The Bible goes Greek

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:00:00 +0000

THE VIEW THAT ATHENS AND JERUSALEM represent two very different and antagonistic sources of Western civilization has long been a feature of the Western tradition. It dates back at least to Tertullian’s passionate second-century polemic against Greek philosophy. Those Enlightenment thinkers who preferred Greek reason to Hebrew revelation confirmed it resoundingly. And again just over a century ago, again from the side of Athens, the culture critic Matthew Arnold boiled down his civilization to two fundamental forces:

And to give these forces names from the two races of men who have supplied the most signal and splendid manifestations of them, we may call them respectively the forces of Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and Hellenism, - between these two points of influence moves our world.

Today as well — arguably to the greatest extent since the Enlightenment — the camps of religion and culture view each other with a deepening mutual distrust.

Salon.com > Jonathan Yudelman

The Bible goes Greek