1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910810910303321

Autore

Cox Ronald

Titolo

By the same word : creation and salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity / / Ronald Cox

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin, : W. de Gruyter, 2007

ISBN

1-282-07333-8

9786612073335

3-11-173133-2

3-11-021214-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (408 p.)

Collana

Beihefte zur zeitschrift fnr die neutestamentliche wissenschaft und die kunde der ateren kirche ; ; 145

Classificazione

BC 7415

Disciplina

220.6

261.26

Soggetti

Creation

Salvation

Lingua di pubblicazione

Tedesco

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Chapter One. Introduction -- Chapter Two. Middle Platonic Intermediary Doctrine -- Chapter Three. Salvation as the Fulfillment of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in Hellenistic Judaism -- Chapter Four. Salvation as the Reparation of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in New Testament Christology -- Chapter Five. Salvation as the Undoing of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in "Gnosticism" -- Chapter Six. Conclusion -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Middle Platonism explained how a transcendent principle could relate to the material world by positing an intermediary, modeled after the Stoic active cause, that mediated the supreme principle's influence to the world while preserving its transcendence. Having similar concerns as Middle Platonism, Hellenistic Jewish sapientialism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism appropriated this intermediary doctrine as a means for understanding their relationship to God and to the cosmos.  However, these traditions vary in their adaptation of this teaching due to their distinctive understanding of creation and humanity's place therein.  The



Jewish writings of Philo of Alexandria and Wisdom of Solomon espouse a holistic ontology, combining a Platonic appreciation for noetic reality with an ultimately positive view of creation and its place in human fulfillment.  The early Christians texts of 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:15-20, Heb 1:2-3, and the prologue of John provide an eschatological twist to this ontology when the intermediary figure finds final expression in Jesus Christ.  Contrarily, Poimandres (CH 1) and the Apocryphon of John, both associated with the traditional rubric "Gnosticism", draw from Platonism to describe how creation is antithetical to human nature and its transcendent source.