(No Subject)

From: Edgar Foster (dzetesis@mailexcite.com)
Date: Thu Mar 19 1998 - 17:25:48 EST


Just a little more about LOGOS. Chuck and others, you can read it and come to any
conclusion you want to. I'm just trying to spark discussion.

Bultmann writes: "there was the Stoic doctrine of the Logos, which presented the
rational aspect of nature . . . It was easy to identify the Stoic Logos with the
'word of God', whose creative power is spoken of in the Old Testament. Thus for Philo
God's Logos is the mediator between him and the world, while the separate powers
(LOGOI or DUNAMEIS) could be identified with the angels of the Old Testament" (Primitive
Christianity, R. Bultmann 97).

Gilbert Murray adds:

"the world, we must remember, was to the Stoics a live thing . . . It is the LOGOS
TOU KOSMOU, the NOUS DIOS, the Reason of the World or the mind of Zeus, rather difficult
to distinguish from the Pronoia or Providence which is the work of God and indeed
the very essence of
God. Thus it is not really an external and alien force. For the human soul itself
is a fragment or effluence of the divine" (Five Stages of Greek Religion, G. Murray,
130).

Finally, Gerald Borchert links the LOGOS, in his commentary on John, with the Jewish
traditions of SOFIA and DAVAR.

EIRENE,

Ed Foster
Classic Major
L-R College
fos@vvi.net
dzetesis@mailexcite.com

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