By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (2007 Cox), book

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By the Same Word: Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity (2007) is a book by Ronald R. Cox.

Abstract

"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."--Publisher description.

Editions

Published in Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.

Contents

• 1. Introduction
  • 1. The Fusion of Creation Myth and Salvation History
  • 2. Identifying the Vorleben of the Christological Creation Myth
  • 3. One Cosmology, Three Soteriologies: A Study of the Appropriation of Middle Platonic Intermediary Doctrine by Hellenistic Sapientialis, Early Christianity, and Gnosticism
  • 4. Summary of Introduction
• 2. Middle Platonic Intermediary Doctrine
  • 1. A Transcendent Supreme Principle
  • 2. Demiurgic Activity and the Intermediate Principle
  • 3. Prepositional Metaphysics
  • 4. The Anagogic Function of the Intermediate Principle
  • 5. Summary of Chapter Two
• 3. Salvation as the Fulfillment of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in Hellenistic Judaism
  • 1. Wisdom of Solomon
  • 2. Philo of Alexandria
  • 3. Summary of Chapter Three
• 4. Salvation as the Reparation of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in New Testament Christology
  • 1. Ontology and Eschatology in Conflict 1 Corinthians 8:6-An Introductory Case Study
  • 2. Colossians 1:15-20
  • 3. Hebrews 1:1-4
  • 4. The Johannine Prologue
  • 5. Summary of Chapter Four
• 5. Salvation as the Undoing of Creation: The Roles of the Divine Intermediary in Gnosticism
  • 1. Corpus Hermeticum 1: "Poimandres"
  • 2. The Apocryphon of John
  • 3. Summary of Chapter Five
• 6. Conclusion
  • 1. Thesis Statement
  • 2. First Move-The Source Tradition: Middle Platonic Intermediary Doctrine
  • 3. The Second Move- Hellenistic Jewish Sapientialism: The Divine Intermediary and the Fulfillment of Cosmology
  • 4. Third Move-Early Christianity: The Divine Intermediary and the Reparation of Creation
  • 5. Fourth Move: Gnosticism-The Divine Intermediary and the Undoing of Creation
  • 6. Synthesis

External links

• Google Books (partial text)