Introductory Essay 8

More Comments on Use of Such Terms as Ancient and Classical: A Key to Understanding the Past?

Throughout this work I will use the terms “Ancient world”, and “Classical world.” While these terms have various definitions, I will use these terms to represent “world views,” rather than just time elements. There are clashes of great importance to this story that are really clashes between the Ancient world view and the Classical world view, and later Jewish, Christian and to some lesser degree Muslim world views (not to demean the Muslim world view, it is just that in this time line of this work, the Muslim religion was not developed). Therefore, when I use the term “the Ancient world” I am referring to the world of the Semitic and Egyptian peoples of the Near East. I will also include the Persians in this grouping for political issues, but will present the Persian view of religion as a different element apart from Ancient or Classical.

The Classical world refers to the world view and culture developed by the Greek and Roman concepts of society and religion. (Again, not to ignore the Chinese and Indians of Ancient times, its just that they have relatively little impact on the story line presented) I will also use the term Jewish and Christian world view to designate “concepts, not a meaning a time or place. In addition, as we shall see, much of the land mass North Africa and Southern Europe was actually first “civilized” by representative peoples of the Ancient world, primarily the Phoenicians; therefore we really need to look both at “time and space”, as well as “culture” to understand how the divisions of the Ancient and Classical come about.

There is not a clear dividing line for when the Ancient world ended and the Classical world began, or when the Christian world became dominant, etc. The time period of the Ancient world and the Classical world overlap, so we cannot clearly say this is where the Classical world view begins and the Ancient ends (or if in fact it did end). This discussion will become clearer throughout the course of the writing.

• However, in general, for the Ancient world view, I am talking about the religious, political and philosophical views of peoples from the various cultures of the Near East, as well as the pre-Classical Greeks and other peoples who share the religious beliefs that will be outlined in this book. We can trace these beliefs back, in some form of development, several millennia to roughly 10,000 BC. Of course, these “Ancient” views were not completely stagnant, and changed a great deal over this time. However, these peoples maintained a core belief and “universal” understanding that was distinctive
• With the Classical world view, I am talking about the religious, political and philosophic concepts of the Greek and Roman peoples (and peoples who later shared their beliefs). The Classical world lasted, according to standard history, roughly from 750 BC or so to 450 AD (with some vestiges carrying over into the Byzantine Empire).

The situation is complicated greatly throughout these two books in that I see the “Christian world” as in many ways the continuation of the “Ancient world” view, morphed, and dominating most of the political and cultural events of the West until current times. Therefore, I tend to argue that the “Ancient world” view has never ended, and is well represented in its current form in modern Western religions.

Also, I need to quickly review the differences and similarities between what I am calling here the Ancient world view, and the Classical world view,

Much between them is similar:

• They both saw the world as more or less governed by a number of gods, with various degrees of powers, influences and realms.
• They both strongly believed in the influences of the stars, in so far as astrology was important (and perhaps one of the most ancient of all “sciences.” This point will need to be considered in greater detail as an option for the explanation of religious beliefs and rituals.
• They both believed in evil forces, as well as good forces (although it is not until the Persians, do we see belief in a single evil being).
• They both were mainly strong believers in predestination the fate of man was determined and could not be undone.

It is with this point, the fate, or perhaps better stated, the role of man, that the Classical world view and the Ancient world view tended to depart from each other. The key difference of the Ancient view and the Classical view was the role of “man” within society.

• In the Ancient world view, the gods were mainly portrayed as animals or part human and part animal. In the Classical world, the gods were mainly human in shape and form (divine, but human in form).
• In the Ancient world, the priest and the temples were dominant players in the society, often controlling vast amounts of the wealth of the land. On the other hand in the Classical world there were priest and temples, but they were less influential and less wealthy. The “governments instituted among men” were the dominant force in society.
• In the Ancient world, the rulers mainly owned everything (land and people) and people were completely subservient to the state; where in the Classical world, property could be owned by individual citizens and people had relative freedom: Although the Classical world accepted slavery, the role of a “free citizen” was added.
• In the Ancient world, the rulers were kings and often considered divine, and people were responsible to the needs of the state. In the Classical world, at least in the developing periods, the state was often ruled by councils and senates. The Classical world featured a more a republican form of government. Even where there were kings, they were limited in power by these government structures and the state was presumed to represent the will of people (either the masses or an oligarchy). The state was seen as being at least somewhat responsible to the needs of the people. Unlike in the world of the Ancients, in the Classical world, social based revolutions, demanding new rights for the citizens, or adding more people to the citizen roles were at least present, if not somewhat frequent.
• The Ancient world looked to the gods as the cause of all things, and in the Classical world, people were allowed, at least in some limited forms, depending on the time and location, to look for answers, beyond the concepts of religion, to issues based in science, logic and even psychology after a form.

This list is mainly one of great generalities, with obvious examples of contradictions to this simplicity. Alexander the Great saw himself as a divine son of Zeus, and Carthage, a representative of the Ancients, was ruled by a senate, to name a few exceptions to this rule. In part, these contradictions come about due to one of the main themes of this book; how and when cultures merge and morph, and the issue of “absorbing and absorber cultures.”

• The successor rulers of Alexander, themselves, while spreading much of the concepts of the Classical world, became more like the rulers of the Ancient world, going so far as to declare themselves divine which is something Alexander was chastised for doing.

There are two pieces of surviving literature from Ancient and Classical times that show us some of the cultural conflicts between changing and merging cultures.

