transmission of history obscures connections and lack of connections

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The American approach to the study of history is interesting.  While it is represented as a “survey” of “western civilization,” in reality it is a tracing of the historical trajectory that attempts to make the existence of the US, and the evolution of its governmental system seem like a logical inevitability.

This history begins with Gilgamesh (of the curriculum is that thorough), proceeds through Greek history to Roman history.  It touches briefly on the Ancient Near East (to demonstrate the extent of the Roman Empire), then jumps from the late antiquity of Rome to the early Middle Ages.  From there it romps briefly through the crusades, and the Norman invasion of an island in the North Sea.  It proceeds through the history of that little island up until a bunch of people started complaining that they weren’t allowed to attend the churches they wanted to attend.  Then it crosses the Atlantic with them and continues through US history.

There are very brief diversions into side topics like two very long European wars during the high Middle Ages, and a revolution in France. 

All of this tends to be presented as a list of names of rulers, battles and treaties, accompanied by their dates and their locations.  There is generally little discussion of how one event might have influenced another.

The exception to this, of course, is the perceived parallel with the French revolution.  That is presented as “you had a revolution, we had a revolution.  You got rid of a king, we got rid of a king, therefore we must be exactly alike.”  The details of the disposal of the different kings—the fact that one was killed and the other happily (if madly) continued his reign—is regarded as a trivial detail.  The other detail, that one country was Catholic and the other was Protestant, also gets dismissed as irrelevant.

Because of this linear-but-disjointed approach to the historical continuum, it tends to be believed that events occurred in isolation, that different parts of the world did not know about each other, and could not communicate with each other.

I encountered an interesting example of this belief when I was at JTS.  I was curious to know if Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, aka Maimonides, born in Cordoba, died in Egypt, ca 1135-1204) had ever heard of Rashi (Rabbi Shmuel ben Isaac, Troyes, France, ca 1040-1104). 

Since Rashi was from northern France, and lived before the Crusades, and Rambam spent time in the Holy Land (before being appointed court physician to Grand Vizir Al Qaei Al Fadil, and then to Sultan Saladin) it seemed logical that Jews who were swept along with the Crusaders (or those fleeing them) might have travelled the same route, and might have brought some of Rashi’s writings with them, and that Rambam might have received some of those writings.  I asked one of my professors if he knew whether this had happened.  He was surprised at my question:  rashi was in northern France,  Rambam was in the near East.  They lived in different centuries.  But, he told me, he would check.  A week later, he found me and told me yes, he had discovered that in all of Rambam’s writings there is a single mention of Rashi.  Apparently, no one had paid attention to it.

From this, it seems to me logical to suppose that my theory of the transmission of the LXX to Greco-Romans, and their misunderstanding of the text based on their different cultural bases, my theory of Paul’s “conversion” and his agenda in teaching Greco-Roman communities who had received and misunderstood those texts has good probability of being accurate. 

It seems logical to believe that the Greco-Roman proto-Christians did not realize that their interpretation of text was profoundly different from the Judean understanding of the same text. 

It seems logical to believe that the Judeans did not at any point accept the Greco-Roman interpretation of the text because they had no reason to do so. 

It seems logical to believe that when bar Cochba’s revolt failed, the completely different and irreconcilable differences in understanding of the text became apparent to both Greco-Romans and Judeans, and the distinction between the two interpretations seemed, to Greco-Romans, like a schism.