Veeky Forums says to start with the greeks....
Why not start with
>kesh temple hymn,
>instructions of shuruppak,
>the maxims of ptahhotep,
>enheduanna's hymns,
and if those are too obscure, why not start with
>epic of gilgamesh,
>debate between bird and fish,
>lament for ur,
..
There are so many other works before the trojan war cycle.
Are you plebs?
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You really don't need them if you're going to focus on contemporary works. You would need them if you were going to focus on ancient texts as your primary interest.
Because the Greeks provided the foundation for essentially all Western thought that follows. Egyptian / Sumerian stuff is fascinating but it doesn't have direct influence until much later (after the Victorian period it becomes of interest). We just don't think like them in a meaningful way. I read stuff like that in the same way I read Chinese literature. That is, rarely, and out of curiosity
I would argue start with the Old Testament, then the Classics
Because the Greeks influenced the rest of western canon and get referenced all the time
garden of eden and countless other elements of the old testament are taken from earlier works.
Iliad and Odyssey draw ideas from earlier works too..
The only quite distinct are the vedas, but even these influenced mesopotamic literature, and indirectly the bible.
They may not be as lengthy as works from the classical antiquity (first millenium bc), but are very meaningful
This is largely what I was getting across here.
The point is that, as Westerners, if you are going to study western work (literally anything from Marx, to Hegel, to Nietzsche, to Wittgenstein, to Hobbes, to Machiavelli, etc etc.) the basis is contained within the Greeks. Sure, Egyptian and Sumerian work is interesting, but it won't provide you with a foundation for future study of western works like the Greeks will.
why don’t you want to expand your horizons and read works that aren’t so much influenced by western thought
It is useful, but as our life is finite, we can only read so much. Sure, it would be cool to read, but priorities, man.
Agreed.
Have a confession, have badly neglected the Romans. How severe is this? Beyond poetry, I just don't feel like its impacted me that badly thus far
Yeah honestly me too. I don't *think* it is that bad.
Only time I came across difficulties is I was very interested in some of the earliest history of the Catholic Church (Origen etc) and reading around suddenly found myself not getting any of it. Imagine it is intensely useful for understanding early medieval times and so on.
Obviously most literature is from much later though, by which time Rome had kind of become "sub-Greece" culturally and less relevant
Start with the cavemen
I do, but its not essential for my understanding of all of my cultures output and the modern situation of my society. Its not what I would start with, in other words.
But I agree, that is an important thing to do. Just not to start with
The Greeks are utterly foreign to modern culture.
You idiot, when Veeky Forums says start with the Greeks it means buttfucking.
I have started from the beginning of literature.
It is interesting, seeing how the flood story of Atrahasis is almost identical to the biblic flood story.
The tower of babel story has links to stories in older polytheistic religions, the flood that proceeds the tower is a flood, and there is empirical geological data indicating that there was a flood matching that of the sumerian king list.
This flood seems to have prompted the flood myth of atrahasis, and ziggurats are buildings which are high above the ground with religious significance, and seem to be the starting point of the tower of babel myth.
It's interesting how later monotheistic religions appear to have been derived from earlier polytheistic religions
All the people who don't read miss the philosophical writings of the Greeks.
But those who start with the Greeks missing what influenced the Greeks, the rest of the World, and non-Greek influences on Western culture.
p.s. I didn't proof read this, I may have written it terribly, but I'm getting a headache
BEGIN
E
G
I
N
just when i think i should start reading the greek works, someone shows up with a list of even older works..
I’m gonna be busy reading all that for the next 2 years. Hopefully nobody shows up with a list of some oogabuga cave drawings with deep messages about fire, lightning, mammoths and voluptuous cave ladies that i should read.
