Clivedurdle

Now where have I seen that before? Pirates? Mithras?...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsus_(city)

And people can assert Paul did not know Platonic thinking?

Jeffrey Gibson

The so called Cilician Pirates were not Cilicians (on this, see Appian, History of Rome: §§92), and their headquarters at Coracesium is nowhere near Tarsus, nor is the place where Plutarch tells us they engaged in "rites of Mithras" to violate a Temple dedicated to Zeus.

Nor is there any evidence whatsoever of a Mithras cult in Tarsus before or during (and after) Paul's time. Besides that, the tradition that Paul was from Tarsus is Lukan and may not be true.

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

Where does your source say that the schools of philosophy at Tarsus were Platonic schools or that Plato was taught within them?

And you are confusing knowing Plato with using him.

I know the works of Plato. I do not agree with his world view or use his philosophy as a vehicle for expressing my ideas.

And I'm still waiting for you to find in Plato what I asked you find.

Will you do this?

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

Umm Paul lived what 400 years after Plato? And you expect identical wording in both?

We are talking similar ideas and ways of thinking, not identical.

Have you heard of coevolution, of gestalt?

Jeffrey Gibson

So? His writings were still available even if he wasn't.

Yes or at least very close.. After all, if Plato was studied, no matter how long after his death, his words would be known. After all, we find identical wording in Platonists of Paul's time. And Plato's way of stating things was part of 1st century Philosophical vocabulary. So why not in Paul? How else would you know that Paul is a Platonist?

Did I say it had to be identical? Didn't I ask for equivalent expressions?

And with what idea in Plato is Paul's claim that with respect to seeing ἀγάπη as superior to πίστις and ἐλπίς we see in the present age only "through or by means of a mirror in a riddle" but in an age to come we will see "face to face", the counterpart of?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson

[QUOTE=Clivedurdle;5041991]Have you actually read Plato?

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Solitary Man

Does that mean you haven't indeed read Plato?

James Madison

May as well as argue Jo Schmo is familiar with Scalia's mode of constitutional interpretation merely because he lives in New York City, a metropolitan area known to have two prominent law schools and some dozen libraries.

Furthermore, "Hellenization" was not exclusively Plato but his rivals who repudiated his ideas and notions of the "forms," such as some of the "sophists," and so forth. So, even if I assume Paul is the author of Hebrews, and was exposed to the Platonic philosophy, I have no evidence to suggest he favored it so much to use it in the book of Hebrews (as you assume.) Yet, ultimately in the end the proposition is predicated upon a host of assumptions, like Doherty's position.

Jeffrey Gibson

What "Hebrew version" of the Wisdom of Solomon???

And where here or in the bits you left out), i.e,

[22] [For Wisdom] which is the ἡ γὰρ πάντων τεχνι̂τις taught me.
For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible,
[23] beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent and pure and most subtle.
[24] For wisdom is more mobile than any motion;
because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.
[25] For she is a breath of the power of God,
and a pure emanation [ἀπόρροια] of the glory of the Almighty
therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her.
[26] For she is a reflection of eternal light,
a spotless mirror of the working of God,
and an image of his goodness.
[27] Though she is but one, she can do all things,
and while remaining in herself, she renews all things;
in every generation she passes into holy souls
and makes them friends of God, and prophets;
[28] for God loves nothing so much as the man who lives with wisdom.
[29] For she is more beautiful than the sun,
and excels every constellation of the stars.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior,
[30] for it is succeeded by the night,
but against wisdom evil does not prevail.

Wis.8
[1] She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other,
and she orders [διοικει] ̂all things well.

is there any statement about Wisdom having an active role in the creation of the world?

Furthermore, does not the description of Wisdom in 8:4 as “chooser of God’s works” [αἱρετὶς τω̂ν ἔργων αὐτου̂] imply that Wisdom is not an entity separate from God, as is the son spoken of in Heb. 1:2, but is identical with the Divine Mind through which the Deity acts? And does not the assertion in 9:9 that “with you is Wisdom who knows your works and was present when you created the world” (καὶ μετὰ σου̂ ἡ σοφία ἡ εἰδυι̂α τὰ ἔργα σου καὶ παρου̂σα, ὅτε ἐποίεις τὸν κόσμον),signify that Wisdom is (or embodies) the paradigmatic patterns of all things (cf. 9:8 εἰ̂πας οἰκοδομη̂σαι ναὸν ἐν ὄρει ἁγίῳ σου καὶ ἐν πόλει κατασκηνώσεώς σου θυσιαστήριον, μίμημα σκηνη̂ς ἁγίας, ἣν προητοίμασας ἀπʼ ἀρχη̂ς) and serves as the instrument not the agent of their creation?

And isn't this what the author of Hebrews is saying about the son? That's what the "platonist" James Moffat says the author is doing, isn't it?

Jeffrey