Plato in Abraham and Patriarchy

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Abraham is known to be the patriarch of Abrahamic beliefs. He is, wether metaphorically or literally, considered to be the very forefather of the nation he built after leaving his own country to journey and establish it on an undesignated land, pressumably by the Guidance of God.

Many people studying the Bible, including some who are critical to it's historicity are more willing to consider Abraham to be a real person. This is a product of the works of some of the earlier historians who studied history for the purpose of proving the Bible. But according to Niel Godfrey's comparisons, the existence of a figure like Abraham is a very Greek mythical trope. We will see this once we lay out Plato's work.

Patriarchy​

Many scholars understood that Abraham, wether fictional or a real person, is portrayed to be the ultimate patriarch in Judeo-christian communities. And in turn, patriarchy becomes the recommended structure for families and the greater society. But on the question of why patriarchy was even common that era, they settled that the answer to be because of agriculture and wars, granting men more authority and in society. This is not wrong, but a little too dismissive.

In Plato's book Laws, there may be a better explantion of why practice patriarchy, and what is the significance Abraham in building of the myth.

Do you believe that there is any truth in ancient traditions? CLEINIAS: What traditions? ATHENIAN: The traditions about the many destructions of mankind which have been occasioned by deluges and pestilences, and in many other ways, and of the survival of a remnant? CLEINIAS: Every one is disposed to believe them. ATHENIAN: Let us consider one of them, that which was caused by the famous deluge. CLEINIAS: What are we to observe about it? ATHENIAN: I mean to say that those who then escaped would only be hill shepherds,—small sparks of the human race preserved on the tops of mountains. CLEINIAS: Clearly. ATHENIAN: Such survivors would necessarily be unacquainted with the arts and the various devices which are suggested to the dwellers in cities by interest or ambition, and with all the wrongs which they contrive against one another. (Plato, Laws 677 a-b)

Here is a discussion using a hypothetical scenario to start the dialogue. It starts from "survivors" or escapees journeying to an uninhabitted land. Just like how the story of Abraham is preceded by the Flood and Tower of Babel. Plato then goes on to patrarchy.

And were not such states composed of men who had been dispersed in single habitations and families by the poverty which attended the devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them, because with them government originated in the authority of a father and a mother, whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troop under the patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of all sovereignties is the most just? (Laws 680 d-e)

And after this explanation of patrarchal life, Plato proceeds to duscussing in his book the building of cities, like Sparta and Troy. If we zoom out on the Bible, we will find that this sequence is the exact same framework. What will follow will be creation of Laws by Moses as Plato wrote his Laws.

We can then conclude if we base on Plato's writing that the significance of Abraham as a figure is an important IF we are trying to produce an "ideal society" based on the ideas of Plato. In other words, there is a possibility that the Bible is an attempt to realize Plato's Philosophy and to put in practice.


You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., a historian of christianity who became a Bishop in 314 AD, noticed this similarity between the texts. But he had his own motivation, and therefore thought that Plato had copied Moses, and the Hebrew writings in general. But even to the present, there were no such documents that precedes Plato's writing. The earliest written form of the Bible's old testament is the Septuagint which is very plausible to be a work of multiple authors, using Plato's works as the skeletal literary framework in forming their politics.