CONF: Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel: Interactions and Parallels (10th-4th Centuries BCE)

Seen on the Agade list:

Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel: Interactions and Parallels
(10th-4th Centuries BCE)
October 28-30, 2012
Room 496, Gilman Building, Tel Aviv University

Collaboration between the European Network for the Study of Ancient
Greek History and Tel Aviv University

Conference Organizers: Irad Malkin, History Department, Tel Aviv
University and a member of the European Network
(malkin.irad AT gmail.com); Alexander Fantalkin, Department of
Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University
(fantalk AT post.tau.ac.il)

The world of the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, has often been
studied against the background of Near Eastern civilizations. Yet,
aside from the enormous hinterlands of the Near East, the ancient land
of Israel also neighbored the Mediterranean. As a collaborative
conference between the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek
History and Tel Aviv University, we wish to concentrate on
interactions and parallels between the ancient Greek world and the
Eastern Mediterranean, with an emphasis on the period before the
Hellenistic and Roman periods.

How do we, at the start of the third millennium CE, perceive and
interpret the almost simultaneous arrival of the two cultures whose
self-definitions still mark out the meaning of western civilization?
We wish to discuss the key concepts of "parallels, similarities, and
influences" in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean. Are they due
to general human reaction to comparable historical situations or do
they depend on actual contacts and influences, directly or via third
parties? Drawing on specific case-studies we will discuss the
usefulness of these key terms and analyze the likely contexts for
interaction and/or the evidence of actual contacts.

The question of what is comparable as such and what is owed to actual
influence is often debated. Whereas former approaches tended to regard
the issue of influence literally, "in-fluence," "flowing into," as if
cultural contacts are necessarily uni-directional; their "source,"
therefore, needed to be identified and located in a hierarchy that is
either temporal ("who was first?") or spatial ("first from where?").
Such approaches may indeed be valid at times. Today the cutting edge
of the discourse of civilizational parallels and contacts seems rather
to consist in a multi-directional, non-hierarchical perspective, which
may hopefully find its expression in the conference.

Program

October 28th

09:45 Coffee & Gathering

10:00-10:15 Greetings

Eyal Zisser (Dean, Faculty of Humanities, TAU)
Irad Malkin (European Network/TAU)

Constitutive Narratives and Comparative World-views

Session I Chair: Israel Finkelstein (TAU)

10:15-11:15

Oswyn Murray (Balliol College, Oxford): The Western Tradition of Ancient History

Hans-Joachim Gehrke (University of Freiburg): Between ‘Clash of
Civilisations’ and Hybridity: Conceptualizing Historical Comparison

11:15-11:30: Pause

11:30-12:30

Irad Malkin (TAU): Foreign Founders: Greek and Hebrew Colonization

Alexander Fantalkin (TAU): Comparable Chronologies: The Contexts of Interaction

12:30-13:45: Discussion Panel: Shlomo Bunimovitz (TAU), Bernard M.
Levinson (University of Minnesota), Doron Mendels (Hebrew
University of Jerusalem)

13:45-15:15: LUNCH

Session II Chair: Jonathan Price (TAU)

15:15-16:15

Kurt Raaflaub (Brown University): The Despotic Template: Authority,
Politics and Religion in Early Greek and Hebrew Thought

Josine Blok (Utrecht University): The Greek and Hebrew Concepts of the
Covenant: A Comparative View

16:15-16:30: Pause

16:30-17:00

François de Polignac (EPHE/ANHIMA, Paris): Did the Greeks Feel at the
Margins of the Ancient Near East?

17:00-18:00: Discussion Panel: Maurizio Giangiulio (University of
Trento), Konrad Schmid (University of Zurich)

October 29th

Session III Chair: Oded Lipschits (TAU)

10:00-11:00

Amir Gilan (TAU): A Bridge or a Blind Alley? Hittites and Neo Hittites
as Cultural Mediators

Marek Wecowski (Warsaw University): The Greek Symposion and the
Biblical Marzeah: Contrasts and Parallels

11:00-11:15: Pause

11:15-12:15

Jacob L. Wright (Emory University): Aegean War Commemoration and the
Composition of Biblical Writings

Martti Nissinen (University of Helsinki): Prophets and Kings: A
Comparison between Greece and Mesopotamia

12:15-13:15: Discussion Panel: Nadav Na’aman (TAU), Thomas Römer
(Collège de France/University of Lausanne)

13:15-14:45: LUNCH

Session IV Chair: Sylvie Honigman (TAU)

14:45-15:45

Christian Mann (University of Mannheim): Body and Sports in Israel and
Greece: A Comparative View

Bruce Louden (University of Texas at El Paso): Jason, Medea, and
Aietes: Jacob, Rachel, and Laban: Argonautic Myth and Genesis 27-32

15:45-16:00: Pause

16:00-17:00

Thomas Römer (Collège de France/University of Lausanne): Hebrew Bible
and Greek Mythology: Some Case Studies

Robin Lane Fox (New College, Oxford): Mixed Marriages: Nehemiah,
Pericles and Others….

17:00-18:00: Discussion Panel: Margalit Finkelberg (TAU), Israel
Finkelstein (TAU)

October 30th

Session V The Phoenicians between Greeks and Hebrews

Chair: Moshe Fischer (TAU)

10:00-11:00

Benjamin Sass (TAU): The First Adaptations of the Semitic Alphabet to
Indo-European Languages: Some New Evidence for Phrygian and Greek
Writing ca. 800 BCE

Rosalind Thomas (Balliol College, Oxford): Phoenicians in the Old
Testament and in Greek Writers: A World Apart?

11:00-11:15: Pause

11:15-12:15

Assaf Yasur-Landau (University of Haifa): From Canaanites to
Israelites and Phoenicians: Cultural Trajectories in Mediterranean
Settings

Tamar Hodos (University of Bristol): Mediation and Multi-Directional
Exchanges: The Phoenicians

12:15-13:15: Discussion Panel: Ayelet Gilboa (University of Haifa),
Gunnar Lehmann (Ben- Gurion University)

13:15-14:45: LUNCH

Session VI Human Connectors

Chair: Oren Tal (TAU)

14:45-15:45

James D. Muhly (University of Pennsylvania/ASCSA): Traveling Craftsmen?

Robert Rollinger (University of Innsbruck/University of Helsinki):
Craftsmen and Specialists between East and West

15:45-16:00: Pause

16:00-16:30

Nino Luraghi (Princeton University): Fighting for the Other:
Mercenaries, Culture Contact, and Ethnicity

16:30-17:30: Discussion Panel: Maurizio Giangiulio (University of
Trento), Ran Zadok (TAU)

17:30-17:45: Pause

Envoi & Reflections: Margalit Finkelberg (TAU), Irad Malkin (TAU)

Final Discussion