Tag: Plato

2010-05-15

Genesis myths inspired by Plato?

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Literature, Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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There was an interesting article in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament in 2007 by Lukas Niesiolowski-Spano (LN-S) of Warsaw University titled “Primeval History in the Persian Period?” (SJOT, Vol.21, no. 12, 106-126, 2007). The paper was first presented at the Seminar of Historical Methodology in Groningen, The Netherlands, 2004.

The Genesis creation stories are unlike other ancient Middle Eastern myths. LN-S refers to the “unparalleled character of the Primeval History in its Near Eastern environment”, and attributes this to the influence of Platonic philosophy in their making.

The assumption throughout the discussion is that no text can be dated earlier than external testimony permits. Genesis, in particular, its first two chapters, cannot be dated any earlier than when we find other texts making reference to them. In other words, normal practical historical methodology that applies to any nonbiblical study is followed. Dr LN-S is a lecturer in the Department of Ancient History at the University of Warsaw.

I begin here with some evidence for the earliest knowledge of Genesis, though LN-S really adds this at the end of his article. (I have colour coded some of the following sections to make for easier browsing of the main thought sections I have taken from LN-S’s article.)

What is the earliest evidence for Genesis? Continue reading “Genesis myths inspired by Plato?”

2010-05-11

God taught Cain the wisdom of Plato

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Literature, Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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I have been doing some follow up reading on a paper presented at a Netherlands Seminar on Historical Methodology and chanced upon the following passage from Plato in Timaeus. It is speaking of newly created human beings at the dawn of time:

in the second place, they must have love, in which pleasure and pain mingle; also fear and anger, and the feelings which are akin or opposite to them; if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously.

Given the context of the paper I was reading, it was not hard to hear the echo of God’s instruction to Cain in Genesis 4:

And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.
So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

Many of us can acknowledge that this instruction to Cain is an unusual image in the context of a primeval tale about Cain and the first murder. Sin is something that must be mastered, ruled, lest it master or rule us. It is a striking image that has prompted countless discussions among believers.

And there it is, the same image, sitting in the writings of Plato. Not only the same image, but the same same context of the sin of anger.

Now I’ve given the away what my next post will be about — the lateness of the composition of Genesis and the influence of Greek philosophy, particularly Platonic thought, that went into the creation of its myths.


2010-04-07

Who said this? Jesus, Paul, Philo or Plato?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Literature, Biblical Studies, New Testament
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Raphael's School of Athens, Rome
Image by jaybergesen via Flickr

Mark plays with literal and metaphorical meanings of words to show how spiritually blind the disciples of Jesus were. It’s a technique that works at the literary level. But in reality people are by nature attuned to the nature and prevalence of metaphor in everyday speech, so the dialogue narrated for this effect is hardly realistic, and therefore implausible as real history. But setting reality aside for a moment, we can play at historical Jesus scholarship and ask for the origin of the core saying in the following passage of Mark 7:

14Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.‘ “

17After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? 19For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” .  .  .  .  .

20He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ 21For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ “

The Jesus Seminar (1993) declared that:

The Fellows were virtually unanimous in rejecting 7:20-23 as coming from Jesus. The list of sins is similar to others found in early Christian texts, such as the one in Rom 1:28-32. And it appears to have been introduced here to spiritualize and thus soften the previous reference to bodily defecation. (p.70, The Five Gospels)

Ten years later Geza Vermes published the counterpoint:

We are witnessing here the general moralizing tendency which Jesus adopted in continuity with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. (p. 346, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus).

But my favourite contender for the origin of this saying comes down to a contest between Philo and Plato. Here is Plato’s saying (I think he’s really only the runner up): Continue reading “Who said this? Jesus, Paul, Philo or Plato?”