The Greek and Hebrew Intellectual Traditions

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We live in a very different intellectual climate than those who wrote the scriptures. Our philosophy and our academic climate was inherited to us from the Greeks; even our concept of truth “originates primarily where a lot of Western intellectual culture originates—Greek philosophy and culture.”1 In contrast, the prophets who recorded divine revelations into scripture were part of a Hebrew intellectual tradition, which differs in many significant ways from the Greek philosophical tradition.

One of the ways in which the Greek thinking differs from Hebrew thinking is the way each traditions conceive of ultimate reality. James Faulconer explains,

A study of the history of philosophy quickly shows that the Greeks, the creators of Western philosophy, were concerned with what does not change. They believed that change is a defect, that whatever is ultimate must be static and immobile. What changes, including the world that we experience, is of a lessor order than what does not change. In Greek terms, what changes is less real.2

In other words, whatever is ultimate has to be unchangeable. In simple terms, in order to be truth, it has to be true everywhere, all the time. To the Greeks, therefore, anything that changes with time or location cannot be truth, nor could it be ultimate. No one has yet found a physical object that never changes; all things physical change, decay, or shift over time. Thus, the Greeks believed that the ultimate reality must be something intangible, or non-physical. Thus, mathematical abstractions are the perfect candidate for Greek truth. The equation c2 = a2 + b2 seems to be true everywhere and everytime, regardless of the particular circumstances, and thus Pythagoras and subsequent Greek philosophers regarded it as truth, and even more real than the physical world.

Thus, for the Greeks, all things that are dynamic, that are in motion, and that change can be accounted for by the few things that fundamentally do not change. This contrast is often called by philosophers the dichotomy of being vs. becoming. The few things that simply are govern or explain the many things that are in flux.

A perfect example of this Greek way of thinking is in the scientific discipline. Scientists observe change in the world—be it objects falling or creatures evolving—and attempt to discover the unchanging principle to account for that change. For example, they develop a law of gravity to explain why things fall (and thus all the many instances of falling objects can be explained by the one law of gravity), and the law of natural selection to explain why creatures evolve. Both these laws are considered unchanging and static. Because these principles never change, scientists assume that they are more fundamental than what does change. Dr. Gantt and Dr. Williams explain:

Ancient Greek philosophy, in its insistence on its view of reality, set the entire Western tradition, including psychology, on the course it still follow. Its (that is, psychology’s) insistence on mechanistic, causal, and even structural explanation are the heritage of the Greek metaphysical project. We have sought explanation of all things (the Many) in terms of the necessary, the unembodied, the unchanging and atemporal (the One). Although this project has taken may guises over the centuries it is still fundamentally intact. In modern psychology it is at the heart of our empiricism, positivism, mechanism, naturalism, and determinism. These explanatory constructs destroy agency—they make it impossible to account human action in agentive terms because they destroy difference.3

Another example of this way of Greek thinking is manifest in Hellenized Christianity. According to Dallin H. Oaks, in the years that followed the death of the Apostles “there came a synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine in which the orthodox Christians of that day lost the fullness of truth about the nature of God.”4 God was seen as something intangible and unchangeable. He was turned into a kind of mathematical abstraction. Thus, we can already see that some of the Greek assumptions about ultimate truth and reality can be problematic.

In contrast, the Hebrew worldview does not contain this fundamental division of reality. The Hebrew intellectual project was not about accounting for the world in terms of abstract, unchangeable propositions, but rather it was about forming a relationship with a dynamic [living] Truth. Faulconer continues:

Though Indo-European [Greek] languages focus on the static when concerned with what ultimately is, Semitic [Hebrew] languages focus on the temporal … and dynamic. … Unlike Greek, Hebrew does not conceive of anything immaterial or unembodied, even in thought.2

In other words, the Hebrew language and the Hebrew intellectual climate saw ultimate reality very differently than the Greeks did. They didn’t see truth as something abstract, unchanging, or static. To them, ultimate reality was something dynamic or active. To them the ultimate organizer of reality wasn’t an abstract entity, but rather a living, dynamic person. I will speak more of the Hebrew worldview in later posts; for now, I would simply conclude that we should be wary of reading the scriptures with a Greek hermeneutic; that is, we must be careful about applying Greek philosophical assumptions to a sacred text that was written originally in the Hebrew language. At the very least, it confuses the message the scriptures present; at the worst, it obscures our understanding of God and how we relate with Him. As I learn more about the differences between Hebrew and Greek thought, the message of the scriptures becomes much more meaningful to me; I end up adjusting many of the assumptions I’ve had about the world. Indeed, when understood appropriately, the scriptures can rupture our present Greek paradigm, and enliven our lives with a new (or old, but forgotten) philosophy of a dynamic and living reality.



