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

Originally posted by Spider879
Was about to make a similar thread on this but this will do just fine seems there is a rethinking on the origin of civilization in ancient Greece,first described by Bernal in the mid 80ts as the ancient model,but wasn't widely accepted then now according to the article below there seems to be some kind of paradigm shift taking place.

Ancient Greece, the Middle East and an ancient cultural internet
The ancient Greek world is being recast from an isolated entity to one of many hybrid cultures in Africa and in the East

If you walk through the entrance hall of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, you come to a large display case devoted to the ancient world. Here, alongside each other, lie an Iraqi ceramic model of a river boat from around 2900 BC; a model of a covered wagon from Syria from about 2300 BC (collected by Lawrence of Arabia); Cretan jars wreathed with sinuous, octopus designs from about a millennium later; and a sixth-century BC Attic vase from Sicily, decorated with an image of a chariot. The display is designed to illustrate ancient trade routes; but what if it told a deeper story, too? As Tim Whitmarsh, professor of ancient literatures at the University of Oxford says: "What if what we think of as the classical world has been falsely invented as European, for reasons serving the cause of 19th-century imperialism? Should the Greek and Roman worlds, albeit in different ways, be seen rather as part of the Iraqi-Syrian-Palestinian-Egyptian complex? If so, what would that mean for ideas about European identity today?"

www.guardian.co.uk...

edit on 11-7-2013 by Spider879 because: just because

Thanks for sharing that info, nice to feel reassurances every once in awhile.

I believe that yes, maybe we should start viewing Greek-Roman civilization as a resurgence of the Mesopotamian-Egyptian culture.

What does it mean for our Identity? To me this is silly. The Masons and similar groups already deck their lodges out with Egyptian paraphernalia most of the time. They already know about this stuff. Some of them do at least.

That we are the descent of the Egyptians? To me this is already borderline fact.

Originally posted by ElohimJD

Originally posted by johncarter

Man....whats next the danites emigrated to old america and established a small kingdom of god on manhattan? LOLOL..."Makes voice like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse now"; The horror, the horror...

edit on 11-7-2013 by johncarter because: (no reason given)

I found this humorous as well.

There is strong ancient evidence in Ireland indicating the Irish "Tuatha de Danaan" are the Israelite "Tribe of Dan" as well.

Danites were seamen, and masters of ocean sailing. Believe what you want, but the documents exist and were recorded by historians, not made up my posters on ATS.

God Bless,

What's funny is the Irish have a tale older than the 300 warriors of Sparta, which also includes 300 warriors of the Fir Bolg fighting the invading army of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they fought so viciously and valiantly that the Sons of Danu spared their lives and gave them a quarter of Ireland. Another similarity, is that while there were 300 Fir Bolg warriors, there was also an undetermined number of Fomorian warriors who assisted in the defense and at least two are named in the accounts. Irish mythology has long been a passion of mine And Tuatha de Danaan actually means Sons of Danu, or Sons of Dan. Modern scholars think this is a link to Celtic deities though as Danu is a godess in both Asian, Greek and Celtic mythology. (P.S. Dan is a woman, not a man, and the Tribe of Dan in the bible is most definitely speaking of a man as the forefather as he was the SON of Jacob.)

Originally posted by JilianK
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

But he practiced Judaism lol His religion was Judaism.

Jesus was a jew.

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


sorry bro but please read about the time period you are trying to explain.

hellenic jewish people, those you are trying to make up a story about, lived around 200 bce, they hardly knew hebrew,, it was used mostly as a liturgy language like how up until the 19th century latin was used by the RCC.

around that time it was said that alexandrian jews wanted a version of the torah that they could read. they asked ptolelmy the second to sponsor it. this was the septuagint and was the source of the OT and highly influenced the NT.

if anything the greeks had more influence on the israelites than the other way around.

Originally posted by demongoat

 

hellenic jewish people, those you are trying to make up a story about, lived around 200 bce, they hardly knew hebrew,,

That is why they wrote the NT in greek. But they were still Semites, right? It was pointed out that the Greek alphabet was based on Phoenician (= Canaanite, Semitic) and much of their culture and religion was too. Maybe Greek should be considered a Semitic language? Probably not, but do we have enough data from 1200 BC to 800 BC to know this reasonably sure?

if anything the greeks had more influence on the israelites than the other way around.

I would be happy to entertain that thought, if you have someting to support it.

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

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?

I think the melting pot is appropriate.

I also think that what is known as Judaism is likely a front for a separate information set known by initiates. I think this same concept was repeated multiple times, likely before them, and certainly after them.

Philosophers/academics traveled often from country to country. Mystics moved about, exchanging information and teachings. The schools of the ancients, like the Pythagoreans, likely had students from all around as far as India, maybe China.

