From jbutrica@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Mon Sep 4 08:17:33 2000 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA82130 for ; Mon, 4 Sep 2000 08:17:33 -0700 Received: from cerberus.ucs.mun.ca (cerberus.ucs.mun.ca [134.153.2.162]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA00587 for ; Mon, 4 Sep 2000 08:17:32 -0700 Received: from [134.153.128.98] (drusus.clas.mun.ca [134.153.128.98]) by cerberus.ucs.mun.ca (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA27237 for ; Mon, 4 Sep 2000 12:47:29 -0230 (NDT) X-Sender: jbutrica@pop.morgan.ucs.mun.ca Message-Id: In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 11:52:07 +0100 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: James Butrica Subject: Re: God in the Declaration of Independence >In today's New York Times Michael Novak writes in an op-ed piece entitled >"The Founders and the Torah" (p. A17): > >"Most historians lazily say that the founders were Deists, because they >did not use Christian names for God, like Trinity and Savior and Redeemer. >They miss the crucial point. Three names for God in the Declaration -- >Creator, Judge and Providence, are unmistakably Jewish names for God. This >language did not come from the Greeks or Romans." > >Is the matter as simple as the writer states? Comments, anyone? > >EJTh More questions than comments: Is there any equation of Zeus/Jupiter and providence, perhaps in later Stoic thought? The only judging goes on in the Underworld and involves other figures like Aeacus and Minos and Rhadamanthys, and I don't recall seeing "Creator" figure among titles (and why would it?); but has anybody read Cleanthes' "Hymn to Zeus" lately? And are these names used in the New testament as well as the Old? James Lawrence Peter Butrica Department of Classics Memorial University St. John's, Newfoundland A1C 5S7 (709) 737-7914 .