Some readers will be aware that I am sympathetic to the view that the books of the Old Testament were products of the Hellenistic era. I believe that sound historical methods involving critical analysis of assertions against evidence make such a late dating highly plausible. But it is also vital to be as fully informed as possible about alternative views that would date the origins of the Hebrew Bible to the Persian era or earlier. This requires looking at linguistic and textual arguments as well as archaeological studies. In coming posts I would like to address some of the readings in these areas that I have been undertaking as I have tried to catch up with old and recent publications. My aim will be to present various arguments in ways that are easily digestible for those of us with little time to study academic tomes and specialist papers.
Meanwhile, it will be of interest to some to know a little more about what the Hellenistic world was like for assessing the plausibility of works like Genesis and Exodus emerging from there.
Can we really imagine whole new histories and family genealogies being invented for particular groups of people?
Let’s look at how the Greek world documented and even created new histories of origins during the Hellenistic era, that is after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 330s-320s. This is nothing more than an introduction. I quote passages from Tanja S. Scheer’s contribution to A Companion to the Hellenistic World, “The Past in a Hellenistic Present: Myth and Local Tradition”. The first three subheadings are identical to those Scheer used. All bolded highlighting is my own.
Myth as History According to the Greeks
The relationship of Hellenistic Greeks to their past is shaped by much older traditions. In particular two important points characterize the relationship to the past: its genealogical structuring and its re-shaping by epic poetry. . . . Self definition as well as assessment by others are marked by genealogical connections. The past of his own family, of his home city, of his tribe defines the identity and status of the individual in the present . . . . [W]hole cities also prided themselves on their ancestors and founders. (216)
You are probably already reminded of the many genealogies and narratives to justify who’s who and where in the Bible, beginning with Genesis. Genealogies could be used to assert territorial claims but also to explain how related peoples were expected to support one another or know their respective status.
Were these genealogies historically true?
This pronounced Greek interest in ancestry and kinship was, however, not properly historical. The past was only of importance when it was marked by famous personalities or by deeds of mythical heroes. A family tree that ended with an anonymous smallholder was of little use. Even as proof of the great age of a family it could not offer much help: for great age only really began when the genealogy could be traced back to heroic times and thereby into the society of heroes or even gods . . .
Fact checking was not part of the agenda:
People were at a loss when confronted with written or archaeological discoveries from their own past, which chance had brought to light. The Greeks reconstructed the past not so much through concrete evidence from early times but rather with the help of their traditional stories, of myth. . . . Questions about the past led to heroic, not historically correct, answers . . . Already long before Hellenistic times, however, Greek logographers and historians had made the fictional events of epic the focal point of their history and accepted them as containing at least a core of truth. (217)
Ancestries of any worth always went back to the gods:
The habit of evaluating the qualities of individuals and even of cities on the basis of their ancestry understandably encouraged the desire to number the gods themselves — or at least the heroes of epic — among one’s own ancestors. (218)
Past and Present in the Hellenistic Period
There was, in addition, a moral or ethical aspect. The myths surrounding great ancestors were treated as exemplars of how their descendants were expected to behave. If Heracles had conquered Troy or Asian peoples then his descendants were expected to do the same; if Heracles had shown kindness to a city, his descendants were obligated to do likewise.
[T]he history of the family imposed an obligation. Thus the political writer Isokrates could present Herakles as a model for his descendant Philip . . . . The deeds of Herakles in the first conquest of Troy were used to legitimate, and also to oblige, Philip to carry out successful military action in the present — that is the campaign against the Persians . . . . (218)
. . . in the run up to the Persian Wars Persian envoys are supposed to have come to Argos in an attempt to win the Argives over to their side — by appealing to their mutual mythical ancestor Perseus . . . . (219)
(Some scholars have suspected the biblical stories of David’s conquests were created to justify Hasmonean conquests of their neighbours.)
The Greeks Abroad
As the Macedonians and Greeks advanced into new lands of old cultures they did not boast of “being the first” to discover these places; on the contrary,
. . . the stress was placed over and over again on familiar elements in these foreign lands: the geographical opening up of the world took place in the footsteps of great forerunners, of gods and heroes from the mythical past.
Throughout his campaign Alexander recognized Greek gods and heroes in foreign lands; he called on them pointedly and paid honour to them. . . .
In the case of Alexander’s campaigns this emphasis on the mythical past of the Macedonians and Greeks tended to integrate rather than exclude. The aim was by no means a one-sided ennobling of the Macedonians at the expense of the indigenous peoples whom they encountered. Family relationships based on myth did not have the function of an exclusive patent of nobility. Alexander and his generals endeavoured on the contrary to establish a connection between Greeks and Persians. (219)
Some will recall Russell Gmirkin’s discussion of the biblical patriarchs being at ease with local gods in Canaan, some of whom came to be identified with the Israelite deity.
Scheer notes that there was a practical power-play at work by this kind of integration of Greek and local gods:
This integrating use of the mythical past was not simply an unselfish mark of respect or recognition for non-Greek civilizations on the part of the Greeks. At stake surely was the need to prevent the Greek claim to power from appearing to the conquered as foreign rule. (219)
Note, further, that there are two different ways of treating non-Israelite locals (or Canaanites) in the Bible. Many of us know about the commands in Exodus and elsewhere to slaughter them all, or if that cannot be done then to have nothing whatever to do with them. But other narratives demonstrate the virtue of “Israel” being a blessing to foreigners, of peacefully coexisting with their neighbours. (I hope to elaborate on this point in a future post, along with the reasons for thinking that these two viewpoints were even contemporaneous.)
You will recall the stories in Genesis linking patriarchal figures to particular geographical areas where they would erect an altar or bury a family member. We might compare:
At least as important, however, was the opportunity for the Greeks to take mental possession of these new lands. In this aim the structure of the traditional stories of the Greeks was of considerable assistance. A common method of intellectual subjugation of unfamiliar lands consisted in making them accessible through eponymous heroes: every river, every tree, every region, according to the Greek view, was inhabited by local supernatural powers. Once the areas which they reached were mythically personalized, then the local family trees could easily be connected to well-known Greek heroes. . . . The foreign land was not really unknown: their own ancestors had after all once passed through it victoriously. . . . The cultivation of a mythical past was valuable for the Hellenistic present; even in the most far-flung foreign land traces of old familiar patterns could be discovered. Thus, the new world could be integrated into the old as something already familiar. (219f)
Creating Mythical Histories Continue reading “The Age of Inventions of Mythical Histories — Greek and Biblical”