Customer Reviews:
 Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'. December 5, 2008
Michael Calum Jacques (UK)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
Robin Lane Fox, as the reader may or may not know, is an accomplished historian and, quite remarkably, actually underpinning this book is an academic dissertation which is based upon the exposition of four different (8th century)texts. Students of Homer will find this work especially interesting as the author also addresses and largely rationalises the vexed and complex questions relating to the authorship of the Homeric corpus. Actually, Lane Fox asserts the singularity of the author and anchors his life-setting as having been on the island of Chios, in the Aegean. Interestingly the author also refuses to accept that the 'myths' of the Ancient Greeks were simply the literary or oral heirs of eastern mythology. This reviewer has a specialist's interest in both forms of transmission and appreciated Lane Fox's deft summarising of the evidence and his conclusions reached.
In short, the author considers that the Greek's myths were, indeed, indigenous and were later transmitted to and expanded by the Euboeans, during what was effectively a period of colonisation of the Mediterranean 'basin' through Greek trade and culture. This reviewer agrees that all this makes sense ... it adds up; some 850-900 years after Homer, the New Testament was copied down and transmitted in Koine (common) Greek; when Paul wrote to the Romans (c60AD), he wrote in Greek, not Aramaic, Hebrew, or Latin. The swelling mounds of archaeological evidence - numerous around Mediterranean societies - which themselves support the author's basic standpoint, also constitute well attested evidence which speaks for itself.
In effect, the book's narrative is something of an adventure tale: 8th-century BC seafarers (from Euboea) voyage abroad - east and west - undertaking expeditions to initiate develop trading opportunities, and, quite literally, to find the new world(s). The whole saga abounds with classical imagery, allusion and even metaphor. The work is beautifully crafted and this reviewer cannot conceive that any reader could fail to appreciate the quality of the prose and the imagery contained within the gushing narrative, as this Homeric quest for a new age, dawn and cosmos is conveyed to the reader with vivid alacrity.
Lane Fox's academic bedrock underlying all this rests largely on archaeological and textual evidence which he administers very skilfully and persuasively. He goes on to reinforce his main contentions by alluding to, and by quoting, other, later classical writers. This reviewer would tend to recommend this especially to the classical historian (no knowledge of Greek is required, by the way!) in the first instance, but can commend it as a meritorious work of literature in its own right.
Michael Calum Jacques (author of 1st Century Radical: the shadowy origins of the man who became known as Jesus christ)
|
