Ancient Travellers, Intercultural Contact, and the Fear of Gods

Although the fear of Yhwh has been presented as an intrinsic feature of the ancient Israelite religion, the fear of God(s) is not limited to the people of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, and similar ideas of fearing deities occur in various texts produced by neighbouring cultures in the ancient eastern Mediterranean. This article investigates the prosocial role of this virtue in situations of human mobility and intercultural contact in the light of the Hebrew Bible and the Odyssey. First, I analyse those Hebrew Bible texts in which the fear of God(s) characterizes or is presented as being intelligible to non-Israelite people in situations involving movement and cultural encounter (Gen 20:11; 42:18; Exod 1:17, 21; Deut 25:18; Jon 1:9). Second, I explore the fear motif in other texts from the ancient eastern Mediterranean region and argue that biblical scholars have overlooked illuminating intertexts found in ancient Greek literature. I especially highlight the interpretative importance of the Odyssey, which frequently stresses the prosocial role of the virtue of fearing deities in the context of travel and contact with outsiders. In so doing, the Odyssey helps us see how the Hebrew Bible texts portraying the fear of God(s) as a universalistic virtue are rooted in and belong to a broader ancient Mediterranean milieu.