracing human migrations. “Our methodology,” they concluded, “can be applied to any historically documented expansion in which contact and noncontact sites can be identified.”
Dr. Zalloua said that with further research it might be possible to refine genetic patterns to reveal phases of the Phoenician expansion over time — “first to Cyprus, then Malta and Africa, all the way to Spain.” Perhaps, he added, the genes may hold clues to which Phoenician cities — Byblos, Tyre or Sidon — settled certain colonies.
Dr. Wells, a specialist in applying genetics to migration studies who is also an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, suggested that similar projects in the future could investigate the genetic imprint from the Celtic expansion across the European continent, the Inca through South America, Alexander’s march through central and south Asia and multicultural traffic on the Silk Road.
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2600-year-old Phoenician wine ‘factory’ unearthed in Lebanon – National Geographic
An artist’s reconstruction of the wine press at Tell el-Burak, looking from the southeast.
The oldest press found in the country was used by ancient Phoenicians to manufacture vintages once adored around the Mediterranean.
Archaeologists have unearthed new evidence of the extensive overseas trade in wine by the ancient Phoenicians, with the discovery of the oldest wine press in Lebanon.
The find sheds new light on winemaking by the Phoenicians, the seafaring merchants who introduced a culture of drinking wine throughout the ancient Mediterranean, and whose influence lives on in the beverage’s worldwide popularity.
Excavations at Tell el-Burak, about five miles south of the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon, have revealed the well-preserved remains of a wine press used from at least the seventh century B.C. It is the earliest wine press ever found in the Phoenician homelands, which roughly corresponded to modern Lebanon. The discovery is featured in a study published Monday in the journal Antiquity.
Large numbers of seeds show grapes were brought there from nearby vineyards and crushed by treading feet in a large basin of durable plaster that could hold about 1,200 gallons of raw juice.
The resulting “must” was collected in a large vat and stored in distinctive pottery jars known as amphorae for fermenting, aging, and transport. (Here’s how climate change is changing the flavor of French wine.)
The wine press at Tell el-Burak. While Phoenicians spread wine culture across the ancient Mediterranean world, evidence for their local manufacturing efforts was scarce until now.
The wine press was excavated along with four mudbrick houses at Tell el-Burak, part of a Phoenician settlement inhabited between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C. that was probably devoted to making wine for trading overseas, the researchers write.
“Wine was an important Phoenician trading item,” says Hélène Sader, an archaeologist at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and co-director of the Tell el-Burak Archaeological Project. Phoenician wine from the Sidon region was particularly famous and mentioned in texts from ancient Egypt, she adds.
But little evidence of Phoenician winemaking had been found in Lebanon itself, possibly due to the haphazard nature of archaeological excavations.
“The coast of Lebanon was never thoroughly surveyed, and very few sites with Iron Age [Phoenician] remains have been properly excavated,” Sader says.
Some similar winemaking sites, however, have been found on the northern coast of what is now Israel, which belonged at that time to the Phoenician kingdoms of Tyre and Sidon.
The Phoenicians didn’t invent wine—evidence of it from about 8,000 years ago has been found in the country of Georgia—but they spread winemaking throughout the ancient Mediterranean, along with olive oil and innovations such as the alphabet and glass.
Alcohol 101
The ancient seafarers introduced vineyards and wineries to their colony cities in North Africa, Sicily, France, and Spain. And they made it popular through trade with ancient Greece and Italy, where wine from wild grapes was known at the time but not so highly developed, says University of Toronto archaeologist Stephen Batiuk, who was not involved in the research. (Discover how alcohol has fueled the development of arts, language, and religion.)
“The Phoenicians perhaps introduced a drinking culture, [new styles of] drinking vessels, and a different way of relating to wine,” he says.
The Phoenicians’ love of wine extended to their religion, and its ceremonial use was reflected in other Near East religions as well.
University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Patrick McGovern, an expert in ancient winemaking who was not involved in the latest study, explained that the Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites, a Bronze Age people who were also predecessors of the Israelites.