Notes

1. Brent Slife and Jeffrey Reber, “Comparing the Practical Implications of Secular and Christian Truth in Psychotherapy,” Turning Freud Upside Down (Provo, UT: BYU Press).
2. James Faulconer, Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions (Provo, UT: FARMS), pp. 135–153.
3. Richard Williams and Ed Gantt, “Pursuing Psychology as Science of the Ethical: Contributions of the Work of Emmanuel Levinas” (Brigham Young University).
4. Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign, May 1995.

20 comments

  1. Interesting differences discussed here.

    The only evidence for the difference that I could find in this post, though, is the difference between IE languages and Semitic languages. Differences in language, though, rarely reveal so much about national worldviews. One could just as easily assert that Germanic people don’t believe in the future based on the evidence that one of the distinctive features of the Germanic languages is the absence of a future tense. I wonder, do you have any other evidence to support this difference between Greek and Hebrew worldviews?

    One specific reason that I question a linguistic basis for this particular difference is that I fear it’s likely based mainly on the unique example of the Hebrew copula, which, being subject to a religious taboo, is forced to exist in a very different sort of way than even other Semitic copulas. If that is the primary linguistic evidence, then the argument that the Hebrew worldview is different from the Greek becomes circular.

    But on another point, I think it’s important to remember that just as we must be careful about applying Greek philosophical assumptions to sacred texts, so we should be careful about applying Hebrew philosophical assumptions to sacred texts.

    This fact becomes especially clear in the light of the Restoration. God was pretty clear when he said,

    “Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also. And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that I speak forth my words according to mine own pleasure. And because that I have spoken one word ye need not suppose that I cannot speak another; for my work is not yet finished; neither shall it be until the end of man, neither from that time henceforth and forever” (2 Ne. 29:7-9).

    Viewing God’s word through exclusively through a Hebrew lens would of course be as foolish as viewing it exclusively through a Greek lens, and would be morally the same as rejecting any further scripture beyond the Bible, because it is rejecting anything beyond what we get from the Jews.

    And a third point, when we talk about “a sacred text that was written originally in the Hebrew language,” we can only be talking about portions of the Old Testament and portions of the Pearl of Great Price. The New Testament was originally written in Greek. The non-Hebrew portions of the Pearl of Great Price were written originally in Egyptian or American English. The Book of Mormon was apparently originally written in a language that wasn’t even spoken but was rather used solely as a written language — and since we have no access to that language or its users’ philosophies, we have to rely on the divine translation of it into American English to such an extent that we might as well consider that its original language. And of course, the Doctrine and Covenants were written originally in American English. There would then be no difference between reading the Doctrine and Covenants with a Hebrew eye and reading the Old Testament with a Greek eye.

  2. Much, if not most, of the New Testament was actually recorded in a Semitic language, and only later translated into Greek. The influence of Greek philosophies frequently impeded proper understanding of the texts, and this contributed to the Great Apostasy.

    One of the great treasures of the Book of Mormon is that it remained on an entirely different continent and thus escaped many of the corrupting influences that Greek philosophy had on other sacred works. Thus, the writings in the Book of Mormon do not fold so easily into a Greek worldview. It is a “voice from the dust” that can rupture our present worldview and carry us into another one that resembles closely what we find in the Old Testament; whether Hebrew or some other worldview, I don’t know. The issue is not the name we give the worldview, but rather the ways in which it differs from our own.

    Personally, I believe the Greeks were wrong in many of their assumptions about the world. Thus, it would do injustice to the revealed Word to apply those assumptions while reading them; especially the Platonic dichotomy of being vs. becoming. This division of reality has severe philosophical problems, which I will address more fully later on.

    Also, we think in language. Our language in some ways constrains the ways in which we can think, and in other ways expands it. If a language does not have a future verb tense, we certainly don’t conclude that those who speak it don’t believe in the future; but we can certainly suppose that they may have thought about the future differently.

  3. “Much, if not most, of the New Testament was actually recorded in a Semitic language, and only later translated into Greek.”

    That’s a remarkably fringe viewpoint that the overwhelming majority of scholars have rejected for about two thousand years. The only bit of the New Testament where there has been some real question about whether it was originally composed in Greek is Matthew’s Gospel, but even there, most scholars agree it was composed in Greek. Other than that, you’re dealing with snippets of phrasing here and there — hardly “much, if not most.”

    Furthermore, the language at issue here is not Hebrew but Aramaic, so even if the New Testament has been originally written in a Semitic language (and it almost certainly wasn’t), using Hebrew linguistics to enlighten our understanding of it would be like using Icelandic linguistics to enlighten our understanding of Ernest Hemingway.

    “The issue is not the name we give the worldview, but rather the ways in which it differs from our own.”

