Were Ancient Greeks such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, etc., familiar with the stories, or even the text, of the Old Testament? If so (and I can’t recall ever seeing anything to indicate that they did), did they have any comments on it?
Socrates (b. ~469 d. 399 BC)
Plato (b. 427 d. 347 BC)
Aristotle (b. 384 d. 322 BC)
The translation of hebrew scriptures (Pentateuch) to Greek (known as the “Septuagint”) is thought to have occurred, at the earliest, around 250 BC, in order to provide a copy for the library at Alexandria. So, highly unlikely that these early philosophers heard of the stories of the Old Testament.
See this the following link for the timeline:
Indeed. I had a fair sense of the timeline, but still wondered a) whether some preliminary fragements might have been available to them, or more plausibly, b) whether they may simply have been familiar with the stories.
I’m sure they must have had some awareness of the “goings-on over there”, though they were not necessarily familiar with the philosophical underpinnings.
The Greeks had been in touch with the Levant from very early in their history, long before the Classical age. Their names Europe and Asia come from Semitic languages, along with lots of other words. For example, the name Europe is derived from a Semitic word meaning ‘west’ (compare Hebrew ‘ereb). Hebrew was closely related to Canaanite, Phoenician, and Aramaic, so any of those other languages could have been the source of the Semitic loanwords to Greek. The Greeks had a legend that their alphabet was brought from the Levant by a figure named Kadmos. This name actually comes from a Semitic root meaning ‘ancient’. This was how the Greeks acknowledged their cultural debt to the East. The book The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Early Greek Culture in the Archaic Age by Walter Burkert documents how much civilization the Greeks took from the Levant at a period when they were barbarians. A lot.
That doesn’t mean they had any specific knowledge of the Hebrews, who were just one more nomadic or seminomadic tribe in an area that had lots of them. The main centers of Levantine civilization were further north, in Phoenicia and Syria, and those were the ones the Greeks had direct contact with. There were some Levantine religious cults that the Greeks adopted, including Adonis (from a Semitic word meaning ‘Lord’) and the mystery cult of the Kabiri (from a Semitic word meaning ‘Great’). The Sea Peoples who raided the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean are thought to have come from the Aegean. One of their groups was called Peleshet by the Egyptians, who were the Philistines. Whether any knowledge of the Philistines’ enemies the Hebrews reached Greece, I doubt it; where are the records? We don’t even know if the Philistines originated in Greece or somewhere else. Another of the Sea Peoples was called Akawasha by the Egyptians; these were the Achaeans, an archaic Greek people who also conquered Troy. Although Greeks, they were not the direct ancestors of the classical Greeks, who were descended from the Dorians, another Greek people, barbarians who invaded Greece from the north during the Dark Age of Greek civilization. Why should the Greeks have taken note of a small remote tribal confederation like the Israelites who were of no international significance in those days when communications were poor? In early classical times, Palestine was under the Persian empire. The Greeks came into direct contact with the Jews during Seleucid (post-Alexander) times, and lots of Jews moved to Alexandria and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. The famous authors like Plato, Herodotus, etc. that we know from classical Greek civilization lived at a time when Palestine was Persian, and they were at war with Persia, so they wouldn’t have gone there much before Alexander conquered the area.
Herodotus does not mention the Jews directly, but a passage in Book II quoted by Flavius Josephus “the Phoenicians and Syrians in Palestine owned their receiving circumcision from the Egyptians” could be taken as referring to Jews. Josephus says Herodotus is wrong because the Abraham was the one who instituted circumcision for the Jews. However, Herodotus had been to Egypt and wrote that the Egyptians were the only people who practiced circumcision, therefore anyone else who did so must have learned it from being in Egypt.
Jomo Mojo:
Are you certain of that? Traditional Jewish sources say that Alexander himself marched through Judea, which, though part of the Persian Empire, had its own Jewish local governor. While I’m willing (despite my predisposition toward believing the Talmud) to allow that there might be some embellishment in the story that Alexander met with the High Priest Simeon the Just and showed him great respect, it would surprise me if, considering that Alexander himself conquered Persia, he never encountered the Judeans who rab that western province.
…And Alexander survived Aristotle by only one year. (Aristotle’s nephew, Callisthenes, was the official historian of the Persian expedition, but he had a run-in with Alexander and met an untimely end. His works have been lost.)
