Previous in this series:
- Plato’s and the Bible’s Ideal Laws: Similarities 1:631-637 (2015-06-22)
- Plato’s and Bible’s Laws: Similarities, completing Book 1 of Laws (2015-06-23)
- Plato’s Laws, Book 2, and Biblical Values (2015-07-13)
- Plato and the Bible on the Origins of Civilization (2015-08-13)
- Bible’s Presentation of Law as a Model of Plato’s Ideal (2015-08-24)
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Plato’s and the Bible’s Ideal States (2015-09-21)
The ideal state can only begin with the second generation
First generation to receive the laws has to die off before the state can be established on a secure footing:
Plato’s Laws, Book 6:
| Laws 752 b-c | Deuteronomy 1:34-39 |
| Athenian. Let us remember what a courageously mad and daring creation this our city is. Cleinias (of Crete). What had you in your mind when you said that? Athenian. I had in my mind the free and easy manner in which we are ordaining that the inexperienced colonists shall receive our laws. Now a man need not be very wise, Cleinias, in order to see that no one can easily receive laws at their first imposition. But if we could anyhow wait until those who have been imbued with them from childhood, and have been nurtured in them, and become habituated to them, . . . if this could be accomplished . . . -then, I think that there would be very little danger, at the end of the time, of a state thus trained not being permanent. |
34 “And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, 35 ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, 36 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’37 Even with me the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. 38 Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39 And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. ’ |
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