Philo’s Version of the Origin of the Septuagint

Philotheos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-221
Author(s):  
Marina Ćakić ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law

Philo’s work On the Life of Moses contains the story of the origin of the Septuagint (section 2.8–65). The scholars have examined this passage from two different perspectives: explaining the connection between Mosaic Law and the law of nature (2.12–14 and 2:45–53) or examining the very process of translation (2.25–44). Even though dealing with the different aspects of the story, both groups of scholars have come to the same conclusion: Philo claims that the Torah has universal significance. The starting point of this paper is that the two approaches, when taken separately, are insufficient. They both raise two essential questions. First, considering that Philo was using the LXX and not the Hebrew Bible, could it be possible that his claim that the Torah is “an excellent copy” of the law of nature also refers to LXX? Second, even though the Torah is finally translated into Greek – the lingua franca of its day – why would its laws be relevant for the people outside the Jewish communities? In this paper, the analysis of Philo’s story on the LXX origin is compared with the LXX origin account in the Letter of Aristeas. The comparison will demonstrate that the changes Philo introduces into the story are indicative of his two major concerns: the universality of Mosaic law and divine intervention in the process of translation. The contribution of this paper is the acknowledgment that the two mentioned aspects – the universality of the Mosaic law and the divine intervention in the translation process are dependent on each other. The latter made the LXX not merely a translation but the same Torah that was once already given to Moses. Consequently, if the Hebrew Torah and the LXX are equal in every regard, that would mean that the LXX also perfectly reflects the natural law, which makes it relevant for all people.

Power and Authority in Seventeenth Century England

1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Tuck
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The People ◽  
The Law ◽  
Power And Authority

Many English political theorists of the mid-seventeenth century reveal in their writings an awareness that new political terminologies were needed to cope with the apparent breakdown of traditional ideologies. Such an insight is of course famously displayed by Thomas Hobbes and the early Hobbists such as Dudley Digges, in their treatment of orthodox Natural Law doctrines - ‘if we looke backe to the Law of Nature, we shall finde that the people would have had a clearer and more distinct notion of it, if common use of calling it Law had not helped to confound their understanding, when it ought to have been named the Right of nature’ wrote Digges in 1643.

scholarly journals Why Why Liberalism Failed Fails as an Account of the American Order

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Paul R. DeHart ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
American Founding ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Law ◽  
Constitutional Thought ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Association

In Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen contends that the American founding is fundamentally Hobbesian and that the Constitution is the application of the Hobbesian revolution concerning liberty and anthropology. I contend that Deneen fundamentally mischaracterizes the American founding. The founders and framers affirmed the necessity of consent for political authority and obligation. But they also situated the necessity of consent in the context of a morally and metaphysically realist natural law, maintained that an objective good of the whole constitutes the final end of political association, and described liberty as subjection to the law of nature and the government of God. To be determined by one’s base passions was to be a slave. Moreover, their constitutional thought and the institutional design of the constitutions they built rejected Hobbes’s theory of sovereign power and the metaphysical ground on which it rests.

scholarly journals “Bodies can be compelled; minds must be turned, since they cannot be compelled”: Preaching as an “Introduction” to Law in the Ecclesiastes of Erasmus of Rotterdam

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Dawid Nowakowski
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Xvith Century ◽  
The People ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
The One

The recent studies on the relations between humanism or humanists and jurisprudence convince that Reneaissance, especially in XVIth century, when the national states began to raise, belonged to the periods of increased interest in the issue of law. Although Erasmus was not a layer, nor he introduced in any of his works a complete theory of law, he maintained close relations with many leading theoreticians of the law and jurists (Alciati, Budé, Cantiuncula, Zasius) and sometimes spoke in the legal discussions of his age. Among hist most important works concerning the matter of law were: Institutio principis Christiani, Ratio seu Methodus verae theologiae, Christiani matrimonii institutio, De interdicto esu carnium and Ecclesiastes. In the paper I’m going to concentrate on this latter work, in which Erasmus discusses the significance of preaching, preacher and widely understood Christian rhetoric. In the Ecclesiastes Erasmus touches the law subject with the special emphasis on historical character of law and relations between the divine law, the law of Christ and the law of Nature. After a short discussion about his understaning of law I will concentrate on the essential differentiation between the letter of law and the spirit of law, and I will point at proposed by Erasmus ways of introduction of law into human life. Erasmus, on the one hand, escaped a rigidity and abstraction of law and, on the other, he neutralised an aspect of the coercion of law. In his solution Erasmus appreciated the political dimension of preaching and acknowledged preacher as a more important guide of the people, than ruler. I’m going to interpret the Erasmian concept of preaching as an rhetorical mean of introduction of law in analogical way to “introduction” proposed by Plato in his Nomoi.

