Beth Phillips

There is another correspondence with Plato in the Gospel of John:

This can be read as setting the stage for an exposition on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (from the Rebublic.) In brief, most everyone lives in the darkness of a cave, sitting chained in such a way as to be facing only the back wall of the cave. There is a light shining behind them, but all they can see are the shadows dancing on the wall before them. Plato imagines that one prisoner gets free from the shadows, and in time actually makes it to the mouth of the cave (through education) and is eventually led outside the cave altogether (allegory of enlightenment.) According to Plato, if someone who has 'seen the light' outside the cave of darkness came back in to try and liberate his former fellow prisoners, they would be so angry with him that they would surely kill him. Ergo, John's fate. [The name 'John' also carries the Semitic meaning of 'Ionian', or 'Greek'.]

Then there is also:

Quote:

John 1:1-4: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

Quote:

1:10: He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him…

He/him being the “Logos� that has been defined as being existent from the beginning and in the world at present, yet people could not ‘see it’ or ‘would not’ acknowledge it. This is Heraclitian philosophy, complete with his frustrations...of which Plato surely inherited.

Quote:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Following this line of thinking, this verse is then setting the stage for a new allegory based upon not only Heraclitian philosophy but also the Allegory of the Cave--and everything that comes with that! In general, the writer of the Gospel of John (as well as other NT writers) are choosing the Greek philosophical wisdom that they agree with and using it as the backdrop for the positive NT message. For the negative...they are also using other philosophies and beliefs of the period with which they disagree.


Beth

andrewcriddle

The ultimate basis of claims that Cicero mentions the Eucharist seems to be the statement in On the Nature of the Gods Any reference to the Eucharist here is IMO most unlikely.

Andrew Criddle

CJD

In the pertinent Palestinian locales!!

And they were all fairly well confined to specific localities until or around the first half of the first century.

The point is, sure, we can see literary and artistic parallels all over the place all day long, but you're a far ways from showing any influence. Dionysus once rode on mule? Waving branches of ivy? No doubt the 'triumphal procession' of Jesus was ripped from that. Or could it be that this is a rather normal way to describe a kingly figure processing into a conquered town?

The god of wine actually turned water into wine? Well, we have a little problem here: In Bowersock's Fiction and History: from Nero to Julian (pp. 125-28), it is mentioned how this bit of information about Dionysus is learnt from Tatius. Note well that this is a good deal later than all the gospel narratives, and that it presumes to tell the reader about an otherwise unknown rite, which elementary skeptics (like Freke and Gandy, for example) will then take as evidence that it pre-dates the time of Jesus. Bowersock, a secular historian, has a few sharp words for folks who drudge this kind of stuff up.

There are so many stories and variations on Dionysus and his life/death, etc., who in the end is surprised to see such superficial resemblance?

I wonder, Beth, who's changing/rearranging history to suit whom?

CJD

CJD

Don't post such stuff then if you're not willing to substantiate it further. Your cursory swipe at supposed parallels from Plato was manifestly empty. I am not merely concerned with being right (all my exegesis might wrong); I am concerned with defending the notion that the NT as a whole relies far more heavily on the TNK than any other thing out there in the Greco-Roman world.

And don't get me started on biases, as if you stand on any more solid ground than anyone else here (religionist or otherwise).

How about just recognize, in all humility, that we are all very selective in these matters. My picture just happens to be the most cohesive up to this point.

And your lack thereof gives you away.

Good. Wipe it all away with a simple sleight of hand. Discerning minds won't give it a second thought!

[CJD, now slinking in a corner, sucks his thumb, wimpering, "I know it's real. I know it's real. I know it's real. I know ... ."]

SLD

Yes, but Paul wasn't from Palestine, he was from Tarsus in Asia Minor, and a Roman Citizen. He would have been quite familiar with Mystery Cults.

SLD

Beth Phillips

:rolling: CJD, That is actually pretty funny!! Really...

Outside of the Bible and Josephus, show me where I can find written evidence as to exactly what/where/who was present and accounted for in the first century ce: and why you think that there would be no GrecoRoman influence there or on its people??? Why is that so important to you? Nothing exists in a vacuum... If it is worth its salt as a period text, it will take everything pertinent into consideration...which is all that I am trying to do. Besides, the writer of the epistles had the character Paul make it clear that he was not too hip on his fellow Jews that read by the 'Letter of the Law' rather than the 'Spirit of the Law'. And moreover, the 'NT as a whole' is not reflective of everything that was produced by the new religious movement. But surely you know that... To you maybe, but not to me. I can't make it fit with everything else that I know about the ancient world, and unless you can show that what you claim happened in a parallel universe or something, you are not being cohesive, but rather, faithful. I may not have a passion for the religion, but I have a great passion for these texts...why else would I devote so much of my life to them? Just to prove them wrong??? No, to figure out the truth about them... I am trying to figure out what the real history of these texts are, not just regurgitate the well-worn explanation that doesn't fit with the rest of history.

