Well, I really disagree with that. Not this part--"I think it is also important to understand the audience and purpose for the texts in question." That is impossible to disagree with. But this part--
A bible, written to persuade people to believe something on faith, is quite a bit different from philosophical writing written to the literate in philosophy. It's the difference between a child's story and a college text. The bible can be read to, and understood by, children- or people who think like children. Obviously there are layers beyond that, which the more educated can plumb, but that's not necessary. On the other hand, the Greek philosophers weren't writing for children- and they figured their readers were not only literate, but understood much of what they understood.
I am not talking about the New Testament here, but the Old Testament. It was not written to "persuade" anyone. And yes, it was written for children, but it was also written for adults. Not merely for those adults "who think like children," but for adults who were sophisticated thinkers. Adults who, often enough, also read Plato and Aristotle and used them in their biblical exegeses. That is part of the genius of the OT--it can be read on several different levels, in several different ways. The Jews have never tried to "persuade" anyone of their truths, never tried to proselytize. That was one of the fundamental differences they had with the people who became Christians. The Bible just set down the wisdom of their tribe and a way of living that had been part of an oral tradition that existed for many centuries before it was written. And there wasn't just one author, there were many authors with different perspectives and different sensibilities. There have been 4 fundamental different sensibilities that have been recognized over the past couple of centuries, with one summary of them here: en.wikipedia.org
Although, if you read that piece from wiki, you will see a startling number of different views on who wrote the Bible, how it was written, and when it was written. But that is not all that relevant here. Apparently you have never studied it with people who spent a lot of time with it, but I will tell you without bothering to try to prove it here that those stories that children can read have plenty of meanings and thoughts about politics and living as human beings that adults can also relate to.
Furthermore, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon were certainly writing to persuade their readers. Although I would say that Plato and Aristotle were writing more for the young than Xenophon often was (Xenophon wrote some philosophy, but also a lot of handbooks that talked about farming, horsemanship, war, etc.), because it was the young who were more persuadable than adults (do you recognize that line of thought, lol?). Plato's dialogues contain plenty of stories that Socrates used to teach his listeners, just as the Bible used stories to teach its listeners/readers. Stories teach not so much by logic but by presenting situations to people that they can then talk about, critique, hypothesize about. Just like literature does today. Do you think that literature is useless or even less useful than philosophy? Just because you may have difficulty relating to the stories in the Bible doesn't mean that they don't have a lot of thought behind them that others can see.
I teach a philosophy unit, and I'm always struck, every time I teach it, by the depth and breadth of Greek thought- not all of it critical of Athens or its government or leaders or people
Well, sure, you can find parts that aren't critical. But if you take Plato or Aristotle or Thucydides as a whole, you will find a great deal of criticism. A great deal more of criticism than of praise. And as for them "discovering democracy" (as Koan has said) -- not one of them believed that democracy was a good form of government. Aristotle was probably the most tolerant of them about democracy, but the best he would say about it is that it could be part of the best form of government, practically speaking--a "mixed government," a government that combined elements of democracy with oligarchy and monarchy (and in fact, that was what the people at the 1787 Constitution Convention tried to construct, following mainstream British political thought of the time--if you read Madison's notes on the convention, you will see them trying to balance out different elements with respect to the many, the few and the one--democracy, oligarchy and monarchy). Athenian democracy always ended badly, as did other democracies in the Greek islands. Of course, you could say the same about the monarchies and oligarchies, lol. The oligarchies tended to last the longest, but that experience was why Aristotle wrote about mixed government.
But this isn't really worth getting into a big discussion about. |