“Wine was the Phoenicians’ principal beverage for sacrifice,” he says. “But that was occurring already with the Canaanites, and it was passed along into Judaism and Christianity.”
McGovern speculates that Tell el-Burak may even have supplied some of the hundreds of amphorae on two Phoenician shipwrecks off Ashkelon in Israel, which date from around the same time.
“We did an analysis on several of the amphorae, and it was wine,” he said. “Maybe these vessels were coming from there.”
The Tell el-Burak project is a joint effort by an AUB team and archaeologists in Germany who have studied the site since 2001, although there’s been no work at Tell el-Burak for the past two years due to Lebanon’s economic difficulties, says Sader.
Understanding Human Status Games
There are three primary human status games in all human cultures: dominance, merit and virtue.
A dominance status game is based primarily on physical size and ability to intimidate others and appear to be able to protect oneself and one’s own space, but also to compel others to do what they do not desire necessarily to do by either intimidation, threat of physical violence, or the actual exercise of physical violence.
This status game is intended to curb violence because the behaviors are primarily about signalling intimidation to avoid conflict and not actually engaging in conflict. It can also be misleading. It isn’t based on any actual prowess in fighting or self defense, but in looking intimidating. Which is why this game of status is probably the most asinine and the one that most humans are ready to disengage from.
The second is the merit status game which is the most valuable of all the status hierarchies since it seeks to grant status and high prominence to those individuals who have earned the respect of others and have usually benefited society and many other people through their work and their striving to be disciplined and accomplished.
This hierarchy is only problematic when it does not permit merit to be the only deciding factor and when it seeks to compel by fiat a forced high standing to an individual with only the appearance of merit. Rich people sending kids to expensive Ivy League schools is one such example. It is a form of corruption since it corrupts both the dominance hierarchy and the merit hierarchy.
The third is the virtue status game. This game is the most commonly practiced among women, competitiveness in the dominance hierarchy is pretty well impossible for them due to biological factors and so most women don’t even bother playing in the dominance hierarchy directly, but rather use virtue to play in the dominance hierarchy by assuming the position of a righteous victim. Thus, when feminists attack men for their nature or for competing in the dominance hierarchy, they’re not engaged in the pursuit of Justice, rather their engaged in a passive aggressive female aggression form of competition in the male dominance hierarchy by deprecating
and denigrating high status individuals in those areas where their sabateurs cannot compete on their own.
We can see right away dialectically, using a hegelian approach, why the virtue category has become so saturated that even virtue can be made to be pathologized and monetize and commodified. In a world of 8 billion people, there are many many high status and practitioners of all of the status game hierarchies. And vast majority of women exclude themselves from the other two simply by who they are. They don’t play in the dominance hierarchy and most of them or many of them choose career paths and life paths that exclude them from ever being somebody extraordinary by their accomplishments. So almost all women play exclusively in the virtue status hierarchy and there is no more powerful position in that hierarchy than that of a righteous victim. Thus you understand why there are competition who can be the bigger victims it actually dialectically grants the highest status position in the only status hierarchy than most women play all the time
Doctrine of Discovery Papal Bull of Pope Alexander VI
Pope Francis visited Canada this past week to apologize for the Church’s role in Canada’s Residential Boarding schools.
During the visit, demonstrators brought up the concept of the doctrine of discovery, and in particular a singular document issued by Pope Alexander the 6th in 1493, the following year of Columbus’s discovery of America, in which he grants allegedly the holder of the bull, mainly the king of Castile, another name for Spain, the right, according to the indigenous and other demonstrators, which was subsequently used to justify colonialism, and European expansion.
Given that it seems to us that no one bothers to fact check any of the claims and out of fear of being singled out by somewhat unstable personalities or special interests with strategic plans which include how to quash opposition, and knowing the contents of the document, we thought it important to publish the translation of the document so that the readers may judge for themselves.
