On Mar 27, 2008, at 9:15 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
> the idea occured to me
> recently that the notion that there is something
> called "Western Civilization" or "Judeo-Christian
> Civilization" with a continuous history going back to
> Ancient Greece and the tribes of Judea, and a cultural
> continuity uniting all the phases of its history, is
> really a modern foundation myth/historical
> legitimation narrative...
Except that throughout European history every state has, literally or by assimilation, been a continuation of the Roman Empire, which had a directly continuous existence until 1452 and a virtual continuation until Napoleon--and was Greek/Latin bilingual for much of its existence and Greek for most of it, though Rome's Western sequelae wrote Latin. And of course the Catholic Church (official language Latin) is nothing but the Roman Empire become theocratic.
However, tracing Western cultures to the "tribes of Judea [and Samaria]" is just nonsense, a consequence of the theft of the Tanakh by Imperial Christianity (which of course has virtually nothing in common with the Jewish "Christianity" of Jesus, James, and Peter).
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos