WHY THE LONG..................................SILENCE???

by Terry 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Terry

  Aristotle made its way into Christian theology ( e.g. Thomas Aquinas) much later,

  Aristotle: The loss of his works

  Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), [29] the vast majority of his writings are now lost, while the literary character of those that remain is disputed. Aristotle's works were lost and rediscovered several times, and it is believed that about one fifth of his original works have survived.

  One story of the original manuscripts of his treatises is described by Strabo in his Geography and Plutarch in his Parallel Lives. [30] The manuscripts were left from Aristotle to his successor Theophrastus, who in turn willed them to Neleus of Scepsis. Neleus supposedly took the writings from Athens to Scepsis, where his heirs let them languish in a cellar until the first century BC, when Apellicon of Teos discovered and purchased the manuscripts, bringing them back to Athens. According to the story, Apellicon tried to repair some of the damage that was done during the manuscripts' stay in the basement, introducing a number of errors into the text.When Lucius Cornelius Sulla occupied Athens in 86 BC, he carried off the library of Appellicon to Rome, where they were first published in 60 BC by the grammarian Tyrranion of Amisus and then by philosopher Andronicus of Rhodes.

  Carnes Lord attributes the popular belief in this story to the fact that it provides "the most plausible explanation for the rapid eclipse of the Peripatetic school after the middle of the third century, and for the absence of widespread knowledge of the specialized treatises of Aristotle throughout the Hellenistic period, as well as for the sudden reappearance of a flourishing Aristotelianism during the first century B.C." [31] Lord voices a number of reservations concerning this story, however. First, the condition of the texts is far too good for them to have suffered considerable damage followed by Apellicon's inexpert attempt at repair. Second, there is "incontrovertible evidence," Lord says, that the treatises were in circulation during the time in which Strabo and Plutarch suggest they were confined the cellar in Scepsis. Third, the definitive edition of Aristotle's texts seems to have been made in Athens some fifty years before Andronicus supposedly compiled his. And fourth, ancient library catalogues predating Andronicus' intervention list an Aristotelean corpus quite similar to the one we currently possess. Lord sees a number of post-Aristotelean interpolations in the Politics, for example, but is generally confident that the work has come down to us relatively intact.

  After the Roman period, Aristotle's works were by and large lost to the West for a second time . They were, however, preserved in the East by various Muslim scholars and philosophers, many of whom wrote extensive commentaries on his works. Aristotle lay at the foundation of the falsafa movement in Islamic philosophy, stimulating the thought of Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and others.

  As the influence of the falsafa grew in the West, in part due to Gerard of Cremona's translations and the spread of Averroism, the demand for Aristotle's works grew. William of Moerbeke translated a number of them into Latin. When Thomas Aquinas wrote his theology, working from Moerbeke's translations, the demand for Aristotle's writings grew and the Greek manuscripts returned to the West, stimulating a revival of Aristotelianism in Europe.
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  JCanon

  Nobody dared speak the old way or tell outrageous mythic semite tales of a mono-God dealing only with one tiny ethnic people.

  This is so ill-informed and such a joke too. A lot of my research over the past 10 years has been into ancient Mid-Eastern and Egyptian history and everything in the Bible is right on point, even the absolute dates for things we can actually get close to an absolute date for, like the fall of many cities during Shishak's invasion, an event that is confirmed by both Biblical and Egyptian records.

  http://www.geocities.com/ed_maruyama/rehov872.html

  Now some things that involved "miracles" I won't debate as being "outragenous" since by definition a miracle doesn't make logical sense and breaks natural laws. But the entire history of the Jews is certainly not like that. So that comments simply falls past the credibility mark for some of us.

  As far as the advancement and achievements of Greeks and their influence, indeed they may have contributed a lot, but in general the Greeks will tell you they got a lot of great wisdom from the East. The East and The Mysteries were always considered the higher seat of knowledge. Take for instance, the concept of astronomy. The ZODIAC comes from the Greek terrm "zoo" for animal but the zodiac the Greeks used was invented thousands of years earlier by the Sumerians. Even Thales, a noted Greek educator and scientist studied astronomy for seven years in Egypt. So some might argue that "higher thinking" came out of the Mysteries to the Greeks. Even their legends show that.

  So the Greeks may have articulated it well and become famous for it by advertisizing themselves more, but they hardly invented great thinking. Point in fact, because the Greeks were paid off by the Persians to revise the history of Thucycides, it was necessary to destroy the work of many great Greek historians and others, including most of the original works of Socrates. That's because Socrates' history was moved back in time with the dating for the Peloponnesian War, moved back from 403BCE to 431BCE to match a substitute eclipse in 431BCE. My point being is that Xenophon who masterminded the historical revisionism had to enlist the help of his croonies Plato and Aristotle to likewise revise their records. Plato and Xenophon are the primary publishers of what was left of the works of Socrates, which just saved his dialogues. But once you know that, Plato and Aristotle, as great as they were in their own right, are popular by default because everybody else's work was bought, suppressed or destroyed. If only your records survive then of course you turn out to be the most popular. In fact, the only Greek historian whose complete works survive is Xenophon. No big surprise since he had a hand in destroying everybody elses. But so much for politics.

  Unfortunately, exposure of the conspiracy to help the Persians revise Greek history also exposes Plato and Aristotle as likely opportunists. Again, who knows how much they got paid to mastermind all the revisionism which brings up another point. FAME is often simply a matter of money and power, and often power is also a matter of money.

  Another factor, of course, is writing. Cultures that don't write and leave records lose what they have learned save transmitted via oral tradition.

  So in the overall, I would certainly not discount the great influence of the Greeks, who were good at propaganda, in fact the best, but as far as "great thinking" goes, many of them credit the great learning centers of the East, Egypt, Babylon, etc. And often as is today, the Jews were quite influential and among the greatest intellectuals of any culture they influenced. In fact, the great Western Culture, generally considered a result of the Greeks, is likely far more influenced by the Bible (the Jews) than the Greeks, and the greatness of Western Civilization is often credited to it's Christianity and the beliefs connected to it. Even the GODS of the Greeks were said to come out of Egypt, you know. So, certainly one culture influences others, I'm not saying that. But a lot of what is considered "Greek thought" didn't really originate with the Greeks, they just made it popular in the world of the conquerers.

  JCanon