Van Wees, Hans. "Herodotus and the Past." Pages 321-349 in Brill's Companion to Herodotus. Edited by Egbert Bakker, Hans van Wees, and Irene de Jong. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
In "Herodotus and the Past," Hans van Wees defends the notion that Herodotus was an historian. At the outset of the study, van Wees observes that Herodotus’s proem defines the scope of the subject quite widely, i.e. it is a universal history. Indeed, van Wees notes that The Histories cover events as far back in time as 11,000 years and cultures across Herodotus' known world. While van Wees acknowledges that the proem recalls the tradition and aims of epic poetry and so inveighs against the notion that Herodotus is an historian, he argues that Herodotus more significantly situates his work within the emerging discourse of intellectuals by referring to his work as an 'investigation' (historiê). To illustrate these points, van Wees identifies and comments on three of Herodotus’ central historical topics: "the origins of communities and customs, the rise and fall of powers, and the causes of war" (324). In the rest of the study, Van Wees discusses each of these topics, one by one, at some length.
First, van Wees explores Herodotus' interest in origins and, in particular, traces the way in which Herodotus seems to systematically undermine any notions of an autochthonous Hellenic civilization and culture. He argues that, over the course of The Histories, Herodotus provides a foreign origin to anything his audience might have proudly considered a distinctive of their civilization and culture. In support of this interpretation, van Wees provides a bewildering number of examples from The Histories in areas from economics to military tactics and weaponry to governance to women's dress to religion and even to foundational ideas about ethnicity.
Second, van Wees explores Herodotus’ interest in the rise and fall of civilizations. Herodotus, van Wees argues, pays particular attention to "the precise extent and duration of the 'leadership' (arkhê or hêgemonia) of the great powers of the past" (328). In the digressions about the various ANE civilizations, van Wees notes that Herodotus follows a pattern whereby "the territorial extent, political nature and chronological span of each [are] set out in notable detail" (330). Van Wees also detects Herodotus's persistent interest in the matter of tribute, such that the collection of tribute seems to be a Herodotean marker for empire. Still, despite the precision and detail with which Herodotus examines these things, van Wees admits that much of the information is "unreliable and indeed demonstrably false"; nevertheless, he argues that Herodotus' attempt bespeaks "an intense research effort" (334). Van Wees then briefly surveys some of the explanations that Herodotus proffers to explain the rise and fall of great powers, including the importance of unity, divine intervention, the role of rivals, rebellion, and soft living.
Under a new subject heading, van Wees continues the discussion with a narrower focus on Herodotus' account of the rise of Greek power. Van Wees notes that Herodotus, more so than even Thucydides, presents the nascent Greeks as an especially weak civilization, a weakness that primarily stems from the internecine conflicts of the city-states. Conversely, their power to resist the Persians ultimately derives from their willingness, in particular the willingness of Athens, to put aside divisions for the common cause of Greece.
Third, van Wees explores Herodotus' interest in the causes of war. In particular, van Wees contends that Herodotus provides a remarkably impartial examination of the causes. He notes that Herodotus repeatedly records allegedly Persian perspectives that attribute primary blame for the conflict to the Greeks. This argument, however, seems particularly weak. For, although van Wees is quite correct that Herodotus records such perspectives, the work as a whole undermines the efficacy of those perspectives. In my view, the clear over-reaching cause of the Persian wars, according to Herodotus, is the hubris and insatiable imperialism of oriental despots, such that any culpability attributed to the Greeks appears as nothing more than a pretext.
In conclusion, van Wees makes a final, and in my mind specious, argument. He admits that Herodotus also makes light of religious phenomena and explains the past in light of such phenomena but then concludes that Herodotus' exploration of the topics van Wees analyzes is sufficiently modern such that Herodotus can still be called a historian. This is a false dichotomy, in my opinion, as it implies that the 'religious' explanations can be separated from the 'historical' explanations. In ancient historiography, however, these modes of explanation are inseparable and, as such, Herodotus should not be evaluated as an historian by our standards—in which case, I think he would fail. Instead, he should be evaluated by the standards of ancient historiographers and thus not regarded as the first historian, as van Wees concludes, but one in a stream of many ancient writers that were interested in the past.
With respect to Sean du Toit's post on the Historical Bush Seminar, I, Benard Sauvant of the Free University of Central Kansas, would like to offer my own contributions. At the outset, I should thank the Langford Institute of Early Studies for their generous support of my research.
