Clivedurdle

Has anybody read Plato? Which of his alleged works are originally his, without later editorial changes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

I may be being a bear of little brain here but I am having great difficulty understanding how a document - Hebrews - written in acknowledged superb Greek - is alleged to be a traditional Hebrew document that somehow has managed to ignore the major philosophical ideas of the time.

So many of the reported words of Jesus - sight to the blind, kingdom of heaven, have Platonic roots it is ridiculous to deny it!

Maybe hjists are eu a-mousoi!

Jeffrey Gibson

Yes, in obvious contrast to you.

What bearing does this have on whether the idea in 1 Cor. 13 that you say
is Platonic can be found in the works of (attributed to) Plato. It's either there or it isn't.

Are you going to back up your claim by an actual citation from a work of Plato or not?

Leaving aside the fact that you ignore (even if we could assume that you are aware of) the major philosophical ideas of your time), why do you assume as you do that Platonism was the only, let alone the major, philosophical movement of "the time"?

And are you really committing yourself to the claim that the ability of a first century author to write in good Greek entails not only that author's knowledge, but also his adoption, of Platonism?


It is?

May I suggest that you have a look at this far more more authoritative and informed discussion of what Platonism is, as well as Isaiah 61 and such Jewish texts as T. Mos. 10:1; T. Dan 5:13; and especially Ps. of Solomon,17:3, and then demonstrate for us the Platonic roots of Jesus' words about "sight to the blind" and the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (τῶν οὐρανῶν).

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle

Kindly look up meme.

Ben C Smith

It is not the grammar that I am looking at. (Although the aorist of the participle for having been designated is often used in a defining sense with the main verb, in this case became the source, which would mean that he became the source by being designated high priest, and some translations reflect this, I am not relying on this grammatical potentiality, since the aorist can also mean simple time prior to the main verb.)

Hebrews 2.9-10:

But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor on account of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Here Jesus is given glory and honor on account of his death (and in order that said death might count for others); it is this suffering death that perfects or completes him.

Hebrews 5.4-10:

And one does not take the honor upon himself, but he is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him: You are my son; today I have begotten you; as he says also in another place: You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

Here it is God, not Jesus himself, who glorifies and honors Jesus (same two concepts as in 2.9) to be high priest. A sequence is now set up:

1. Days of his flesh; prayers, cries, and tears. Jesus is a son learning obedience through suffering.
2. Perfection (through a suffering death).
3. Source of eternal salvation, designated as a high priest.

In this context, and with 2.9-10 in our peripheral vision, Jesus becomes high priest only upon being glorified, which is after his being perfected, which is only after his suffering death.

Note also that he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek, which is a priesthood that the author in 7.24 describes as a permanent assignment because Jesus remains forever; if Jesus was of this priestly order before dying, then his death should have broken it, since the author of Hebrews is explicit (7.23) that death brings an end to priesthood. It is clear that, unless the author is forthcoming with some kind of apologetic explanation (which I do not think he is), Jesus cannot have attained to this permanent priestly order until after he had died, with the usual understanding that, now risen, he is no longer to die again. Refer also to 7.16, where Jesus is made priest according to the power of life indestructible. When did he get this kind of life? Surely in his glorification, not before death (which by definition cannot happen to someone whose life is indestructible!) but at or after.

This is the root fallacy, and I think you are aware of what I am looking for. You are the one who brought up the new (or heavenly) Jerusalem as a potential part of the inhabited earth, not I. What I am asking you for is evidence that somebody actually thought of it in that way. Not speculation (well, somebody may have), but evidence.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

This is all becoming clearer!

You have linked to an interpretation of Plato - it states clearly it is a modern interpretation - that defines platonic objects as abstract. I have a problem with that - things were not and are not as neat and tidy as that, because these platonic abstract "non existent thingies" are somehow real whereas the world we experience is not.

OK there are logical fallacies littered around the place like abstract non existent objects being able to do things, but we are discussing a world of gods and magic - similar to the modern world - as happens now people invoked a goddidit card.

Hebrews has taken a platonic idea of a perfect holy god - see Revelation about that - admixed it with Most High ideas, Judaic thinking and come up with a glorious marinade. My point is that platonic ideas are clearly one of the ingredients, recognisable but well and truly mangled. The problem seems to be that modern writers have been too purist and said well it doesn't fit exactly so it isn't there. Of course it does not fit exactly! It has been well and truly mangled, but the structural features are obvious!

Clivedurdle

Little while - not 33 years! This is an account of events in heaven - became a little lower than the angels? For whom and by whom all things exist?

We are clearly talking of an ante room to the throne room of Most High here!

And what is this becoming perfect stuff through death of someone who is already perfect?

It looks like too much logic is being imposed on these writings - it is not there! It is not internally consistent.

