Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Introduction
- PART I THE FIRST MIRROR
- PART II THE SECOND MIRROR
- PART III ATHENS IN JERUSALEM
- 12 Back to History: The Secularization of the Ancient Jewish Past
- 13 The Children of Japheth (Aryans) and the Children of Shem (Sernites): Race and Innate Nationalism
- 14 The People and its Land: Country, Landscape, and Culture
- 15 A ‘Polis' in Jerusalem: The Jewish State
- 16 The New Jewish Culture: Ideal and Reality
- Conclusion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Back to History: The Secularization of the Ancient Jewish Past
from PART III - ATHENS IN JERUSALEM
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Introduction
- PART I THE FIRST MIRROR
- PART II THE SECOND MIRROR
- PART III ATHENS IN JERUSALEM
- 12 Back to History: The Secularization of the Ancient Jewish Past
- 13 The Children of Japheth (Aryans) and the Children of Shem (Sernites): Race and Innate Nationalism
- 14 The People and its Land: Country, Landscape, and Culture
- 15 A ‘Polis' in Jerusalem: The Jewish State
- 16 The New Jewish Culture: Ideal and Reality
- Conclusion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of many generations
DEUTERONOMY 32: 7History limits itself to a description of events based on observable causes along with the results that evolve from them according to the laws of nature. I. M.
JO ST, Geschichte der IsraelitenI myself am convinced that in the course of Jewish history, the hand of God is in control … however, this hand ought not always to be exhibited openly, rather, the writer of history need only hint at the finger of God, as the author of the Book of Esther did, in presenting the miraculous rescue without divine intervention.
HEINRICH GRAETZ, in a letter dated May 1880Homer and the Bible are different books, fundamentally different in outlook, aim and construction. Yet of each the same can be said-the book built a race.
J. R. GLOVER, The Challenge of GreekTHE REVIVAL OF A HISTORICAL SENSE
‘IF a faithful Jewish writer, who knows intimately his people's ways and language, its ideas and accomplishments, will undertake faithfully to write the history of his people and their ways’, asserted Peretz Smolenskin in 1869, ‘he will succeed in illuminating the path of those who grope in darkness and will exalt his people.’ Smolenskin was, of course, speaking in a language common to many of his nineteenth-century contemporaries: a strong belief in the redemptive powers of History and in History as a rehabilitative, constructive—not destructive—force. By ‘History’ they meant not only the knowledge of the national chronology, but the collective experience of the people, its past and future, its aspirations, hopes and destiny. History was the cohesive power; in it the unity and uniformity of the people, the product of its genius, were manifested. In order to recognize and understand—and use—these great powers of History, one must first discover and recover one's own history. The call for a return to history meant both changing the nature of Jewish activities and attitudes and reconstructing the people's self-awareness; namely, the creation of a new historical consciousness. The chronicles of the Jewish people, its collective experience, faith, and destiny in history, its perceptions and myths, became the core of its self-definition and identity. Jews in modern times not only ‘returned to history’, they also related to their history as the principal manifestation of their identity.
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- Athens in JerusalemClassical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern Secular Jew, pp. 355 - 380Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1997