Excellent read! I found this to be a very thoughtful addition to the conversation. A conversation that spontaneously came into being yesterday. As you say, this topic apparently has been on many of our minds as of late, present company included.
To respond to your caveats section, I have to say I broadly agree with the observations you make about the MythVision community being a gaggle of New Atheists with an ax to grind. I've watched many hours of content from that channel and this seems right on the money. Dr. Robert M. Price would (IMO) be the glaring exception to this; his writings and ideas seem quite insightful and though-provoking, without any of the usual animus expressed toward Christians. Despite being an atheist and ex-Christian he his still quite found of Christianity and Christians from a cultural standpoint. Too bad his many copycats in that community ganged up on him and cancelled him for the irredeemable crime of being an unapologetic Trump supporter. Anyway, I digress.
Having said all of that, I don't think this overall character assessment of this particular corner of academia is itself an argument against Gmirkin's theory, nor do I think the "everyone before us was dumb" mentality (Whig revisionism) so commonplace among progressives is the reason why this and similar theories are now seeing play in academia. Rather I think this is a product of academia becoming less and less Christian, and more and more secular over time. Within any institution there is an "Overton Window" which dictates which ideas can and cannot be expressed at a given time. I think the window has gradually shifted far enough in the secular/progressive direction that now in recent decades it's become "politically correct" to finally throw the entire "Bible = history" chronological assumption out the window. Prior to this paradigm, the status quo seemed to be what they call "minimalism", which is the idea that much of the bible's chronology is open to reinterpretation, but some semblance of the old dating must be maintained for posterity. Not anymore. We're now in the age where divinity schools are full of atheists, agnostics, or those who are otherwise not heartfelt believers in the old creeds.
I do have a copy of Gmirkin's first book on his core idea, though I'm still somewhat agnostic when it comes to many of the points he makes, as I find myself too unknowledgeable on many of the primary sources Gmirkin cites to form a strong opinion either way. However, the core thesis seems rather compelling, as (as you and other have pointed out) he's certainly not the only person to notice an uncanny resemblance between parts of the Pentateuch and Plato's writings. What leans me toward Gmirkin's position is the logistical "slim-to-none" probability of 5th century Judeans (whatever their religion may have been at that time) having had any sort of significant cultural influence over the Greek world of that time. Prior to the Alexandrian conquests the Greeks and Judeans would have had very little contact, if any at all. In his extensive travels around the known world of his time, Herodotus accounted for myriad lands, cultures, ethnic groups, ect. and nowhere does he mention Jews or Judeans; the people of the Levant region are simply Syrians. Thus it seems unlikely that a people too marginal to even get a mention by Herodotus would have some sort of noticeable influence on the ideas of a Greek philosophical great like Plato. Funny enough, he doesn't mention Rome either. And this I think is to due both Rome and Judea both sharing the same marginal nature during the 400s BC. And I believe both Rome and Judea have similar stories of rising up out of almost complete obscurity and then later, after coming to prominence, each writing up fanciful (but mythically-valuable and numinous) origin stories for their respective peoples.
On the position of Origen and other sectarians with a faith to defend, that take seems like standard apologia. The desire is there to try and integrate what he saw as the beneficial parts of Plato's teachings (and from other corners of Hellenic philosophy), while still maintaining the posture of his tradition originating in Moses. Very easy to understand these motivations, in my view.
Finally, on Plato, I'm in broad agreement with your observations and insights here. I too have noticed that it's become trendy for the aforementioned New Atheist types to constantly crap on Plato and pretend he was some sort of evil mastermind behind every totalitarian project on this planet. Actually reading Plato and understanding his core teachings I think is something that both Christian dogmatists, atheists, and Neopagans alike, might be to be quite unsettling. The ancient polytheism of the Iron Age is not at all what modern romantic revisionists crack it up to be; there were many gruesome and degenerate aspects to those cultures. I'd say, the so-called Axial Age rose up in multiple places as a spiritual response to the utter state of depravity and fatalistic hopelessness that was a social fact of much of the world after the Bronze Age collapse. We see the birth pangs of this new thought revolution in the pre-Socratics, the Orphic theogonies, and in eastern new religious movements like Zoroastrianism (and probably Chaldaean mystery sects). The idea that "the gods" were these capricious celestial big cats that needed to be appeased (or else!) started to gradually get replaced with concepts of a transcendent big-G God, the idea of human agency being a thing (and not just blindly worshipping nature), and with philosophical doctrines and spiritual practices meant to bring the individual closer to God. And then, right there in Plato, is a not-so-subtle castigation of the older traditions. And of course the revolution steadily marched on. The observations you make here coincide with my own reservations on adopting an ancient "polytheism" wholesale, despite my firm belief that multiple gods do indeed exist. I'll take Porphyry's position on the gods any day over that of Homer and Hesiod.