    I’m afraid I can’t quite see your point. I never supposed that the label we stick on the worldview was the issue. You seem to have been saying that certain elements of Hebrew grammar reveal the right way to conceptualize the divine. I’m not trying to play name games, here. I’m simply saying that God is what he is, no matter how the Hebrews thought of him, and definitely no matter how the Hebrew language is organized.

    Rejecting one fallible human worldview as an aid in scriptural interpretation simply so that we can institute another fallible human worldview in its place seems to me to miss the bigger picture, which is that all fallible human worldviews (whether Greek, Hebrew, or Anglo-American) are inferior to God’s. We can’t get nearer to God with a lateral shift from Greek thinking to Hebrew thinking.

    “Personally, I believe the Greeks were wrong in many of their assumptions about the world. Thus, it would do injustice to the revealed Word to apply those assumptions while reading them.”

    I agree about the Greeks and the folly of reading the Scriptures through their eyes. But doesn’t the same problem apply to the Hebrews? The Hebrews were certainly wrong in just as many of their assumptions about the world as were the Greeks, and to apply those assumptions to the Scriptures would be just as unjust.

    “Also, we think in language. Our language in some ways constrains the ways in which we can think, and in other ways expands it.”

    These are quite controversial statements, far from being universally accepted claims about language. Most linguists today would tend toward opposing these claims rather than accepting them. There doesn’t seem to be enough evidence to support them.

    “If a language does not have a future verb tense, we certainly don’t conclude that those who speak it don’t believe in the future; but we can certainly suppose that they may have thought about the future differently.”

    Sure we can suppose it. But would we be right? Our language (English) has no future tense — we have use the present tense to talk about the future. Greek, on the other hand, has a future tense. Since you seem to have studied the Greek worldview and you are probably quite familiar with an Anglophone worldview (inasmuch as such a thing exists), you could explain the difference between how Anglophones view the future and how Greeks view the future, and how that linguistic difference reveals the difference in worldviews. So what linguistic-based differences are there between how Greeks view the future and how we do?

  4. Wesley: “That’s a remarkably fringe viewpoint that the overwhelming majority of scholars have rejected for about two thousand years.”

    Upon further research, you are right. Thanks for the clarification. While academic consensus does not make an idea true, it certainly lends it credibility. I do not think that counts in any way against the point of my post however—the point being that Greek philosophy may be grounded in false assumptions about the nature of reality. Certainly, it is fair to say that the Gospel as taught by the Savior was radically different from the prevailing philosophies of the time.

    Wesley: “These are quite controversial statements, far from being universally accepted claims about language. Most linguists today would tend toward opposing these claims rather than accepting them.”

    I’m not convinced these statements are as controversial as you claim. Many philosophers have recognized that language is a way in which we make sense of our experience; different languages allow us to make sense of our experiences in different ways.

    For example, some languages do not have the linguistic constructs to explain some basic church doctrines. Either way, our language affects our worldview, or reflects it. Also, the literature on the differences between Semitic and Greek worldviews is vast and well-documented, and not all of it relies on language, so it isn’t the only evidence—that seemed to be your primary concern.

    Wesley: “We can’t get nearer to God with a lateral shift from Greek thinking to Hebrew thinking.”

    While I am not as well-versed in the faults of Hebrew thinking as I am in the faults of Greek thinking, I do believe that if we began to examine church doctrine and scripture from a Hebrew worldview, it may serve as a corrective for many of the subtle and false assumptions inherited to us from Greek philosophy. I agree with what James Faulconer said:

    I think … [the suggestion] that the Greek and Roman models of thougth cannot do justice to the true and licing God is not merely a possibility, it is a probability.

    When Greek thinking is untempered, when confident (or perhaps overconfident) of its own approach and insistent that it is the only approach, Greek thinking confuses Hebrew thought, making it mysterious at best and irrational at worst. That overconfidence locks us out of an experience of the world that is quite different from that which we take to be ordinary, but an experience that is at least as rich. When it comes to thinking about divine things, I think it not too much to say that, by itself, Greek thinking locks us out of an understanding of God as a living and acting being, handing us over to the theology of a static and immutable, in other words, dead, god.

    Many church leaders have made comments to the same extent. Neal A. Maxwell explained that the doctrines of the Gospel appeared strange to those of Greek upbringing. Rather than rupturing their worldview, however, they altered the doctrines of the Gospel and reinterpreted them. He explains:

    Another force was at work too [at the beginning of the Apostasy]: the cultural Hellenizing of Christianity. Wrote Will Durant in The Story of Civilization, “The Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual” (part 3, Caesar and Christ, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1944, p. 595). The errant grooves earlier used in defining deity were already there and were so easy to slide into (see Robert M. Grant, Gods and the One God, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, pp. 75–81, 152–58).

    Another scholar concluded: “It was impossible for Greeks, … with an education which penetrated their whole nature, to receive or to retain Christianity in its primitive simplicity” (Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, reprinted 1970, p. 49).

