Did Jews or other Semites jump-start ancient Greek civilization?

The Bible was written almost entirely by Jews. Not just the Old Testament but even the New Testament, and the most inspiring person, Jesus himself, was also Jewish. I also noticed that the New Testament was written in Greek. Why were the Jews writing in Greek, I wondered, rather than their native language?

Then I realized that the Greek alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet. Phoenician was the first language with an alphabet, according to Wiki. What seems natural and obvious to us today was a gigantic leap in consciousness at the time.

The many diasporas had forced the Jews to migrate to many Mediteranean countries including Greece. Phoenician was a Semitic language. Thus the Greek language and culture had developed from Semitic roots. The newly rising awareness of philosophers, poets and inventors of myths required literary skills, which Semitic Jews proved to possess, and, they proved to have merged with the Greek civilization.

It therefore seems quite possible that Homer, Hesiod, the Oracle, Plato and Alexander were Greek, of Jewish or otherwise Semitic descent.

After Alexander was murdered in 323 BC, his empire was split and the Egyptian portion along with Canaan was then ruled by the Greek dynasty Ptolemy. The last of the Greek Pharaohs in Egypt was Cleopatra (VII, who refused to speak anything but Greek), and her son Ceasarion (who was proclaimed a god, son of god, and King of Kings), both of whom died in 30 BC .

Thus, it turns out that Egypt may have been ruled by ethnic Jews until shortly before Jesus was born. The Canaanites did not revolt against Greco-Egyptian rule. But in 63 BC, Canaan became a protectorate of Rome, leading to Jewish-Roman revolts and wars shortly thereafter.

In paranthesis, before I get accused of writing something anit-Jewish, I want to point out that this is quite the opposite. Aside from having Jewish ancestry myself I hold great regard for the Jewish culture and their ability to contribute to the advancement of the moral standards of the population.

The US Constitution was designed less than 250 years ago. They did not base it on concepts from medieval Europe but on those from, then, over 2000 year old Greek philosophers. Today, in medicine, psychology and other sciences, to illustrate concepts we often use the imagery provided by 2500 year old Greek mythology.

In my view it is possible, if not likely, that the authors of the literary master piece (for their time) called the Bible, inspiring billions of faithful believers throughout millenia, stem from the same group of people, who had earlier come up with the eternally revered Greek philosophy and mythology.

We are regularly reminded that empires get destroyed eventually, but why does a highly advanced civilization like Greece shrivel and revert to its more primitive status? And what was the engine that got it to blossom in the first place? To systematically credit extraordinary accomplishments to 'human ingenuity' is IMO a simplistic fallacy.

I am not pretending that my suggestion could be taken as a known fact. Further insight into the matter is necessary, for which I hope to get ideas from all of you. What I propose is a partial explanation, not about what happened, but about why it happened.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


How Dare you call Jesus Jewish

Typical Zionist propaganda, sorry, Israeli government might be doing revision of history.

But they don't own ATS....yet


Jesus Christ, was a Powerful being born into a human body, BY CHOICE, born to Jewish parents.

His body you could call perhaps "Jewish".
But his spirit was about to create a whole new way of looking at things. A new Religion.

He was such a good little Jew that Jews called their Roman authorities to kill him.

Yup he was Jewish alright LOL, he went to Jewish temple and started beating people up.

Jesus was telling Jews of that day, Hey guys, I AM THE SAVIOR YOU WERE WAITING FOR

And Jews of that day said, THEN HOW COME YOU SAY WE DO THINGS WRONG

NOPE.........YOU ARE NOT OUR SAVIOR

Originally posted by JilianK

 

How Dare you call Jesus Jewish
Typical Zionist propaganda, sorry, Israeli government might be doing revision of history.
Jesus Christ, was a Powerful being born into a human body, BY CHOICE, born to Jewish parents.
His body you could call perhaps "Jewish".
But his spirit was about to create a whole new way of looking at things. A new Religion.
Yup he was Jewish alright LOL, he went to Jewish temple and started beating people up.
Jesus was telling Jews of that day, Hey guys, I AM THE SAVIOR YOU WERE WAITING FOR

How dare I? And then you state it yourself.
You are a fanatic, impossible to reason with. But then, we have that a lot in Christian circles.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


You didn't really believe you could write nonsense on ATS and not get called on it

Jesus Christ was a spirit living temporarily in a human body.