I have to disagree with my esteemed colleague Phonias Futz insofar as I believe the historical evidence does show that the office of President existed in the 20th and 21st century. I think on this point Dr. Nathan Wright has presented compelling evidence. I also think that there was, in fact, a President named George Bush. Yet, at the same time, I very much agree with my colleague Phonias Futz that George W. Bush is largely a fictitious character. The Bushisms and the nickname "Dubya" expose the absurdity of the whole legend.
See, the legend of George W. Bush may have started quite harmlessly really. At some point, confusion arose over the order of presidential succession and specifically whether George Bush was President before Bill Clinton or after him. Clearly the older tradition is that George Bush was President before Bill Clinton and this, of course, finds clear support in the historical record for we know that a George Bush served as Vice-President under Ronald Reagan. As it was fairly common for the Vice-President to become President, it must be that this George Bush became President in the four years between the end of Reagan's term and the beginning of Bill Clinton's term. This George Bush was clearly a lacklustre President, who accomplished very little in his Presidency besides coming to the aid of the Kuwaitis in the war with Iraq. Consequently, he does not win re-election and is succeeded by the popular President, Bill Clinton, who serves two terms.
After Bill Clinton's eight years, we run into the problem of the second George Bush. People like Dr. Wright want us to believe that a second "George Bush", distinguished only by middle initials and so even perhaps related to the first, became President. We are also expected to believe that like the George H. Bush, who we know was real, this George W. Bush invaded Iraq; but, that this was a second war some twelve years after the first one and it was only then that the United States managed to overthrow Saddam Hussein; and, that Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Colin Powell, who are all attested members of the George H. Bush administration, were again administrators in the presidency of this second Bush. The sheer outlandishness and improbability that you would have two presidents with the same names, engage in parallel international conflicts with the same enemy (and this second one as a "preemptive" invasion), and be surrounded by many of the same characters strains credulity. It is, therefore, manifestly obvious that this second George Bush never existed. The tradition is, in fact, what we historians call a doublet. We notice immediately that the subsidiary characters all get promotions in the doublet; the second Bush wins a second term in office rather than serving just one; instead of one Supreme Court nomination, the second Bush makes two nominations; and, we notice that in the second tradition the whole Iraq conflict grows from a relatively quick, strangely abbreviated conflict into an epic battle, pitting good against evil.
Especially revealing in this second tradition is that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is ascribed to this second Bush. It is quite obvious, however, that it couldn't have happened this way because Iraq becomes a democracy far too quickly in this fantastical chronology; they have elections and approve a constitution all within two years of the dictator's overthrow. We know from many other similar cases in the 20th century that you simply don't move a country from dictatorship to democracy that quickly. Look at Germany or Japan in the aftermath of the so-called World War II. We, therefore, have here an older tradition that is displaced. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein must have occurred in the presidency of Bill Clinton, probably in 1998. Indeed, Dr. Nathan Wright posits the whole idea of a second Gulf War under George W. Bush for reasons that Bill Clinton must have addressed five years earlier as this recently uncovered speech indicates. It is Bill Clinton then who continues the war that George H. Bush started, overthrows Saddam Hussein, and starts to stabilize Iraq. His successor, whose identity has been obscured, is then President when Iraq becomes a democracy.
Indeed, it is here on this point of who really succeeded Clinton that the crux of the whole problem turns and we begin to see the real ideological reasons behind the second Bush tradition. Although the inventors of the second Bush tradition tried to suppress the real events, there are several credible extant sources that say a man named Al Gore, that is Bill Clinton's Vice-President, actually won the election that this George W. Bush is alleged to have won. This makes logical sense. Just as the George H. Bush was Vice-President before becoming President so then Al Gore must have become President after serving as Clinton's Vice-President. This is confirmed by the fact that the Clinton-Gore presidency was, by all accounts, very popular; so, it is hard to believe this Al Gore could have lost an election as Dr. Wright would have us believe. Clearly, future Republicans, taking advantage of later confusion in the order of presidential succession, wanted to erase this Al Gore from tradition and so invented George W. Bush to whom they then ascribe all the positive developments that occurred under the presidency of either Bill Clinton or his now erased successor Al Gore. It was clearly a sort of Republican wish fulfilment scenario for the abbreviated presidency of George H. Bush. Fortunately, careful historical reconstruction such as mine can rectify these cruel lies of past ideologues and reclaim history for the Democratic Party, that has been shamelessly vilified by the establishment for allegedly being on the wrong side of history. It is clear now that it must have been the Republicans who were on the wrong side of history and that it was Bill Clinton and Al Gore who, taking over from the inept George H. Bush administration, finished the Iraq war and introduced the policy of democratization that ultimately delivered the Middle East from its tyrannical governments.
