Greek Hellenistic Influence on Judean Culture

Hey.. the Greeks "...had no influence over the Greek 'Genesis'" account? (yes, the word "Genesis" is Greek : The Book of Genesis (from the Latin Vulgate, in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek γένεσις, meaning "origin")... *keeping in mind, the oldest known Hebrew manuscript dates somewhere in the range of 300 B.C.

Oh my!

The author of Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... was under heavy influence of Greek culture... and ha! a Secular magazine article!!

"...Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.). In 332 B.C. the Greeks conquered Judea..."

Look at that timeline.

"...Under the Greeks things were different. Never suffering from a lack of hubris, the Greeks weren’t satisfied with a mere military conquest. Believing in a kind of “manifest destiny” to spread their culture, institutions, ideas, and way of life to “barbarians” (anyone not Greek), they worked very hard, and quite successfully, to do just that. Now, having conquered more “barbarians,” this time in Judea, the Greeks were determined to continue their process of Hellenization..."

Goodness!

Hellenized Jews
"...It was working, too. Though scholars debate how far Hellenization went, it took a certain hold. Within a century after the conquest of Alexander, Greek cities (each known as a polis), which became centers for promulgating Greek ideas and culture, were founded in various parts of Judea..."

Dear me, could it be?!!

"...The problem was exacerbated by corruption in the priesthood, which served as the de facto political leadership in Jerusalem at that time. Two corrupt priests, Jason and then Menelaus, both passionate Hellenizers, helped make Jerusalem look more and more like a Greek polis than the capital of God’s covenant people and the chosen site of the sacred Temple. During their rule the first gymnasium—a Greek center for both intellectual and physical education—was built in Jerusalem."

Goodness!!!!!!!

Now we know who it was who slipped in that "After their kind" (how ancient farmers had seen domesticated pigs escape into the wild and evolve)... "before their kind" and "after their kind".
(Domestic pigs quickly revert to wild roots).

And, ancient farmers skilled in ancient agriculture knew that a wild plant could be cultivated into garden vegetables through "Artificial Selection".

Those Greeks were ahead of their time... Creationists have A LOT of catching up to do. LOL

P.S., as I said, SECULAR: The author starts out by saying, "...Having been raised in an exceedingly secular Jewish home, I have few memories of Jewish holidays, for the simple reason that we didn’t observe them."

Geographic and Cultural Factors
Putting aside its apocalyptic prophecy, the Old Testament narrative begins with the creation of the world and ends with the return of the Jews to their native homeland after the Babylonian captivity, circa sixth century B.C. This return from exile occurred under the Persians, who—by the fifth century B.C.—were facing the onslaught of the Greeks, whose hegemony climaxed under Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.). In 332 B.C. the Greeks conquered Judea, and while being conquered was nothing new to the Jews (having faced this before by Assyria, Babylon, and Media-Persia), this conquest presented a unique challenge.
“In previous conquests,” writes Lee Levine, an historian at Hebrew University, “Israel had invariably remained at the periphery of world empires, far from the seats of power and authority. Its marginal geographic location assured the Jews a measure of stability and insulation.” However, with the breakup of the Greek Empire after the death of Alexander, the small Hebrew nation found itself sandwiched between the battling forces of the Seleucids (based in Syria) and the Ptolemies (based in Egypt). For the next century the two kingdoms warred with each other on Judean soil. Finally, in 198 B.C. the Seleucids beat their rival there, and Judea was incorporated into the Seleucid kingdom.
This victory presented the small nation with a challenge that it had not faced under its previous conquers, the Persians. Under Persian control the Jews were actually encouraged to rebuild their religious and indigenous institutions and traditions. All the Persians wanted was political loyalty, and taxes. Whatever humiliations and problems the occupation presented, religious freedom generally remained secure.
Under the Greeks things were different. Never suffering from a lack of hubris, the Greeks weren’t satisfied with a mere military conquest. Believing in a kind of “manifest destiny” to spread their culture, institutions, ideas, and way of life to “barbarians” (anyone not Greek), they worked very hard, and quite successfully, to do just that. Now, having conquered more “barbarians,” this time in Judea, the Greeks were determined to continue their process of Hellenization, even in the land that God promised the descendants of Abraham many centuries earlier (Genesis 12:7).

