Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
This post continues the series discussing Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts. After the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden we enter a new series of adventures that find their counterpart in the next book by Plato, Critias. Here we are led to understand that the land of Eden was … Continue reading “The Garden of Eden — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus-Critias – 7a]”
The stately narrative of the creation of the cosmos in six days crowned by a sabbath rest comes to an abrupt end as the reader is swept into a totally different dimension: an announcement of the “generations of heaven and earth”, a world of animals being created after the man, a garden with mythical geography … Continue reading “The Second Creation Story in Genesis — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 6]”
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image [LXX εικόνα], according to our likeness [LXX όμοίωσιν]; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that … Continue reading “When God Created Humans, then Retired: Genesis 1 as Science — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 5c]”
Archaeologist Yonatan Adler of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored a new book, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. The findings of Adler are consistent with other books I have blogged about over the years setting out a case for the history of “biblical Israel” being a late theological construct, composed no earlier … Continue reading “The “Late” Origins of Judaism – The Archaeological Evidence”
Genesis 1 is not a science text. It is primarily a theological myth but it is theology and myth wrapped around a contemporary scientific understanding of how the earth and heavens came into existence. Russell Gmirkin in Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts sets out a case for the author(s) of Genesis 1 being … Continue reading “In Six Days: Genesis 1 as Science — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 5b]”
The ideas set out in the preceding chapters of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts begin to find their “real-life” application in chapter 5. This chapter, “Genesis 1 as Science”, is a verse-by-verse commentary drawing on the preceding discussions. MT = Masoretic text = Hebrew Bible LXX = Septuagint = Greek translation … Continue reading “In the Beginning: Genesis 1 as Science — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 5a]”
Creation of man in God’s image is probably one of the most striking analogy to Plato’s work. . . . It is the most openly expressed in Timaeus. (Niesiołowski-Spanò 2007:118) In Timaeus Plato gives his vision of the creation of the world, one that seems close to that of Genesis yet at the same time … Continue reading “Genesis 1 as Philosophy — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 4]”
(continuing the series on Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts) …. If the authors of Genesis were inspired by Plato’s discourse on the origins of the cosmos in Timaeus how can one explain the obvious contrast between Plato’s lengthy scientific and philosophical reasoning and the simple narrative in Genesis 1:1-2:3? To answer … Continue reading “Why Genesis 1-3 is Different from Other Myths — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 3b]”
Here is the thesis that Russell Gmirkin [RG] is buttressing in Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts: Plato’s writings, including Plato’s Laws, envisioned theologically trained educated elites ruling the nation and creating a national literature to shape the beliefs and character of the ordinary citizenry, both youths and adults (Gmirkin 2017: 255-61). The creation … Continue reading “Genesis = Science + Myth + Theology — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 3a]”
The creation account in Genesis 1 is unlike other creation myths from the ancient world. There are little hints in the chapter that the author was aware of more dramatic myths of gods fighting monsters and in the process creating the cosmos, but unlike those myths Genesis 1:1-2:3 appears to be . . . . … Continue reading “Genesis 1 “Amazing” “Unique” — [Biblical Creation Accounts/Plato’s Timaeus – 2]”
Similarities between the Pentateuch and Greek literature have long been noted and discussed in scholarly literature, but most of those discussions have assumed that the Greeks and the authors of the biblical books were independently drawing on Asiatic stories or even that some Greeks were exposed to translations of parts of the Pentateuch. (Evangelia Dafni … Continue reading “Biblical Creation Accounts and Plato – 1”
My reviews of Russell Gmirkin’s Plato’s Timaeus and the Biblical Creation Accounts and Mike Duncan’s Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem have to wait till I return home where I can work with something larger than a laptop screen. Till then, however, I must take the opportunity to catch up with where I left off with … Continue reading “Next up…”
Previous installments: How and Why the Gospel of Mark Used Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 1 Creating New Stories from Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 2 To What Shall We Compare the Gospels? — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 3 Nathanael Vette (NV) is demonstrating … Continue reading “Creating Pseudo-History (and Comedy) from Scripture — a review of Writing with Scripture, part 4”
In a comment to the previous post, Russell Gmirkin took issue with my explanation of Kuhn’s definition of a paradigm and my conclusion that fields of study outside of natural sciences don’t have Kuhnian paradigms, and hence no “paradigm shifts.” He quoted from his forthcoming book, as follows: One may define an academic paradigm as … Continue reading “Paradigm Shifts in Religious Studies (Part 3)”