What was he supposed to do, get born to a RICH ROMAN CHICK, of course he picked poor nobodies at the time

I don't know how much influence the Jews influenced the Greeks or different cultures. However, it should be common knowledge that different cultures and people have similar beliefs, practices, and traditions. People appreciate success, popularity, etc. That they will borrow from other cultures and make it apart of their own. I know I can explain this better, but I'm just typing what I can think off the top of my head currently. Interesting idea for a thread OP.

just like nearly every county on the planet at some point, the jews got booted out. they didnt jump start anything. they did however have a part in its downfall.
silly jews trying to take credit for ancient greece.

/facepalm

Well most Mediterranean civilisations all influenced each other at one point or another. There was more interaction than previously believed.

Phoenecian is a semitic language, and they were a semitic people.
Bear in mind though, that semitic is not synonymous of jewish. Arab cultures are also considered to be semitic. The phoenicians supposedly had their hand in the foundation of Carthage. The Carthaginians were semitic, but certainly not jewish.

Jewish is more of a religious denomination, I'd say, than a "biological" one.

The Semitic peoples are made up from a wide range of different groups starting with the Chaldeans and stretching across a huge land mass through to Northern India, Arabia and the Levant.

I wouldn't want to pick any one specific group of peoples who influenced the Greeks except to say that with trade, philosophies, wars etc etc life back them would have been a melting pot.

We have been educated to think of ancient peoples as barbaric and ignorant and little credit has been given to their travel and the immence trade routes and the obvious ability to communicate between peoples, but life then must have been a melting pot. Some people travelled for 'spiritual' reasons to meet and learn so apart from wars and the mundane, I expect ideas flowed across cultures throughout time with people picking and choosing the ideas they felt most easy with alongside diehard traditionalists.

The Greeks did have a very different culture though in that they were settled in their different States and no matter how far one's imagination can stretch its hard to see a link between eg Spartan practise and most other cultures etc especially with a migratory group such as the Jews. Groups of Academics probably tended to flock to each other and I expect many spoke numerous languages so the ideas flowed - but who influenced who, is probably impossible to identify.

Originally posted by Phoenix267
I don't know how much influence the Jews influenced the Greeks or different cultures. However, it should be common knowledge that different cultures and people have similar beliefs, practices, and traditions. People appreciate success, popularity, etc. That they will borrow from other cultures and make it apart of their own. I know I can explain this better, but I'm just typing what I can think off the top of my head currently. Interesting idea for a thread OP.

Thanks, Greeks may have taken over successful customs from observing Jewish communities. True, but does that explain something as fundamental as adopting the alphabet? Look how many myths there are, the philosophy, democracy. Contrary to jazzguy, I see Jew jump-starting many cultural advances, don't you?

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


I don't know if Jews jump started many cultures. Their beliefs and traditions probably inspired many people and cultures through Christianity and Islam. However, how kosher or how much did Jews and their ideals influence Christianity and Islam that inspired numerous people over time.

What about economics and politics. Like capitalism, communism, socialism, and anarchism. Many Jews like Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, etc have inspired people, movements, revolutions, etc. Look at nations like the Soviet Union. I would have to go down the rabbit hole to learn more.

Originally posted by Ismail

 

Phoenecian is a semitic language, and they were a semitic people.
Bear in mind though, that semitic is not synonymous of jewish. Arab cultures are also considered to be semitic. The phoenicians supposedly had their hand in the foundation of Carthage. The Carthaginians were semitic, but certainly not jewish.
Jewish is more of a religious denomination, I'd say, than a "biological" one.

Yes, the definition for the words 'Jewish' and 'Semitic' are rather vague. They are not the same but Jewish is part of Semitic, I believe is accurate to say. Arabs also being semites I don't have a problem with. The polarization between the various judeo-christian-muslim religions is artifical, IMO (just like the polarization between democrat and republican).

'Jewish' is not defined biologically, which is kind of a 'nice way out' for them. It enables justification for anything, including the return to their 'homeland', even though it is not a homeland by ancestry.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman
The Bible was written almost entirely by Jews. Not just the Old Testament but even the New Testament, and the most inspiring person, Jesus himself, was also Jewish. I also noticed that the New Testament was written in Greek. Why were the Jews writing in Greek, I wondered, rather than their native language?

