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Cyrus H. Gordon

70 quotes

“That Homeric epic and the earliest Hebrew poetry were the results of long and rich developments should have been apparent to anyone who realizes that artistic perfection is never created ex nihilo.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prior to 1952, when M. Ventris first published his decipherment of the 'Linear B' tablets from Crete and Greece, showing that they were Greek, everyone assumed that Hebrew was recorded in writing before Greek. But now... we are reading Linear B Greek texts, written before the birth of Abraham (let alone before the date of any known Hebrew text).”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While Ugarit is revolutionizing the problem of Old Testament origins, the Dead Sea scrolls are doing the same for the New Testament. How fortunate is this generation to live at a time when the sources of our culture—sacred and profane—are illuminated in a brighter light of history than our forefathers imagined possible!”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mesopotamian merchants spread their commercial institutions far and wide, into Western Asia, Egypt and Europe. The ancient inhabitants of Babylonia used the word qaqqadum, 'head', in the sense of 'principal'... our English word 'capital' (via Latin caput [head]) reflects ancient Mesoptamian usage. ...our financial system, that reckons with interest on principal, harks back to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Traders (like the Phoenicians) carried their methods as well as their wares to Europe by ship.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Babylonian mathematics and astronomy have left an indelible impression on our exact sciences. We still call some of the planets by their Babylonian names in translation.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Sabbath, perhaps the most important labour legislation next to the abolition of slavery, is a Hebrew institution.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For every mound excavated in the Near East, a hundred remain untouched. ...most of the excavated mounds have been dug only in small part.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hope that the reader will not regard the contents of this book as an escape from the present world but rather as a key part of it.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The competent archeologist can date pottery much as some of us can date cars or dresses of our own century.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Transjordan, or Palestine east of the Jordan Rift is not sufficiently known and has therefore been in need of archeological study. ...these nations in antiquity belonged to a group of people called the Canaanites. Culturally and linguistically they were practically identical with the Judean and Israelite 'Canaanites' west of the Rift.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was Yawhism that distinguished the two Hebrew nations from the other Canaanites and it was the great Hebrew prophets who transformed their little 'Canaanite' people into one of the great factors of world history.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been said that the Bedouin Arab is a parasite that lives on the camel, and this to a great extent is true. It is the camel that carries him about; it is the camel's hair that supplies him with both his clothes and his tent; the camel's dung is the fuel of the desert; it is the camel's meat that supplies food for his banquets; the camel's milk is his beverage; and I could go on enumerating the basic gifts of the camel to his Arab master.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solomon was a 'copper king', and all along that Araba, on both sides, we found many copper mines and smelting stations, all attributable to Solomon and his immediate successors.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At Aqaba we were received in the most hospitable manner of the Arabs. We were put up in the police station there. The prisoners, oddly enough, were walking about enjoying apparent freedom. They were used as waiters and servants instead of being shut up in cells. ...I could detect no trace of bullying of even of discourtesy to the prisoners.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By examining the pottery on any given site you can tell during which periods it has been occupied.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The excavators cleared out one of the ancient cisterns, and a few of the winter rains sufficed to fill the cistern with enough water to supply the expedition with water for the whole season. This illustrates the possibilities of almost any country, provided the right kind of people are there. With energetic people, the few, but heavy, winter rains and be stretched a long, long way.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The nomadic Semite... roves as a herdsman, partaking of Allah's hospitality.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Archeological discoveries at sites like Ugarit prevent us from regarding Greece as the hermetically sealed Olympian miracle, or Israel as the vacuum-packed miracle from Sinai.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The thesis of this book is simply that Greek and Hebrew civilisations are parallel structures built upon the same East Mediterranean foundation. ...the evidence is so abundant that our problem is one of selection and arrangement.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Homer and Bible... towered above their predecessors and contemporaries.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For centuries scholars have been forced to grapple with the problem of accounting for the parallels between Greek literature and the Bible. Did Greece borrow from Israel? Or did Israel borrow from Greece? Can the parallels be accidental, do they obliterate the uniqueness of both Israel and Greece?”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“V. Bérard attributed the [Greece and Israel] links mainly to the role of the Phoenicians. P. Jensen explained matters through the diffusion of the Gilgamesh Epic. ...but their one-sidedness and exaggeration brought them, and indeed the problem itself, into disrepute among critical scholars. The history of the problem has been ably documented by W. Baumgartner...”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The prevailing attitude (which is gradually losing its grip) may be described as the tacit assumption that ancient Israel and Greece are two water-tight compartments... One is said to be sacred; the other, profane; one, Semitic; the other, Indo-European. One, Asiatic and Oriental; the other, European and Occidental. But the fact is that both flourished during the same centuries, in the same East Mediterranean corner of the globe, with both ethnic groups in contact with each other from the start.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems strange that so many generations of Old Testament scholars, trained in Greek as well as Hebrew literature, have managed to keep their Greek and Hebrew studies rigidly compartmentalised.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We absorb attitudes as well as subject matter in the learning process. ...the attitudes tend to determine what we see, and what we fail to see, in the subject matter. This is why attitude is just as important as content in the educational process.