100 leagues = 483kms. Fyi
Pope Alexander VI’s Demarcation Bull, May 4, 1493. (The Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC04093)
Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ, Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ, Isabella, queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily, and Granada, health and apostolic benediction. Among other works well pleasing to the Divine Majesty and cherished of our heart, this assuredly ranks highest, that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself. Wherefore inas- much as by the favor of divine clemency, we, though of insufficient merits, have been called to this Holy See of Peter, recognizing that as true Catholic kings and princes, such as we have known you always to be, and as your illustrious deeds already known to almost the whole world declare, you not only eagerly desire but with every effort, zeal, and diligence, without regard to hardships, expenses, dangers, with the shedding even of your blood, are laboring to that end; recognizing also that you have long since dedicated to this purpose your whole soul and all your endeavors–as witnessed in these times with so much glory to the Divine Name in your recovery of the kingdom of Granada from the yoke of the Saracens–we therefore are rightly led, and hold it as our duty, to grant you even of our own accord and in your favor those things whereby with effort each day more hearty you may be enabled for the honor of God himself and the spread of the Christian rule to carry forward your holy and praiseworthy purpose so pleasing to immortal God.
We have indeed learned that you, who for a long time had intended to seek out and discover certain islands and mainlands remote and unknown and not hitherto discovered by others, to the end that you might bring to the worship of our Redeemer and the profession of the Catholic faith their residents and inhabitants, having been up to the present time greatly engaged in the siege and recovery of the kingdom itself of Granada were unable to accomplish this holy and praiseworthy purpose; but the said kingdom having at length been regained, as was pleasing to the Lord, you, with the wish to fulfill your desire, chose our beloved son, Christopher Columbus, a man assuredly worthy and of the highest recommendations and fitted for so great an undertaking, whom you furnished with ships and men equipped for like designs, not without the greatest hardships, dangers, and expenses, to make diligent quest for these remote and unknown mainlands and islands through the sea, where hitherto no one had sailed; and they at length, with divine aid and with the utmost diligence sailing in the ocean sea, discovered certain very remote islands and even mainlands that hitherto had not been discovered by others; wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands. Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities. Wherefore, as becomes Catholic kings and princes, after earnest consideration of all matters, especially of the rise and spread of the Catholic faith, as was the fashion of your ancestors, kings of renowned memory, you have purposed with the favor of divine clemency to bring under your sway the said mainlands and islands with their residents and inhabitants and to bring them to the Catholic faith.
Hence, heartily commending in the Lord this your holy and praiseworthy purpose, and desirous that it be duly accomplished, and that the name of our Savior be carried into those regions, we exhort you very earnestly in the Lord and by your reception of holy baptism, whereby you are bound to our apostolic commands, and by the bowels of the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, enjoy strictly, that inasmuch as with eager zeal for the true faith you design to equip and despatch this expedition, you purpose also, as is your duty, to lead the peoples dwelling in those islands and countries to embrace the Christian religion; nor at any time let dangers or hardships deter you therefrom, with the stout hope and trust in your hearts that Almighty God will further your undertakings. And, in order that you may enter upon so great an undertaking with greater readiness and heartiness endowed with benefit of our apostolic favor, we, of our own accord, not at your instance nor the request of anyone else in your regard, but out of our own sole largess and certain knowledge and out of the fullness of our apostolic power, by the authority of Almighty God conferred upon us in blessed Peter and of the vicarship of Jesus Christ, which we hold on earth, do by tenor of these presents, should any of said islands have been found by your envoys and captains, give, grant, and assign to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, forever, together with all their dominions, cities, camps, places, and villages, and all rights, jurisdictions, and appurtenances, all islands and mainlands found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole, namely the north, to the Antarctic pole, namely the south, no matter whether the said mainlands and islands are found and to be found in the direction of India or towards any other quarter, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde. With this proviso however that none of the islands and mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, beyond that said line towards the west and south, be in the actual possession of any Christian king or prince up to the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ just past from which the present year one thousand four hundred ninety-three begins. And we make, appoint, and depute you and your said heirs and successors lords of them with full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind; with this proviso however, that by this our gift, grant, and assignment no right acquired by any Christian prince, who may be in actual possesssion of said islands and mainlands prior to the said birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, is hereby to be understood to be withdrawn or taking away.
