“The thesis of this book is simply that Greek and Hebrew civilisations are parallel structures built upon the same East Mediterranean foundation. …the evidence is so abundant that our problem is one of selection and arrangement.”

—  Cyrus H. Gordon

Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The thesis of this book is simply that Greek and Hebrew civilisations are parallel structures built upon the same East …" by Cyrus H. Gordon?
Cyrus H. Gordon photo
Cyrus H. Gordon 73
American linguist 1908–2001

Related quotes

“The central problem of the Greek tragedies is why we suffer so at the hands of God. The movement that evoked Greek tragedy in the fifth century B. C. was spread over the East Mediterranean evoking a parallel response in Israel. …And as in Greek tragedy, Job deals with the problem of why man suffers so at the had of God.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Source: The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962]), Ch.VIII Further Observations on the Bible

Leon Uris photo

“Research to me is as important, or more important, than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.”

Leon Uris (1924–2003) American novelist

Explaining how all his novels were researched; quoted in his Guardian obituary, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/jun/25/guardianobituaries.books

“Just as Mycenaean civilisation is a development of the Minoan, so too the Philistines who came to Palestine from Caphtor were an offshoot of the same general Aegean civilisation. …until David's victories around 1000 B. C., the Philistines dominated the Hebrews, so that, militarily at least, the Davidic monarchy was the Hebrew response to the Philistine stimulus. …the Achaeans, Trojans, Philistines and Hebrews during the closing centuries of the second millennium belonged to the same international complex of peoples, sharing many conventions and institutions, specifically in military matters.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Vitruvius photo

“All… must be built with due reference to durability, convenience, and beauty. Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected; convenience, when the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to use, and”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter III, Sec. 2
Context: All... must be built with due reference to durability, convenience, and beauty. Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected; convenience, when the arrangement of the apartments is faultless and presents no hindrance to use, and when each class of building is assigned to its suitable and appropriate exposure; and beauty, when the appearance of the work is pleasing and in good taste, and when its members are in due proportion according to correct principles of symmetry.

“For centuries scholars have been forced to grapple with the problem of accounting for the parallels between Greek literature and the Bible.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Did Greece borrow from Israel? Or did Israel borrow from Greece? Can the parallels be accidental, do they obliterate the uniqueness of both Israel and Greece?
Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

“The purpose of this book is to discuss and present evidence for the general thesis that the flow of energy through a system acts to organize that system.”

Harold J. Morowitz (1927–2016) American biophysicist

Energy Flow in Biology: Biological Organization as a Problem in Thermal Physics (1968), p. 2.
Italics are in the original. Later quoted on the inside front cover of The Last Whole Earth Catalog.

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh photo

“An efficient telecommunications network is the foundation upon which an information society is built.”

Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (1938) Jordanian businesspeople

March 21, 2004, at the Arab ICT Regulators Forum, Movenpick Dead Sea, Jordan.

“The parallels that form the core of this book fit into a historical framework in the wake of the Armana Age during the closing centuries of the second millenium. Prior to the Armana Age (i. e., before 1400 B. C.) Egyptian, Canaanite, Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Aegean and other influences met around the East Mediterranean to form an international order, by which each was in turn affected.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Introduction
The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965 [1962])

Angelique Rockas photo

“… without New Testament Greek there would be no Christian Theology, or possibly no Christianity. The Athanasian Creed, the dogma of Christ the Homiousios, of the same essence as the Father, the dogma of Christ, fully God and Fully Human, The dogma of the Holy Trinity, 'that Christ is the incarnation of the indivisible source of the Divine Godhead through the power of the Holy Spirit " could only have been formulated by the Church Fathers within the linguistic structures and concepts provided by early century Greek language and thought., e. g concepts such as the God/man, a concept that which does not exist in the Hebrew and is totally foreign to Hebrew culture. Hence Shelley's assertion that the Greeks /the Hellenes "gave us our religion."”

Angelique Rockas South African actress and founder of Internationalist Theatre, London

On Orthodoxia
Interview on Helenism .net (September 2011)

Alice A. Bailey photo

“The problem of religion and the problem of orthodox Christianity are not one and the same thing. Much that we see around us today of unbelief and criticism, and the negation of our so-called truths, is based upon the fact that religion has been largely superseded by creed, and doctrine has taken the place of living experience. It is this living experience which is the keynote of this book.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

Related topics