Even if you discount both the Talmud and Josephus (who said that Alexander demanded supplies of the high priest, who refused because he was loyal to Darius, then had a dream saying to support Alexander. Josephus also says that after Alexander took Gaza, he went to Jerusalem, where he sacrificed to God, and the High Priest showed him the book of Daniel, and showed him that his coming was prophecized.) we know that after the battle of Issus, in Turkey, Alexander sieged Tyre, then went down the coast, accepting the surrender of Judean costal cities, except for Gaza, which he also besieged, then went into Egypt.
Even if you discount both the Talmud and Josephus (who said that Alexander demanded supplies of the high priest, who refused because he was loyal to Darius, then had a dream saying to support Alexander. Josephus also says that after Alexander took Gaza, he went to Jerusalem, where he sacrificed to God, and the High Priest showed him the book of Daniel, and showed him that his coming was prophecized.) we know that after the battle of Issus, in Turkey, Alexander sieged Tyre, then went down the coast, accepting the surrender of Judean costal cities, except for Gaza, which he also besieged, then went into Egypt.
Thank you all. And, Jomo, your answer was especially enlightening.
cmkeller and Captain Amazing, I know that Alexander went through there, but look, that guy was in a big hurry. He swept through the area and was too busy conquering to spend much time getting to know the Judeans. He spent more R&R time in Egypt and Persia, but ran right through the Levant. I’m skeptical about legends from authors after the fact that he hobnobbed with Jewish priests or paid homage to the Jewish religion. He is known, though, to have paid due respect to Egyptian and Persian religions.
That’s why I dated real cultural contact between Jews and Greeks to Seleucid (and Ptolemid) times, when they were two settled civilizations side by side and a lot of Jews went to Alexandria and got themselves Hellenized. This was of course well after the decline of classical Greece.
Where the sheol is Tamerlane? Doesn’t he do ancient?
In the context of the OP, Alexander’s contacts with Jerusalem were pretty much irrelevant, anyway. By the time Alexander was wandering down the eastern Mediterranean coast, Socrates and Plato were long dead and Aristotle was a very old man. Even if a copy of the Torah was sent to Athens for examination, it is unlikely that Aristotle would have had much time to translate and examine it.
I’m coming, I’m coming…have pity on an old man…my legs are tired, my eyes are dim…
Well, actually he did linger a bit in the Levant ( if not Judaea ), though not entirely by choice. Remember the siege of Tyre alone lasted seven months. It took him some nine months to work his way south through the Levant to Egypt.
On his way back north he stopped at Tyre again and lingered from mid-May until late July to reorganize his lines, rest his army, take care of some administrative details, await reinforcements, deal with the revolt by King Agis of Sparta and other matters. Further his movement out of Egypt earlier in May had been hastened by a revolt in Samaria ( where the pro-Persian Samaritans had risen up and killed the recently appointed Macedonian governor for the region ). He subjected Samaria to a thorough sack and at this point pretty likely met with local Jewish leaders ( and is not unlikely he may have dealings with them while sitting at Tyre afterwards as well ).
Many historians are skeptical as well. Alexander probably did meet with local Jewish leaders ( there is no reason why he wouldn’t and given the situation in Samaria every reason why he would ), but more likely only in passing and stories of him making a special journey to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice are regarded as probably apocryphal.
Probably best to just say the “Hellenistic”, rather than Seleucid or Ptolemaic, because Palestine came under control of both at different periods ;). It changed hands in 320, 315, 312, 311 and 301 between 3 or 4 factions during the Wars of the Diadochi. From 301-198 it was held by the Lagids ( Ptolemies ), then fell to the Seleucids after Antiochus III Megas’ victorious campaign of 201-198 ( and major battlefield victory at Panion in 200 ). The Seleucids of course only held Judaea until 140 ( and tenuously for much of that period ) when the Hasmonean state firmly established itself.
Right. In Alexandria and even Judaea there were indeed cross-cultural connections, like those of Aristobulus, who dedicated his Explanations of the Books of Moses to Ptolemy VI Philometer ( 180-145 B.C. ). But as tomndeb noted this is later than the period the OP seems to be interested in.
- Tamerlane