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Cyrus H. Gordon Quotes

1908–2001 United States

Cyrus Herzl Gordon (June 29, 1908 – March 30, 2001), was an American author, teacher, linguist, field archaeologist, cryptanalyst and scholar of Near Eastern cultures and ancient languages. He challenged traditional theories about Greek and Hebrew cultures by claiming that these were derived from a common second millenium East Mediterranean foundation.

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Random Cyrus H. Gordon quote

51 quotes

The notion of a language of the gods appears in Sanskrit, Greek, Old Norse and Hittite cultures.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Historical, sociological, literary, linguistic, archeological and other techniques must be brought to bear when they are applicable to the material at hand.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Archeological discoveries at sites like Ugarit prevent us from regarding Greece as the hermetically sealed Olympian miracle, or Israel as the vacuum-packed miracle from Sinai.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

That Homeric epic and the earliest Hebrew poetry were the results of long and rich developments should have been apparent to anyone who realizes that artistic perfection is never created ex nihilo.

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

How fortunate is this generation to live at a time when the sources of our culture—sacred and profane—are illuminated in a brighter light of history than our forefathers imagined possible!

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

The priestly guilds were highly mobile, with the result that cultic practices crossed ethnic lines over wide areas.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Minos has rightly been compared with Moses. Both are greater-than-life-size figures who received the law from the supreme god on the sacred mountain (see Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2: 61 concerning Minos).

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

The Greeks treated Homer as their Scripture par excellence, much as the Jews regarded the Bible.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

The nomadic Semite... roves as a herdsman, partaking of Allah's hospitality.

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

For every mound excavated in the Near East, a hundred remain untouched. ...most of the excavated mounds have been dug only in small part.

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

Babylonian mathematics and astronomy have left an indelible impression on our exact sciences. We still call some of the planets by their Babylonian names in translation.

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

Manslaughter was requited through blood revenge. Accordingly the offender, to escape the avenger, would be forced to flee, cut off from his land and people, at the mercy of strangers far from home.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Out of the Armana Age synthesis emerged the earliest traditions of Israel and Greece.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

The most important document at Ugarit for both Biblical and Homeric studies is the Epic of Kret. It anticipates the Helen-of-Troy motif in the Iliad and Genesis, thus bridging the gap between the two literatures.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Homer and Bible... towered above their predecessors and contemporaries.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

It was Yawhism that distinguished the two Hebrew nations from the other Canaanites and it was the great Hebrew prophets who transformed their little 'Canaanite' people into one of the great factors of world history.

Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

Battles ended with sunset or dusk; so heroes, on special occasions when they needed more time, were vouchsafed victory by the stoppage of the sun in Greek as well as Hebrew saga.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

It seems strange that so many generations of Old Testament scholars, trained in Greek as well as Hebrew literature, have managed to keep their Greek and Hebrew studies rigidly compartmentalised.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

The Church tradition that connects the sacrifice of Isaac with the sacrifice of Christ apparently rests on a sound exegesis, for the sacrifice of Isaac would have meant not only the sacrifice of Abraham's son but of God's.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

We shall have to bear in mind that the gulf separating classical Israel (of the great Prophets) from classical Greece (of the scientists and philosophers) must not be read back into the heroic age when both peoples formed part of the same international complex.

The Common Background of Greek and Hebrew Civilizations (1965)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Cyrus H. Gordon (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.