Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations [Paperback]

Cyrus H. Gordon (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1St Edition edition (May 1965)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393002934
• ISBN-13: 978-0393002935
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 7.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #878,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond a single-compartment scholar's horizon!, April 6, 2008

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Didaskalex "Eusebius Alexandrinus" (Kellia on Calvary, Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (Paperback)

In the 1960s Gordon challenged conventional wisdom in his field by declaring that his examination of Minoan texts furnished new corroboration of his long-held theory that the Greek and Hebrew cultures stemmed in common from a Semitic heritage that spanned the eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Palestine in the Minoan era.



The Gordon Thesis:
"... the tacit assumption that ancient Israel and Greece are two water-tight compartments, totally different from each other. One is said to be sacred; the other, profane; one, Semitic; the other, Indo-European. One, Asiatic and Oriental; the other, European and Occidental. But the fact is that both flourished during the same centuries, in the same East Mediterranean corner of the globe, with both ethnic groups in contact with each other from the start." He believed that, "a study limited to the Greek and Hebrew cultures has the effect of bringing out the many differences between the two. But the similarities between them come to the fore if we contrast them with cultures alien to the East Mediterranean. The early Hebrews are no more different from the early Greeks than they are from the Egyptians or Mesopotamians where the interrelations are universally recognized."

Bernal's Affirmation:
Martin Bernal, who championed the recent controversial revelation of the Origins of Greek Civilization, has quoted Cyrus Gordon on 18 occasions, in part I of his Book Black Athena. What they both agree with prominent Orientalists is based on tracing the development of the Proto Canaanite from middle Egyptian, Proto-Sinaitic, the mother language of all East Mediterranean civilizations. While the Canaanites are assumed to have a major influence on the development of Greek culture, the mere historical facts attested by the Greeks was their direct visits and learning of the eternal Egyptian civilization.
Meanwhile, the eminent Jewish scholar who exposed the Ugaritic link of Canaan and the Aegean wrote in anticipation of Martin Bernal, "Ugarit is of unique importance for reconstructing the origins of Western civilization."

The Minoan Tablets:
The late author, gifted with a vast versatile scholarly knowledge of archaeology and linguistics, a first class Orientalist, represented the evidence that unite Greek with the ancient Near East. He devotes a chapter to develop this cultural link through Crete's Minoan Tablets, as, "a wave of highly gifted Northwest Semites occupied central and eastern Crete, bringing with them a knowledge of art, architecture and writing from the Nile Delta. ... The system marks the transition from the older cumbersome systems to the alphabet."

Gordon's Further Observations:
In the last two chapters VII and VIII, professor Gordon masterfully states, "The key to understanding Mycenaean civilization is its positioning the international framework of the East Mediterranean during the second half of the second millennium. Mycenaean Greece lay on the northwest fringe of the Amarna Order."
His observations on Homer, and the bible betray his encyclopedic knowledge, and his unique insightful reading in the Bible, with in depth historical theology of the Levant religious and mythological beliefs.

Toynbee's Review:
Arnold Toynbee, the great British Historian wrote in the Observer, "Professor Gordon has made himself at home in both the Semitic and Indo-European compartments of philology. This makes it possible for him to do things and to see things that are beyond a single-compartment scholar's horizon."
For this I hope this book will take share in my grandchildren education, for this book will not be outdated in two or three decades.

Cyrus H. Gordon:
Professor Gordon who passed away in 2001, was raised in a traditional Jewish family in Philadelphia - he was studying Hebrew at age five and Greek and Latin soon after- he was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He gained invaluable field experience in the thirties on such archaeological expeditions as Woolley's excavation of the royal tombs of Ur and helping the Pendelbury expedition decipher Tell el-Amarna tablets in Egypt.
His academic career included teaching at Brandeis University before coming to NYU in 1973. At NYU he plunged into new projects, most prominently as director of the Center for Ebla Research, spearheading work on that ancient Syrian city. During a 1988 interview with NYU Today, he said, "if you have anything left in you, you should be working on new problems." Among his many other books are: The Ancient Near East, Ugaritic Textbook, and his autobiography, A Scholar's Odyssey, for which he won an award in 2000 from the Jewish Book Council.

Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (Volume 2: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence)
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization: The Linguistic Evidence, Vol. 3