Was Achilles A Jew

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 analyzes the ways in which literary works and cultural discourses employ the construct of the Jew’s body in relation to the material world in order either to establish and reinforce, or to subvert and challenge, dominant cultural norms and stereotypes. It examines the use of physical characteristics, embodied practices, tacit knowledge and senses to define the body taxonomically as normative, different, abject or mimetically desired. Starting from the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky through to contemporary Russian-Jewish women’s writing, broadening the scope to examining the role of objects, museum displays and the politics of heritage food, the book argues that materiality can embody fictional constructions that should be approached on a culture-specific basis.

Profane Challenge and Orthodox Response in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment presents for the first time an examination of this great novel as a work aimed at winning back “target readers”, young contemporary radicals, from Utilitarianism, nihilism, and Utopian Socialism. Dostoevsky framed the battle in the context of the Orthodox Church and oral tradition versus the West. He relied on knowledge of the Gospels as textreceived orally, forcing readers to react emotionally, not rationally, and thus undermining the very basis of his opponents' arguments. Dostoevsky saves Raskol'nikov, underscoring the inadequacy of rational thought and reminding his readers of a heritage discarded at their peril. This volume should be of special interest to secondary and university students, as well as to readers interested in literature, particularly, in Russian literature, and Dostoevsky.

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.

This outstanding volume of 26 essays represents a cross-section of the writings of Arnold Band on Jewish literature. Band, a renowned Jewish studies and humanities scholar, writes on such topics as: literature in historic context, interpretations of Hasidic tales and other traditional texts, Zionism, S.Y. Agnon and other important Israeli writers, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Jewish studies, and the Jewish community. Scholars and students of Jewish studies and literature -- particularly Jewish literature -- won't want to miss this remarkable collection.