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Greeks viewed the Mediterranean not as a barrier but as a network of routes connecting people who dwelt along its shores. This is familiar to any student of Greece. ...the Hebrews express themselves similarly in passages like Psalm 8: 9 ("crossing the paths of the seas").”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The priestly guilds were highly mobile, with the result that cultic practices crossed ethnic lines over wide areas.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Manslaughter was requited through blood revenge. Accordingly the offender, to escape the avenger, would be forced to flee, cut off from his land and people, at the mercy of strangers far from home. [Examples are] 2 Samuel (14: 5-7)... Iliad a6: 571-574... Odyssey (15: 271-278)... (Genesis 4: 14)... (Genesis 4: 15)”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The text of Homer about the Mycenaen Age with its memories of the Trojan War, and the Hebrew text covering from the Conquest through David's reign, cover ground with much in common geographically, chronologically and ethnically.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The customs of both the Greeks and Hebrews in that heroic age were often alien to their respective descendants in the classical periods. We shall have to bear in mind that the gulf separating classical Israel (of the great Prophets) from classical Greece (of the scientists and philosophers) must not be read back into the heroic age when both peoples formed part of the same international complex.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be foolhardy to swell the pages of this book with an exhaustive list of Greco-Hebrew differences. Everyone knows that Homer is very different from the Bible.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The parallels that form the core of this book fit into a historical framework in the wake of the Armana Age during the closing centuries of the second millenium. Prior to the Armana Age (i.e., before 1400 B.C.) Egyptian, Canaanite, Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Aegean and other influences met around the East Mediterranean to form an international order, by which each was in turn affected.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Out of the Armana Age synthesis emerged the earliest traditions of Israel and Greece.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That both the Gilgamesh Epic and the Odyssey deal with the episodic wanderings of a hero, would not be sufficiently specific to establish a genuine relation between them. But when both epics begin with the declaration that the hero gained experience from his wide wanderings, and end with his homecoming, a relationship dimly appears. ...when we note that whole episodes are in essential agreement, we are on firmer ground. For instance, both Gilgamesh and Odysseus reject a goddess's proposal for marriage; and each of the heroes interviews his dead companion in Hades.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historical, sociological, literary, linguistic, archeological and other techniques must be brought to bear when they are applicable to the material at hand.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Homeric tradition has its own way of telling us that Minoan/Mycenaean civilisation was intertwined with the culture of the Semitic Phoenicians. Iliad 14: 321-322 makes Phoenix (named after the ancestor of the Phoenicians) the maternal grandfather of Minos. ...Archaeology bears out early cultural connections between the two.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Epic poetry is divinely inspired (Iliad I: I) and as such is just as true as oracles, and for the same reason. It is no accident that oracles (such as those at Delphi) were enunciated in the same dactylic hexameter as the epic.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music was an art fostered by the mightiest of heroes. Achilles is represented as entertaining himself with his lyre. (Iliad 9: 185-6). We compare David, the warrior skilled in poetry, singing and musical instruments.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Zeus' son Sarpedon meets his fate, Zeus expresses grief for his dead son by causing blood to rain (Iliad 16: 459-461). In Egypt, the function of rain is replaced by the Nile which fructifies the soil. Accordingly, the Biblical Plague of Blood (Exodus 7: 19-25) is the Egyptian equivalent of the bloody rainfall in the Iliad.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite the polytheism of the East Mediterranean nations, monotheistic trends were always present even in such crass polytheisms such as we find in Homer and in Egyptian literature.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the characters of epic and heroic saga are on significant missions, they are led divinely.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The notion of a language of the gods appears in Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse and Hittite cultures.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The warriors who constituted the aristocracy were awarded land grants to recompense them for their share in conquering the country. Both in Greece and in Israel, the theory of society was basically the same. The conquerors were the fighting and ruling stratum; the conquered natives were degraded to the labouring class. In Sparta the latter were called Helots. In Israel the Canaanites were the "hewers of wood and the drawers of water.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fitness (physical and moral) of kings were serious matters, for they were believed to bring on a corresponding state of land and people.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the entire aristocracy is of divine descent, Zeus (or El) cannot save the human son without upsetting the order of things. ...Hera reminds Zeus that many sons of gods are fighting around Troy, and that if Zeus spares his son, other gods will do the same for their sons, so that the earthly system will cease (Iliad 16: 445-449)”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a new religion supplants an old religion, the gods of the old often survive as the demons of the new.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a large corpus of magical texts from Babylonia of the Sassanian Era, designed to exorcise demons. In these texts, which are mostly Jewish and Christian, the Indo-Iranian deities called daiva appear as demons. ...the demons of these texts are constantly appearing to women in the form of their husbands, and impregnating them. As a result, the names of the clients are always matronymic because no one could be sure of his paternity. ...both the Greeks and Iranians had such notions.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ancients were not as denominationally minded as we in matters of their clergy. They were more concerned with obtaining services of a bona fide professional member of a priestley guild who was qualified to intercede between mortals and immortals, than with finding a religious leader whose sole qualification was like-mindedness.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The older cultures did not develop the concept of canonical writings. There is no Bible in Egypt or Mesopotamia. Neither country had a collection of sacred writings that excluded other writings from comparable status. ...there was never an official "Book of the Dead" in Egypt.”
Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source