Case Studies

mong the cultures of the Ancient World, there were two that gave their traditions a form that was so time-resistant and influential that their identity has remained in effect even today: Greece and Israel. The link between the two has provided the foundation not only for the Christian West but also for Islam. In the former, it is the Greek classics – literature and philosophy – that together with the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament rest at the heart of cultural memory, whereas in Islam it is Greek scholarship that has triumphed, although the Hebrew Bible has been superseded by the Koran. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that both the western and the Islamic culture are each based, in their different ways, on Greek and Judeo-Israelite heritages. Their heritage has not only endured through these connections, they also exist in a kind of “pure state” – Israel in Judaism and Hellas in humanism.