Alexander the Great and Greek culture in general (philosophers for example) made Greek a common language for writing. Alexander mostly just forced people to do it, but Greek philosophy was quite famous before Alexander even came to being. (Alexander was taught by famous philosophers)

The move to Greek is more to do with influence by the Greeks than influence by the Jews. Plato and Socrates were around near 400BC. If either of these persons were Jewish for example, they would have written in Hebrew the same way the Old Testament was in Hebrew.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


Your reasoning is flawed on so many levels I dont know where to begin. The earliest written evidence is found in the Linear B clay tablets in the "Room of the Chariot Tablets", an LMIII A-context (c. 1400 BC) region of Knossos, in Crete, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages.

The later, (read LATER, not earlier) Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today.

Do not try to mix the Hellenic culture with some notions of knuckle dragging illiterate tribes somewhere in the Sinai peninsula, managed to develop a language before the Anatolian languages...Whats next, .the earth is 6000 years old?

Man, the ignorance on this board among some of its members is sometimes staggering.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


The Egyptians who fled into Canaan which was also part of Egypt at the time, they over time intermixed and adopted many of the local Canaanite customs. Than with Solomon, the customs were adopted from all around the world according to the documents claims. Canaanite = Phoenician = Israel etc. They were seafarers apparently and really got around. Carthage was but one of the many city states they founded.

So already we have allegations of a worldwide system of commerce and travel.
Look into the archaeology about the ancient Lapis Lazuli trade and all the evidence pertaining to that as well.

'Egypt' is Greek for = Kemet
'Greek' is Latin for = Hellenic
'Phoenician' is Greek for = Canaan
The Hebrews are actually Egyptians at the fall of the Egyptian empire, in exodus. On wikipedia it is called the "Third Intermediate Period of Egyptian History", a period of steep decline in power.

Here are links and more info to help:
Wiki Canaan

Canaan and the Canaanites are mentioned some 160 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges.[31] Canaan first appears as one of Noah's grandsons, cursed with perpetual slavery because his father Ham had "looked upon" the drunk and naked Noah; God later promises Canaan's land to Abraham and eventually delivers it to the Israelites.[31] The Biblical history has become increasingly problematic as the archaeological and textual evidence supports the idea that the early Israelites were in fact themselves Canaanites.[31]

Wiki Jerusalem

In the late Bronze Age Jerusalem was the capital of an Egyptian vassal city-state,[61] a modest settlement governing a few outlying villages and pastoral areas, with a small Egyptian garrison and ruled by appointees such as king Abdi-Heba,[62] At the time of Seti I and Ramesses II, major construction took place as prosperity increased.[63]

This period, when Canaan formed part of the Egyptian empire corresponds in biblical accounts to Joshua’s invasion.[64] In the bible, Jerusalem is defined as lying within territory allocated to the tribe of Benjamin[65][66] though occupied by Jebusites. David is said to have conquered these in the Siege of Jebus, and transferred his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem which then became the capital of a united Kingdom of Israel,[67] and one of its several religious centres.[68] The choice was perhaps dictated by the fact that Jerusalem did not form part of Israel’s tribal system, and was thus suited to serve as the centre of its federation.[63]

Who were the Jebusites?

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites (Hebrew: יְבוּסִי, Modern Yevusi Tiberian Yəḇûsî ISO 259-3 Ybusi) were a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David according to the Biblical account; the Books of Kings state that Jerusalem was known as Jebus prior to this event. According to some Biblical chronologies, the city was conquered by King David in 1003 BC,[1] or according to other sources 869 BC.[2]

Jerusalem = Jebus

Now I want you to look at these wikis:
Phoenicia
Phoenician Alphabet

The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Coptic), was a direct successor of Phoenician, though certain letter values were changed to represent vowels.

If you compare the letters with the Greek alphabet you will see the similarities and deviations.
Also note that there are many connections between Phoenician and the Hebrew Alphabet

According to contemporary scholars, the original Hebrew script developed alongside others used in the region during the late second and first millennia BC. It is closely related to the Phoenician script, which itself probably gave rise to the use of alphabetic writing in Greece (Greek alphabet).

