Plato Timaeus 31

Classical

31 Are we right, then, in describing the Heaven as one, or would it be more correct to speak of heavens as many or infinite in number? One it must be termed, if it is to be framed after its Pattern. For that which embraces all intelligible Living Creatures could never be second, with another beside it; for if so, there must needs exist yet another Living Creature, which should embrace them both, and of which they two would each be a part; in which case this Universe could no longer be rightly described as modelled on these two, but rather on that third Creature which contains them both. Wherefore, in order that this Creature might resemble the all perfect Living Creature in respect of its uniqueness, for this reason its Maker made neither two Universes nor an infinite number, but there is and will continue to be this one generated Heaven, unique of its kind. Now that which has come into existence must needs be of bodily form, visible and tangible; yet without fire nothing could ever become visible, nor tangible without some solidity, nor solid without earth. Hence, in beginning to construct the body of the All, God was making it of fire and earth. But it is not possible that two things alone should be conjoined without a third; for there must needs be some intermediary bond to connect the two. And the fairest of bonds is that which most perfectly unites into one both itself and the things which it binds together; and to effect this in the fairest manner is the natural property of proportion. For whenever the middle term of any three numbers, cubic or square,

LXX Genesis 1:6

Septuagint

5 And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And it came to be evening, and it came to be morning, day one. 6 And God said, “Let a firmament come into being in the midst of the water, and let it be a separator between water and water.” And it became so. 7 And God made the firmament, and God separated between the water that was under the firmament and between the water that was above the firmament.

 Notes and References

"... An early example of the attempt at theological reconciliation with philosophy appears in the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek beginning in the third century B.C.E., which originally only concerned the translation of the Torah. It adopts the terminology of the means of creation from Plato’s Timaeus for the creation of the world in its translation of Genesis 1. The concepts and implicit assumptions evidently attempt to harmonize biblical and Platonic cosmology. The world described in the Bible is, according to the Septuagint, none other than the one addressed in Greek philosophy and science. The proximity to Timaeus is apparent in Genesis 1:2, for example: the Septuagint expresses the state of the world before creation, which is Hebrew is described by the proverbial tohuwabohu (that is, ‘life-threatening wasteland’; compare Isaiah 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23), as ἀόρατος καί ἀκατασκεύστος (‘unseen and unformed’), which appears to indicate a correspondence to the distinction between the world of ideas and the material world that is central in Timaeus. The rendering of rāqiaʿ (‘firmament’) in Genesis 1:6 by στερέωμα (‘structure’) should likely also be explained as a reference to Timaeus, where the related adjective, στερεός (‘firm, solid’) is used repeatedly for the heavenly bodies (31b; 43c, among others) ..."

Schmid, Konrad Is There Theology in the Hebrew Bible? (pp. 109-110) Eisenbrauns, 2014

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.