Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Introduction
- PART I THE FIRST MIRROR
- 1 Waking the Dead-Greece as an Ideal and an Exemplar
- 2 Hellenism and Hebraism: The Two Poles of the World
- 3 Israel and Greece: Reviving a Legendary Past
- 4 ‘Greek Wisdom’ as Secular Knowledge and Science
- 5 Japheth in the Tents of Shem: The Reception of the Classical Heritage in Modern Hebrew Culture
- 6 The Moral Dimension: Commonality and Particularity
- 7 Worlds without Compromise: Reconstructing the Disparities
- 8 Have Jews Imagination? Jews and the Creative Arts
- PART II THE SECOND MIRROR
- PART III ATHENS IN JERUSALEM
- Conclusion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - ‘Greek Wisdom’ as Secular Knowledge and Science
from PART I - THE FIRST MIRROR
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Translators' Note
- Introduction
- PART I THE FIRST MIRROR
- 1 Waking the Dead-Greece as an Ideal and an Exemplar
- 2 Hellenism and Hebraism: The Two Poles of the World
- 3 Israel and Greece: Reviving a Legendary Past
- 4 ‘Greek Wisdom’ as Secular Knowledge and Science
- 5 Japheth in the Tents of Shem: The Reception of the Classical Heritage in Modern Hebrew Culture
- 6 The Moral Dimension: Commonality and Particularity
- 7 Worlds without Compromise: Reconstructing the Disparities
- 8 Have Jews Imagination? Jews and the Creative Arts
- PART II THE SECOND MIRROR
- PART III ATHENS IN JERUSALEM
- Conclusion: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ben Damah, the son of R. Ishmael's sister, once asked R. Ishmael: May one such as I, who have studied the whole of the Torah, learn Greek wisdom? He thereupon read to him the following verse: This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night (Joshua I: 8). Go then and find a time that is neither day nor night and learn then Greek wisdom. This, however, is at variance with the view of R. Samuel b. Nahmani. For R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: This verse is neither duty nor command, but a blessing (for the Holy One, blessed be He, promised Joshua that ‘this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth’).
BABYLONIAN TALMUD, Menachot, 99bR. Eleazar ben Hisma said: Astronomy and geometry are like the savouries of wisdom.
Pirkei AllOt, 3: 23If the reading of your own scripture is sufficient for you, why do you nibble at the learnings of the Hellenes?
JULIAN, Against the Galilaeans, 229 c (trans. W. C. Wright)Be not troubled with fears, my Father,
for I will learn the secular tongue only to enhance knowledge
and to introduce the beauty of Japheth into the tents of Shem.
The wisdom will not be iniInical to our Torah;
Our fathers and their fathers before them
also sought it throughout the generations:
and who knows as you do, my father and teacher,
that only men of learning sat in the Sanhedrin
and that all of our Sages were wise men?
JUDAH LEIB GORDON, Shenei Yosif ben ShimonOnly a fanatical believer like Omar would assert that all the chokhmot are in the Koran, but we know that not all the chokhmot are found in the Torah, and it is not opposed to all the chokhmot and all the systems, since it did not inquire into and interpret philosophy, but rather the life of the people.
PERETZ SMOLENSKIN, ‘Mishpat ami’ (‘The Fate of my People’)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Athens in JerusalemClassical Antiquity and Hellenism in the Making of the Modern Secular Jew, pp. 79 - 118Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1997