It has become something of a biblioblogging convention to make lists of the top ten or twenty-five scholars or books in a given area of biblical studies. Personally, I couldn't hope to make such a list, except perhaps in Chronicles, without doing a great disservice to a whole number of scholars who have contributed to biblical studies or even more particularly, Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies. However, I can make my own modest contribution to this convention by sharing with you a list of the seminal influences on my scholarship to date. The order of the list is not consistently an order of importance, which for much of the list I find difficult to assess (though I can state the first in my list is unequivocally the most important):
1. Peter Ristau: My father, an Old Testament professor of 25+, is the most seminal influence on my scholarship. He taught me to love and respect the Hebrew Bible. His passion for the Bible, and in particular for the stories of David and the writings of the major prophets, sparked my interest in biblical studies and have left a life-long, indelible mark on me. While my father sacrificed scholarly publications for ministry and family in a small bible college, I have no doubt that had he had the opportunities he has given me, he could easily have emerged as one the great scholars of the past twenty-five years. His sacrifice, however, is the gain of others who were able to learn from my father and also have their lives impacted by his generosity, scholarship, and passion in innumerable ways. I also am certain the Church is better for my father's service. Thanks Dad!
2. John Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion was the first major work scholarship that I recall reading. Calvin's scholarship and theology have certainly inspired and challenged me. Perhaps most significantly, Calvin's doctrine of the reprobate taught me a very important lesson. Calvin, in his work, expresses the wish that the doctrine were not present in Scripture but, believing that it was, Calvin's fidelity to God, truth and Scripture compelled him to explicate on it. I always found that commitment to truth, even when it moves contrary to one's own presuppositions or leanings, an important, guiding principle of working in this field. It is a commitment I try to emulate.
3. Tyler Williams: In my undergraduate program at North American Baptist College, Tyler Williams' teaching and friendship led me from an interest in systematic theology to a profound passion for Hebrew Bible. It is largely because of him that I am working on Hebrew Bible and that I became interested in Chronicles and biblical historiography. He is also one of those professors who doesn't let you get away with crap, or at least, makes you pay for it when/if you get lazy. I learned my first lessons about rigorous scholarship from Tyler and I am certainly the better for having studied under him. He has also modelled something much more profound in my mind: the balance of dedication to work and scholarship with the much greater priorities of family, friendship, and faith. Much more than a great scholar, Tyler is a great person, a committed father, and a committed Christian.
4. Ehud Ben Zvi: Even before I started my graduate work with Ehud Ben Zvi, I already got to know him through the Edmonton Hebrew Scripture Satellite of the PNW Regional SBL. I've never been one to get too emotional when a professor criticized my work, mostly because none had ever done what Ehud did the first time I submitted a paper to him for review. Meeting with him to go over the paper, I sat in my chair devastated as Ehud tore apart my paper line by line by line. I couldn't believe it; after all, I'd presented that paper at the SBL Meeting in Toronto. I believed it was one of the finest things I'd ever written. Ehud, however, taught me what that paper was really worth and I confess it wasn't as good as I imagined. Over the course of my Master's program, Ehud continued to provide that sort of devasting critique and now, with every sentence of every paper I write, my standard is will Ehud call bullshit on me. I also have to thank Ehud for encouraging me to attend the EABS Meeting in Groningen, a very seminal experience. More than all this, though, Ehud is now a good friend and colleague, whose friendship I value greatly.
5. Francis Landy: Biblical studies is filled with anal retentive scholars, meticulous in their exactness, who strive for objective success with their scholarship. They want to be right. Francis, by contrast, is an artist. He takes pleasure in the design, the aesthetics of scholarship, and its deepest human significance. He is also one of the most caring, quirky, and all around wonderful men I have ever met. Francis challenges me to think outside the box, to look at fissures and discontinuities in texts, to refuse neat solutions and see the human conflict with the transcendent and the immanent in literature, and not to be worried if the answer is ultimately beyond our grasp. He also challenges me to consider my scholarship not simply as an objective task but also a highly personal, subjective, and artistic endeavour. He is another scholar and professor whom I am also grateful to call a friend.
6. Gary Knoppers: I will always remain deeply indebted to Gary, one of the leading biblical scholars in the world in my estimation, for taking such a personal and genuine interest in me when I was still an undergraduate. It is my opinion that it was Gary's interest and guidance that gave me my first opportunity to present a paper, namely the SBL Conference in Toronto, and also the necessary support to get accepted to the M.A. program at Harvard University. While I was not able to accept my invitation to Harvard University, my acceptance there is probably one of my most personal satisfying achievements. It was a dream come true to have the opportunity to attend there. When it came time though to apply to PhD programs, I applied to one school and one school only: Pennsylvania State University. Thankfully, I was accepted! Even now, Gary continues to provide guidance and support that I find truly humbling. With regards to scholarship, Gary is probably the scholar with whom I most consistently agree and whose work I find the most consistently erudite and insightful. His commitment to scholarship, thorough and careful scholarship, is second-to-none.
