We read in the New Testament that “the Greeks seek for wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22), which of course does not refer to the ethical wisdom of the Torah (i.e., chokhmah: חָכְמָה), but rather to the venture of the human intellect to investigate and speculate about the nature of “ultimate reality.” Since Greek culture during the time of the Second Temple was without a viable religious outlook (it’s earlier pantheon of Olympian gods had been abandoned by that time), various Greek philosophers arose to fill the void by offering an account of the nature of the universe. Some of these philosophers sought abstract essences and archetypal patterns, while others regarded reality as a product of random chance (or fate) that rendered it essentially unknowable. What was common to these speculative approaches, however, was faith in the power of human reason to discover truth apart from older mythological explanations.
Despite the fact that ancient Jewish culture likewise valued truth and wisdom, in general the sages of the Second Temple period regarded Greek humanistic wisdom as chokhmah hachitzonit, “superficial wisdom,” since it wasn’t deeply grounded in the revelation and conviction of a moral Lawgiver who was the Sovereign Center and purposive cause for everything that existed. For this reason the Greek worldview was deemed spiritually dangerous, since it surreptitiously implied that Torah should be understood in strictly human terms, a product of mere men, rather than as special revelation directly given from the LORD God. At issue, then, was a clash between the role of faith and the role of reason…
It should be noted here that Hellenism was a philosophical outlook of life that offered enlightenment to the ancient world. Indeed, the word “Hellenist” does not refer to the ancient Greeks as much as all those who adopted the Greek cosmopolitan lifestyle, and that of course included many Jews of that period. Nonetheless, the Torah sages regarded such humanistic philosophy as devoid of ultimate value, since it had an inadequate and essentially “heartless” view of the person. The Hellenistic outlook did not regard people as moral agents created in the image and likeness of God Himself, and despite its idealization of the human being, Greek humanism (like humanistic philosophy today) had no metaphysical basis for the worth and dignity of people. Because of this, ancient Greek society, like ancient Egypt, justified slavery, the abuse of women, and ruthless exploitation. Jewish thought, on the other hand, understood people as inherently worthy, “deities in miniature,” and therefore they sought to be merciful, chaste, and charitable in their relationships.
The spread of Greek language and culture in the ancient world was a blessing, however, since the translation of the Hebrew Torah into the common Greek (the “Septuagint”) in the 3rd century BC prepared the world for the universal message of the gospel, and even today the Septuagint helps us understand the words of the Koine Greek New Testament better. Moreover, the Greek Septuagint provides irrefutable proof that the Hebrew Torah text was well-attested in ancient times, which refutes fallacious claims made by other religions that Jewish people “rewrote” or invented the words of Torah for political purposes. For instance, when proponents of Islam claim that the Koran provides the true Torah and that the Jewish Scriptures were (later) changed to contradict with it (e.g., Ishmael, not Isaac, was offered by Abraham, etc.), the existence of the Septuagint, dating over 1,000 years before the rise of Islam, proves the claim to be wrong (as does the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the corroboration of the authenticity of the Hebrew texts). Indeed, what is clear is that the Koran’s later version of the narratives of the Torah are corrupt, and this is a factual matter that can be clearly established by anyone who cares to investigate the matter honestly…
Hebrew Lesson
Proverbs 1:7 Hebrew Reading:
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