    Paul’s experience in Athens showed the mind-set of Greek philosophy (see Acts 17). His intellectually curious audience asked about “this new doctrine, … for thou bringest … strange things to our ears” (Acts 17:19–20). Then when Paul spoke of the living God and the Resurrection, he was “mocked” (Acts 17:32) for seeming to set “forth … strange gods” (Acts 17:18; see also Acts 17:29).

    Thus, it is perfectly fair to say that the doctrines of the Gospel may be more incompatible with some worldviews and languages than others. I believe that it is more compatible with a Hebrew worldview than a Greek one; at least, the doctrines of the Gospel make more sense when approached from a Hebrew perspective, and we do less violence to the scriptures when we read them from a Hebrew worldview.

    Wesley: “So what linguistic-based differences are there between how Greeks view the future and how we do?”

    I haven’t thought a lot about that, or seen much literature. As far as I understand, our view of time is very much like that of the Greeks; Faulconer explains: “In Indo-European languages, time is a straight line. We can stand on it gazing forward at the future, with the past behind us.” In contrast, “when Hebrew does correlate seeing to time, it speaks of the past as before and the future behind.” (Notice Alma 13:1 for an interesting illustration that some scholars believe is evidence of Semitic history of the Book of Mormon)

    The essential difference, however, between Greek and Hebrew ways of seeing time is actually reflected in their language. Indo-European languages speak of past, present, and future (time line), but Semitic languages speak of processes that have either been concluded or are still ongoing, “roughly equivalent of the perfect and imperfect tenses.” That is because Hebrews see time as more of a rhythm, as in a dance. This has immense implications in theology, which I may address later.

  5. “Also, the literature on the differences between Semitic and Greek worldviews is vast and well-documented, and not all of it relies on language, so it isn’t the only evidence—that seemed to be your primary concern.”

    Great! Let’s hear some of the non-linguistic evidence, then. That’s what I originally asked for. It doesn’t have to be a vast field of evidence. Just a little something to corroborate the language-based assertions that have been made.

    After all, if the difference between the Greek worldview and the Hebrew worldview lies primarily in the differences between the two languages, then it’s rather pointless to discuss the Greek worldview here. I get the feeling you’re only discussing the Greek worldview because the dominant worldview of our own society is so heavily influenced by it. If worldviews are language based, that couldn’t happen, since we don’t speak Greek and our language is very little influenced by Greek. It is only because worldviews are not language based that we Anglophones can hold a basically Greek worldview.

    So let’s see some flavoring of the worldview difference that isn’t rooted in linguistic features.

    “Thus, it is perfectly fair to say that the doctrines of the Gospel may be more incompatible with some worldviews and languages than others. I believe that it is more compatible with a Hebrew worldview than a Greek one; at least, the doctrines of the Gospel make more sense when approached from a Hebrew perspective, and we do less violence to the scriptures when we read them from a Hebrew worldview.”

    Before I respond to your point, please don’t go so far as to say that the Gospel is relatively incompatible with certain languages! If that were the case, why would the Lord require that each man hear the gospel in his own language and in his own tongue? Wouldn’t he be better off revealing his word in only one language and requiring all to learn it? I cannot accept the idea that one language might be more incompatible with the Gospel than another to any degree that makes the difference worth discussing. A worldview, sure (since Christianity itself is ultimately a worldview), but not a language.

    As for the idea that the Hebrew worldview is more compatible with the Gospel than the Greek, consider what Paul told the Corinthians.

    From Chapter 1 of First Corinthians:
    “21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
    22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
    23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
    24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”

    Paul was pretty familiar with both the Hebrew worldview (in which he’d been educated quite thoroughly), and the Greek worldview (the dominant worldview of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, of which he was born a citizen in a time when citizenry was rare). Furthermore, he had been preaching the Gospel to holders of both worldviews for a while, so he probably had a pretty good handle on the relative compatibility of the Gospel with these two worldviews.

    With all of that experience, Paul seems to have concluded that the Greek and the Hebrew worldview were most marked in relationship with the Gospel by their more or less equal incompatibility with it. In other words, regardless of whether one was more compatible with the Gospel than the other, the most salient fact about the two worldviews was that they were both so incompatible with the Gospel as to render the difference between the two insignificant.

    Having said that, though, I do think it would be fascinating to examine both worldviews and see how the Gospel would seem foolish to the Greek mind and weak to the Hebrew mind, and yet to the spiritual mind can be seen as a source of both wisdom and power. That could be really enlightening. But to swap out a mindset that sees the Gospel as foolishness for one that sees the Gospel as weakness would just not get us nearer to God.

  6. Wes: “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness.”

    I agree that the gospel is the lens through which we should view everything else. And heaven knows that the Hebrews slipped into apostasy many times, so their worldview was certainly not perfect.

