When the gods were born : Greek cosmogonies and the Near East

by: Lopez-Ruiz, C.

Ancient Greece has for too long been studied in isolation from its Near Eastern neighbors. And the ancient Near East itself has for too long been seen as an undifferentiated cultural monolith. Classics and Near Eastern Studies, in our modern universities, continue to be separated by various disciplinary, linguistic, and ideological walls. Yet there is a growing trend to dismantle these divides and look at the Greek world within its fullest geographical and cultural contexts.

This book aims to bring the comparative study of Greek and Near Eastern cosmogonies to a new level. It analyzes themes such as succession myths, expressions of poetic inspiration, and claims to cosmic knowledge, as well as the role of itinerant specialists in the transmission of theogonies. Rather than compiling literary parallels from different periods and languages and treating the Near East as a monolithic matrix, the author focuses on the motifs specific to the North-West Semitic tradition with which the Greeks had direct contact in the Archaic period. Focusing on Hesiod?s Theogony, the Orphic texts, and their Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Hebrew counterparts, Carolina López-Ruiz avoids traditional diffusionist assumptions and proposes instead that dynamic cultural interaction led to the oral and intimate transmission of stories and beliefs.

List of Tables*
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Framing the Question
Greece and the Near East: A Discipline and Its Discontents
Competing Models
1. Greeks and Phoenicians
Who Are the Phoenicians?
The Phoenicians in Greek Sources
The Phoenician Legacy
Ex Oriente Lux?
Rethinking the “Orientalizing” Paradigm
2. Hesiod?s Theogony in Context
Why the Muses?
The Enigma of “the Tree and the Stone” in Hesiod and the Levant
Hesiod?s Truth
3. Greek and Near Eastern Succession Myths
Introduction
The Near Eastern and Hesiodic Succession Myths
From Ugarit to Hesiod and Philon of Byblos
Final Thoughts on Hesiod?s Succession Myth
4. Orphic and Phoenician Theogonies
Introduction to the Orphic Sources
Classification of the Orphic Cosmogonies
Oriental Motifs in the Derveni Papyrus
Kronos and Chronos: The Deposed Father Survives
Final Thoughts on the Near Eastern Motifs in the Orphic Cosmogonies
5. Cosmogonies, Poets, and Cultural Exchange
Singing about the Gods in a Changing World
Cosmogonic Poets as Cultural Mediators
Final Thoughts on Cosmogonies and Cultural Interaction
Appendix: The Sacred Tree and Sacred Stone from the Levant to Greece
Abbreviations
Notes
References
Index of Passages Cited
General Index
* Tables:
1. Generations of gods in the Greek and Near Eastern sources
2. Hierarchy of first divinities in the Ugaritic deity lists
3. Kronos and Chronos (Time) in the Orphic and Phoenician cosmogonies
4. Epithets of El and Kronos

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