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Reviewed by:
  • When the Gods Were Born by Carolina López-Ruiz
  • Susan Stephens
Carolina López-Ruiz, When the Gods Were Born (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 302 pp.

For well over a generation, classicists have been aware of the striking similarities between early Greek creation myths and their Near Eastern counterparts, though disciplinary boundaries have limited discussion to often polemical exchanges, many of which have tended to reinforce Hellenocentrism. In contrast to scholars like Martin Bernal and Martin West who have adopted a “catalog” approach—lists of similarities—and a model of unidirectional influence, López-Ruiz employs several case studies to argue for interactive cultural exchanges. In place of Egypt (Bernal) and Mesopotamia (West), she promotes the Eastern Mediterranean (Syro-Palestine and Cilicia) as the fertile ground in which Greeks interacted with other cultures and where cosmologies and divinities might be experienced and adapted. Hers is a welcome addition to the discourse, both in the dynamic model she proposes and in the new areas that she opens up for consideration. [End Page 386]

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