Hellenized Jews
"It was working, too. Though scholars debate how far Hellenization went, it took a certain hold. Within a century after the conquest of Alexander, Greek cities (each known as a polis), which became centers for promulgating Greek ideas and culture, were founded in various parts of Judea.
The problem was exacerbated by corruption in the priesthood, which served as the de facto political leadership in Jerusalem at that time. Two corrupt priests, Jason and then Menelaus, both passionate Hellenizers, helped make Jerusalem look more and more like a Greek polis than the capital of God’s covenant people and the chosen site of the sacred Temple. During their rule the first gymnasium—a Greek center for both intellectual and physical education—was built in Jerusalem. According to 2 Maccabees 4 (the book of Maccabees being a key source for this period), Jason did away with Jewish law and introduced Greek customs into the city: “With great enthusiasm he built a stadium near the Temple hill and led our finest young men to adopt the Greek custom of participating in athletic events.”
Internecine fighting between the followers of Jason (who weren’t seen as Hellenistic enough) and those of Menelaus led to the violent intervention of the Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in 169-168 B.C."

Source: Liberty Magazine

And "Every plant of the field before it was in the Earth," but other translations say, "No plant of the field yet grew,"... but all agree, because "There was no man to *till the ground."

*till (cultivate).

Artificial Selection.

The Burning Question about Evolution: If modern corn evolved from Teosinte...
Then why does Teosinte still exist?

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For the Anti-Creationism Darwinist Among Us

Thales of Miletus

"The Jews integrated into Greek culture around 300 BC. Notably, much of the modern Biblical literature is actually Greek. Enlightened Greek thought becomes apparent in the opening of Genesis. "One of the first evolutionary theories was proposed by Thales of Miletus (640–546 BC) in the province of Ionia on the coast near Greece followed by Anaximander (550 B.C.) who speculated that life evolved from the water; lower forms of life, in a very primitive precursor to evolutionary theory."

Namely this *ouch!*

Evolution and Paleontology in the Ancient World
"...For Anaximander, the world had arisen from an undifferentiated, indeterminate substance, the apeiron. The Earth, which had coalesced out of the apeiron, had been covered in water at one stage, with plants and animals arising from mud. Humans were not present at the earliest stages; they arose from fish. This poem was quite influential on later thinkers, including Aristotle.
Had Anaximander looked at fossils? Did he study comparative fish and human anatomy? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what evidence Anaximander used to support his ideas. His theory bears some resemblance to evolutionary theory, but also seems to have been derived from various Greek myths, such as the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in which peoples or tribes are born from the Earth or from stones. His concept of the apeiron seems similar to the Tao of Chinese philosophy and religion, and to the "formless and void" Earth of the Hebrew creation account and other creation myths. However, even though Anaximander's ideas drew on the religious and mythical ideas of his time, he was still one of the first to attempt an explanation of the origin and evolution of the cosmos based on natural laws."

(Source, ucmp.berkeley.edu History)

[Sadly, what the site fails to mention is that the oldest known biblical manuscripts date no earlier than around 300 B.C., therefore, Anaximander (610-545 B.C.) could not have based any of his concepts on Biblical Hebrew. However it can be deduced, the Hebrew Genesis account was borrowed from mainstream Greek philosophy.]


"Before their kind" and "After their kind".

Genesis 2:5 (Some translations emphasize the absence of cultivated plants i.e., broccoli, cauliflower ------ while other translations emphasize their precursor, the wild ancestor, mustard plant which man used ARTIFICIAL SELECTION to cultivate . . . man created these vegetables, God did not create them. The author of Genesis confirms this:

(1) CULTIVATED "PLANTS OF FIELD" DO NOT EXIST :

English Standard Version
"...no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up .... there was no man to work the ground..."

New American Standard Bible
"...no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted .... there was no man to cultivate the ground."

(2) ONLY WILD PLANTS (THEIR ANCESTORS) DO EXIST

King James Bible
"...And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ....there was not a man to till the ground."

Jubilee Bible 2000
"...and every plant of the field before it was in the earth and all the grass of the field before it grew... neither was there a man to till the ground."

Artificial Selection and Cultivation of Ancient Crops

"...The Greeks had, it is true, no term exactly equivalent to "evolution"; but when Thales asserts that all things originated from water..."
Source: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, iep.utm.edu

For more on the topic see "Greek Hellenistic Influence on Judean Culture"