Cato and the Deuteronimists

[rgprice]

I've been reading Cato, or rather commentaries on Cato's Origines. It seems to me that Cato may have a lot in common with Gmirkin's proposed Deuteronomists.

Cato was a conservative Latin. He wrote a history of the Roman people in Latin that had a fairly anti-Hellenistic bent. Yet, at the same time Cato used Greek sources for his early history of the region because there simply weren't any good Latin sources. And, likewise, while Cato railed against many aspects of Hellenistic influence and what he saw as Hellenistic cultural degradation, he nevertheless admired and utilized elements of Hellenistic scholarship and science.

This strikes me being very similar to the sentiments of many first generation immigrants to America. Chinese, Indian, Islamic immigrants, etc., may immigrate to America and like certain aspects of American opportunity, security and stability, while at teh same time wanting to protect their children from what they see as negative American cultural influences.

This is basically the sentiment of Cato and, it seems to me, this is also the sentiment of the Deuteronomists. In this way, as Gmirkin proposes, the Deuteronomists could have been both influenced by and opposed to Hellenism, just as Cato was. And it would make sense then that they would have been inspired to produce their history of the Israelite people upon their contact with Hellenism in much the same way that Cato and other Romans did the same in the Hellenistic era.

[Secret Alias]

Romans were not an ancient civilization in the context of the contemporary Mediterranean world. Sheesh. Even Manetho acknowledged the antiquity of the Israelites. Like Americans going to France to learn culture and claiming Greeks went to France to "re-invent" themselves.

[rgprice]

No one is disputing that the Israelites were an ancient civilization. The dispute is that the ancient Israelites were Jews. It's like if I grew up in Massachusetts and wrote a text book about how the Pilgrims were liberal atheists who advocated tolerance and accepted homosexuality, because that reflects widely held values in Massachusetts today.

The Jewish scriptures project the values and interests of the writers back onto their ancestors, just as basically every single ancient account of cultural origins does. The way all ancient writers about the past operated was they projected their own values back on their ancestors, and invented stories about their ancestors that were meant to be used as examples of how to (or not to) live by their espoused values.

That's exactly what the Jewish scriptures do. And it seems that many people, like Cato (and Manetho and Berossus) were inspired to write such accounts upon contact with Hellenistic culture, just as today many immigrants have similar reactions upon coming to America. Upon contact with the very liberal Hellenistic culture, there was a conservative reaction to protect one's cultural identity from Hellenism. Again, we see the same thing when immigrants come to America and seek to protect their cultural and ethnic identities from American assimilation.

I'm saying this reaction against liberalizing cultural assimilation provides the motive for the writing of the Deuteronomistic texts, which, like the works of Cato, are both influenced by and opposed to Hellenism.

[Secret Alias]

But it's not the same thing. The whole point of having a comparison or an analogy is that things are presumed to be similar. It's not a useful analogy to compare a people who are mentioned or identified by Manetho to have lived in Pharaonic times with a barbaric people who only rose to prominence because of their military prowess. Cato lived in the 2nd century BCE after Rome had no literature of note. Come on. This is a stupid theory which only exposes the limited knowledge of ancient history of those who espouse Gmirkin's views (he's not ignorant of history but instead plays "tricks" through his craftiness to cover the holes in his theory).

[rgprice]

If you are talking about Manetho's description of the Hyksos, that has nothing to do with the Israelites. And anyway, it doesn't matter it does. Third century BCE Jews were not 12th century Israelites any more than 21st century Cape Coders are Pilgrims. Even if people living in Cape Code today are descendants of the Pilgrims, whose families lived in Cape Code since the landing of Mayflower, those people are not Pilgrims. Their ancestors were Pilgrims, but they are not Pilgrims. The people living in Provincetown today, which is filled with gay pride banners and known as the Key West of Massachusetts, do not hold the same values as the passengers of the Mayflower, even if some of those people in Provincetown are descendants of the people who came over on the Mayflower.

To claim that Provincetown embodies the values of the Mayflower Pilgrims would be entirely disingenuous. What virtually all ancient "histories" did, however, was exactly this. And the Pentateuch is no different. The Pentateuch projects the values of a set of Jews back in time onto their ancestors. It claims that the ancestors of the writers held the same values as the writers.

What we see in many examples of classical writings is that when various cultures came into contact with Hellenism "defenders" of those cultures produced writings about their national origins in which they project back their own values onto their ancient ancestors to essentially enshrine those values as the foundations of their civilization, which must be upheld and defended at all costs against Hellenistic influence. I offer Cato as one such example. But really Manetho is another example. Upon the Ptolemaic occupation of Egypt, Manetho writes a history of his civilization to honor and enshrine its values and origins against Hellenism. In the case of Cato, we have an example of someone who both admires and abhors Hellenism. He both incorporates Hellenistic influences and rails against Hellenistic influence.

Gmirkin's theory proposes that the writers of the Pentateuch do this same thing, and I'm simply offering Cato as another example of someone who follows a similar pattern upon writing a history of their civilization in the presence of Hellenistic cultural influence.

[Secret Alias]

Surely you can't cherry pick what ancient reference you agree with and which you don't. In antiquity Jews were viewed as an ancient barbarous people.