The Mind of Egypt<\/a>) argues that \u201cThe Hellenistic project was not a bid to hellenize the east but to find forms of expression in which indigenous traditions could be made transparent and translatable. Hellenism provided local traditions with a common idiom that allowed for a newly sophisticated and flexible mode of self-expression\u201d (424).<\/p>\nThis was a challenge to Egyptian practice, who worried that \u201cforeigners might act in a blasphemous way toward the gods, who, offended, might then turn away from Egypt\u201d (396). So the writer of the late antique Corpus Hermeticum<\/em>\u00a0prohibited translation: \u201cLeave this text untranslated, so that these secrets remain hidden from the Greeks and their irreverent, feeble, and orotund speech does not undermine the dignity and vigor of our language and the energy of the names. For the discourse of the Greeks, though outwardly impressive, is empty, and their philosophy is nothing but verbose noise\u201d (396).<\/p>\nGreeks were translators. They saw belief in the gods as \u201csupranational and intercultural,\u201d and Herodotus was even willing to admit that the Greeks borrowed their gods from Egypt. They \u201chad not difficult in recognizing their gods in the Egyptian deities\u201d (396). They saw in polytheism an opportunity to set a \u201cfoundation or \u2018interface\u2019 for translation between cultures. In this framework, the religion of another people was the least alien things about them\u201d (397).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Assessing the impact of Hellenism on Egyptian culture, Jan Assmann (The Mind of Egypt) argues that \u201cThe Hellenistic project was not a bid to hellenize the east but to find forms of expression in which indigenous traditions could be made transparent and translatable. Hellenism provided local traditions with a common idiom that allowed for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[609,654],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-egypt","category-hellenism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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