Hebraic Influences On Greek Civilization

Contrary to the view of many historians and scholars, it is the position of Dr. Larry S. Milner, MD, JD, MLS, that the primary source for the Eastern influence in ancient Greece was from the early Jews, rather than the Phoenician or Egyptian cultures. The author presents cogent evidence in this book to substantiate his position that a breakaway group from the Hebrew Exodus migrated to Mycenae in the Mediterranean basin and became influential as they immersed in the Greek culture. "Pay attention to the citations I present to you in this book. I believe that you will see that there is no question that the Classical Greek civilization was incredibly influenced by a group of staunch Hebrew emigrants, who believed in the teachings of their ancestors, and transmitted that faith to their neighbors and descendants straight through into the Classical Greek Age."

Significant interest has always existed about the origin of Classic Greek culture, but despite the long-standing attention, scholars continue to disagree on where this amazing civilization got its start. The Mycenaeans were the earliest Greek-speaking people on the mainland, but the country entered a Dark Age following the end of the Trojan War, and in the Archaic Age which followed, the fundamentals of Greek political and literary thought suddenly emerged, without a clear source of derivation. Historians have sometimes given credit to the Egyptians, Phoenicians, or other Eastern civilizations for this evolution, but no serious consideration has been given to the ancient Hebrews, despite the fact that the Exodus from Egypt took place during the Late Bronze Age, when Mycenae was at its peak of influence in the Mediterranean Basin. In Was Achilles a Jew? Hebraic Origins to Greek Civilization, Dr. Larry Milner argues that a group of Hebrews devoted to the traditions of the patriarchs left the Exodus following the parricidal reprisals instituted by Moses during the modification of Judaism into a monotheistic faith, and migrated to Mycenae, where they became immersed into Mycenaean culture, taking part in the Trojan War. His analysis provides the most persuasive argument to date about where the Eastern influence in Greece was generated.

This book is a collection of essays that explore the variety of ways in which Jews in Israel responded to and appropriated Greek culture. In various ways the contributors provide corroborating evidence of the influence of Greek culture in Judea and Galilee, from before the Maccabean revolt on into the rabbinic period. At the same time, they probe the limits of that influence, the persistence of Semitic languages and thought patterns, and especially the exclusiveness of Jewish religion.

Touted as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," the Mediterranean port city of Salonica (Thessaloniki) was once home to the largest Sephardic Jewish community in the world. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the city's incorporation into Greece in 1912 provoked a major upheaval that compelled Salonica's Jews to reimagine their community and status as citizens of a nation-state. Jewish Salonica is the first book to tell the story of this tumultuous transition through the voices and perspectives of Salonican Jews as they forged a new place for themselves in Greek society. Devin E. Naar traveled the globe, from New York to Salonica, Jerusalem, and Moscow, to excavate archives once confiscated by the Nazis. Written in Ladino, Greek, French, and Hebrew, these archives, combined with local newspapers, reveal how Salonica's Jews fashioned a new hybrid identity as Hellenic Jews during a period marked by rising nationalism and economic crisis as well as unprecedented Jewish cultural and political vibrancy. Salonica's Jews—Zionists, assimilationists, and socialists—reinvigorated their connection to the city and claimed it as their own until the Holocaust. Through the case of Salonica's Jews, Naar recovers the diverse experiences of a lost religious, linguistic, and national minority at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East.

In the last decades there has been an increasing interest in the relationship between Greek religion & culture and the Ancient Near East. This challenging book contributes greatly to this interest by studying the Near Eastern background of important Greek myths, such as those of the creation of the world and the first woman, the Flood, the Golden Fleece, the Titans and travelling seers, but also of the births of Attis and Asclepius as well as the origins of the terms ‘paradise’ and ‘magic’. It also shows that, in turn, Greek literature influenced Jewish stories of divine epiphanies and that the Greek scapegoat myths and rituals contributed to the central Christian notion of atonement.

A history of the Jews in the Greek age, charting issues of stability and change in Jewish society during a period that ranges from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in the fourth century, until approximately 175 B.C.E. and the revolt of the Maccabees.