Plato and Jesus (Philo of Alexandria)

This thesis examines the theology of the New Testament Gospels, especially that inherent within the parables of Jesus, in light of the soul-based theology of Plato and his followers. It is shown that Jesus' Kingdom of God is not of the material world, but of the intelligible world as described by Plato and known to many Jewish philosophers. The Platonic theology in the Gospels had been earlier modified by Hellenistic Judaism in order to form the basis of Jewish apologetic literature. The soul-based aspects of Platonic thought influenced but did not totally determine the Kingdom of God gospel attributed to Jesus.; It is typical in New Testament scholarship to assign primacy to the Jewish sources, and to assume that the Kingdom of God is the expected world empire of the Jewish kingdom associated with the Salvation History of the Jews—that is, God will someday restore the promised Davidic kingdom lost prior to the exile. This literal understanding of the Jewish kingdom was not used by Jesus when he said that the Kingdom of God was at hand. Either Jesus was wrong about the presence of the Kingdom of God or his understanding was something different than the restoration of the Jewish empire. It is shown that Jesus' notion of the Kingdom of God is consistent with Greek philosophy, and is not incompatible with an allegorical notion of Jewish salvation history.; The theology of Plato is reconstructed and followed through the Middle Platonic Jewish scholars in Alexandria; in particular, to Philo, and on to Hellenistic Jews in Galilee. The gospel as preached by Jesus can be interpreted using Platonic, as modified by Philonic, theology to understand the Kingdom of God. The interpretation of the New Testament Kingdom of God as being the kingdom of the lovers of wisdom, the philosophers, who emphasize the nourishment of individual human souls by the practice of virtue and the seeking of divine knowledge, is shown to be valid. An exegesis of the Kingdom parables using Hellenistic philosophical doctrine is included.