Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Early Jews/Christians under Hellenistic influences?
I must say:
nope. absolutely not.
"...Modern Rabbinic authorities, however, deny that Greek philosophy influenced the Rabbis. They were not philospophers, nor students of philosophy, having onlylimited or casual interest in the subject *, as the Reformed (liberal) C.G. Montefiore asserts:
"Another point to remember in regard to Rabbinic literature is that it comes from men whose outlook was extraordinarily limited. They had no interests outside Religion and the Law. They has lost all historic sense. They had no interest in art, in drama, in belles lettres, in poetry, or science (except, perhpas in medicine). They had no training in philosophy. How enormously they might have benefited if, under competent teachers, they had been put through a course of Greek philosophy and literature...The Old Testament was practically the only book they possessed...Yet this Bible, with all that it implied, is their world, their one overmastering interest. They picked up, it is true, many current ideas, opinions, superstitions, in a fluid, unsystematic form. But all that was by the way and incidental....The Rabbis, for good or for evil, knew no philosophy" **
From the other side of the theological asile, Orthodox H. Loewe concurs: "The dialectics which Halakah involved made up, to no small extent, for the lack of philosophy. The Rabbis were no philosophers... and, as Mr. montefiore says, their outlook was limited....They had but a casual acquantance with Greek thought"***
This casual acquantance, of course, had no discernable influence on the Rabbis. Abraham Cohen speculates that although some Rabbis may have been aware of Greek philosophy, "The interest in metaphysical speculation which characterized the thinkers of Greece and Rome was not shared by the teachers of Israel to any great extent"*+
G.F. Moore cannot find Greek philosophy in Rabbinic thought: "The idea of God in Judaism is developed from the Scriptures. The influence of contemporary philosophy which is seen in some Hellenistic Jewish writings--the Widom of Solomon, 4 Maccabbes, and above all in Philo--is not recognizable in normative Judaism, nor is the influence of other religions...." *++
* Max Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind, 2nd ed.
** C.G. Montefiore, n C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology
*** H. Loewe, in ibid., xcv
*+ Abraham Cohen, Everyman's Talmud
*++ George Foot Moore, Judaism, Vol 1
nope. absolutely not.
"...Modern Rabbinic authorities, however, deny that Greek philosophy influenced the Rabbis. They were not philospophers, nor students of philosophy, having onlylimited or casual interest in the subject *, as the Reformed (liberal) C.G. Montefiore asserts:
"Another point to remember in regard to Rabbinic literature is that it comes from men whose outlook was extraordinarily limited. They had no interests outside Religion and the Law. They has lost all historic sense. They had no interest in art, in drama, in belles lettres, in poetry, or science (except, perhpas in medicine). They had no training in philosophy. How enormously they might have benefited if, under competent teachers, they had been put through a course of Greek philosophy and literature...The Old Testament was practically the only book they possessed...Yet this Bible, with all that it implied, is their world, their one overmastering interest. They picked up, it is true, many current ideas, opinions, superstitions, in a fluid, unsystematic form. But all that was by the way and incidental....The Rabbis, for good or for evil, knew no philosophy" **
From the other side of the theological asile, Orthodox H. Loewe concurs: "The dialectics which Halakah involved made up, to no small extent, for the lack of philosophy. The Rabbis were no philosophers... and, as Mr. montefiore says, their outlook was limited....They had but a casual acquantance with Greek thought"***
This casual acquantance, of course, had no discernable influence on the Rabbis. Abraham Cohen speculates that although some Rabbis may have been aware of Greek philosophy, "The interest in metaphysical speculation which characterized the thinkers of Greece and Rome was not shared by the teachers of Israel to any great extent"*+
G.F. Moore cannot find Greek philosophy in Rabbinic thought: "The idea of God in Judaism is developed from the Scriptures. The influence of contemporary philosophy which is seen in some Hellenistic Jewish writings--the Widom of Solomon, 4 Maccabbes, and above all in Philo--is not recognizable in normative Judaism, nor is the influence of other religions...." *++
* Max Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind, 2nd ed.
** C.G. Montefiore, n C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology
*** H. Loewe, in ibid., xcv
*+ Abraham Cohen, Everyman's Talmud
*++ George Foot Moore, Judaism, Vol 1
