America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences: The Glory that was Greece
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences Ancient Greece
Greece & Israel: Was there a connection?
• Time period: 1000 BC – 1 AD
• David//Achilles
• Nehemiah//Pythagoras
• Micah//Anaxagoras
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences - Ancient Greece
Biblical EVENTS
Year
Greek EVENTS
Period of Judges
1380
Mycenaean Civilization (Crete)
1200
Mycenaean Civilization ends; Trojan War?
Saul
1030
Growth of early Greek city-states
David
900
Solomon
971-930
Divided Kingdom – Civil
War
930
Fall of Israel to Assyria
776
Olympic Games
722
Athens begins democratic government
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences Ancient Greece
Babylonian Captivity,
Fall of Jerusalem
587
Athenian citizens vote, develop court
and legal system
Daniel In Lion's Den
538
Pythagoras develops theories
Persians conquer
Babylonia; Temple
rebuilt
536
Ezra
500
Greeks and Persians engaged in great
wars; Anaxagoras and Intelligent
Design
Enemies burn
Jerusalem's walls
466/65
Darius' son Artaxerxes defeated by
Greeks
Ezra Restores Worship
458
Greeks destroy Persian Empire
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences Ancient Greece
Nehemiah
446/45
Malachi, Last Prophet;
Restoration of Judah
445-432
Greeks fight among themselves
Peloponnesian Wars
375
Plato; Alexander the Great educated by
Aristotle, conquers most of known world
Judea and Near East
controlled by Greeks
318/17
Greeks Hellenize the Near East
Jews caught in power
struggle between Syria,
Greece and Egypt. Greek
language was prominent.
313/100
Greeks fight wars against Egypt, Syria, and
Judea.
300
Rome rapidly growing in power.
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences - Ancient Greece
Democracy
• Athens “pure” democracy
• Citizen duties & rights
• Tyrants
• Ostracism
• Civic participation
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences - Ancient Greece
• Love and care of the
body & mind
• Classical architecture:
Acropolis
• Epic poetry & plays
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences Ancient Greece
The Heroic Ideal:
Homer’s Epics: Ulysses,
Achilles, Hector
• Pericles : Defense of
Homeland
• Leonidas: the
Supreme sacrifice
• Marathon
runner “Athens
is saved!”
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Pythagoras; 550 BC
• Immortality (transmigration of the soul)
– strong influence on Socrates & Plato.
• Pythagorean theorem, the beginning of
mathematics in Western culture –
demonstrative and deductive reasoning
which has had a key influence .
• Influence found an expression in visual
art and music, particularly in the
renaissance and baroque epoch.
• The “Music of the Spheres” assumes that
there is correct and pleasing “unheard”
music which moves and motivates us.
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Immortality of the soul:
Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul.
Music as way of communicating with God:
Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine, which
leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the
Spirit, 19 speaking to one another with psalms,
hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make
music from your heart to the Lord,
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Music as way of antagonizing God:
Daniel 3:15: Now when you hear the sound of the
horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of
music, if you are ready to fall down and worship
the image I made, very good. But if you do not
worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a
blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to
rescue you from my hand?”
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Intelligent Design:
Anaxagoras, 500 BC
•
•
•
•
Advanced view of matter,
An infinite number of elements.
One of the earliest "Big Bang"
theories, he suggested that
initially "all things were together,”
matter was a homogeneous
mixture.
Intelligent design:” that "nous"
(“the supreme mind") separated
two great masses, one consisting
of the rare, hot, dry, called the
'aether,' the other of the opposite
categories and called 'air.'
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian Influences; Ancient Greece
GENESIS 1:1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth
was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of
God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was
good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and
the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first
day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from
water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the
water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and
there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry
ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered
waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Ethics and Self-Discovery:
Socrates/Plato, 350 BC
Father of ethics.
“Know Thyself!”
Irony as method
Socratic method.
“The Cave” metaphor
Accused of corrupting the
youth of Athens.
• Virtue is the most valuable
of all possessions; the ideal
life should be spent in
search of the Good.
•
•
•
•
•
•
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian
Influences; Ancient Greece
Aristotle, 300 BC
• Student of Plato
• Scientific inquiry; body of
knowledge & proof
• Biology, psychology,
medicine, physics, geology,
optics, & metaphysics
• Cause and effect
• Research and classify
• “Follow the divine.”
• “The Golden Mean.”
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian Influences Ancient
Greece
World is illusion; ideals (form) is real: Socrates
•
Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even
his eternal power and Godhead;
Nature of God; our souls’ relation to God: Plato
•
Romans 13:1
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no
power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
The good life consists in striving to be in consonance with
God: Aristotle
•
Luke 10:27… ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your
mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’
Immediate Consequences
• Greek language becomes the
language of the Bible
• Greek philosophy and religion seeks
a “new” way – Paul’s influence
Platonic & Aristotelian thought
• Greeks and Judeans intermingle:
• Jews and Gentiles;
• universalism of Christianity
America’s Trajectory: Pre-Christian Influences Ancient
Greece
The Decline of
Ancient Greece
•
•
•
•
•
Disunity
Distrust
Decadence
Pluralism
Corruption