A
Famous Archaeologist Answers the Question:
Was
Achilles Jewish?
The
Old
Testament Roots
Of
Greek Mythology
GREEK
MYTHOLOGY AND THE BIBLE
We
began our series in part one with a look at the Old Testament roots of
Norse mythology. In that study, we saw that the beliefs of the Norse
bore a striking resemblance to the religion and culture of the Hebrews,
Canaanites, Assyrians, and Babylonians. These cultural
"cross-currents" were not unusual, and indicate a Semitic wave
of colonization in early Europe.
Let's
continue our series with a closer look at Greek mythology and see if the
Bible in the Apocrypha is correct in I Maccabees 12:21, where we
read, “It has been found in a writing concerning the
Lacedaemonians (Greeks) and Jews
(Judah), that they are kinsmen, and that they are descended from
Abraham.” Yes, Israelites colonized Greece in early
times, and the Greek religion shows us proof of a Hebrew origin as
stated in the Apocrypha in the Bible.
The
most well known Greek God-hero was the one known as Hercules (the
Latinized form of the Greek “Heracles”), whose most distinguishing
characteristic was immense physical strength. Interestingly enough, the
“Encyclopedia Of The
Classical World,” states, “The tales of his heroic
deeds lend to the supposition that Hercules was originally an historic
figure.” Who do we know in the Bible that exhibits a like
characteristic? The answer, of course, is the Israelite hero known as
Samson, whose life was detailed in the Bible in Judges chapters 13
through 16.
One
important event in Hercules’ life involved his escaping from the
clutches of a symbolic woman, who is called “Pleasure.” This
corresponds directly to the troubles Samson got himself involved in with
the harlots of Canaan.
But
the most celebrated event in the life of Hercules involved the 12
labors he was ordered to perform by God through the Oracle of
Delphi. (Incidentally, "12" was an important divine number in
Hebrew religion.) What do you suppose was the very first labor Hercules
had to perform? You might have guessed it! He had to slay a lion with
his bare hands!
Let's
read a paragraph from the book, “Gods,
Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece” by W.H.D. Rouse:
“Heracles
threw down his bow and arrows and leapt upon the lion’s back... while
he put his hands round the lions neck...gripped the lion’s throat with
his two hands, and bending him backwards, throttled him. There lay the
lion dead on the ground.” (p. 59). In our Bible, Judges
13:6 says that Samson actually tore the lion in two, but the ancient
historian Flavius Josephus in his “Antiquities
of the Jews” also tells us that Samson first strangled the
lion, which is exactly as Hercules is said to have done.
I
don’t even know that there ever were any lions in Greece. The Biblical
Archaeologist Magazine somewhat tersely comments,
“Lions, we may remark, are not frequent in Greece.” (59:1,
p. 17) In fact, the Greek myths explain this one away as the offspring
of a monster! But whether there were lions in Greece is not important;
Hercules needed to find one anyway. Why? Simply because the Biblical
Samson inspired the Greek legend called Hercules, and provided the basis
for his life!
Another
of Hercules’ labors involved his live capture of a wild animal, which
he brought home and threw at the feet of Eurystheus. In Judges 15:4,
Samson is said to also capture live wild animals, which he released in
the cornfields of the Philistines.
A
fascinating bit of additional information regarding Hercules is his
connection with the Biblical tribe of Dan. The Bible Samson was born of
the tribe of Dan. (Judges 13:2-25) Greek history
tells us that a people called ‘Danioi’ came to trade
and colonize Greece in ancient times, settling in a region called ‘Argos.’
