Sinai and Olympus: A Comparative Study (review)

Book Reviews 143 thinks ofthe restored Ellis Island or the movie Schindler's List, to understand the future of Jewish memory will be a different task altogether from understanding its past. BenYehuda 's work is a timely and valuable addition to both endeavors. Iwona Irwin-Zarecka Department of Sociology and Anthropology Wilfrid Laurier University Sinai and Olympus: A Comparative Study, by Joseph P. Scholtz and Lois Spatz. Lanham, MD: University Press ofAmerica, 1995. 790 pp. $75.50. This is truly an ambitious work, the most comprehensive and systematic scholarly comparison ofGreek and Hebraic thought, so far as this reviewer knows, that has ever been undertaken. It divides the topic into ten parts: the nature of the sources, written and oral; creation, cosmogony as theology; the origin ofevil; cosmic order and theodicy; paradigms ofheroism; patterns ofprophetic, charismatic, wisdom, and intellectual piety; patterns of public worship, sacred people and sacred space; law and the state; concepts and methods ofhistoriography, and the afterlife and apocalypses. In each case the procedure is to present fIrst the Hebraic view, then the Greek view, and fInaIly conclusions and comparisons. While there is relatively very little that is new, the authors are well acquainted with the major and most ofthe minor primary sources, as weIl as with an impressive portion ofthe secondary literature. They are well aware ofthe pitfalls in any such comparison and, to their great credit, avoid oversimplification. They are particularly to be commended for noting changes that occurred through the centuries in both the Greek and Hebraic views. The authors convincingly suggest (p. 69) that the impetus for the development of Greek science in the siXth century B.C.E. came from closer contacts with the East and note that it is precisely in Asia Minor, which is closer to the Near East, that these seminal thinkers originated. But we may weIl ask, ifthe impetus came from the Near East, why it did not come earlier, even much earlier, especially since we now have much archaeological evidence ofcontact with the Near East at an earlier point, particularly in the eighth century B.CE, when Greece and especially Asia Minor experienced a renaissance. Indeed, if, as there is good reason to believe, the Greeks acquired the alphabet from the Phoenicians not in the eighth century B.C.E. but as early as llOO B.C.E., we may postulate signifIcant cultural cOntact at a much earlier point.·The view established by Milman Parry that Homer, in the eighth century B.C.E., was an illiterate oral poet has increasingly been challenged by scholars, since his poems have much more in common with the epics ofMesopotamia, all of which were written. As for Hesiod, Homer's younger contemporary, he has even. more in common with the Near East, not only in descriptive details but also in his view of 144 SHOFAR Spring 1997 Vol. 15, No.3 theodicy. As for the Bible, the name "Japheth," the ancestor ofthe Greeks, is tantalizingly close to lapetos, the father ofPrometheus; and Japheth's son Javan, in its consonantal form YVN, is tantalizingly close to Ion, the ancestor ofthe lonians. In seeking to explain how the Greeks came to rely on their own powers ofreason and judgment (p. 320), the authors stress the role ofthe Greek assemblies in debating issues, a practice which, they say, was not found in Israel. In this matter they might have noted what must have been the disillusionment of Greeks with the Delphic Oracle, the single most important unifying religious force among the Greeks, after the Oracle had, for once without ambi~ty, advised the Greeks to submit to the Persian King Xerxes. Ifthe Delphic Oracle could no longer be relied upon to give sound advice, at least in the political realm, the Greeks had to tum to themselves and to their own thinkers. On the other hand, as for the alleged lack in Israel of debates on issues, while it is true that there is no debate in an assembly of citizens there is debate in the Sanhedrin and in the academies (though, admittedly, there is dispute as to how far back such debates go and whether methodologically they may not have been influenced...