Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

...
As to Attridge, here's two passage from his Hebrews commentary that call your claim, and your grasp of what he says, about Platonic influence into question:
Quote:
The terminology of participation thus has, at least in this context [Heb 3:1], some of the connotations associated with the Platonic notion that things in the material world of change and decay have their reality by “participation” in an ideal realm.Participation terminology, perhaps reflecting this Platonic usage, also appears in religious contexts—pagan, Jewish, and Christian—to describe the relationship of human beings to the divine.

Participation, however, is used here not as a descriptive, ontological, or epistemological category, but as a moral and religious imperative, and it is contingent upon fidelity.

Quote:
Critics have tended to see Hebrews as a Christian heir of one or another Jewish tradition, either the highly assimilated, philosophically oriented Judaism of the Greek-speaking diaspora represented by Philo of Alexandria at one end of the spectrum or the intensely eschatological Judaism represented by the Qumran sectarians at the other. The extreme and simplistic positions positing a direct and exclusive dependence of Hebrews on either Philo or the Essenes have been easily refuted.

For a critical sifting of the theory of Hebrews’ dependence on Philo, especially as espoused by Spicq, see Ronald H. Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (ALGHJ 4; Leiden: Brill, 1970).

But perhaps I missed where in his commentary he says what you claim he does. So could you point me to these places, please?

Originally Posted by Solo

I did not say anything about Attridge writing supporting a claim you are accusing me of making. You are hallucinating again. I offered to point you "to a title Attridge mentions". Can you see that now, in the quote above ?

The title of a book sympathetic to the idea of Platonic influence on the epistle, mentioned by Attridge was Wilfried Eisele, Unerschuetterliches Reich: die mittelplatonische Umformung des Parusiegedankens im Hebraerbrief, ZNWB 116 (Berlin/New York, de Gruyter 2003). You'll find the mention in A's contribution to R. Bauckham's compendium The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Christian Theology, Eerdmans, 2009.

Originally Posted by Solo

I am not doing in-depth exegesis: I have simply pointed out that the ideas are similar and they are going to remain similar no matter what textual snake-dance a la Nabokov you will do around it.

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

In the meantime, perhaps you'd take some time to digest the following from Koester:


"Hebrews and Platonic writers distinguish what is “true” or “real” from perceptible forms. Plato maintained that people on earth could perceive the visible “shadows” of transcendent realities, but not the realities themselves (Republic 514A–515D). Hebrews uses similar expressions when contrasting the “true” heavenly sanctuary in which Christ ministers with its earthly “shadow” (Heb 8:2, 5) and when calling the Law’s prescriptions for a priesthood and sacrifices the “shadows” of Christ’s ministry (10:1). More complex is Hebrews’ contrast of the heavenly sanctuary with its earthly “antitype” (antitypos, 9:24), since it is not clear that antitypos had Platonic connotations when Hebrews was written. By the third century, Plotinus used antitypos for perceptible reality (Enneads 5.3.6.17), but Plato did not do so, and Philo used it for what is “resistant.” Moreover in 1 Pet 3:21 the word has a temporal rather than a spatial quality: “prefigurement” (Hurst, Epistle, 17–19). Conversely, the terms paradeigma and archetypos, which Plato and Philo use for heavenly patterns, do not appear in Hebrews. Hebrews uses hypodeigma, but for the earthly representation rather than the heavenly archetype (NOTE on 8:5). Moreover, Plato and Philo use “image” (eikōn) for perceptible shadows of immaterial archetypes, but Hebrews uses “image” in the opposite sense (NOTE on 10:1).

Hebrews lacks the Platonic term mimēma (“copy”) and the contrast between the noēta (“intelligible”) and aisthēta (“perceptible”) worlds, but some assume that Hebrews alludes to these distinctions when it says that “from what cannot be seen, that which is seen has come into being” (11:3). However, the sentence actually identifies God’s word rather than archetypes as the unseen source behind the present universe (NOTE on 11:3). Hebrews does correlate a heavenly sanctuary with its earthly representation (8:1–6), but the author shows remarkable fluidity in developing the imagery, so that the Tabernacle sometimes represents earth and heaven, and sometimes stands for two ages (§22 COMMENT).


Hebrews does not clearly distinguish the created heavens from a transcendent heaven. Some have pointed out that Christ has already passed “through” the visible heavens (4:14) so that he is now exalted “above the heavens” (7:26), having entered a sanctuary that is “not of this creation” but beyond it (9:11). This could suggest that Christ is now in transcendent heaven itself (9:24).

Nevertheless, this distinction breaks down as the author refers to those who enjoy eternal life “in the heavens” (12:23), to God’s voice speaking “from the heavens” (12:25), and to “heaven” being shaken along with earth (12:26). Moreover, Hebrews associates heaven with what is undefiled (7:26), yet can also suggest that if the lower realm needs purification, then the higher realm does as well—an idea that sits awkwardly with a Platonic worldview (NOTES on 9:23).

Hebrews says that one relates to what is unseen by faith (11:1). In Platonic thought one relates to the unseen through the “mind” (nous) and the power of reason; faith belongs to a lower order.

Hebrews does not mention the nous but stresses faith in two ways. First, the unseen realities of which the author speaks are made known through divine revelation—including promises, commands, and warnings (e.g., 8:5; 11:7, 8)—and revelation is received by faith. Second, a barrier to the unseen realm comes from a defiled conscience (9:14; 10:29), an idea that has no real counterpart in Platonism. Since the conscience is defiled by human unfaithfulness, cleansing the conscience means evoking faith (§23 COMMENT b). A clean conscience fits God’s promise to write his laws upon the “mind” (dianoia), which is synonymous with the “heart” (8:10; 10:16). Heart and mind do not have so much to do with higher versus lower aspects of human life, or with internal versus external matters, but pertain to obedience that involves the whole self (NOTE on 8:10)."


Koester, C. R. (2008). Hebrews: A new translation with introduction and commentary (or via: amazon.co.uk) (98). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.

Originally Posted by Elijah

What is the Greek equivalent to the understanding of faith found in Hebrews and what was Plato’s stance on it? Isn’t the conviction in things unseen the equivalent to Plato’s understanding of initiated?

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

The title speaks of Middle Platonism, not Platonism.