    But I also can’t help but think that a particular group of people that was directly influenced by the Lord and his prophets for so long, across so many generations and centuries, would have certain truths ingrained into their culture and language in subtle ways. The type of degree of that ingraining, I can’t say; I haven’t looked into it enough. But it makes sense to me that there would be some deep effects from the covenant people’s long interaction with prophets and revelation.

    Viewing God’s word through exclusively through a Hebrew lens would of course be as foolish as viewing it exclusively through a Greek lens.

    Now when it comes to using a lens to view the scriptures, it makes sense that we should consider what language each particular book was given in. If Isaiah was originally written in Hebrew, then I expect my insights to be limited if I study it in Greek. Even if Isaiah’s linguistic worldview wasn’t divinely perfect, I would still expect that I’m going to get closer to his (and the Lord’s) message and intent by reading him through a Hebrew lens.

    P.S. Hey Wes, you need to get yesself a cool avatar picture for your comments. They’re very hip—all the rage. 🙂

  7. Nathan: “But I also can’t help but think that a particular group of people that was directly influenced by the Lord and his prophets for so long, across so many generations and centuries, would have certain truths ingrained into their culture and language in subtle ways.”

    That’s the great thing about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It teaches us that the Hebrews aren’t God’s only people, but that his word goes out to all nations and they all write it down. All nations have received God’s word for so many generations and centuries. And all nations have, at times, rejected it.

    But all nations will have certain truths ingrained in their culture due to this endless divine influence, not just the Hebrews. If we reject the Greek worldview (or any other), then we lose those hard-wired truths in Greek thought along with losing the hard-wired fallacies.

    “Now when it comes to using a lens to view the scriptures, it makes sense that we should consider what language each particular book was given in. If Isaiah was originally written in Hebrew, then I expect my insights to be limited if I study it in Greek. Even if Isaiah’s linguistic worldview wasn’t divinely perfect, I would still expect that I’m going to get closer to his (and the Lord’s) message and intent by reading him through a Hebrew lens.”

    I can understand that line of reasoning. But that being the case, wouldn’t we want to read the New Testament through a Greek lens? And the Doctrine and Covenants, and probably the Book of Mormon, too, should be read through an Anglo-American lens. If I reject a Greek eye on Isaiah because Isaiah wrote in Hebrew, then I should probably also reject a Hebrew eye on Luke, since Luke wrote in Greek. And I should reject both Hebrew and Greek thinking when I read the Book of Mormon (maybe) or the Doctrine and Covenants (definitely).

    “P.S. Hey Wes, you need to get yesself a cool avatar picture for your comments. They’re very hip—all the rage.”
    I agree with you. I only wish I knew how! 😀

  8. Wes, I think it is quite possible that the philosophical framework of the ancient Greeks just does not do justice to the Christian idea of God. Greek philosophy and the Greek worldview was a dirty lens that prevented many from understanding the Gospel as clearly as they would have if they had come from a different background. Even though the New Testament was written in the Greek language, many of its insights were designed to act as a corrective to Greek philosophies. Some philosophies are simply mistaken… and a culture that is saturated with those philosophies (as the Greeks were) will have a more difficult time preserving sacred truths than those who are not. For example, our society is saturated by the philosophy of individualism, and thus we often teach gospel truths using individualistic metaphors that do not do justice to the truly relational philosophies that Christ taught. In the same way, I believe that the abstractionist philosophies of ancient Greece (discussed in this post) do not do justice to the nature of God.

    Therefore, just because the New Testament was written in Greek, doesn’t mean that its message was meant to be overlaid by Greek philosophy. Of course, that also means that perhaps the Old Testament is not meant to be overlaid with Hebrew philosophy. However, I don’t believe that Gospel truths taught in the Old Testament were meant to act as a cultural corrective in same way; the way God describes himself, for example, folds more easily into Hebrew philosophy. I’m not advocating a complete switch over so much as a reconsideration of many of the philosophical assumptions we inherited from the Greeks. One of the best ways to transcend philosophical assumptions is to present an alternative; Hebrew philosophy is an available alternative that does more justice to the true nature of God, I believe, than the assumptions we’ve grown up with. Perfect? Probably not. Better? I think so.

  9. Jeff: “Hebrew philosophy is an available alternative that does more justice to the true nature of God, I believe, than the assumptions we’ve grown up with. Perfect? Probably not. Better? I think so.”

    You think so?

    Nephi was inclined to agree that Jewish thought was better for understanding the scriptures, but I don’t think he thought it valuable for understanding the Gospel:

    “For behold, Isaiah spake many things which were hard for many of my people to understand; for they know not concerning the manner of prophesying among the Jews. For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations . . . I know that the Jews do understand the things of the prophets, and there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews. But behold, I, Nephi, have not taught my children after the manner of the Jews.” (2 Ne. 25:1-2, 5-6)

    No matter what benefit the Hebrew mindset might have given his people in understanding the Scriptures, Nephi didn’t think it was worth the ugliness it would taint their minds with.

