George Granville Monah James (November 9, 1893 – June 30, 1956) was a

Guyanese-American Guyanese Americans are an ethnic group of Americans who can trace their ancestry back to Guyana. As of 2019, there are 231,649 Guyanese Americans currently living in the United States. The majority of Guyanese live in New York City – some 140,00 ...

historian and author, known for his 1954 book ''Stolen Legacy'', which argues that

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empir ...

and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

originated in ancient Egypt.

Biography

James was born in

Georgetown, Guyana Georgetown is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Guyana. It is situated in Demerara-Mahaica, region 4, on the Atlantic Ocean coast, at the mouth of the Demerara River. It is nicknamed the "Garden City of the Caribbean." It is t ...

. His parents were Reverend Linch B. and Margaret E. James. James earned bachelor's and master's degrees at

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and gained his doctorate at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He was

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Livingstone College Livingstone College is a private, historically black Christian college in Salisbury, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Livingstone College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Sout ...

Salisbury, North Carolina Salisbury is a city in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, United States; it has been the county seat of Rowan County since 1753 when its territory extended to the Mississippi River. Located northeast of Charlotte and within its metropolita ...

, before working at Arkansas AM&N College in

Pine Bluff, Arkansas Pine Bluff is the eleventh-largest city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff Combin ...

. James died two years after publishing ''Stolen Legacy'' in 1954.Gwinyai Muzorewa, "Stolen Legacy"; in

Molefi Kete Asante Molefi Kete Asante ( ; born Arthur Lee Smith Jr.; August 14, 1942) is an American professor and philosopher. He is a leading figure in the fields of African-American studies, African studies, and communication studies. He is currently professor ...

& Ama Mazama (eds), ''Encyclopedia of Black Studies''; Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2005; p
440
James was a

freemason Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

and was associated with

Prince Hall Freemasonry Prince Hall Freemasonry is a branch of North American Freemasonry for African Americans founded by Prince Hall on September 29, 1784. There are two main branches of Prince Hall Freemasonry: the independent State Prince Hall Grand Lodges, most of ...

''Stolen Legacy''

James was the author of the widely circulated ''Stolen Legacy: The Greeks Were Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, But the People of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians'' (also known as ''Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy''), first published in 1954. In this book, James claims that, among other things, the ancient Greeks were not the original authors of

, which he argues was mainly based on ideas and concepts that were borrowed without acknowledgement, or indeed stolen, from the ancient Egyptians. He argues that Alexander the Great "invaded Egypt and captured the Royal Library at Alexandria and plundered it", that Aristotle's ideas came from these stolen books and that he established his school within the

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

. The book draws on the writings of

freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

to support its claim that the

Greco-Roman mysteries Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates ''(mystai)''. The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy ass ...

originate from an "Egyptian Mystery System", See
Afrocentrism
in online ''Skeptic's Dictionary''. although as historians point out, James doesn't cite these sources accurately. James invokes Ancient Greek sources such as

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

who describe the cultural debt of Greece to Egypt. He also mentions prominent Greek philosophers such as

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samos, Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionians, Ionian Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher and the eponymou ...

and

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

who are said to have studied in Egypt. He attributes Democritus's use of the term

atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...

(indivisible particle) to the Egyptian deity

Atum Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Name Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to com ...

, who symbolizes completeness and indivisibility.

Responses

''Stolen Legacy'' and its thesis have been controversial since the book was published. The book received positive responses by Afrocentrist authors but it was sharply criticized by historians and other scholars. Afrocentrist author William Leo Hansberry wrote in support of the book's key premises, including its conclusion that the Greeks stole the knowledge of the Egyptians. Philosopher Ronald B. Levinson dismissed the book in a 1955 review, writing that "only social psychologists and collectors of paradoxes will find here grist for their mills" and presenting some of James's claims as self-evidently ridiculous. Historian Stephen Howe wrote that the book "is a work of utmost intellectual naivety, innocent of even the outward appearances of academic procedure". Historians Wilson J. Moses,

Albert Gelpi Albert Gelpi is the Coe Professor of American Literature Emeritus at Stanford University. He taught literature, particularly poetry, there between 1968 and 2002. Gelpi also wrote a trilogy of literary criticism involving American poetry: *''The ...