When you look at the mysticism of the cultures, you tend to see similarities from Europe through Asia. It is all basically the same information.

When you get to the new world, there is some of that information, but it is a different viewpoint of mysticism. more akin to the shaman, rather than the philosopher mystic of classical times. One is geared more towards nature, the other more towards reality and its various levels.

In any event, I think you can make two definite distinctions based on the information that was always considered "mystical". The jews, in this case, seem to be another in a line from the same spiritual thought processes regarding nature mysticism (basically, the mathematics and relative nature of the fabric of our reality).

reply to post by ThinkingHuman


I can't read every page, but I'm just going to put it out there that the Phoenicians, Arabs, Jews, Canaanites, Egyptians and Ethiopians are Semitic peoples. The Greeks and the Hittites that separated them from the Fertile Crescent, as well as the Persians who Alexander fought are all Indo-Europeans.

There is no tracing Indo-European to Semitic roots. In truth, whether we are speaking in terms of biology or culture and language, in any pair of contemporary examples, neither of the two individuals or groups can be said to be the other's antecedent...

In other words, man didnt come from monkeys and Greeks didnt come from Jews.

Now, influence, yes! That could be, just as the Greeks influenced the Romans...not supplant or cause total replacement. Insofar as the alphabet, you are correct. Alphabets (writing, because technically what the Phoenicians and modern Hebrew and Arabic have is called an Abjad, and those wacky Mayans and Chinese had/have logographic systems - hieroglyphics basically).

I forgot my point...oh, the New Testament was written when Greece was already a Suzerain state under the Roman Empire. ...by then maybe because they were tolerant of differences, I'm just using my imagination, like the LA of the Roman Empire...

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

Originally posted by demongoat

 

hellenic jewish people, those you are trying to make up a story about, lived around 200 bce, they hardly knew hebrew,,

That is why they wrote the NT in greek. But they were still Semites, right? It was pointed out that the Greek alphabet was based on Phoenician (= Canaanite, Semitic) and much of their culture and religion was too. Maybe Greek should be considered a Semitic language? Probably not, but do we have enough data from 1200 BC to 800 BC to know this reasonably sure?

if anything the greeks had more influence on the israelites than the other way around.

I would be happy to entertain that thought, if you have someting to support it.

Yes we have enough data, but it shows that Greek is an Indo-European language, like Latin, Gothic, Persian, Hittite, Celtic and all the modern languages that have developed from them. Now, Greek may have taken words and associated meanings from Hebrew or Aramaic to be able to discuss liturgical concepts new to that culture, but this is no different than Japanese using Chinese characters and their medieval pronunciations to be able to talk about Buddhist concepts, or Portuguese using the words "marketing", "outdoor" and "design" to discuss American style advertising, this adopting of foreign words to merely be able to discuss new concepts is very common when two cultures interact, but it does not affect grammar. It's actually difficult to affect grammar (and thus the core functionality of a language)...in fact, the only case I can think of is the adoption of the word "hasta" into Spanish from Arabic, and that one small example comes out of 700 long years of Moorish rule.

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]

I don't know where your info came from (no link) but it's wrong.

Sais existed before Athens did. Athens was founded as a city state around 500 BC, though the area had been inhabited for quite a while, and it is thought that the hill referred to as the Acropolis today may have served as the site of some sort of fortification.

Sais, on the other hand, was a thriving city before and during Egypt's first dynasty (around 3,000 BC), as we have records of the Pharoah Aha visiting there to worship the city's patron goddess Neith.

I won't bother with Heliopolis, since that first bit was SO wrong.

IIRC, Egyptians didn't know the Greeks well at all until around 800 BC.

Harte

Originally posted by MagnusMaximus
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

I do believe DNA population studies have been done on Greece and I don't think them having an origin in Egypt or closely related to Egypt was the result.

Yes, because they come from the Central Asian steppe, just like their related European tribe-cousins. There were people in Europe when Indo-Europeans arrived, but save the Basques and Sami People, all were displaced or totally assimilated. Later, Finns, Hungarians and Estonians would arrive and do some displacing/assimilating of their own, but not nearly as successful as the Indo-Europeans.

I often wonder if Semitic people's were originally living in Europe and became displaced to Egypt and the Fertile Crescent (maybe displacing some other group, perhaps the Turks, who knows?

Two things are certain: man can't stay put; and, man likes to have sex...everyone's a mut, as a result.

Originally posted by Sphota

 

In other words, man didnt come from monkeys and Greeks didnt come from Jews.

For three centuries preceding Jesus there was a country called Egypt and their people are called Egyptians. Their leaders were called Pharaohs.

