How The Jews Changed Civilization ALL EDITIONS

• Published in: Newsday
• Main Author: By Judith Bolton-Fasman. Judith Bolton-Fasman edits the Baltimore Jewish Times book page
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 29.03.1998
• Edition: Combined editions

THREE YEARS AGO, Thomas Cahill made his reputation as a writer of popular history with the surprise best-seller "How the Irish Saved Civilization." In that book, Cahill recounted how St. Patrick brought faith and literacy to the untamed peoples of Ireland. With their newly acquired love of language and literature, these converts dedicated themselves to the painstaking labor of copying classic and sacred texts - works that almost certainly would have disappeared when the Dark Ages descended upon Europe. Cahill contends that without St. Patrick the works of Plato, Ovid and Homer would have been lost forever. Cahill uses this thesis to enumerate the various Jewish innovations or "gifts" that are the touchstones of civilization. And although Cahill makes the self-evident observation that monotheism was one of those innovations, he demonstrates it in spirited, imaginative scenes. To that end he writes that when Avram (Abraham's original Hebrew name) uproots himself at God's behest, it is strikingly recorded as " `wayyelekh Avram' (`Avram went') - two of the boldest words in all literature. They signal a complete departure from everything that has gone before in the long evolution of culture and sensibility." Buoyed by Everett Fox' idiosyncratic translation of the Five Books of Moses - one which stylistically echoes the Hebrew of the original - Cahill marches through the books of the Bible. While far in scope from Louis Ginzberg's classic seven-volume "Legends of the Jews," Cahill's book does explore some similar themes. Like Ginzberg, Cahill consults folklore and myth to bring various Biblical views into relief. Cahill focuses on the story of Gilgamesh as an example in which oral history is "a long process of development and maturation." In his portrayal of Moshe (Cahill uses Moses' Hebrew name), Cahill weaves the prophet's personal quirks into his account of Exodus to give the reader a memorable assessment of the man.