    Jacob gives some insight as to why:

    “But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.” (Jacob 4:14)

    Kind of sounds like a similar sort of opprobrium to that laid down by Paul six centuries later. From the time of Jeremiah to the time of Paul, the Jews were pretty consistently wicked in the same way.

    In fact, they were apparently more wicked than any other nation on earth:

    “Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ — for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name — should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him — for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God.” (2 Ne. 10:3)

    Jeff: “I don’t believe that Gospel truths taught in the Old Testament were meant to act as a cultural corrective”

    Really? Here’s Jesus’s idea on the topic:

    “33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
    34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
    35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
    36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
    37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
    38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
    39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
    40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
    41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
    42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
    43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (Matthew 21:33-43)

    Sounds to me like the Old Testament is one ling line of attempted correctives.

    I also find it interesting, in light of that last sentence in the parable, that most of Paul’s epistles were written to the saints in Greek cities. They were the ones receiving the Gospel after it was taken from the Jews.

    Jeff: “I’m not advocating a complete switch over so much as a reconsideration of many of the philosophical assumptions we inherited from the Greeks. One of the best ways to transcend philosophical assumptions is to present an alternative.”

    To that, I can agree. It is always good to examine our assumptions critically. If you leave it at that as you present the Hebrew alternative, I won’t be able to object.

    But to suppose that Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than any other human philosophy strikes me as a mistake, especially in light of the scriptures that seem to indicate it might in fact be worse, viler, and more devilish than any other human philosophy.

  10. Wesley: But to suppose that Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than any other human philosophy strikes me as a mistake.

    When did I say this? I never have. Don’t put words in my mouth. All I have said is that many gospel principles fold more easily into Hebrew philosophy than Greek philosophy. Did I say that gospel truths weren’t meant to act as a corrective to Hebrew philosophy? No… I said they weren’t meant to act as a corrective in the same way. I think you are entirely misreading me. I’m not sure if you are just trying to pick a fight or just trying to be contrary, because you keep arguing with me when it isn’t really necessary.

  11. Jeff: “When did I say this?”

    Well, here’s just one place where you said it pretty plainly:

    “Hebrew philosophy is an available alternative that does more justice to the true nature of God, I believe, than the assumptions we’ve grown up with. Perfect? Probably not. Better? I think so.”

    I’m not putting words in your mouth — you are.

    And I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m not trying to be contrary for the sake of contrariness. I understand your feeling that way — I’ve often felt the same about your responses to my comments.

    I do hold an opinion that is contrary to one you seem to hold. Here’s what seems to me to be a pretty good summary of the view you seem to hold that I disagree so strongly with:

    “Thus, it is perfectly fair to say that the doctrines of the Gospel may be more incompatible with some worldviews . . . than others. I believe that it is more compatible with a Hebrew worldview than a Greek one; at least, the doctrines of the Gospel make more sense when approached from a Hebrew perspective, and we do less violence to the scriptures when we read them from a Hebrew worldview.”

    I find this sort of Judeophilia — so rampant among members of the Church, particularly well-educated members of the Church — idolatrous and blasphemous and in direct violation of very many scriptural warnings. When I hear people say that we ought to learn to think like Jews so that we can understand the Scriptures better, my mind’s eye gets covered over with bright, large red flags. That kind of religious racism has no place in Christ’s Gospel, wherein “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

    I am grieved by the perpetuation of this apostate doctrine of racism among members of the restored Church. Almost every one of Paul’s epistles fought against this kind of racism, fought against the apostate Hebrew idea that Gentiles had to make themselves more like the Jews if they were to be true Christians. To think that the very same apostasy yet afflicts us breaks my heart and even terrifies me.

    You write well and your ideas are obviously well respected by a lot of folks. That’s clear from the comments people leave here. When I think of these people being taught so eloquently that they ought to Judaicize themselves a bit to become better Christians, that they ought to learn to think like Jews so they can understand the Gospel or the Scriptures better, I fear for them, and I feel they ought to hear an alternative perspective. They ought to know that some members of the Church who enjoy well-written and well-educated discussion about Church doctrines think it’s wrong to think that Jewish thought will help us understand the Word of God better, and have good reasons for thinking it’s wrong.

    Now, if you don’t believe that the Gospel “is more compatible with a Hebrew worldview than [our] Greek[-influenced] one,” or that “the doctrines of the Gospel make more sense when approached from a Hebrew perspective,” or that “we do less violence to the scriptures when we read them from a Hebrew worldview,” then I have misunderstood you and I am arguing against a phantom of my own creating, a thing which, as you say, isn’t really necessary.