Helpful chart, thanks to whoever brought it together
In terms of polytheism, we don't know if that's actually the origin of Abrahamic monotheism, but it's certainly the culture in which the Yahweh cult arose. For example, the Ugaritic inscriptions show us that there was a Canaanite pantheon with El at its head. El (which is also the Hebrew word for God) is described as the father of mankind, the father of the gods, the kind, compassionate, wise God. El also lives at the "confluence of the rivers", the rivers being fundamental to settled life in the ancient Levant. Basically, El was the origin of humanity and civilization. Similary, in Genesis we have Elohim (plural of El) creating the Garden of Eden from which the great rivers flow. El(ohim) is the father of humankind in both religious traditions. Importantly, the Eden story (Genesis 2:4b - Genesis 4:25) is about Yahweh Elohim (the LORD God, in english translation). Personal names of gods, such as Yahweh, were very much present in Canaanite mythology, and dual-deities are also well attested. For example, Ba'al-Hadad, where Ba'al (which literally means "Lord") is identified with Hadad/Hadd, the storm god. A more explicity example is Anat-wa-Athtart (CAT 1.100:20). Anat was a female adolescent goddess of battle, while Athtart was another female war goddess (cognate to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, and Astarte in the greek of the Septuagint). So we have obvious combination-gods, or gods with multiple hypostases as Dennis Pardee proposes (cf. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit, 2002)
In the same way, we have the dual deity of Yahweh-Elohim, identifying Yahweh with the chief god of the pantheon. The compassionate, wise, elderly father El is combined with this mysterious Yahweh, who seems far less universal and more concerned with his own nations (Israel and Judah) and warfare than El. So we have an early henotheism where Yahweh-Elohim takes on not just two sets of divine attributes but ALL the divine attributes. Just read Psalm 68, Elohim is explicitly described as a storm god who rides the clouds and brings rains, the language used to describe Ba'al Hadad in the Canaanite inscriptions (CAT 1.2:IV:7-8). More tellingly, Elohim is identified with Shaddai in the Hebrew religious texts (Genesis 17:1, 35:11, Psalm 68:14), conventionally translated as "Almighty" in English. Shaddai was a west semitic god attested in the Canaanite inscriptions (CAT 1.108:12) who is apparently some kind of hunter god:
"[...] the god Shaddai, hunter of MLK"
- Dennis Pardee translation, 2002
(MLK is possibly the underworld god Milku)
So we have many attritubutes (or hypostasis, per Pardee) attributed to this superlative syncretic deity, who is usually identified with Yahweh. But who is this mysterious Yahweh? Mark S. Smith (among others) proposes that he was a deity worshipped by tribes to the south of Judah, we have some circumstantial evidence of him being worshipped by tribes to the south west via the Kuntillet Ajrud pithos sherd (see pic) where Yahweh is apparently depicted as a bull alongside a consort called Asherah. Recall that Asherah is cognate to the Canaanite Athirat who is the goddess consort of El the chief Canaanite god. Additionally, the bull is a common ancient near eastern cultic symbol and is explicitly the symbol of El in the Canaanite inscriptions (CAT 1.14:II:22-24 and others).
This doesn't mean that the ancient Israelite religion just copied the other Canaanite beliefs. But it does show that the Yahweh cult developed within the cultural mileu of west semitic society and brought together many Canaanite god-attriubutes in the person of the patron deity of the Israelites, Yahweh-Elohim.
The most ancient view in Israelite religion was probably that Yahweh-Elohim was a supreme god who was more powerful than the other national gods. This innovation made the patron god not just the best god, but the only god worth worshipping, since the other gods were weaker and were evil! This Yahweh-supremacist cult was one among many cults in ancient Judah and Israel, which is demonstrated by the vast arhceological evidence of idol worship in Israel-Judah, and the textual evidence in the books of Samuel and Kings which frequently describe polytheism and idol worship in Israel and Judah, which was even endorsed by several kings (e.g. king Ahab, who gets very bad treatment by the Yahweh-worshipping historians in the later chapters of 1 Kings).
[p.s. here is the Yahweh and Asherah carving, forgot it in the previouspost]
As a curiosity, here's some Canaanite prayers from Ugarit. See if you can identify the similarities to the Biblical psalms :)
KTU/CAT 1.119:26-36 - Prayer to Ba'al for protection
When a strong foe attacks your gate,
a warrior your walls,
You shall lift your eyes to Baal and say:
O Baal, if you drive the strong one from our gate
the warrior from our walls,
A bull, O Baal, we shall sanctify,
a vow, O Baal, we shall fulfill;
a firstborn, O Baal, we shall sanctify,
a htp-offering, O Baal, we shall fulfill,
a feast, O Baal, we shall offer;
To the sanctuary, O Baal, we shall ascend,
that path, O Baal, we shall take.
And Ba[al will h]ear [your] prayer:
He will drive the strong foe from you[r] gate,
[the warrior] from yo[ur] walls.
