Interesting views on the basics of early Western literature! ( )

Interesting views on the basics of early Western literature! ( )

Timothy B. Shutt is a professor of humanities at Kenyon College. This Barnes & Noble audio with accompanying book reproduces fourteen of his lectures in a survey course on the beginnings of Western Civilization. Specifically, he analyzes the cultures of the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and early Christians.

He reviews contributions of the Hebrews in the area of religion, ethics, law, and literacy, primarily through an analysis of their Bible. He gives a rather standard reading of the Book of Job, namely that God’s ways are unfathomable, and that good people are not necessarily rewarded. I think that interpretation overlooks the fact that Job ends up with even greater riches than he began with, albeit after suffering quite a bit along the way. He also asserts that the Hebrew world view emphasized compassion for one’s fellow man, although I can’t see how he comes to that conclusion.

The contributions of the Greeks are “almost too many to name,” but the author lists, inter alia, the formalization of logic, mathematics, the development of philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, science, and the arts. He analyzes the markedly different philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, rating Aristotle as the greatest of all philosophers. He credits the Greeks with developing the concept of arête, or personal excellence as a guiding purpose of life.

The Romans are lauded for their contribution to organization and order and for the development of the military by virtue of the Roman army. The Romans are also noted for their technology and rule of law. Shutt points out that it was a Roman, Plotinus, who for the first time managed to combine the views of Plato and Aristotle into a consistent (if abstruse) philosophy.

His discussion of early Christianity is fair and historically accurate, although not nearly as nuanced as those of Bart Ehrman or John Dominic Crossan.

This is a good, if somewhat superficial, introduction to the themes and concepts that permeate Western culture. Shutt is a pretty good lecturer, although he says little or nothing controversial and his responses to students’ questions were “plain vanilla.” The lectures might have been more fun if he had interjected the kind of edginess with which Bertrand Russell would have treated the same material.

(JAB) ( )