Do these words not strike you as misnomers? The leaders were emperors, they were Greek colonizers, and they spoke Greek. Our concept of one country, one language, one culture, one people is flawed.

To respond to your post, "Greeks" may have been Indo-European, but not all of them. Who were their rulers? Maybe the rulers were not any more Greek than the Ptolemies were Egyptian - despite the title they had given themselves.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan

 

I think the melting pot is appropriate.

Is the term "Dorians" synonymous with Phoenicians?

Let' take a step back and suppose you live in a lawless time, weakened by the desert heat, and you come across somebody carrying weapons. It would be smart, not approach him to ask for directions. In ancient times, people who spoke different languages were in the same situation.

"Melting pot"? Do you think common people would sit down together to learn from each other? No, people needed to work hard, not have intellectual discussions. Empires changed hands. People, smart enough to learn the new emperor's language and follow his religion, were the people who gained in wealth and power. That is why new languages came about.

Dorians supposedly lived in Crete and invaded Greece around 1150 BC (but there is little data).
Mycenaean Greek was supplanted by "Ancient Greek" around the time of the supposed Dorian invasion.
Mythology gave the Dorians a Greek origin and eponymous founder, Dorus son of Hellen, the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes.

Would an invader not create a myth that makes himself the rightful patriarch of the people? Would the invader not try to hide his identity as a foreigner, in order to be able to command his subjects? Was Homer a descendant of the Phoenicians?

Originally posted by GrandStrategy
But he practiced Judaism lol

His religion was Judaism.

Jesus was a jew.

That is the most hilarious thing I ever saw.

Jesus went to Jewish temple and Started BEATING PEOPLE UP

and told Jewish priests at the time they are bad Mofos for being accountants and money lovers.

Nothing has changed, Jews today are lovers of money, Federal Reserve is 95% private Jewish owned.

And FINALLY, there are whole lot of Christians around thanks to Jesus.

CHRISTIANS........not ........JEWS

do the numbers

Originally posted by Harte

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]

I don't know where your info came from (no link) but it's wrong.

Sais existed before Athens did. Athens was founded as a city state around 500 BC, though the area had been inhabited for quite a while, and it is thought that the hill referred to as the Acropolis today may have served as the site of some sort of fortification.

Sais, on the other hand, was a thriving city before and during Egypt's first dynasty (around 3,000 BC), as we have records of the Pharoah Aha visiting there to worship the city's patron goddess Neith.

I won't bother with Heliopolis, since that first bit was SO wrong.

IIRC, Egyptians didn't know the Greeks well at all until around 800 BC.

Harte

I linked the source prior to that post.

After reviewing your links I am convinced by your arguments.
Oh wait?

Originally posted by ThinkingHuman

Is the term "Dorians" synonymous with Phoenicians?

After some digging around and thinking about your posts, I am thinking "Yes partially at least".

I went back and looked up some mythology and festivals practiced by the Dorians. . The instruments of music, their mythological figures, etc. It looks like what I generally call "Greek/Hellenic".

I checked out their calendar system, and it's the Hellenic calendar.

I don't see how these people couldn't be an extension of the so called "Phoenician Expansions". Which is just a sort of re-emergence of the earlier Egyptian civilization itself. At least this is what I have for a "shortened and simplified" understanding so far. I do wish to further refine /correct it.

Check out this link as well, on Google it was titled "Herodotus claims the Dorians were Egyptians". I am not saying that it's true but all of the comments on this link are pretty interesting and I am going to take keywords from this article and do further searches for deeper clarifications.

Herodotus says Dorians were Egyptians

And since we have established that Phoenicians = latter variant of Egypt, it would make sense to conclude that the Dorians may have in fact been Phoenician colonists? Food for thought and fun to wonder about!

Mythology actually works most of the time and it simplifies our problems in historical matters.

Therefore it is time for Europa to tell us her secrets.

In Greek mythology Europa (Greek Ευρώπη Eurṓpē) was a Phoenician woman of high lineage, from whom the name of the continent Europe has ultimately been taken.[1] The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story; as Kerényi points out "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa".[2]

This myth is ancient. It is the original European foundation myth. At least it positions itself to take this role, it's actual chronological origin is mysterious and unknown. The Illiad was passed down orally for centuries possibly at least in sections before it was complied and written, at least this is my understanding of how these things arose as we know them today.

She is generally said to be the daughter of Agenor, the Phoenician King of Tyre; the Syracusan poet Moschus[10] makes her mother Queen Telephassa ("far-shining") but elsewhere her mother is Argiope ("white-faced").[11] Other sources, such as the Iliad, claim that she is the daughter of Agenor's son, the "sun-red" Phoenix. It is generally agreed that she had two brothers, Cadmus, who brought the alphabet to mainland Greece, and Cilix who gave his name to Cilicia in Asia Minor, with the author of Bibliotheke including Phoenix as a third. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, the three of whom became the three judges of the Underworld when they died.[12] In Crete she married Asterion also rendered Asterius. According to mythology, her children were fathered by Zeus.