Moreover we command you in virtue of holy obedience that, employing all due diligence in the premises, as you also promise–nor do we doubt your compliance therein in accordance with your loyalty and royal greatness of spirit–you should appoint to the aforesaid mainlands and islands worthy, God- fearing, learned, skilled, and expeienced men, in order to instruct the aforesaid inhabitants and residents in the Catholic faith and train them in good morals. Furthermore, under penalty of excommunication “late sententie” to be incurred “ipso facto,” should anyone thus contravene, we strictly forbid all persons of whatsoever rank, even imperial and royal, or of whatsoever estate, degree, order, or condition, to dare without your special permit or that of your aforesaid heirs and successors, to go for the purpose of trade or any other reason to the islands or mainlands, found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, towards the west and south, by drawing and establishing a line from the Arctic pole to the Antarctic pole, no matter whether the mainlands and islands, found and to be found, lie in the direction of India or toward any other quarter whatsoever, the said line to be distant one hundred leagues towards the west and south, as is aforesaid, from any of the islands commonly known as the Azores and Cape Verde; apostolic constitutions and ordinances and other decrees whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding. We trust in Him from whom empires and governments and all good things proceed, that, should you, with the Lord’s guidance, pursue this holy and praiseworthy undertaking, in a short while your hardships and endeavors will attain the most felicitious result, to the happiness and glory of all Christendom. But inasmuch as it would be difficult to have these present letters sent to all places where desirable, we wish, and with similar accord and knowledge do decree, that to? copies of them, signed by the hand of a public notary commissioned therefor, and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical officer or ecclesiastical court, the same respect is to be shown in court and outside as well as anywhere else as would be given to these presents should they thus be exhibited or shown. Let no one, therefore, infringe, or with rash boldness contravene, this our recommendation, exhortation, requisition, gift, grant, assignment, constitution, deputation, decree, mandate, prohibition, and will. Should anyone presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-three, the fourth of May, and the first year of our pontificate.
Hebrew Mythology Preface
OR, THE RATIONALE OF THE BIBLE WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TREAT OF NATURAL PHENOMENA ONLY.
BY
MILTON WOOLLEY, M. D.
“When we shall be able to bring into Semitic Studies the same liberty of scientific criticism which is conceded to Aryan Studies, we shall have a Semitic Mythology. — DeGubernatis’ Zoological Mythology, Vol. ii, p. 412.
ILLUSTRATED
New York : THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY,
28 LAFAYETTE PLACE.
Copyrighted, 1888,
BY
The Truth Seeker Co.
PREFACE
HUMAN nature in every age and country is very much the same; though modified to some extent by the circumstances of time, place and degree of civilization. Hence the general resemblance of all the cosmogonies or creations found in the various mythologies of the world — the Hebrew not excepted. Impressed by these sentiments, I became strongly convinced that all were framed, in all their details, on the same general plan. Accordingly, nearly seven years ago, when turned of my sixtieth year, I began the study of the Hebrew language in order to discover, if possible, the lost key, by whose aid I might recover the rich treasure so long locked up from public view. My endeavor was, as I believe, crowned with a success as complete as one could desire — a success amounting in fact to actual demonstration, as many, if not most of my readers will come to see and acknowledge.
The labor of the study and composition of my work, though difficult, long and tedious, was one of love — of love, first, because of the intellectual enjoyment experienced in this most varied and interesting study of man’s nature and motives — and second, because of the prospective good which may accrue, as the result of my investigations, to my fellow-citizens throughout the world. That the foundation of my system is stable, and able to resist any attack of criticism, I do not entertain a doubt, as its truth is based on my philological analysis of the word Elohim, and also on any amount of corroborative evidence. On this score, I may defy the assaults of criticism. Among the details of my expose, there may be, and doubtless are, some errors, or what may be deemed such. These may furnish food for the small critic.