The word Hercules in Greek is, ‘Heracles,’
which is virtually identical with the Hebrew plural word for traders,
‘Heraclim,’ and Heracles is said to have come from ‘Argos,’
himself! The Greek myths tell that the Danioi were descended from
a patriarch ‘Danaos’ who was the son of ‘Bela,’
and sailed from Egypt. In the Bible, the Hebrew patriarch Dan
was the son of the concubine ‘Bilhah’ (Genesis
30:3-6), and the Israelites were in Egypt at the time that ’Danaos’
set sail to Greece from there! Heracles, further, is said to marry a
girl named ‘Hebe,’ an obvious and well-known short
form of the word, Hebrew! Since the tribe of Dan were
traders and colonists who did so much sailing that they “stayed in
their ships” (Judges 5:17), it is not surprising to find such
connections with ancient Greece.
In another tale from Greek mythology, we read how God through the
Oracle at Delphi seemingly ordered a king to sacrificially slay his son
Phrixos, as a sign of his obedience to God. But let me quote the story
from my Greek commentary: “The oracle said, kill Phrixos and
Helle at the altar for a sacrifice, or your corn will grow no more. This
was a dreadful blow to the king; but he had to obey what he believed to
be god’s wish, like Abraham and Isaac in the Bible. And in this case,
too, there was a ram, but a different sort of ram from the ram which was
sacrificed instead of Isaac. There stood at the altar the two children,
ready to be killed; there stood the sacrificer with his knife; there
stood the king, full of sorrow. and lo and behold, down came the ram,
and up got the boy and girl upon his back, and away he flew into the
sky.” (ibid., P.92) This is obviously not an
exact retelling of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, but
an historical kernel obviously exists, which was corrupted into the
present Greek mythology over time.
Another
interesting Bible comparison can be made with the Greek hero Achilles,
who could only die by having his heel wounded. What a strange story to
tell! That is, it would be strange were it not for the fact that we read
such an account in the Bible in the form of a prophecy concerning the
coming Christ in Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise
thy head, and thou SHALT BRUISE HIS HEEL.” It can be easily
seen how a misinterpretation of this verse (especially in the early
pre-Christian centuries, before Christ’s fulfillment of prophecy was
manifest) could inspire a story of someone dying through a wound in his
heel!
The
strong connection between the Hebrew and Greek civilizations is well
known to scholars of ancient history. Perhaps the leading American
archaeologist of the twentieth century is Cyrus H. Gordon, author
of over 20 books, and recognized authority on Mediterranean cultural
history. In his book, "The
Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations,"
Dr. Gordon says, "Pagan critics of early Christianity
confronted the Church Fathers with some embarrassing parallels, but the
Fathers were equal to the challenge and provided answers in keeping with
the spirit of their times. There were Fathers who honestly recognized
the reality of the parallels but explained them as the mischief of
demons who had planted them in Greek literature to harass the
Church." (p. 10) Gordon then points out that the
definite similarity between Greek early religion and literature, and
that of the Old Testament, is not due to demons but to the fact that the
Hebrew people provided the basis of Greek culture. In ancient times,
Hebrew traders and colonists established trading colonies and
settlements throughout the Mediterranean seaboard; our tracts, "Ancient
Hebrew Sea Migrations," and "Ancient
Hebrews In Spain And Britain," also give evidence of
such migrations in ancient times. Dr. Gordon gives numerous other
parallels between Greek traditions and the Bible, such as the "staff
of God," in Exodus 17, which appears in the Iliad
in 15:318-322. The theme of "washing away
uncleanliness into the sea," in Micah 7:18-20, also
appears in Iliad 1:312-317. (ibid., p.12-13) The imagery
of the sea as a "watery path" in Psalm 8:9
finds its duplicate often in Greek literature. The Hebrew "Cities
of Refuge" for a fugitive kinsman who had to flee from an
avenger of his own family, is also paralleled in Greek literature as in Odyssey
15:271-278. Likewise, military "triads of officers"
in 2 Samuel 23:9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, and 23 are paralleled in Iliad
2:563-7 and Odyssey 14:470-471. In fact, the Hebrew word for
military officers, "salis," comes from, "salos,"
the Hebrew number 3. (ibid., p. 17) Early Hebrew burial
customs were also paralleled in early Greece. The Bible tells us
that when Saul and his sons died, the Hebrews retrieved and burned the
corpses prior to burial. (I Samuel 31:12) Similarly, during the
Trojan War, Hector's body was retrieved by Priam, and the Trojans "shedding
tears, carried out brave Hector and set the corpse on the highest pyre
and cast fire thereon." (Iliad 24:786-787) The very
same custom was well-known in the Norse and early peoples of Europe,
showing another familial connection. (Also see our tract, "The
Old Testament Roots of Norse Mythology") As a result of
such evidence, Gordon sees Hebrew and Greek civilization as "a
continuum instead of two unconnected areas poles apart." (ibid.,
p.54) Yet some insist on ignoring the mass of such evidence! Gordon
comments that the ancient Greek writer, "Herodotus (I:105,
2:44; 4:147ff; 6:47, etc.) knew about the early [Hebrew]-Phoenician
penetration of what is now Greek territory. But many modern scholars
still choose to discount his testimony and instead follow current
schools of thought." (ibid., p. 216)
Other
familiar Bible history also has its counterpart in Greek literature.
