Jesus as founder of a Platonic Christianity

Jesus as founder of a Platonic Christianity
Author: Enno Edzard Popkes
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2020-07-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3751972021

The Gospel of Thomas conveys central ideas of Platonism as the message of Jesus, above all the ideas of the immortality of the soul, of the transmigration of souls, of the soul becoming equal to God and of the knowledge of `true light ́. It interprets the figure of Jesus as the incarnation of the `true light ́, which, according to Plato, can only be experienced outside the present world. It is the light from which people come and into which they return. The Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas understands all human beings as carriers of this divine light, which illuminates the world when they become equal to him. For the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is the founder of a `Platonic Christianity ́.

Christian Platonism

Christian Platonism
Author: Alexander J. B. Hampton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 875
Release: 2020-12-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108676472

Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.

Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism

Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism
Author: Hershel Shanks
Publisher:
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1993
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

This book tells the story of the formation of classical Judaism and orthodox Christianity as parallel yet interlocking histories. Here, in a series of chapters written by leading scholars in this country and in Israel, the reader is offered a general account of how, during the first six centuries of the Common Era, Judaism and Christianity took the form we recognize today.

Augustine's Intellectual Conversion

Augustine's Intellectual Conversion
Author: Brian Dobell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2009-11-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0521513391

This book examines Augustine's intellectual conversion from Platonism to Christianity, as described at Confessions 7.9.13-21.27. It is widely assumed that this occurred in the summer of 386, shortly before Augustine's volitional conversion in the garden at Milan. Brian Dobell argues, however, that Augustine's intellectual conversion did not occur until the mid-390s, and develops this claim by comparing Confessions 7.9.13-21.27 with a number of important passages and themes from Augustine's early writings. He thus invites the reader to consider anew the problem of Augustine's conversion in 386: was it to Platonism or Christianity? His original and important study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the history of philosophy and the history of theology.

Moral Exhortation

Moral Exhortation
Author:
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780664250164

Translated selections of writings on ethics by Arius Didymus, Cicero, Crates, Demetrius of Phalerum, Dio Chrysostom, Diogenes, Diogenes Laertius, Epictetus, Epicurus, Hierocles, Horace, Isocrates, Julian, Lucian of Samosata, Maximus of Tyre, Melissa, Musonius Rufus, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Seneca, Sextus Empiricus, and Theano, and from the Gnomologium Vaticanum, Oxyrhynchus Papyrus, and Pythagorean Sentences.

Birth of Christianity

Birth of Christianity
Author: John Dominic Crossan
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 692
Release: 1999-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780567086686

John Dominic Crossan explores the lost years of earliest Christianity, the years immediately following Jesus' execution. He establishes the contextual setting through a combination of literary, anthropological, historical and archaeological approaches. He challenges the assumptions about the role of Paul and the meaning of resurrection, and forges a new understanding of the birth of the Christian church. Here is a vivid account of early Christianity's interaction with the world around it, and of the new traditions and communities established as Jesus' companions continued their movement after his death.

From Plato to Jesus

From Plato to Jesus
Author: C. Marvin Pate
Publisher: Kregel Academic
Total Pages: 354
Release:
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0825489385

Discover philosophy's impact on Christianity in this new theology textbook

Religio-philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World

Religio-philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World
Author: Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Publisher: Ancient Philosophy and Religio
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2017
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004341463

This first volume of the new Brill series "Ancient Philosophy & Religion" offers analyses of Platonic philosophy and piety, the emergence of a common religio-philosophical discourse in Antiquity, the place of Jesus among ancient philosophers, and responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.

Plato's Gift to Christianity

Plato's Gift to Christianity
Author: Jerry Dell Ehrlich
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001
Genre: Christianity
ISBN: 9780971000001

"Plato's Gift to Christianity is a book for all who seek to understand the beauty and depth of the Christian faith: for family discussions of values, virtues, and happiness; for educators who teach about the founding of Western Civilization and its basis of ethics; and especially for the Christian clergy who are not familiar with the Greek Classical and Platonic influence upon the making of Christianity. Dr. Ehrlich has presented here a most comprehensive study on the Platonic teachings adopted by the New Testament and Early Church." --

Aristotle and Early Christian Thought

Aristotle and Early Christian Thought
Author: Mark Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-03-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1315520192

In studies of early Christian thought, ‘philosophy’ is often a synonym for ‘Platonism’, or at most for ‘Platonism and Stoicism’. Nevertheless, it was Aristotle who, from the sixth century AD to the Italian Renaissance, was the dominant Greek voice in Christian, Muslim and Jewish philosophy. Aristotle and Early Christian Thought is the first book in English to give a synoptic account of the slow appropriation of Aristotelian thought in the Christian world from the second to the sixth century. Concentrating on the great theological topics – creation, the soul, the Trinity, and Christology – it makes full use of modern scholarship on the Peripatetic tradition after Aristotle, explaining the significance of Neoplatonism as a mediator of Aristotelian logic. While stressing the fidelity of Christian thinkers to biblical presuppositions which were not shared by the Greek schools, it also describes their attempts to overcome the pagan objections to biblical teachings by a consistent use of Aristotelian principles, and it follows their application of these principles to matters which lay outside the purview of Aristotle himself. This volume offers a valuable study not only for students of Christian theology in its formative years, but also for anyone seeking an introduction to the thought of Aristotle and its developments in Late Antiquity.