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Athens and Jerusalem1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John Ferguson
John Ferguson
Affiliation:
Dean and Director of Studies in Arts, The Open University
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Extract

This paper has four roots.

First, an increasing dissatisfaction over the gulf between classical and theological studies. Christianity in origin, after all, is a part of the story of the ancient world, and has to be seen in context. The context is complex: it is Judaea as part of the Hellenistic world under the rule of Rome: we ignore any part of that context at our peril. Classical scholars tend to be suspicious of those with theological interests: I was forbidden by an examining board of the University of London to set the first verse of St John's Gospel for comment in a paper on Greek philosophy: they were being doctrinaire, not I. But equally some theologians have neglected the disciplined study of the ancient world. It would not be so bad if they left the context out; but instead they offer windy generalisations, secondhand, ill-based and false. Some corrective is needed.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1972 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 1 note 1 Guthrie, W. K. C., The Greek Philosophers (London, 1950), pp. 71 ff.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 For much of this see Lieberman, S., Greek in Jewish Palestine New York, 1942Google Scholar. Also Smith, M. in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (1958), 473–512Google Scholar; Rozelaar, M. in Eshkolot, 1954, pp. 33–48.Google Scholar

page 5 note 1 See Tcherikover, V., Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia and Jerusalem, 1959).Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 For these see Tcherikover, V., Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, pp. 90–116 and notes.Google Scholar

page 8 note 1 I am tempted to quote an epigram of Professor C. F. Evans in discussion: ‘Jesus did not go to Balliol: nor did Plato.’