Belief and Practice

MOVE ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Richard Kent Evans
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
World System ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Active Force ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Site

This chapter is a study of The Guidelines of John Africa, MOVE’s sacred text. John Africa dictated The Guidelines over a span of six years. Several different people helped him create the manuscript. The Guidelines of John Africa are an explanation for, and solution to, the problem of evil. John Africa called these forces of evil the “reformed world system,” or, more frequently, “the System.” John Africa’s worldview was dualistic; it understood the cosmos as a site of conflict that pitted forces of good against forces of evil. The force of good went by many names: the Law of Mama, the Law of Nature, God, Natural Law, and most frequently, Life. Natural processes, according to MOVE, are “coordinated” by this active force.

Echoes of Natural Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 222-250
Author(s):  
Stuart Banner
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Law Schools ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

This chapter examines the status of natural law in the legal system over the past century. In law schools, natural law never ceased to be a topic of study. This academic interest in natural law has had almost no effect on the working legal system, where natural law has been relied upon by only the most idiosyncratic of judges and lawyers. The history of our use of natural law has nevertheless continued to exert influence on the legal system, which still contains doctrines and practices that were once based on the law of nature.

scholarly journals Autorytarne prawa naturalne? Kilka uwag o negatywnym potencjale pozytywnych idei

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Łuszczyńska ◽  
Artur Łuczyński
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Negative Potential ◽  
Multicultural Society ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

AUTHORITARIAN LAWS OF NATURE? SEVERAL NOTES ON THE NEGATIVE POTENTIAL OF POSITIVE CONCEPTSThe article presents authors’ reflection upon the problem of the law of nature. In the literature on the subject, there is adominant opinion that the natural law is atype of amatrix, which should be duplicated by the legislator in order to prevent unfair laws. Following the Latin maxim: “Lex iniusta non est lex” “Unfair law is not alaw”, legislator must take into account all non-specified norms of the higher order. According to the authors of this article, in the modern times the natural law rational­ism is rather apparent, and its religious foundations will not necessarily be accepted in the culturally plural [multicultural?] society.

scholarly journals The Law of Nature, Mosaic Judaism, and Primitive Christianity in John Locke and the English Deists

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Lucci
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Law Of Moses ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
The Relationship

In their attempts to revive “true religion,” Locke and several English deists, such as Toland, Tindal, Chubb, Morgan, and Annet, focused on the relationship between the Law of Nature, the Law of Moses, and Christ’s teaching. However, Locke and the deists formulated different conceptions of the Law of Nature and its relationship with natural religion, Mosaic Judaism, and primitive Christianity. Locke saw the history of human knowledge of morality and religion as a process of gradual disclosure of divinely given truths—a process culminating in Christian revelation. He argued that the Law of Faith, established by Christ, had complemented the Law of Nature and superseded the Law of Moses. Conversely, the deists maintained that the only true religion was the universal, eternal, necessary, and sufficient religion of nature founded on the Law of Nature. They thought that Jesus had merely reaffirmed the Law of Nature, accessible to natural reason, without adding anything to it. Concerning Mosaic Judaism, there were significant differences between Toland and later deists. Toland considered Mosaic Judaism to be on a par with primitive Christianity, since he viewed both the Law of Moses and Christ’s precepts as essentially grounded in the Law of Nature. Conversely, Tindal and Chubb judged the ritual prescriptions of the Mosaic Law superseded by Christ’s revival of natural religion. Morgan and Annet went even further, for they identified true Christianity with the religion of nature, but criticized Mosaic Judaism as a corruption of natural religion. Briefly, Locke and the English deists aimed to recover true religion from long-lasting distortions. However, their rethinking of the relationship between the Law of Nature, the Mosaic Law, and Christ’s message led to different conceptions, uses, and appropriations of natural religion, Mosaic Judaism, and primitive Christianity in their attempts to restore what they perceived as true religion.

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