This looks like the answers to all of our questions.

Double check dating?
Agenor

Agenor (/əˈdʒiːnɔr/; Ancient Greek: Ἀγήνωρ; English translation: 'heroic, manly')[1] was in Greek mythology and history a Phoenician king of Tyre.[2] Herodotus estimates that Agenor lived sometime before the year 2000 B.C..[3]

The original meaning of the word remains unknown, but it seems that there is a strong connection with the mythic king of Crete, Minos, during the bronze-age Minoan civilization which flourished in Crete and in the Aegean islands (2000-1470 BC).

Alright than.

We are talking about the founding of Minoa, and Greece. In the same paragraph. With the same mythology.
The founding of EUROPE.

Phoenicians are Egyptians of sorts in a general sense.
Amarna Letters

The Amarna letters (sometimes Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets) archive, on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom. The letters were found in Upper Egypt at Amarna, the modern name for the Egyptian capital of Akhetaten (el-Amarna), founded by pharaoh Akhenaten (1350s – 1330s BC) during the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are mostly written in Akkadian cuneiform, the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia, rather than of ancient Egypt.

"Phoenicia" is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to the region of the major Canaanite port towns, and does not correspond exactly to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by the Phoenicians themselves. It is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity and nationality. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to ancient Greece.[5] However, in terms of archaeology, language, life style and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of Canaan. As Canaanites, they were unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements.

Ok so think about this.

All road signs (available currently) are pointing to Egypt (and then before that towards Sumeria).
They even believe Linear A derived from Egypt.

This actually IMHO makes sense and explains vast amounts of our modern day terminology, phrasology, mentality, etc.

Christians to this very day still say AMEN at the end of their prayers. Our Steeples are Obelisks of a sort. I could go on forever about this. And I will eventually make a thread about all of these things and I have a ton of whack info to show everyone. Some extremely mind blowing discoveries that I myself found that I don't think anyone (aside of those I have shown so far) know about.

Originally posted by Sphota

Originally posted by MagnusMaximus
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

I do believe DNA population studies have been done on Greece and I don't think them having an origin in Egypt or closely related to Egypt was the result.

Yes, because they come from the Central Asian steppe, just like their related European tribe-cousins. There were people in Europe when Indo-Europeans arrived, but save the Basques and Sami People, all were displaced or totally assimilated. Later, Finns, Hungarians and Estonians would arrive and do some displacing/assimilating of their own, but not nearly as successful as the Indo-Europeans.

I often wonder if Semitic people's were originally living in Europe and became displaced to Egypt and the Fertile Crescent (maybe displacing some other group, perhaps the Turks, who knows?

Two things are certain: man can't stay put; and, man likes to have sex...everyone's a mut, as a result.

Working backwards leaves us confused so often.

This is why it is important to also alternatively work from the start and try to build the chronology from another perspective.

For example we have a logical reasoning that all humans came from the same original mother individual. This gives us insight to know how the original families started and began to spread.

I do think that we should use all methods though to refine these things, but looking at things from another view can help a lot when pondering abstract details.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

That we are the descent of the Egyptians? To me this is already borderline fact.

I am thinking that now I am crossing the thresh hold.
I'll just say it.

We ARE Egyptians.
There.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

 

And since we have established that Phoenicians = latter variant of Egypt, it would make sense to conclude that the Dorians may have in fact been Phoenician colonists? Food for thought and fun to wonder about!

Great research, muzzleflash. I am not sure that we have established Phoenicians = latter variant of Egypt yet but here is more support for it. Infact, lets continue the chain all the way to India.

"Wilson saw the suggestive connection between Mahat and the Phoenician Mōt, or Mut, who was a female with the Egyptians Goddess Mout, (the “Mother”) which, like the Indian concept of Mahat, was the first mixture of Spirit and matter, the rudiment of Creation."
podelise.ru:81...
"Impregnated by Mahat, the immortal virgin becomes the immaculate mother..."
www.philaletheians.co.uk...

On another note,
"according to Herodotus, it was Dorus, the son of Hellen who led his people ... into Pindus, where they settled as Macedonians."
en.wikipedia.org...
This seems to be confirmed by the fact that, later, Alexander was from Macedonia.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

 

I am thinking that now I am crossing the thresh hold.
I'll just say it.

We ARE Egyptians.

We have Egyptian symbols in our capital.