My foundation, then, being established, its superstructure, if at all damaged, may be readily repaired. I trust, however, that my exposition will prove in the main correct. The person who shall attempt its overthrow will, of course, first undertake to do away with my analysis of the word Elohim, and so upset the rules of the Hebrew language. His next care should be to account for the uniform ease and facility with which my system proceeds to unravel each and all, even to the most difficult, problems of the Old Testament; none being omitted because of their intricacy. Thus he will find plenty of work, — more perhaps than he bargained for, or can hope to execute.
Science is ever progressive, and but for theology, would become more general among the people, much to the advantage of all. As the case now stands, the very poor, except occasionally individual of indomitable will (and of such come the most useful of every age and country), are completely shut off from science. The middle, but not wealthy, class are obliged to spend all they can spare in church-going, to find themselves at the end of a long life, as ignorant, almost, as at its beginning. Only the wealthy can afford to give their offspring a classical and scientific education. For this inequality of condition, a remedy should be provided. If knowledge is desirable and useful, as most people allow, its benefits should extend as far as possible to all. How may this be done? Let the same amount of money, and time, and assiduity, now spent in churchgoing, in reading and commenting on the myths of the Bible, be spent in seeking out and cultivating the improvement of the poor and middle classes — in teaching them science, which they can understand, thus elevating them in their own estimation, and we shall have done for them and ourselves a lasting benefit; we shall have made them more intelligent, more industrious, more useful and better citizens — rendered their homes more desirable, their families happier, and the world altogether better. The gag-shop, the brothel, and all the paraphernalia therewith connected, would be cast aside, and crime of every description would quickly reach its minimum. Yes, let our churches be turned into halls of science, our preachers into teachers of the same, with apparatus for its illustration, and people of all classes would flock thither, eager to possess themselves of knowledge, — eager to join themselves in one universal brotherhood.
Ah! then we would have more teachers and fewer priests; more educated, and fewer ignorant; more books, and less whiskey; more sober, and fewer drunken; more moral, and fewer criminal — in fine, more of everything conducive to the ease, comfort, and enjoyment of the whole people, and less of misery, disease, and premature death.
Milton Woolley, Streator, January 23, 1877.
CONTENTS
Introduction.
Chapter I. Creation,
II. Adam and Eve,
III. Cain and Abel,
IV. Flood,
V. Tower of Babel,
VI. Abram and Sarai,
VII. Isaac and Rebekah,
VIII. Jacob and Rachel,
IX. Jacob and his Sons,
X. The Exodus,
XI. Sanctifying the Ftrst-born,
XII. Israel’s Wanderings,
XIII. Joshua,
XIV. Judges,
XV. Ruth, –
XVI. Samuel,
XVII. David,
XVIII. Solomon,
XIX. Elijah — Elisha,
XX. Jehoshaphat — Zedekiah,
XXI. Ezra,
XXII. Nehemiah,
XXIII. Esther,
XXIV. Job,
XXV. Psalms,
XXVI. Isaiah,
XXVII. Daniel,
XXVITI. Jonah
“Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible” by Russell Gmirkin
New York–London: Routledge, 2016
I recently came upon this work available in parts for free online, and the author’s own summary of the work:
Abstract
Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible compares the ancient law collections of the Ancient Near East, the Greeks and the Pentateuch to determine the legal antecedents for the biblical laws. Constitutional features in biblical law are shown to contain striking agreement with those found at Athens and described in Plato’s Laws of ca. 350 BCE. Similarly, biblical statutes contain many striking parallels with Athenian laws, and specifically with those found in Plato’s Laws. The literary structure and legal force of biblical law collections are also shown to correspond closely with Greek rather than Ancient Near Eastern law collections. The Pentateuchal presentation of legal content within a narrative context is also found in a variety of Greek literary forms, especially Greek foundation stories, which closely conform in outline to the biblical story of the exodus, wilderness wanderings, and conquest of the Promised land under Moses and Joshua. The legal and narrative content of the Pentateuch thus reflect substantial Greek influences, especially from Plato’s Laws. Finally, this book argues that the creation of the Hebrew Bible took place according to the program for creating a national ethical literature found in Plato’s Laws, reinforcing the importance of this specific text to the authors of the Torah and Hebrew Bible in the early Hellenistic Era.