Cyrus Gordon explains (ibid., p. 279), "The analogy
between the Greeks and Hebrews goes much further. [The Greek hero] Minos
has rightly been compared with Moses. Both are greater than
life-size figures who received the law from the Supreme God on a sacred
mountain (Dionysius of Helicarnassus, Roman antiquities 2:61) God's
law itself has parallels in early Greece. Dr. Gordon comments, "Leviticus
25 makes the theory of real estate quite clear. God owned the Land and
the People. The Hebrews… were entrusted with the land as His tenants.
They were at the same time to be the landed warrior and administrative
ruling class. All this is basically paralleled in Greece." (ibid.,
p. 295)
The
long day of Joshua, where the sun stood still to lengthen the day and
ensure a victory, also appears in Greek legend. (Joshua 10:13-14; cp.,
Iliad 18:239-242) Truly, it would be astonishing for such parallel
detail between the Hebrews and Greeks to be mere happenstance!
Dr.
Gordon's studies have met with a considerable amount of rightly deserved
acclaim in the academic community. The Biblical
Archaeologist Magazine devoted an entire issue to his
research, and reported (March 1996, p. 22), “Professor Gordon
had been delivering a popular lecture on ‘The Common Background of
Greek and Hebrew Civilizations,’ particularly about the Heroic Age
both in Late Bronze Age Greece and in pre-monarchic Israel. Citing the
Iliad of Homer and the Biblical book Samuel, he pointed out that the
heroes David and Achilles performed essentially the same
warlike exploits in search of imperishable glory, the only bulwark
against oblivion. The milieu of Achilles and of David were therefore
closer to one another than was that of Achilles to Classical Greece or
that of David to the Age of the Prophets in Israel. Following the
lecture, a little old lady, wide-eyed with astonishment and admiration,
made her way up to the distinguished lecturer and asked, ‘Does that
mean, Professor Gordon, that Achilles was Jewish?’” This
insightful woman was on the right track in her thinking, for the
ancestors of the early Greeks were Israelites, as the close
parallels between the religion of these two nations implies.
Near-Eastern
scholar, Dr. Louis H. Feldman, concurs with this in a lengthy article in
the same journal pointing out the connection between Greek mythic
literature and its source in both the Bible and Mesopotamian religion.
He states, “Likewise, Mondi (1990:187) cites the parallel
between the Homeric shield of Achilles;
‘And
upon it he made the earth and the sky and the sea, the tireless sun and
the waxing moon, and all the constellations which wreathe the sky.’
(Iliad 18.483-485)
And Psalm 136:5-9:
‘to
him who made the heavens, the earth upon the waters, ....the great
lights, ...the sun..., the moon and the stars.’”
Dr.