    Of course, in a deeper sense, even if you believe these things, my arguing with you isn’t really necessary. I am not responsible for the beliefs of my brothers and sisters, but only my own. If they wish to believe something that I am convinced will lead them astray, it is not necessary that I do anything about it. It is their prerogative and their responsibility. In fact, it’s probably sinful of me to suppose that I should try to offer some correction. Who am I to pull motes out of my brothers’ eyes? I know I have enough beams in my own eyes to rebuild the Tower of Babel.

    So, I apologize for trying to correct what I see as a gross error in your thinking and teaching, and I will look to my own (almost certainly) gross(er) need for repentance instead.

    Thank you for giving me the opportunity to see the error in my ways.

  12. “Hebrew philosophy is an available alternative that does more justice to the true nature of God, I believe, than the assumptions we’ve grown up with. Perfect? Probably not. Better? I think so.”

    Um, this is a very very different thing than saying:

    “Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than any other human philosophy”

    I really think you are misunderstanding what I am saying, and reading something into what I write that isn’t there. Am I saying that we should forsake our Christian heritage and live like the Jews? Am I saying that we should become Pharisees? Am I saying that we should put legal descriptions of the law before the revealed word (as the Jews did)? None of these. The wickedness of the Jews you refer to is not the “Hebrew philosophy” I refer to.

    Was the philosophy of ancient Israel, the philosophy of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the philosophy of Moses, was it so evil that we ought not examine it? Explain to me one specific thing about Hebrew philosophy that you find vile and repulsive? And then, show me how I’ve taught that in the above post. I am not talking about the Jews, but a worldview and philosophy that we can trace to the culture and language of Ancient Israel.

    You’ve also implied that by contrasting Hebrew and Greek philosophy, and pointing out difficulties in Greek philosophy that can be corrected with a Hebrew understanding, that I’m racist in some way and leading people into apostasy. I find that a very strange point of view.

  13. Wes: Nephi was inclined to agree that Jewish thought was better for understanding the scriptures, but I don’t think he thought it valuable for understanding the Gospel.

    2 Ne. 25 has always made me curious about Nephi’s attitude toward the Jews. I can’t tell whether he’s recommending learning about the Jews or not.

    He says that he loves Isaiah’s words, but that he also loves plainness, and contrasts Isaiah’s words with his own plainer words (v. 4). It seems he saw unique value in both styles.
    He says that no other groups can understand the things Heavenly Father revealed to the Jewish prophets as well as the Jews, unless those groups learn “the manner of the things of the Jews” (v. 5)
    He says that his Jewish background helps him understand and delight in Isaiah’s words, but that he doesn’t teach much of it to his children because “their works were works of darkness” (v. 2).

    It seems like Nephi might be recommending the Jewish philosophical background, but not their actions and habits. When it comes to “the manner of the Jews,” he recommends the “things of the Jews” (and I understand that the word “things” also means “words” ) but not the “works of the Jews.”

    I think that’s what Jeff is getting at—that despite the fact that every group has slipped into apostasy at one point or another, prophets like Nephi have still recommended we model certain groups’ characteristics in one way or another. For the Jews, it seems the Lord recommended their “words” and “learning” in order to understand the gospel. For other groups, the Lord might recommend their habits and actions instead of their philosophies, like when Jacob points out the Lamanites’ chastity (Jacob 3:5) or when Jeremiah points out the Rechabites’ integrity (Jer. 35). I don’t think it racist to acknowledge that, in a certain area (philosophy, family, honesty, promise-keeping, etc.), one group has adhered more closely to gospel principles than another.

  14. Nice post, Jeff. I’ve been thinking about the basic differences between atemporal and abstractionist (Greek) thinking and more temporal and relational (Hebrew) thinking, especially in relation to some work I’ve been doing with William James. If you haven’t already, you should read James’ A Pluralistic Universe, in which he does an excellent job at discriminating between these two worldviews (not labeled as Greek and Hebrew, but similar in the sense of atemporal/abstractionist vs. temporal/relational). Charles Taylor is another excellent resource.

    To jump on the conversation between you and Wesley:

    It was a good conversation until Wesley’s last comment in which he clearly was misreading you. He was making a straw man of your argument by implying that you were saying that Hebrew thinking was better than any other kind of thinking (you clearly were not saying this).

    Just from my own perspective, I don’t really feel a need to justify Hebrew thinking on any kind of scriptural grounds of superiority. I simply think that it offers a lot to check against the problems of our own Greek-inspired worldview (which is not simply by way of language in a narrow sense, to address Wesley’s point, but rather our intellectual descendancy from Greek thought — which surely has shaped our language and what it means in just about every way, as just about any lesson in intellectual history will reveal). I personally agree with a more contextual/temporal/relational/process world rather than an acontextual/atemporal/abstractionist/static world. Therefore, Hebrew thinking appeals to me. Not the other way around. I feel this way in large part because of my experiences with others, including with God through prayer, reflection, and scripture study.