Chapter Contents
Chapter 1 (Introduction) surveys modern theories that sought to account for apparent Greek legal and literary influences on biblical writings, such as Greek mercenaries or Phoenician merchants as cultural intermediaries, or a hypothesized common East Mediterranean legal culture in pre-Hellenistic times. Such models overlook the possibility of the biblical authors having had direct access to Greek literature, including legal treatises, in the Hellenistic Era, when the first external evidence of biblical writings appeared. The current study will accordingly take both Greek and Ancient Near Eastern laws fully into account in seeking to identify the antecedents for biblical legal materials.
Chapter 2 (Athenian and Pentateuchal Legal Institutions) examines influences from Athens and from Plato’s Laws on governmental institutions in the Pentateuch, such as: the genre of constitutional law, unknown in the Ancient Near East; similar citizenship requirements and enrollment procedures; military organization into ten or twelve civic tribes, brotherhoods, clans and households; land distribution by allotment into tribal territories; identical function of kinship groups in inheritance, levirate marriage, and blood vengeance; deliberative bodies with comparable executive and judicial responsibilities; similar civil and religious magistrates; and similar procedures for the citizen selection, scrutiny and audit of magistrates (including king).
Chapter 3 (Biblical, Ancient Near Eastern and Greek Laws) compares Ancient Near Eastern and Greek influences on Pentateuchal laws, including laws on homicide, assault, theft, marriage, inheritance, sexual offenses, slavery, economic relief, livestock, property crimes, commerce, the military, magic, treason, religion, and ethics. While some Pentateuchal laws derive from Old Babylonian and Assyrian collections, many have striking parallels with Greek and Athenian laws, and especially with Plato’s Laws. These include the prosecution and execution of dangerous animals; slaying a night thief; exile for unintentional homicide; blood avengers; sacrilege as political subversion; military exemptions; commandments on ethics, and others.
Chapter 4 (Greek and Ancient Near Eastern Law Collections) compares Ancient Near Eastern, Greek and biblical law collections as literary forms. It is shown that the biblical law collections correspond to Greek rather than Ancient Near Eastern law collections with respect to sources, purpose, framing structure, divine promulgation, public recitation, ratification, educational utility and prescriptive force. Greek literary antecedents are identified for the Decalogue (the Commandments of the Seven Sages) and for Deuteronomy (Plato’s Laws). The Pentateuch also implemented such innovations from Plato’s Laws as the idea of law as education (“torah” or “teaching”) and the use of persuasive legal introductions (motive clauses).
Chapter 5 (Greek and Biblical Legal Narratives) discusses the integration of legal content with narrative found in both the Pentateuch and Greek writings, but not in the Ancient Near East. Discussions of constitutions and laws appeared in Greek historical narratives, panegyrics, origin and foundation stories, ethnographies, biographies, constitutional histories and philosophical dialogues. The story of Moses closely conforms to the Greek foundation story, in which the expedition leader also created the new colony’s constitution and laws. The changes from patriarchy to constitutional democracy to monarchy and tyranny in Genesis–Kings appear to echo themes in Greek constitutional histories.
Chapter 6 (The Creation of the Hebrew Bible) first discusses Plato’s innovative ideas for a divinely authorized law code and national literature. Plato’s Laws gave detailed instructions for collecting, editing, revising and approving texts under the supervision of the “legislators of the arts” and soliciting new works by storytellers, poets, priests and prose-writers. The Hebrew Bible, it is argued, was created in accordance with the literary program laid out in Plato’s Laws. Plato’s strategies for convincing the citizens their laws and literature were ancient and divine appear to have worked brilliantly in Hellenistic Judea, where the biblical laws and literature of ca. 270 BC were soon enshrined as the ancient ancestral texts of the Jews, a perception that has continued virtually unchallenged down into modern times.
This is essentially the thesis of our video on Plato, which you can see here:
We thank the author for his much-needed work and remind the reader of several similar works: “Hebrew is Greek,” by Joseph Yahuda, and Jacob Howland, Plato and the Talmud, Cambridge University Press, 2011.