Sorry I rambled on so long. And once again, I have to say that your post was most thought-provoking!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-10-10 07:45 pm (UTC)To respond to your caveats section, I have to say I broadly agree with the observations you make about the MythVision community being a gaggle of New Atheists with an ax to grind. I've watched many hours of content from that channel and this seems right on the money. Dr. Robert M. Price would (IMO) be the glaring exception to this; his writings and ideas seem quite insightful and though-provoking, without any of the usual animus expressed toward Christians. Despite being an atheist and ex-Christian he his still quite found of Christianity and Christians from a cultural standpoint. Too bad his many copycats in that community ganged up on him and cancelled him for the irredeemable crime of being an unapologetic Trump supporter. Anyway, I digress.
Having said all of that, I don't think this overall character assessment of this particular corner of academia is itself an argument against Gmirkin's theory, nor do I think the "everyone before us was dumb" mentality (Whig revisionism) so commonplace among progressives is the reason why this and similar theories are now seeing play in academia. Rather I think this is a product of academia becoming less and less Christian, and more and more secular over time. Within any institution there is an "Overton Window" which dictates which ideas can and cannot be expressed at a given time. I think the window has gradually shifted far enough in the secular/progressive direction that now in recent decades it's become "politically correct" to finally throw the entire "Bible = history" chronological assumption out the window. Prior to this paradigm, the status quo seemed to be what they call "minimalism", which is the idea that much of the bible's chronology is open to reinterpretation, but some semblance of the old dating must be maintained for posterity. Not anymore. We're now in the age where divinity schools are full of atheists, agnostics, or those who are otherwise not heartfelt believers in the old creeds.
I do have a copy of Gmirkin's first book on his core idea, though I'm still somewhat agnostic when it comes to many of the points he makes, as I find myself too unknowledgeable on many of the primary sources Gmirkin cites to form a strong opinion either way. However, the core thesis seems rather compelling, as (as you and other have pointed out) he's certainly not the only person to notice an uncanny resemblance
between parts of the Pentateuch and Plato's writings. What leans me toward Gmirkin's position is the logistical "slim-to-none" probability of 5th century Judeans (whatever their religion may have been at that time) having had any sort of significant cultural influence over the Greek world of that time. Prior to the Alexandrian conquests the Greeks and Judeans would have had very little contact, if any at all. In his extensive travels around the known world of his time, Herodotus accounted for myriad lands, cultures, ethnic groups, ect. and nowhere does he mention Jews or Judeans; the people of the Levant region are simply Syrians. Thus it seems unlikely that a people too marginal to even get a mention by Herodotus would have some sort of noticeable influence on the ideas of a Greek philosophical great like Plato. Funny enough, he doesn't mention Rome either. And this I think is to due both Rome and Judea both sharing the same marginal nature during the 400s BC. And I believe both Rome and Judea have similar stories of rising up out of almost complete obscurity and then later, after coming to prominence, each writing up fanciful (but mythically-valuable and numinous) origin stories for their respective peoples.
On the position of Origen and other sectarians with a faith to defend, that take seems like standard apologia. The desire is there to try and integrate what he saw as the beneficial parts of Plato's teachings (and from other corners of Hellenic philosophy), while still maintaining the posture of his tradition originating in Moses. Very easy to understand these motivations, in my view.
Finally, on Plato, I'm in broad agreement with your observations and insights here. I too have noticed that it's become trendy for the aforementioned New Atheist types to constantly crap on Plato and pretend he was some sort of evil mastermind behind every totalitarian project on this planet. Actually reading Plato and understanding his core teachings I think is something that both Christian dogmatists, atheists, and Neopagans alike, might be to be quite unsettling. The ancient polytheism of the Iron Age is not at all what modern romantic revisionists crack it up to be; there were many gruesome and degenerate aspects to those cultures. I'd say, the so-called Axial Age rose up in multiple places as a spiritual response to the utter state of depravity and fatalistic hopelessness that was a social fact of much of the world after the Bronze Age collapse. We see the birth pangs of this new thought revolution in the pre-Socratics, the Orphic theogonies, and in eastern new religious movements like Zoroastrianism (and probably Chaldaean mystery sects). The idea that "the gods" were these capricious celestial big cats that needed to be appeased (or else!) started to gradually get replaced with concepts of a transcendent big-G God, the idea of human agency being a thing (and not just blindly worshipping nature), and with philosophical doctrines and spiritual practices meant to bring the individual closer to God. And then, right there in Plato, is a not-so-subtle castigation of the older traditions. And of course the revolution steadily marched on. The observations you make here coincide with my own reservations on adopting an ancient "polytheism" wholesale, despite my firm belief that multiple gods do indeed exist. I'll take Porphyry's position on the gods any day over that of Homer and Hesiod.
Sorry I rambled on so long. And once again, I have to say that your post was most thought-provoking!