Mary Lefkowitz Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten b ...

Ronald H. Fritze Ronald H. Fritze (born 1951) is an American encyclopedist, historian, and writer known for his criticism of pseudohistoric ideas. Biography Fritze earned his BA in history at Concordia College in 1974. He obtained a master's degree from Louisiana ...

and philosopher

Robert Todd Carroll Robert Todd Carroll (May 18, 1945 – August 25, 2016) was an American author, philosopher and academic, best known for The Skeptic's Dictionary. He described himself as a naturalist, an atheist, a materialist, a metaphysical libertarian, and ...

all call the book and its claims

pseudohistorical Pseudohistory is a form of pseudoscholarship that attempts to distort or misrepresent the historical record, often by employing methods resembling those used in scholarly historical research. The related term cryptohistory is applied to pseudohist ...

. Carroll writes that:

James's principal sources were Masonic, especially ''The Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry'' (1909) by the Rev. Charles H. Vail. The Masons in turn derived their misconceptions about Egyptian mystery and initiation rites from the eighteenth century work of fiction '' Sethos'' ..(1731) by the Abbe
Jean Terrasson Jean Terrasson (31 January 1670 – 15 September 1750), often referred to as the Abbé Terrasson, was a French priest, author and member of the Académie française. The erudite Antoine Terrasson was his nephew. Life Jean Terrasson, born in Lyo ...
(1670-1750), a professor of
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
. Terrasson had no access to Egyptian sources and he would be long dead before Egyptian hieroglyphics could be deciphered. But Terrasson knew the Greek and Latin writers well. So he constructed an imaginary Egyptian religion based upon sources which described Greek and Latin rites as if they were Egyptian ..Hence one of the main sources for Afrocentric Egyptology turns out to be Greece and Rome. The Greeks would have called this ''irony''. I don't know what Afrocentrists call it.

Professor of philosophy Ulstad Karin, reviewing the book in the academic journal ''

Kritike ''Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy'' is a biannual peer-reviewed interdisciplinary and international journal of philosophy published by the Department of Philosophy, University of Santo Tomas. The editors-in-chief are Paolo Bolaños and ...

'', states that it isn't a genuine work of scholarship, but rather "a plea for justice and reformation, a call to turn the tide of racism washing over his time". He writes that: ''Stolen Legacy'' has strongly influenced the Afrocentric school of history, including leading exponents such as Asa Hillaird,

Yosef Ben-Jochannan Yosef Alfredo Antonio Ben-Jochannan (; December 31, 1918 – March 19, 2015), referred to by his admirers as "Dr. Ben", was an American writer and historian. He was considered to be one of the more prominent Afrocentricism, Afrocentric scholars ...

and

Lefkowitz–Bernal arguments

In the 1990s,

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

professor

emerged as a prominent critic of Afrocentrism and of James. Her critique of ''Stolen Legacy'' showed that the book tries to look scholarly but is ultimately a pseudohistory which is disingenuous and extremely tendentious in its conclusions. Lefkowitz makes the following arguments:

, "The Myth of a 'Stolen Legacy'", ''Fraud'' 31(3), March/April 1994; doi:10.1007/BF02693227. * Ancient Egypt was racially mixed (and therefore its cultural legacy does not represent an inherently "black" or "African" contribution). * ''Stolen Legacy'' is unscholarly, relying heavily on repetition of claims about Alexander's "theft" of Egyptian material, and lacking precise footnoting. *

