Atheism and the Good Life |
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Epicurus - equality before Jesus Hi Greg, I don't believe a few references to slaves being equal in the Bible really challenges the institution of slavery. Again, Jesus did not rail against the institution of slavery. And as for Paul's writings on slavery and egalitarianism, I'll get to that. I could find plenty of references to equality outside the Greco-Roman tradition - for example Buddhism, and there are many others. And prior to Christ, Cicero spoke of making personal sacrifice for others. We can identify numerous positive values identified by Greco-Roman writers prior to Christ. But - of equality. Ansgar tells me of Epicurus. Epicurus was definitely egalitarian. He pioneered it by admitting women and slaves to his school, and he was the first Greek to base ethics on the Golden Rule. Epicurus was a lot more materialist than Paul was, but his was also an innovator in equality. There's an argument that Paul's writings on equality drew a lot from Epicurus - the intellectual thread in fact led back to Epicurus, not Jesus. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia notes that Paul used "Epicurean language" : (eg, see in Google Books) That's a mainstream text from what I understand. A more strident position, that Epicurus was *the* real source of Paul's writings on ethics and egalitarianism, is contained in : http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/stpaulandepicurus.html#preface I rest my case. The best we could say is that where Jesus and Paul spoke about egalitarianism, they were popularisers and communicators of ideas originally developed by Epicurus. That's certainly positive. We might even debate the positive effect the communication of these ideas throughout the world by them would have had. But, ultimately, they relied on Epicurus' inspiration. Any additions they would have made would have been minor and incremental, not grand new strides in the way you present it. Thanks for the discussion. I in fact was not aware of the Epicurean connection. While I did know a little about him, I'm indebted to Ansgar for pointing these things out to me - it's an intriguing intellectual trail. I look forward to the next discussion. Regards, John. Trackback Link Trackbacks |
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