7. Frederick Buechner: While not a biblical scholar, Frederick Buechner's books, most particularly Telling the Truth and Son of Laughter, are among the finest pieces of literature I have read. Buechner's Son of Laughter is a stunning achievement that has left an indelible mark on my reading and understanding of the patriarchal narratives. That one book brought the Hebrew Bible alive for me in an unparalleled way. Theologically, Buechner's works reach me on a very intimate level because I associate with his interest in the power of grace in juxtaposition with the banality of sin, the silence of God, and the internal conflicts of the Christian experience. No author, no teacher has captured these things in a more moving or more truthful way. Buechner is the finest author, short of J.R.R. Tolkien or the biblical writers, that I have ever read. I owe Martin Friedrich, my undergraduate English teacher, a debt for introducing me to this author.
8. Paul & Pierre Martial: My brother-in-law and his twin brother have been the source of much frustration and debate over the years but their knack for theological explication and their ability to engage in open dialogue has also kept me challenged intellectually. I also appreciate that they have always forced me to keep an eye on the pragmatic, practical, and pastoral implications of my work. In the past year, I've also had the distinct pleasure of taking their money at the poker table, a welcome respite from the world of scholarship.
9. Brevard Childs: Definitely not B.S., the scholarship of Brevard Childs helped me to understand the importance of canon and community in the interpretation of Scripture, both past (in the ancient reading communities) and present (in the Church today). In my opinion, Childs is one of the great Hebrew Bible scholars of the past century and certainly seminal for a new type of Evangelical scholarship that respects the demands of scholarship as well as the authority of canon and Scripture. Childs helped me to see that good scholarship complements Faith.
10. Arnaldo Momigliano: It is unlikely that I would be pursuing my present research if I had not encountered the scholarship of Arnaldo Momigliano. His cross-disciplinary work on Hellenic and Jewish culture, thought, and literature is quite fascinating and begs so many unanswered questions.
11. Mario Liverani: Through my studies with Ehud Ben Zvi, I became aware of the scholarship of Mario Liverani. His monograph Prestige and Interest is among my favourite works in ANE studies. I greatly enjoy the way that he mines the documents of the Amarna period for the ideological and intellectual ethos of the period and it is this approach, informed also by the methodologies of other scholars in this list of my influences, that I attempted to apply in my reading of the Josiah narrative of Chronicles for my Master's thesis. Liverani's article, "Memorandum on the Approach to Historiographical Texts," is an important article that lays out an significant and important strategy for the use of literary texts in historical reconstruction.
12. Meir Sternberg: The tripartite streams of biblical narrative, ideological, aesthetic, and antiquarian, that Sternberg identifies in his biblical poetics are the foundation of my methodological approach to the Bible. For more on these tripartite streams, see Tyler Williams' excellent summary, particularly as it relates to methodology of historical reconstruction. Sternberg's primary contribution, though, is not on the antiquarian stream; rather, he is a literary critic. While I do not agree with Sternberg's notion of foolproof composition, I find that many of his literary readings are quite compelling and a model for sensitive exegesis.
13. Sara Japhet: As someone who works in Chronicles, I would be remiss not to mention the Dame of the Chroniclers, Sara Japhet. Along with H.G.M. Williamson, Sara Japhet rejuvenated this field. Her many articles, her monograph on the ideology of Chronicles, and her commentary on Chronicles are inestimable contributions to the study of this book. In particular, she and Williamson have successfully argued that Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah were likely written by separate authors, which is now the generally accepted position. Japhet also wrote what I regard as a significant rebuttal to some of the excesses of minimalism, namely an article entitled, "Can the Persian Period Bear the Burden?"
14. Michel Foucault: One of the great philosophers and historians of the past quarter century, Foucault's work on epistemology, power, discourse, the history of ideas, and religion are critical foundations of my historical methodology.
15. Raymond Brown: The Gospel of John was one of my fascinations in my undergraduate program and Raymond Brown, along with J. Louis Martyn and Rudolf Bultmann, were my primary interpretive conduits into the book. Raymond Brown impressed me for the depth and wealth of his scholarship in this modern age. His works are a model of judicious and reasoned scholarship, which, like Childs, were never divorced from the ecclesiastical implications of the work. Brown, like Childs, had an acute sense of responsibility to the community, and even communities, of the Christian Faith and their role as trustees of divine revelation. Yet, also like Childs, this never compromised his commitment to authentic scholarship; there was no fear in his scholarship that investigation and inquiry could upset the tenets of Faith but rather faithful scholarship, fidelity to the truth always, in his world, seemed to strengthen them and that is indeed something I learned from this eminent Catholic scholar.
