Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

96. Isaiah Berlin, Liberty (edited by Henry Hardy), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pages 302–303.

97. Ibid., page 294 and ref.

98. Ibid., page 304.

99. Ibid., page 308.

100. See Peter Jones (editor/director), The World of Rome, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997, page 289, for Zeno’s paradox.

101. Berlin, Op. cit., page 310.

102. Leveque, Op. cit., pages 328ff.

103. Berlin, Op. cit., page 312.

104. Ibid., page 314.

105. Grant, Op. cit., page 263.

106. Translated by Erwin Schrödinger in his Nature and the Greeks and Science and Humanism, Op. cit., page 19.

CHAPTER 7: THE IDEAS OF ISRAEL, THE IDEA OF JESUS

1. Johnson, History of the Jews, Op. cit., page 78.

2. Ibid., page 82.

3. Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorised Version, New York: Knopf, 1991, page 71–72. See Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., pages 120–121, for the Israelites’ uneasy relationship with YHWH.

4. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 70. Gordon and Rendsburg, Op. cit., page 323.

5. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 56.

6. Johnson, Op. cit., page 83.

7. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 275.

8. Johnson, Op. cit., pages 84–85.

9. Ibid., page 85.

10. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 85.

11. Ibid., page 107. Richard Friedman argues that it was Ezra who gave the final shape to the Law of Moses; see Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., page 310.

12. Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools, London: SPCK, 1998, page 24.

13. Ibid., page 7.

14. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 109.

15. Ibid., page 10.

16. Ibid., page 116.

17. Philip Davies argues against this. He maintains that the final form of Hebrew scriptures tells us nothing about their evolution. Davies, Op. cit., pages 89–90. In fact, these three divisions of Old Testament writings describe four phases of Israelite history: the ancient history of the world and the election of the ancestors of Israel (in Genesis); the creation of the nation, from the descendants of Jacob in Egypt and the Lord’s gift of a constitution (law) and land; a period of decline, from the leadership of Moses, through Joshua and Saul to David and Solomon, and then through the less than ideal monarchies of Israel and Judah, culminating in exile in Babylon (Exodus to Kings and Chronicles); the restoration of Judah, the rebuilding of the Temple, and the reconstitution of Judah/Israel as a religious entity ‘devoted to the convenant with Yahweh and to worship in his temple’. At this point canonised history ends, though of course Jewish history does not end. For Christians, Judaism comes to an end theologically, with the birth of the Messiah. Ibid., page 55.

The word ‘Jew’ comes from the Hebrew yehudi, Judahite or Judaean, a descendant of Judah, Jacob’s fourth son and heir, ‘the historical carrier of the Blessing of Yahweh, first given to Abram (Abraham)’. Allen Bloom, Closing, Op. cit., page 4.

It is worth remembering that the Christian Old Testament is arranged differently from the Hebrew Bible. The first five books are in the same order but have different titles. The Christian Genesis is the Hebrew Bereshith, ‘In the beginning’; the Christian Numbers is the Hebrew Bemidbar, ‘In the wilderness’. Hebrew practice, like the files of Microsoft Word, means they often take their titles from the first words of the chapter. After the Torah, or Pentateuch, there is little in common in the order of the books between the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible. The Christian Old Testament ends with Malachi proclaiming a new Elijah, a new prophet, whereas the Hebrew Bible ends with the second book of Chronicles, the return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple.

18. Allen Bloom, Op. cit., pages 4–5.

19. Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., pages 246ff

20. Keith W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel, London: Routledge, 1996, pages 128–129.

21. Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., pages 81ff.

22. Israel Finkelstein, personal interview, Tel Aviv, 22 November 1996. But see also: Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., pages 72ff.

23. Amihai Mazar, personal interview, Tel Aviv, 22 November 1996.

24. Raz Kletter, personal interview, Tel Aviv, 25 November 1996. Ephraim Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, volume 2, New York: Doubleday, 2001, pages 200–209. Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., pages 246ff, also argue that the move to worship YHWH exclusively began only in the late eighth century BC.

25. Finkelstein and Silberman, Op. cit., page 129.

26. Anne Punton, The World Jesus Knew, London: Olive Press/Monarch Books, 1996, page 182.

27. Lane Fox, Op. cit., page 197.