The first is represented in the “Old Testament, in I Samuel Chapter 8, where the people are demanding the protection of a “king” to better fight off the Philistines. Here we see a people choosing to move towards the “Ancient” view of rule, and away from what is considered “tribal” rule. This tribal form of rule, however, also can be seen as more of a precursor of “Classical view” of rule. (Both the Ancient view and the Classical view, grew out of a “tribal view” of the world.) Here, the Hebrews of the time, were still in a “tribal culture” which is one that is very old and existed prior to the advent of the Ancient world view, as presented here. So, the Hebrews here are asking to join the more “modern Ð Ancient world”, so to speak, when they ask for the king.).

I Samuel Chapter 8
11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. 
12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 
13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 
14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. 
15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. 
16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. 
17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. 
18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. 
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; 
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.

The second piece is from Plato’s Republic, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.2.i.html where, in Book One, Socrates and others are engaged in a discussion on the origins of issues of political power. One of the people begins by saying

And the different forms of government make laws democratically, aristocratically, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust. And that is what I mean when I say that in all states there is the same principle of justice, which is the interest of the government; and as the government must be supposed to have power, the only reasonable conclusion is, that everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.

Then Socrates begins his traditional approach of questioning:

tell me, Do you admit that it is just of subjects to obey their rulers? 
I do. 
But are the rulers of states absolutely infallible, or are they sometimes liable to err? 
To be sure, he replied, they are liable to err. 
Then in making their laws they may sometimes make them rightly, and sometimes not? 
True. 
When they make them rightly, they make them agreeably to their interest; when they are mistaken, contrary to their interest; you admit that? 
Yes. 
And the laws which they make must be obeyed by their subjects, –and that is what you call justice? 
Doubtless. 
Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse? 
What is that you are saying? he asked. 
I am only repeating what you are saying, I believe. But let us consider: Have we not admitted that the rulers may be mistaken about their own interest in what they command, and also that to obey them is justice? Has not that been admitted? 
Yes. 
Then you must also have acknowledged justice not to be for the interest of the stronger, when the rulers unintentionally command things to be done which are to their own injury. For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? 
Nothing can be clearer, Socrates, said Polemarchus.

Yes, Cleitophon, but he also said that justice is the interest of the stronger, and, while admitting both these propositions, he further acknowledged that the stronger may command the weaker who are his subjects to do what is not for his own interest; whence follows that justice is the injury quite as much as the interest of the stronger. . Yes, I said, my impression was that you did so, when you admitted that the ruler was not infallible but might be sometimes mistaken.

Here we see the changing context for rule from the point of view of the Ancients and the Classical world views. The Ancients saw rule as absolute and with all powers in the hands of the king, thought the designation of the Gods (or at least that is what the leaders told their people). The Classicalist acknowledged different types of rule and that the rulers often operated in ways that were not, in their own, or their peoples’ interest (with no mention of God or Gods controlling their actions). Furthermore, they acknowledged that those rulers are not infallible, nor always good.

This is a major difference in a world view; the ancients saw rulers as presenting the will of gods, and the Classicalist saw rulers as men, who as men, could make errors.

• Therefore, please be aware that the Ancient and Classical terms are not interchangeable but are deliberately used for specific purposes throughout this book.

One more area that needs to be expanded upon in this comment on terms: It is clear that the terms used to refer to people and ideas change over time. Also, terms change their meaning over time. For example, what should I call the people who were followers of Yahweh (or at least prior to Christ)? There are multiple terms, and each one is correct at a particular time.

So, at times there were the Hebrews, and then the Israelites, then there were some who were Israelites and some who were Judeans, and eventually they were Jews. This period of name change, at least according to the Biblical time line covers some 1500 years at a minimum (again, a very long time.). There were times of transition where the peoples were Hebrews and Israelites, and there was also a period of joint existence when there were both Israelites and Judeans. What complicates issues more is there soon became subdivisions within the Jews of a certain time period. These subdivisions were not the ones we traditionally think of such as, Pharisees, Zealots, etc. Of particular importance to my theory are the peoples that were remnants of Israelites and Judeans, and were still “on the land” long after the time that traditional history says that they were “eliminated.”

• In each of the cases, during this long time, the culture and the religion of the peoples associated with the each of the names were actually substantially different, and these differences and the conflicts between these differences play an important part of the story.

The terms in modern times are often misused and cause a great deal of confusion among people, especially in the effort I am undertaking. For example,

• God did not promise Canaan to the Jews, but to the Hebrew descendants of Abram (or Abraham)
• The Jews were not slaves unto Pharaoh, the Hebrews were the people who went into Egypt, and the Hebrews/Israelites came out of Egypt.
• David was not the king of the Jews, but the king of Israel and the Israelites

The proper term “Jew”, in referring the “Jewish” religion and the Jewish people, only becomes used among the people themselves and among others sometime in the 5th Century BC, when the “Jews” began to come back from seventy years of captivity in Babylon to the land around the ruins of the temple in Jerusalem.

• The Hebrew name “Yehudi” (plural Yehudim) .. originally referred to the people of the southern kingdom, although the term B’nei Yisrael (Israelites) was still used for both groups. Its first use in the Bible to refer to the Jewish people as a whole is in the Book of Esther. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew

No wonder Herodotus made no reference to the “Jews” since the term “Jews’ was first used some 200 years of so after his death.

Therefore, throughout this work I will refer to the group of the worshipers of Yahweh as the name best used to describe the people in the time frame of which I am speaking. I will also use terms like Hebrew/Israelites, or Israelite/Jews to indicate a transition period.

And as we will see there are problems with the modern use of other terms such as Phoenicians and Canaanites, which are basically the same people. In addition, the term Orthodox Christian has so many variations in meaning that it’s becomes very confusing at times. The meaning changes depending on who is accusing another of being a “heretic” and who is claiming the mantle of being “Orthodox.” All this and more I will attempt to sort out as we go along, by use of terms that try to show transition periods and differing names for the same peoples or beliefs.