More Influences: Thomas Thompson, Karl Barth, William Riley, David Vanderhooft, Christine Mitchell, Ann Killebrew, Donald Redford, Burke Long, Simon DeVries, Jacques Derrida, David Jobling, John Van Seters, V. Phillips Long, Rudolf Bultmann, J.P. Fokkelmann, fellow PhD students and friends Tim Goltz and Paul Evans, and still others.
Boedeker, Deborah. "Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus." Pages 97-116 in Brill’s Companion to Herodotus. Edited by Egbert Bakker, Hans van Wees, and Irene de Jong. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
In "Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus," Deborah Boedeker situates The Histories within the tradition of epic and myth by citing many examples where Herodotus employs language and conventions of those genres.
In the first section of her article, Boedeker attempts to draw some comparisons between The Histories and Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey, while also highlighting some of the distinctions between them. She starts out by appealing to some of the ancient testimony and opinion, noting that an inscription at Halicarnassus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Hermogenes of Tarsus all draw comparisons between Herodotus and Homeric myth. On the other hand, she observes that Aristotle saw a greater distinction between the prose of Herodotus and the poetry of Homer. Moving on from this discussion, Boedeker begins to draw comparisons between the works themselves. She notes that Herodotus and Homer both share a common purpose to confer kleos, though Herodotus aims to confer it upon events or deeds while Homer confers it upon heroes. She remarks that both authors invoke external sources to strengthen the veracity or authority of their stories; Herodotus invokes informants while Homer invokes the Muses. Boedeker argues that Herodotus employs language, expressions, and even hexametric rhythms that recall Homeric style and which may even deliberately elude to specific scenes in the Homeric poems or the other poetic accounts of the past. And, Boedeker identifies some compositional features in The Histories, such as lists and mimetic narration, which she argues imitate Homeric composition.
Boedeker concludes the first section by identifying and commenting on the ways some scholars have explained Herodotus’ Homeric parallels and style. Mabel Lang and others explain the features as part of the "oral origins" (107) of the work; still others argue that Herodotus imitates Homer because his epics were "the only available model for the sustained narrative of great events" (107); and, building upon this latter notion, Oswyn Murray has even argued that the imitation is a deliberate device intended to set the Persian wars in direct descent or continuity with the Trojan war (108). Boedeker observes, though, that Herodotus "consciously differentiates his work from epic" (108), most particularly at the precisely the moment that he discusses the Trojan war. Still, Boedeker is unpersuaded by her own counterpoint and agrees that Herodotus "deserves his ancient epithet homērikōtatos" (108).
In the second section of the article, Boedeker examines, more generally, some of the mythic patterns and motifs that appear in The Histories. Although noting that Herodotus himself, and also Aristotle, uses the term muthos to refer to "someone else’s fabulous and incredible story," Boedeker observes that Herodotus relates several of his own such stories. Stories such as the Cyrus and the Demaratus birth narratives and the Periander and Lycophron cycle exhibit common mythical patterns and this leads Boedeker to deliberate on the problem of historicity that such "‘mythologized’ accounts" engender. Boedeker admirably refuses to treat the matter simplistically and argues that mythic patterns at least provide insight on the values and ideologies of the authors or audience. It is also her own opinion that an historical core may remain in some cases. Unfortunately, on this latter point, she does not provide a methodological foundation from which such an historical core might be uncovered. Instead, Boedeker shifts back to her central task of highlighting mythic patterns and motifs. Specifically, she observes a couple of cases when mythological events or characters break into Herodotus’ story as "historical background," including the rationalized account of the abductions of Greek and Barbarian women that leads to the Trojan War as well as stories about Talthybius and Artacytes.
Boedeker concludes the article by affirming what she believes her study has proven, namely that "the boundary between myth and history [in The Histories] is a permeable one" (116). On the whole, the specific examples that Boedeker proffers in support of her argument are sometimes weak, especially in the first section, or underdeveloped, especially in the second section. The article, though it titillates, never actually advances beyond a descriptive analysis into a prescriptive article that might provide some applications of her research. Still, Boedeker accomplishes the task she set for herself: that is, to consider "how epic and mythical traditions interact with his work, both by shaping the narrative of events and by influencing the scope and style of the work as a whole" (97) and she has shown that myth and history are permeable concepts in The Histories.
Van Wees on Herodotus as Historian
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