Hi Frank,
   I think we're making progress.
FM> have much in the way of common experience.
   And mutual influence.
FM> First of all, perhaps we
-> should set the period circa 500 B.C. (Jaspers' "axis time" - which
-> has some problems) as a kind of common point so we will know we're
-> discussing the same thing.
   Fine.
FM> By that time the Greeks with their
-> pantheon of gods dwelling on a rather mild form of an omphalos (Mount
-> Olympus) and considered separate from human beings in that they
-> require special foods, etc.
   This is a caricature.  The Republic and the Timaeus date from about
380 BCE.   The former shows a clear appreciation of the "Form of the
Good."  which if a little inactive, is God-like.   The Timaeus remedies
some of that "bridge" { forms to world} problem.
FM> can be more adequately compared to the
-> already transacted Hebrew self-experience of a God who has become
-> universal by reason of the Mosaic-Prophetic (who formed who cannot be
-> determined) dynamic and capable even of following "his people" into
-> exile from where they "cannot sing the songs of Israel in a strange
-> land" and yearn for their omphalus (Jerusalem) and the rebuilding of
-> the temple.
   Yes, Amos dates from about 750 BCE;  by the time you suggest,
"Second Isaiah" was, roughly, in flower.
FM>  Already we have a shaking out of this experience into
-> one faction which tends to withdraw into the shell of Judaism with
-> the "Word" as the concrete "book" (myth of its finding in the temple
-> under Josiah)
   "Torah" is 'teaching', Frank.
There is always oral as well as written torah.
No one ca 500 BCE thought of
becoming oriented to a written document as "God's Word"
The firming up of "masoretic text" is much later.
Even then it does not stand alone like a Protestant Bible.
FM> and another faction moving in the directions (also a
-> potentiality of the Mosaic experience) of opening into universality
-> as it, in fact, did in the Christian experience of order as it
-> differentiated and came into its place in the western world via the
-> vision of Augustine of Hippo.
   Now you're up to ca 400 CE.   And I believe A was srongly influenced
by both Plato and Plotinus.
   I wonder why we don't hear more about Plotinus (fl. ca. 250 CE),
here. NeoPlatonism is *extremely influential on Christianity and
Judaism. Arguably his was a pinnnacle of Greek philosophizing.
He is clearly monotheistic and has managed to bridge the world
of forms with the physical world in a way copied by both Christian
and Jewish philosophers and theologians.
FM>   Hal,
-> you don't find the Hebrews giving prescriptions for the "best forms"
-> of political order (for a people under God that would be rather
-> strange)
   I don't see the strangeness.  The concern with social justice
is found in Amos and Micah  As for political forms,  I don't
have much detail, but my impression, as I suggested before,
is that the Hebrews had political forms not unlike their neighbors,
and their coevals.   Class or stratified society; oligarchy
or kingship.  What was inovative is the concern for the poor.
Even in Leviticus {around the time you mention}, there is a prohibition
against cutting down the grain to the edges of the field (IOW leave
some for the gleaners, the poor.)
    It would also be interesting to compare Greek and Hebrew slavery.
But that's another topic.
    IN any case, thanks for your thoughts.  I do agree to
contrasts, as I said, but I like to look at the details
and have a fear of "lumping," of stereoyping.
    I think the "purer" forms of monotheism were achieved
gradually by both Greek and Hebrews--who in fact interacted,
and borrowed from each other.
   Peace.  Hal.
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