Re: Restored (and a final story for Luke and Daniel)

Jim writes:
<< I'd say it's very unlikely that the "turn the other cheek" of Christ has
any analog in Greek culture. Aristotle's _Ethics_, if I remember right (ok,
it's been years), extolled vengeance as a manly virtue. "Love your neighbor
as you love yourself" is a quotation from Leviticus 19, so I see Christ as
working more as a reform movement completely within Judaism (in the sphere
of ethics, anyway) than as someone introducing outside elements.

<< I know there are parallels between Philo of Alexandria and Johannie
theology, at least on the surface, so Greek influences on even 1st century
Christian theology seem plausible. I wouldn't say they exist in the
recorded teachings of Christ, though. >>

Aristotle EXTOLLED vengeance in the Ethics? The Nichomachean Ethics? This
doesn't sound familiar to me.

In any case, there's not much reason to think that Jesus himself was
introducing much strict Hellenism, or even that he was especially familiar
with it -- but it wasn't long after him that his movement began a process of
Hellenization that at times and in places was profound.

John's Gospel, which is a book I've been working very closely with for about
two years, is profoundly Hellenic, not just superficially and not just
parallels to Philo. Being myself very intimate with both Athens and
Jerusalem, there are places in John where I wonder which tradition it
favors. If ever there were a book that with complete success married the
two -- and I do refer to marriage with Kana firmly in mind -- it is that
one. (The Gnostics, while much more obviously Greek, have nothing like
John's success or brilliance, and are more confused about Judaica.)

You might be right that "turn the other cheek" itself, or the ethic behind
it, is purely Judaic. I wasn't drawing a sharp distinction between the
reported teachings of Jesus and the tradition that they are a part of. It's
especially hard when we also receive statements like "I come with the
sword."

When I said the degree of Greek confluence is unclear, I didn't mean to
suggest that Jesus had read Aristotle, but only that it's impossible to sort
out how much of the native culture of the Hebrews and how much of larger
Greek culture informed the early tradition and perhaps even Jesus' own
formative thinking. As a carpenter in Galilee, he would certainly have
worked in nearby Greek towns, must have known the language, and lived on the
edge of mingling cultures. The title on the cross was written in three
languages, we're told, and the man under it or at least a part of the
following he soon would have might be said to stand at a sort of crossroads
between the three.

And:
<< I would say that if "common sense" doesn't lead to the same conclusions,
then it is no longer "common," and when the conclusions are mutually
exclusive, one group will think the other is lacking sense. >>

Maybe we're just going to disagree on this. My contention from the start
was that the common part, together with different premises, can produce
different conclusions. You are certainly right that one group will often
think the other is lacking sense, but this is usually an immature position.

-robbie
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Received on Sun Jul 20 01:08:12 2003