How Greek Philosophy Influenced Both Christian and Jewish Theology

A Common Link Between Christianity and Kabbalah



Powers of 10: For Jewish and Hellenistic philosophers, 10 is a very spiritual number.

By Philologos
Published June 02, 2013, issue of June 07, 2013.

My fellow columnist at the Forward, the estimable J.J. Goldberg, has written a blog post about my May 19 column, “Could the Holy Ghost be Jewish?” In his blog, he respectfully takes exception to my statement that “neither biblical nor rabbinic Judaism has anything like the Christian Trinity in its thinking about God,” and goes on to say:

“Actually, rabbinic Judaism has something very much like the Trinity in its thinking about God. It’s called the Sefirot, the Kabbalah’s 10 Emanations or Manifestations of God’s presence. And no, it wasn’t a Jewish concept that found its way into Christianity. On the contrary, it’s a Christian idea that found its way into the heart of normative Judaism.”

With equal respect, I beg to differ, starting with the assertion that Kabbalah represents “the heart of normative Judaism.” Despite Kabbalah’s enormous impact on Judaism, various rabbinical circles always opposed granting it normative status, which it never unequivocally attained and which it was denied in modern times more than ever.

This is perhaps a quibble. More to the point is the fact that both Kabbalah and Christian theology were greatly influenced, though not always in the same ways, by another body of thought that Goldberg fails to mention: The Hellenistic philosophical schools of the early centuries of the Common Era, and particularly, the two related currents of neo-Platonism and neo-Pythagoreanism.

http://forward.com/articles/177588/how-greek-philosophy-influenced-both-christian-and/