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From The Gifts of the Jews:
"The story of Jewish identity across the millennia against impossible
odds is a unique miracle of cultural survival.
cnIzI Megan Harber
creates great new dishes
such as
"Where are the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians today? And
though we recognize Egypt and Greece as still belonging to our world,
the cultures and ethnic stocks of those countries have little continuity.
with their ancient namesakes.
a ncirto Jerks
Grilled marinated chicken
and served with a
roasted red pepperaloll
"But however miraculous Jewish survival may be, the greater miracle
is surely that the Jews developed a whole new way of experiencing real-
ity, the only alternative to all ancient worldviews and all ancient reli-
gions. If one is ever to find the finger of God in human affairs, one
find it here."
remembers realizing that the definitive
change in human thinking came with
the Bible.
Cahill, 58, has the Irish gift of
charm; storytelling and humor seem
second nature. He's a down-to-earth,
intellectual raconteur. His writing style
is engaging and lively, sometimes
irreverent.
"I'm not a rabbi or a priest. I have
more leeway — that's the way I talk.
The reader should be able to find the
author in his prose," says Cahill.
He adds: "It's hard for the Irish to
be reverent for more than a few min-
utes at a time."
Cahill, a Roman Catholic, spent
two years as a visiting scholar at the
Jewish Theological Seminary studying
Hebrew language and Bible as well as
other subjects. He also reads Latin,
ancient Greek, French and Italian, and
has studied philosophy, scripture, the-
ology and literature.
The Riverdale, N.Y., resident
describes himself as neither an original
scholar nor a historian. "I think of
myself as a translator of ancient poet-
ry, bringing things from the distant
past to the ordinary reader, presenting
it in a way that's accessible."
He doesn't see the book as an intro-
duction to the Bible or to Judaism; he
wants to show the cultural implica-
tions of the revolutionary shift in
thinking and feeling.
The Gifts of the Jews is the second in
a planned seven-title series by Cahill,
"The Hinges of Civilization." His aim
is to "retell the story of the Western
world as the story of the great gift-
givers, those who entrusted to our
keeping one or another of the singular
treasures that make up the patrimony
of the West." He won't yet reveal the
content of the next volumes.
Cahill begins the narrative in The
Gifts of the Jews in Sumer in the third
millennium B.C.E., describing the
culture and outlook of the old world
of the wheel, drawing on the Epic of
Gilgamesh.
Then, closely reading the biblical
text, he describes Abraham's break
with the Sumerian world, and goes on
to describe other biblical figures, flaws
and all, and their relationships with
God.
In researching and writing each
book, he says that one figure stood
out. In How The Irish Saved
Civilization, it was St. Patrick. Here, it
is David, whom he came to know
through reading the Book of Samuel
together with the Psalms.
"He's both a great sinner and a
great poet — a great combination. He
just comes off the page at you."
The author credits David, "Israel's
sweet singer," with introducing the
"interior journey." The notion of self-
reflection, absent in ancient literature,
is present in David's Psalms, which are
"filled with I's," referring to personal
emotions of anger, repentance, self-
doubt, despair, delight.
Cahill writes: "The Jews gave us the
Outside and the Inside — our outlook
and our inner life. We can hardly get
up in the morning or cross the street
without being Jewish. We dream
Jewish dreams and hope Jewish
hopes."
He imagines his audience as three
part: Jews, Christians and unbelievers.
"I would like to find a language that
enables these three groups to talk to
one another again. We're all in this
together — there are so many conun-
drums we'll have to confront in the
21st century.
"But it's more than learning how to
talk to one another: At least to some
extent, we have to feel what the other
feels. We have to live in one another's
hearts."
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