Feldman continues, “Furthermore, the scenes on the shield of a
city at peace in which the leaders are dispensing justice, repelling
aggression, and harvesting, while the king stands by watching happily,
correspond to the description in Psalm 72.” An obvious
inference is that the Greek myths are so chock full of Hebraisms because
of Hebrew colonization of Greece in ancient times.
Parallels
with Assyrian and Babylon religion are also commonplace in Greek mythic
literature. On this, Dr. Feldman comments, “Furthermore, there
are parallels in motifs between Near Eastern epics and Homer. In the
first place, as Professor Gordon, followed by Considine and Walcot…
noted there are eight striking parallels between the Baal-Anath text
137, where Baal is restrained from doing violence to the envoys by the
goddesses Anath and Ashtoreth, and the scene in the Iliad (1.188-222),
when Achilles is about to slay Agamemnon, but is restrained by the two
goddesses, Athena and Hera.” Dr. Feldman’s article continues
on these themes for many pages, proving without doubt the connection
between Greece and the Near East, including Israel, in very early times.
Feldman concludes by saying, “Some
would say, as they did with Professor Gordon’s ‘Homer and
Bible’ (1955) and ‘Before the Bible’ (1962), that
several of these parallels are commonplaces; but the total effect is
what counts. There is now fairly general agreement that the Near East
…influenced Homer.” (ibid., p. 19)
It
is clear that early Greek mythology shows evidence of not only Hebrew,
but also Canaanite, Assyrian, and Babylonian religious culture. That the
Greek religion could be influenced by so many streams of different
Semitic culture may seem incredible until we remember that Israelite
religion was also influenced by these same foreign nations. This heavily
mixed amalgam may therefore have been brought to Greece by the Hebrews
themselves. At the very least, the strong evidence of Hebrew
colonization and culture in ancient Greece should not be ignored.
The story of the Noahic flood is also told in Greek mythology,
where Deucalion and Pyrrha built a wooden "chest" to save
them. Historian Olive Beaupre Miller, in "A
Picturesque Tale Of Progress" says, "The
similarity of these flood stories [Greek and Hebrew] is
interesting. Here, as in the Bible, the flood is sent to destroy mortals
because of the evil in the world, the chest goes aground on a mountain
top and the survivors at once offer sacrifice."
Before
closing this discussion on Greece and its ancient ties to Hebrew
religion, it is interesting to mention that the Greek god-hero, “Adonis,”
also received his name from the Semitic word, “Adon”
or Lord. For example, one of the New Testament titles applied to Christ
was "Adonay."
THE
GOD WHO IS ABOVE ALL GODS
Greek
heroes such as Hercules and Achilles were called children of God, but
they were not immortal. They lived on earth, died, and their spirits
were believed to sometimes be lifted up into heaven. Above these heroes
in importance and power were said to be a pantheon of Gods. Yet, some of
the Greek people also worshipped a ONE TRUE GOD, eternal in the heavens,
unnamed except to be called "THE UNKNOWN GOD.”
This
brings us down to New Testament times, where we pick up the rest of our
story in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (verses
22-23). “Then Paul stood in the midst of Mar’s Hill and said:
Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too
superstitious; for as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an
altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye
ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you.” Not only did this
religion have ancient ties to the Hebrews, but so also did the Greek
people themselves.
The noted Dr. Cyrus Gordon
concluded his book, "Homer
and Bible," by stating, "Bold
spirits have intermittently maintained the kinship of early Greece and
the ancient Near East… we view Greek and Hebrew civilizations
as parallel structures built upon the same East Mediterranean [i.e.,
Hebrew] foundation." (p. 72)
Yes,
these people were not adopting a new religion with the coming of
Christianity; they were rediscovering the religion of their forefathers
in its purified form, as sent unto them by our Lord in the flesh, Jesus
Christ. By God’s design, these people forgot who they were, where they
came from, and what their past religion was, all in His Plan of
preparing them to again become united with the ONE TRUE GOD, who came
unto them in the form of man, Yahshua Jesus Christ.
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