My contribution is what it is...

Beth

CJD

Beth, all in good fun. Just because I'm passionate doesn't mean I take myself too seriously …

In sum, I am unable to make as much sense from the early Christian writings (those 'other ones' you mentioned notwithstanding) if I were to start from Greek philosophical presuppositions than Hebraic ones. My simple way is this: first comes the narrow social construct of the Palestinian levant, then the broader Greco-Roman world. For example, in the epistle to the Romans, I see basically a re-telling of the exodus in new-covenantal terms as a means to explain to the readers (followers of Jesus) in the broader Greco-Roman world how to relate to one another (i.e., how Jews are to relate to Gentiles, and vice versa). It is a uniquely Greco-Roman problem answered in a uniquely Hebraic fashion.

Best,

CJD

Beth Phillips

CJD,

I also try not to take myself too seriously either. I will admit, however, that some days I am more passionate about the backlash of religion regarding these texts than I am on other days. It's a personal opinion, and I should probably refrain from responding on those days, but don't we all come with our own particular baggage and have the need to be heard sometimes? Well, some of us anyway... This is just another fact that told me that the 'NT over-all story' as we eventually inherited it, was just not the case. The whole Gnostic tradition of writings for example, which were certainly Greco/Persian/Roman in flavor as well as being juxtaposed with the first canon of scripture, is very complex metaphysical stuff with all the archons, the different cosmologies and all the different layers of reality involved. But these writings were a part of the earliest tradition of Christianity, and even though the organized Roman Catholic Church eventually branded them all as heresy, that does not change the original truth of the first century events. Philo is, however, much easier to read and understand. Once again I will mention Philo. This ancient Jewish writer did the exact same thing with scripture, only vis-a-vis Greek philosophy, and if we have any known writer that would have been a contemporary of the writer of the Pauline epistles and the gospels, it would have been Philo (20 bce - 50ce.) He would have actually been alive when the 'Jesus story' supposedly occured, and yet he never mentions it. This to me is very telling.

What you are finding in Romans, is in my opinion what 'early Christianity' or the texts anyway, was to a certain extent: an updating of the first canon of scriptures to provide an ancient story a new garment that brought the scriptures into their own time period--also vis-a-vis Greco/Persian/Roman philosophy and culture (and 'garment' was one of the primary metaphors the ancient Jewish writers chose to use for this.)

In fact, this literary methodology is reflective of the exegetical practices of the entire rabbinical period: they used the first canon of scripture as a base, and then every generation would "re-tell"/'reinterpret' the scripture in an attempt to make it applicable in their respective cultural/political clime. This is the meaning of the Semitic word 'Midrash'. From 'drash' which is a verb that means "to resort," "to seek out," as in "seek out meaning." 'Midrash' as a noun then means, "study," "exposition," "interpretation."

In essence, the first canon of scripture served as the base text, or archetypal circumstances, that provided these early thinkers with a life-like narrative text through which the human condition could be explored no matter the modernity of the period. It is like taking a Shakespeare play and finding all the correspondences that are still the case in the twenty-first century. To be able to do this with a text, or a group of texts, adding in here the Platonic Dialogues is illustrative of narrative literature at its best, but no matter what we think of this, we cannot make these ancient narratives into real history, anymore than we can with Shakespeare. Even though kernals of ANE history can be found in the bible like the existence of Sennacherib (king of Assyria) it does not follow from this that there was actually a King Saul, David or Solomon. The necessary supporting evidence is just not there.

IMO, the biggest problem that Christianity has today is that its narrative base can no longer be reinterpreted to fit the twenty-first century world. A few hundred years, maybe, like with the ancient biblical writers, but two thousand years? Not so easy; much, too much, has changed in the world, even if humans are still humans. It is, once again IMO, that we have plenty of other 'more current myths' that we are all living by today without needing to depend upon these antiquated old myths that are just serving to hold back humanity's progress rather than encourage it. I want to know the truth about these texts, if that is at all possible, and these things are the reasons that I do the work that I do...

Beth

yalla

A lot of this dialogue is way above me but, by coincidence, I am currently reading F.F. Bruce's commentary on ''Romans" [Romans having been mentioned in a post here].
And I thought you might be interested in this, from FF, referring to Romans 7.15 , Paul's discussion of the law and sin.."For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do".
FF cites three clasical parallels to this:
Horace "I pursue the things that have done me harm; I shun the things I believe will do me good" Epistles i. 8. 11
Ovid ''I see and approve the better course, but I follow the worse one" Metamorphoses vii.20
Epictetus ii. 26.4 --no details.