  15. I should add, furthermore, that if I was from a Hebrew background that it might be that I would need to emphasize more Greek thought. For those who truly want to learn from God, one way that can really open up one’s worldview to be able to better learn from God is to simply learn things from another perspective.

  16. I said something that seems to have confused people. The phrase “[comparative] than any other” is ambiguous and I was intentionally invoking each of the two meanings in turn when I said the following:

    “But to suppose that Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than any other human philosophy strikes me as a mistake, especially in light of the scriptures that seem to indicate it might in fact be worse, viler, and more devilish than any other human philosophy.”

    I apologize for the confusion that has caused. Let me clarify the original statement:

    To suppose that Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than some other human philosophy strikes me as a mistake, especially in light of the scriptures that seem to indicate it might in fact be worse, viler, and more devilish than all other human philosophies.

    To be perfectly clear, I did not intend anyone to interpret “better than any other philosophy” as “better than all other philosophies,” but rather as “better than some philosophy other than Hebrew philosophy.” And to be super-clear, I was intending that Hebrew philosophy be compared to other ethnic-based philosophies, because comparing Hebrew philosophy to some other, non-ethnic-based philosophy seems to me to be a hollow kind of comparison.

    I just want people who want to gainsay my statements to understand fully what it is they’re gainsaying. 🙂

  17. Wesley,

    Thanks for the clarification. I will say, though, in my defense, that when you look at what you said,

    But to suppose that Hebrew philosophy is somehow better or holier or godlier than any other human philosophy strikes me as a mistake, especially in light of the scriptures that seem to indicate it might in fact be worse, viler, and more devilish than any other human philosophy.

    there is good reason to think that “any other human philosophy” (which you used twice) means “every other human philosophy.” The first use is admittedly ambiguous (“some other” would be more clear); however, the second use is an odd usage if not connoted in the “every other” sense. I have a hard time believing that you meant here that it could be worse than “some other” philosophy — unless when you said that the Jews “were apparently more wicked than any other nation on earth,” you meant “some other” rather than “every other,” which of course is ridiculous in light of the scriptures you cited. (Regarding this point, by the way, I like what Nathan has recently said.)

    If we want to speak of gainsaying, we can speak of your references to “Judeophilia,” blasphemy, idolatry, apostasy, and “religious racism,” in response to a quotation from Jeff which can hardly be construed as connoting these things.

  18. I just realized, Wesley, in your correction, that you changed the “any” in “more devilish than any other human philosophy” to “all.” I didn’t notice this before. Obviously my interpretation was correct, it looks like.

  19. Jeff: Much, if not most, of the New Testament was actually recorded in a Semitic language, and only later translated into Greek.

    Wes: That’s a remarkably fringe viewpoint that the overwhelming majority of scholars have rejected for about two thousand years. The only bit of the New Testament where there has been some real question about whether it was originally composed in Greek is Matthew’s Gospel, but even there, most scholars agree it was composed in Greek. Other than that, you’re dealing with snippets of phrasing here and there—hardly “much, if not most.

    Just because not very many ‘theologians’ say its not true does not mean that its not true. Mark was commonly believed to be one of the sources for Matthew and Luke. The Greek syntax of the shortest G0spel is not very good Greek. But, syntactically speaking, it is excellent Hebrew! The texts of the three Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – present some serious challenges to translators. Substantial portions of the text follow a typically Hebrew word order – yet the language is Greek. The same thing happens in the Greek Septuagint which was written about 200 years before the Gospels.

    In his book Jewish Sources in Early Christianity, Dr. Flusser addresses the common theory that Mark wrote first, in Greek. “The spoken languages among the Jews of that period were Hebrew, Aramaic, and to an extent, Greek. Until recently, it was believed by numerous scholars that the language spoken by Jesus’ disciples was Aramaic. It is possible that Jesus did, from time to time, make use of the Aramaic language. But during that period Hebrew was both the daily language and the language of study. The Gospel of Mark contains a few Aramaic words, and this is what misled scholars” (Flusser, p. 11).

    Again, since most of the Apostles spoke Hebrew there is an underlining possibility that it was written in Hebrew before the Greek. There is GREATER POSSIBILITY that most likely the life of Jesus (the Gospels) was spoken completely in Hebrew.

    Wes: But on another point, I think it’s important to remember that just as we must be careful about applying Greek philosophical assumptions to sacred texts, so we should be careful about applying Hebrew philosophical assumptions to sacred texts.

    Just to make a statement: those sacred texts that you’re referring were written by Jews to Jews for Jews at first then Jews to Jews/Greeks. All the writings were written BY Jews except for the Book of Mormon. SO having a Jewish mindset may not be entirely necessary to understanding the Tanack/Brit Chadasha (New and Old Testament) BUT having one greatly hences the understanding .

    In Yeshua,
    Barabba

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