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

was founded after Alexander's conquest of Egypt and never integrated into Egyptian society, and the Library of Alexandria was built still later; therefore, it contained no repository of Egyptian culture for the immigrant Greeks to steal. * James misrepresents his masonic sources, who in discussing the "Egyptian mysteries" actually mean Greco-Roman mysteries operating in Egypt, and cites other outdated sources on Egypt which do not take modern scholarship into account. ("Thus most ironically," she writes, "the 'Egyptian Mystery System' described by James is not African, but essentially Greek, and in its details, specifically European.") * The Egyptian writings (notably the Hermetic Corpus) that James presents as predecessors to Greek philosophy were composed in the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

. * Similarities found by ancient writers between Greek and Egyptian deities do not imply Egyptian origin. Egyptian philosophy does not include a doctrine of

transmigration of souls Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...

. Other purported connections in mathematics, science, and philosophy are also insubstantial. * The great philosophers

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

and

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

are not said to have traveled to Egypt.

Martin Bernal Martin Gardiner Bernal (; 10 March 1937 – 9 June 2013) was a British scholar of modern Chinese political history. He was a Professor of Government and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He is best known for his work ''Black Athena'', a ...

, author of the ''

Black Athena ''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'', its three volumes first published in 1987, 1991, and 2006 respectively, is a controversial book by Martin Bernal proposing an alternative hypothesis on the origins of ancient Gree ...

'' trilogy which presents arguments similar to ''Stolen Legacy'', in turn criticized Lefkowitz for poor sourcing, double standards for evidence, and omission of key details. Bernal points to modern scholarship indicating pre-Hellenistic origins of the Hermetic Corpus. Bernal argues that archaeological data, as well as Greek and Latin sources, demonstrate a diffusion of the cult of

Isis Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...

mystery religion Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiation rite, initiates ''(mystai)''. The main characterization of this religion i ...

, and

initiation Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense, it can also signify a transformation ...

ceremonies from Egypt to Greece. Finally, Bernal recapitulates the historiographical argument of ''Black Athena'' Volume 1 that the "Ancient Model" of Egyptian influence on Greece was standard until it was eclipsed in the 19th century, for ideological reasons, by the "Aryan Model".

"The Afrocentric Interpretation of History: Bernal Relies to Lefkowitz"
''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education'' 11, Spring 1996. Lefkowitz, replying in the same journal, wrote that Greek philosophy borrowed from Egypt, but neither "borrowed massively" nor "stole", and Greece was influenced by other cultures as well. She responds to his critique of her reading of

Diodorus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which su ...

and clarifies other points. She remonstrates that Bernal uses needlessly charged terms such as "attack", "rage", and "Aryan", which distract from the matter at hand.Mary Lefkowitz,
An Afrocentric Interpretation of Western History: Lefkowitz Replies to Bernal
; ''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education'' 12, Summer 1996. Italian historian

Mario Liverani Mario Liverani (born 10 January 1939 in Rome), is an Italian historian and Professor of Ancient Near East History at the University of Rome La Sapienza. He is a member of many institutions, such as the American Oriental Society, Accademia delle Sci ...

sides with Lefkowitz and considers Bernal and the Afrocentrists to be far more biased and guilty of falsification than any of the allegedly racist scholars who, Bernal claims, created the Aryan Model of ancient history. Liverani's solution is for scholars "to work without prejudices and hidden agendas".

Bibliography

* James, George G. M.
Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy
'. Philosophical Library, 1954.

Notes

References

External links

''Stolen Legacy'' editions listed on WorldCat
* Charles D. Johnson,
An Investigation into the Death of Professor George G. M. James
concerning a claim formerly made on Wikipedia that James died violently shortly after ''Stolen Legacy'' was published. {{DEFAULTSORT:James, George 20th-century Guyanese historians American Prince Hall Freemasons Alumni of Durham University Alumni of the University of London Livingstone College faculty Columbia University alumni University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff faculty Afrocentrists 1893 births 1956 deaths