KTU/CAT 1.123 - Prayer to El for well-being
Give well-being, O Father and the gods,
[yea] give will-being, give well-being,
O E[l and the gods(?)]
give well-being, O princely El
Dagan and Baal,
Zizz and Kamath
Yarikh and Kasa
also the Kassite Yarikh,
Thukamuna and Shunama,
Kothar and Hasis,
Athtar (and) Athtapar,
Shahr and Shalim,
[[14 fragmentary lines omitted]]
O Kothar, O Hasis, give well-be[ing ...],
give well-being, O El-Beti,
give well being, O god of Solicitu[de ...],
Rashap, Enash-Elima,
generations (of gods), god[s ...]
[yea O go]ds, give well-being[...].
KTU/CAT 1.108 - Prayer for well-being of the King
Now may Rapiu, king of eternity, drink,
May he drink, the god mighty and noble,
The god who dwells in Athtart,
The god who rules in Hadrayi,
Who sings and makes music,
With lyre and flute,
With drum and double-sistrum,
With ivory castanets,
Among the goodly companions of Kothar.
May Anat-of-Might also drink,
Lady of kingship,
Lady of sovereignty,
Lady of High Heavens,
Anat-of-the-kuptu-hat,
Anat-of-the-wing, the kite,
Soaring in the heavens on high,
Who devours the calf of El at the feast,
[...] the comely lambs.
May the god [...] also drink,
[...] the god GNTh, the calf of El
[...] the god Shaddayyu, hunter of MLK,
[...] May Elah drink
[...] IThMH
[...] Rashap
[...]arrive
[...]his vow
Your success he will ask of Baal,
To what you have requested he will bring you;
Rapiu, king of eternity, will bring you
To your success, to what you have requested,
By the power of Rapiu, king of eternity,
By the strength of Rapiu, king of eternity,
By his power, by his might,
By his paternal care, by his divine splendor.
Your strength will be that of the Rapiuma of the earth,
As will be your power, your might,
Your paternal care, your divine splendor,
Within Ugarit
For the days of Shapsh and Yarikh,
For the goodly years of El.
>debate between bird and fish
W-what the hell the most important part is missing!
bibleinterp.com
I got to this article after reading a bit on Yehezkel Kaufmann's idea of how monotheism originated: i.e. that it was a beliberate split from the surrounding religion which based itself on an essence preceding the gods, and therefore also the gods and their laws preceding mankind, which would make humanity into their slaves.
Of course, things are much less clearcut than that, and the articles goes into that, but parts of it really do strike me as describing the problems of modernity pretty well.
>The Israelites, as construed by Kaufmann, were entirely oblivious to magic, paganism, and polytheism; in fact they did not even know what any of those things were (1972: 134, 131, 141; 1951:195). They stood at an epistemological divide from their polytheistic neighbors. He writes: “in the sphere of religious creativity Israel and the gentiles were two worlds, distinct and mutually incomprehensible . . . Israel . . . was ignorant of the religion of the gentiles” (1951: 195; also see Greenberg 1964:79).
>In other words, the numerous individuals who were excoriated in the aforementioned harangues were really monotheists. They worshiped idols in and of themselves– but they only knew of one God. At no point did they imagine that these inanimate objects really represented any other deities. “Popular idolatry,” he writes, “was not authentic polytheism with mythology, temples, and priesthoods. It was vestigial idolatry, a vulgar superstition of the sort that the ignorant level of monotheistic peoples practices to this day” (1972:142).
Alright, you boys have me. I will read this
Still question it as a starting point, seems reasonably challenging
Retard here, what is the point of starting with the Greeks? For what subject is this for? Is it to study philosophy?
I;m not sure what to think of Kaufman's conclusions. I don't totally buy that Yahweh-based monotheism arose purely from a need to distinguish itself from neighbouring cultures. For examples, there is not a single mention of a pig sacrifice among all the religious Canaanite inscriptions we have. Numerous sacrifices of bulls, rams, ewes, and goats as in the Hebrew scriptures though. And yet, the Yahweh cult was obviously distinctive in some ways, obviously henotheism or monotheism but also a special emphasis on blood not found in other ANE religious texts (although the latter might be an accident of omission).
It's like how in pop culture there are constant references to things like starwars and stuff. Western literature consistently does this with the greeks so starting with them gives you a frame of reference for every single writen topic even if it doesn't directly build on greek works and ideas.
Start with the prehistorics
so i guess if i want to understand this better i should first read the psalms/bible