Let us note the dates:

Phoenicia/Canaanite :

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1200 BC,

Hebrew :

A distinct Hebrew variant, called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, emerged by the 10th century BCE,

Greek:

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since the 8th century BC

Also check out the diagram here:
Colonies in Antiquity

'Jewish' is not defined biologically, which is kind of a 'nice way out' for them. It enables justification for anything, including the return to their 'homeland', even though it is not a homeland by ancestry.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


Well I don't think I want to get into that debate, but if "jewish" is a cultural thing, and semitic is a "biological" thing, then I don't quite get your point.

One could say the same for persian people with muslim culture, no ? Or christian arabs like the Koptes. Or armenians, or the kurds, who are semitic too.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


I guess it would depend on your definition of Semite/Jewish...and then an argument could be made that the Mycenaean Greeks were part of the Sea People's who in turn became part of the Philistines (if you consider them Semites). So theoretically at least the Mycenaean Greeks could have influenced the Semites who then returned the favor and influenced the later Greeks.

Humm did I possibly just call Jesus Greek? Lol

Originally posted by Shiloh7

 

The Semitic peoples are made up from a wide range of different groups

We have been educated to think of ancient peoples as barbaric and ignorant and little credit has been given to their travel and the immence trade routes and the obvious ability to communicate between peoples, but life then must have been a melting pot. Some people travelled for 'spiritual' reasons to meet and learn

Groups of Academics probably tended to flock to each other and I expect many spoke numerous languages so the ideas flowed - but who influenced who, is probably impossible to identify.

It is difficult to identify who influenced who, that is why I hope this debate will explore that question. I agree that what we were educated to believe may not be accurate, but I also don't think they were as embracing of each other as you describe them. Life must have been hard. Understanding other cultures even harder. Deserts or gradual desertification, no means to travel other than hand powered boats, and donkeys. Trade must have been limited for the most part to copper, silk and only a few other goods. I doubt that many people had resources for, or interest in, the exchange of ideas, concepts, languages. Unless there were rulers who decided to sponsor such activities. Question is: why would they?

On another note, you bring up another interesting point, that the often-used word 'anti-semite' is really a misnomer.

They don't seem to understand or are downplaying the links between the Greeks and their origins in ancient Egypt which seem very plausible.

For example this quote :

Greeks have been living in Egypt since ancient times, in fact Herodotus visited Egypt in the 4th century BC and claimed that the Greeks were one of the first foreigners that ever lived in Egypt.[2] Diodorus Siculus attested that Rhodian Actis, one of the Heliadae built the city of Heliopolis before the cataclysm; likewise the Athenians built Sais. While all Greek cities were destroyed during the cataclysm, the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis and Sais survived.[3]

Heliopolis and Sais were cities in Egypt though.

And he is referencing what were mere Myths and Legends of their time, including a list of mythological characters and all that. This predates the Hellenic period.

Before the Cataclysm? I cursor over that word and it links us to the "Great Deluge".
No wonder everyone is confused, we don't have anything solid to go with other than to merely compare artifacts and inscriptions and come up with hypothesis.

It is highly likely that the Greeks were in fact a later resurgence of Egyptian-Canaanite-Hebrew. Their language stems directly from it, in a line of procession. It seems to all add up fairly nicely as we piece the puzzle together.

And don't forget, people traveled and mated with people from all over as well. So things mixed in ways we cannot even imagine or anticipate because we lack over 99% of the information about what really happened and in what exact order.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
reply to post by ThinkingHuman

 

The Hebrews are actually Egyptians at the fall of the Egyptian empire, in exodus. On wikipedia it is called the "Third Intermediate Period of Egyptian History", a period of steep decline in power. ry BC

Well put muzzle. Right on target there.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
They don't seem to understand or are downplaying the links between the Greeks and their origins in ancient Egypt which seem very plausible.

For example this quote :

Greeks have been living in Egypt since ancient times, in fact Herodotus visited Egypt in the 4th century BC and claimed that the Greeks were one of the first foreigners that ever lived in Egypt.[2] Diodorus Siculus attested that Rhodian Actis, one of the Heliadae built the city of Heliopolis before the cataclysm; likewise the Athenians built Sais. While all Greek cities were destroyed during the cataclysm, the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis and Sais survived.[3]

Heliopolis and Sais were cities in Egypt though.


It is highly likely that the Greeks were in fact a later resurgence of Egyptian-Canaanite-Hebrew. Their language stems directly from it, in a line of procession. It seems to all add up fairly nicely as we piece the puzzle together.

There is no absolute proof of that and I know a good amount of professors in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, that would wildly contest that idea/assumption.