Try reading it warts and illogicalities and all, with a base assumption that God and Heaven and the heavenly Jerusalem are real and true and perfect and we on our mortal coil are shadows. Experience the power of this gospel - the perfect son of God has beome a little lower than the angels, has beome the sacrificial lamb for us in the heavenly temple and washed away our sins!


The gospels are tawdry in the face of this magnificent gospel of the Christ sacrificing himself in the heavens to save us all!

Ted Hoffman

This really is not important. What is important is what we can argue was the author of Hebrews' cosmological orientation.
Thanks for playing.
I am familiar with some of its rules of grammar and syntax. Do I have to master them to qualify?
That would render 99% of us unfit to comment on what you post.

Clivedurdle

About Plato and the New Testament - bit like Tintin and.....let's try 1 Corinthians 13:13.

Plato's Symposium:

First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth,
The everlasting seat of all that is,
And Love. In other words, after Chaos, the Earth and Love, these two, came into being. Also Parmenides sings of Generation:

First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love. And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod. Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods. And not only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us. For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover or to the lover than a beloved youth. For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live at principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love.

...These are my reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest and noblest and mightiest of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life, and of happiness after death.

Regarding νυνὶ δὲ μ�*νει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη, τὰ τρία ταῦτα· μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη. Translated generally as And now remains faith hope charity/love these three but the greatest of these is charity/love

Pistis is a technical term used repeatedly by Plato in the Republic and elsewhere to mean inferior belief or belief through the senses. While Christian translators give it the later Christian meaning of "faith", why do we not use the earlier concept that it is referring to Plato's idea of belief, which goes along with hope and love?

The form of the three abstract nouns describing the three emotional states of belief, hope and love together is probably related to the worship of the Three Graces, Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia,(or Kharites from which the word Charity comes) who were three daughters of Zeus (see http://www.theoi.com/Cult/KharitesCult.html) They were servants of love, according to Pausanius. Thus love was greater than the three, although the author in elided love into his third term.

James Madison

Actually, it is quite important. The fact you fail to grasp its importance does not make it unimportant. Thank you for playing. Insert more coins to continue on.

Jeffrey Gibson

And pray tell, Clive, what is the Greek word that is translated "love" in these texts? Is it ἀγάπη?

Maybe because Plato is hardly the only ancient author besides Paul to use the term technically or otherwise, and because both in Plato's time and afterwards "inferior belief" was not the only technical meaning that the term bore, and that by Paul's time it was being used in constructions similar to what we find in Paul when he speaks of it with a technical sense other than that which Plato used it -- i.e., loyalty.

What makes you certain that πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη were regarded in Paul's time as emotional states?

Where on earth do you get this -- especially when these three graces -- whose names, by the way, mean Splendor, Festivity and Rejoicing respectively -- are the embodiments/personifications of human and divine pleasure and joy, not πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη and when it's not certain that that these were the three to whom Greeks gave cult. According to the Spartans, Cleta, not Thalia, was the third, and other Graces are sometimes mentioned, including Auxo, Hegemone, Phaenna, and Pasithea among others.

In any case, please show me that there was an active cult of these three graces in Paul's time and in any place that would have influenced Paul or the Corinthians.

And BTW there is no Grace named Χάριτες. That is a term used for all three daughters of Zeus and Eurynome (or of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios and the naiad Aegle). There is a grace named Χάρις whose name is derived from, not the origin of the word χάρις, ιτος -- which, by the way, means graciousness, attractiveness , favor, grace, gracious care or help, goodwill, not love) and who is not an embodiment of ἀγάπη

Here is what (even your source notes) Pausanius says:

"The Boeotians say that Eteocles was the first man to sacrifice to the Graces. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Graces, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them. The Lacedaemonians, however, say that the Graces are two, and that they were instituted by Lacedaemon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names of Cleta and Phaenna. These are appropriate names for Graces, as are those given by the Athenians, who from of old have worshipped two Graces, Auxo and Hegemone... It was from Eteocles of Orchomenus that we learned the custom of praying to three Graces. And Angelion and Tectaus, sons of Dionysus, who made the image of Apollo for the Delians, set three Graces in his hand. Again, at Athens, before the entrance to the Acropolis, the Graces are three in number; by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many. Pamphos was the first we know of to sing about the Graces, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names. Homer (he too refers to the Graces ) makes one the wife of Hephaestus, giving her the name of Grace. He also says that Sleep was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Sleep there is this verse:--

Verily that he would give me one of the younger Graces.

"Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Graces as well. Hesiod in the Theogony (though the authorship is doubtful, this poem is good evidence ) says that the Graces are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia. The poem of Onomacritus agrees with this account. Antimachus, while giving neither the number of the Graces nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aegle and the Sun. The elegiac poet Hermesianax disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Persuasion also one of the Graces."

Nothing here about Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia, let alone about a Kharites, or about any grace being a servant of "love". So where does your claim come from?

Homer speaks of them in such terms -- but what you overlook is the fact that the "love" that Homer speaks of the Graces serving is the goddess Aphrodite.

Jeffrey