Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Sevillano Hispalis <sevillanomail AT yahoo.com>]

I personally think that the idea is farfetched. He assumes that early Greek
writers had an intimate knowledge of the land of Israel, its geography and
even knew of the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel and the
etymology of the name "Israel". This is giving them too much credit.
Herodotus and the rest described the land from a Mediterranean perspective,
and used the names of the coastal regions, such as "Philistia"/"Palaistine",
in order to describe the interior.

Yigal Levin


I had exactly the same thought, mister Levin,
not about the geography of the land of Israel
but their knowledge of the story of Jacob 
and the meaning of "Israel", although it is true
that the greeks called the caanaites 
as phoenikes as well. 
And they say Zeno was a jew. Maybe there was more
contact than we think, I dont know.

Other problem I see in the article it is that Josephus 
was always referring the Herodotus work when he wrote
about Palestine. And Philo is too late.
And Herodotus work has been always very criticized.

I think the best point of the article is the 
Septuagint reference.

Thank you for your responses.
Shalom 

David Sevilla
Spain