Plato and the Pentateuch

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Why would the Hebrew have Yahweh and Gods and the Greek Lord and God?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Gmirkin and his scholarly peers who are specialists in Hebrew and Septuagint texts are actually a lot smarter and more informed than the derailers of this thread seem to think. A bunch of "whatabout" questions from proudly self-professed anti-intellectuals who wilfully refuse to read the arguments they think they can criticize are all answered by both Gmirkin and other specialist scholars of the Hebrew and Septuagint texts. But I have learned that to attempt to engage one who simply ignores past responses and continues to repeat distortions, falsehoods, character-assassinations and ignorance and piles on "whataboutisms" upon "whataboutisms" gets nowhere and only proves the truth of the Jesus proverb about casting pearls before swine -- here they really do turn again and rend the one who attempts to seriously engage with them, naively hoping their queries are actually sincere.
ABuddhist
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Secret Alias wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:54 pm Why would the Hebrew have Yahweh and Gods and the Greek Lord and God?
From what I understand, the reference to YHWH in the Hebrew was converted to Lord in Greek because of a naming taboo surrounding the name YHWH. But such questions are about why the Greek and Hebrew Texts differ rather than when either text originated or in what environment.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Gmirkin and his scholarly peers who are specialists in Hebrew and Septuagint texts
Name me one person that dates the Pentateuch to 270 BCE. Just one.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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From what I understand, the reference to YHWH in the Hebrew was converted to Lord in Greek because of a naming taboo surrounding the name YHWH.
Pronouncing. Uttering. But the letters of the namr are in the Hebrew text. Why not the Greek? "Lord" isn't a translation of Yahweh. And how did Gods become "God" in the Greek? And then a few lines later the plural is still retained
And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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And in keeping with the thread Jews learned to read Genesis "Platonically" I will give you that. They read it as if there was one God creating the world. Rashi read Genesis as if it agreed with the Timaeus that is monotheistically.
In trying to understand the “beginning,” Socrates and his friends make clear that they do not expect to find the “truth,” but only a “likely story” (eikos mythos), that is, a sort of “image” of the truth (29d).

According to their “likely story,” the Demiurge created the world out of primordial material (29b-32c, 48aff, 52aff). The four physical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—were all in existence before the creation of the world (31a-32c, 48bff). The primordial receptacle (Gr. khora = Lat. locus)[3] is defined as “empty of all forms” (50d).

It receives all things in a “wondrous” way (thaumaston = miro), and its connection to the intelligible is “incomprehensible” (50c, 51b). It is not a substance (ousia = substantia) but merely an amorphous “stuff” (ekmageion = mollis cedensque materia) (50c). It is not “tangible” (hapton = tangi, contiguus) and is “in no way perceptible to the senses” (52a, cf. 31b, 32b). The primordial first principles are sometimes identified with letters (48b-c).
But the Hebrew text has many powers involved in Creation and the creation of man. Jewish and Christian heretics read the text in my mind correctly when they understood it to have angels as the main protagonists. Yahweh isn't the Creator in Genesis 1. Elohim is. So yes Platonism infected Judaism. But the text assumes an un-Platonic "we" in Creation.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Philo read Genesis as if the "young gods" were the angels. But Genesis is more ambiguous. The Greek "God" is a we. The Greek "God" is a plurality. And let's not forget all the un-Platonic details that follow. Genesis chapter 6 with the angels sleeping with women. How is this Platonic?
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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Also the differences between the Masoretic, SP and LXX

Creation to the Flood 1656 yrs 1307 yrs 2242 or 2262 yrs

Flood to Abraham's Birth 352 yrs. 942 yrs 1132 or 1232 yrs.
Secret Alias
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

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What's Platonic about God appearing on a mountain or appearing talking to Abraham and Moses? Or attacking the Egyptians with plagues or drowning Pharaoh and his armies? Or impregnating women?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Plato and the Pentateuch

Post by neilgodfrey »

ABuddhist wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:59 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:54 pm Why would the Hebrew have Yahweh and Gods and the Greek Lord and God?
From what I understand, the reference to YHWH in the Hebrew was converted to Lord in Greek because of a naming taboo surrounding the name YHWH. But such questions are about why the Greek and Hebrew Texts differ rather than when either text originated or in what environment.
Keep in mind that the surviving Greek manuscripts are known not to have been the original Greek version -and ditto insofar as their Hebrew Vorlage is no longer extant, either. That's pretty much standard scholarly interpretation of the available sources. The surviving translations and copies clumsily attempt to blur the distinction between the two gods in the first two chapters of Genesis that match Plato's respective deities and their functions.
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