Academics From The United Kingdom

"[T]he Physics delivered in the following Work... was both known and diligently cultivated by the most ancient Philosophers. ...[T]he true System of the World, approv'd of Pythagoras, and others among the Ancients..."

"For Pythagoras as he was passing by a Smith's Shop, took occasion to observe, that the Sounds the Hammers made, were more accute or grave in proportion to the weights of the Hammers; afterwards stretching Sheeps Guts, and fastning various Weights to them, he learn'd that here likewise the Sounds were proportional to the Weights. Having satisfy'd himself of this, he investigated the Numbers, according to which Consonant Sounds were generated. Whether the whole of this Story be true, or but a Fable, 'tis certain Pythagoras found out the true ratio between the sound of Strings and the Weights fasten'd to them."

"[U]niversally, the Weights which generate all Tones in Strings, are reciprocally as the Squares of the lengths of Strings of equal Tension, producing the same sound in any Musical Instrument."

"The Science of Astronomy which is as much esteem'd and admir'd for its great and manifold uses for the Service of Mankind, as it is delightful and entertaining to the more curious and contemplative, has in all ages been cultivated and improv'd, by Men the most eminent for their parts and learnings; and is now brought... to the utmost degree of perfection, and that chiefly by the Superior Genius and Industry of those of our own Nation. But since nothing considerable therein, has been as yet writ in our own Language... I could not oblige my Country-Men more than in publishing an English Edition of the most valuable and finish'd piece of Astronomy now extant. It is generally reckoned to be a Book that contains not only all the Discoveries and Philosophical Sentiments of the great Kepler, and the various Hypotheses of the most noted Astronomers before and since his Time; but is chiefly valued by the best Judges, for the large and instructive Comments... on the Writings of the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton, as well as on the Several Astronomical Dissertations of the Sagacious Dr. Halley, which the Reader will find here every where interspers'd. ...I shall, in a very little time, present... another Volume, containing correct Astronomical Tables, for the ready computing of the Planets Places, Eclipses, &c. all done by a Person of known ability, from the true Theory of Gravity, deliver'd in this Book: For it was by no means judged proper that I should annex to so intire a piece as this, any imperfect Tables, drawn from a different Principle from what is here established, such it seems all those as yet published are."

"Pythagoras... applied the proportion he had thus found by experiments, to the Heavens, and from thence learn'd the Harmony of the Spheres. And, by comparing these Weights with the Weights of the Planets, and the intervals of the Tones, produced by the Weights, with the interval of the Spheres; and lastly, the lengths of Strings with the Distances of the Planets from the Center of the Orbs; he understood, as it were by the Harmony of the Heavens, that the Gravity of the Planets towards the Sun (according to whose measures the Planets move) were reciprocally as the Squares of their Distances from the Sun."

"Nor were they so absurd in their conceptions about Gravity, as to think that it was done by the virtue of any point within the Earth, or of a Center, to which all heavy Bodies placed any where tended; but they thought it was done by the power of the whole Matter in the Terrestrial Globe attracting all things to it self: And as the power of the is composed of the powers of the several parts combin'd together, so they believed that the Gravity towards the whole Earth, resulted from the Gravity towards each single part of it. ...[T]hey believ'd there was a Gravity towards the Moon and Sun, acting in the same manner as it does towards the Earth; and that each Planet, like a Stone, whirl'd in a sling, was kept in its Orbit by the same principle, and for the same reason revolving always about us."

"David Gregory’s manuscript ‘Isaaci Neutoni methodus fluxionum’ is the first systematic presentation of the method of fluxions written by somebody other than Newton. It was penned in 1694, when Gregory was the Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. ...[I]t sheds light upon Gregory’s views on how Newton’s mathematical innovations related to... other mathematicians, both British and Continental. This paper... proves that Newton, far from being—as often stated—wholly isolated and reluctant to publish the method of fluxions, belonged to a network of mathematicians who were made aware of his discoveries. Second, it shows that Gregory—very much as other Scottish mathematicians such as George Cheyne and John Craig—received Newton’s fluxional method within a tradition that was independent from England and that, before getting in touch with Newton, had assimilated elements of the calculi developed on the Continent."

"Gregory, David, nephew of preceeding James Gregory (1638-1675)], was born at Aberdeen in 1661, and died 1708, Savilian professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He published, 1. 'Exercitatio Geometrica de Dimensione Figurarum,' 4to. Edinb. 1684. 2. 'Catoptricæ et Diopticræ Sphericæ Elementa,' 8vo. Oxon. 1695. 3. 'Astronomæ Physicæ et Geometriæ Elementa,' fol. Oxon. 1702, and 4to. Genev. 1726. 4. 'Treatise of Practical Geometry,' originally written in Latin, and of which a translation by Mr. MacLaurin, was published in 8vo. 1745, and again in 1751. 5. 'A Short Treatise of the Nature of Arithmetic and Logarithms,' printed at the end of Keill's translation of Commandine's Euclid, besides several papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions.'"

"From some things mention'd by Diogenes Laertius concerning Plato, which also are obscurely hinted at in his Timæus I am apt to believe with Galileo that the divine Philosopher suppos'd the Mundane Bodies, when they were first formed, were moved with a Rectilinear motion (by the means of Gravity,) but after that they had arrived to some determined places, they began to revolve by degrees in a Curve, the Rectilinear Motion being chang'd into a Curvilinear one."

"'Tis from this Doctrine of Gravity, that all Bodies gravitate mutually to one another, 'tis by this that Lucretius, taught by Epicurus and Democritus, labours to prove, that the Universe has no Center or lowest Place, but that there is an infinity of Worlds like ours in the immense Space. His Argument... If the nature of things were bounded any where, then the outmost Bodies, since they have no other beyond them, towards which they may be made to tend by the force of Gravity, wou'd not stand in an Equilibrio, but make towards the inner and lower Bodies, being necessarily inclin'd that way by their Gravity, and therefore having made towards one another, during an infinite space of time, would have long ago met, and lye in the middle of the whole, as in the lowest place."

"[T]he Opinion of the Ancients concerning Gravity... they were perswaded that Gravity was not an affection of Terrestrial Bodies only, but of the Celestial also, that all Bodies gravitate towards one another; and that the Planets are retained in their Orbits by the force of Gravity, and lastly, that the Gravity of the Planets towards the Sun are reciprocally as the Squares of their Distances from it. What the industry and skill of the Moderns have added to these inventions of the Ancients, the following Pages do declare at large."

"[I]f we look back to the first Rise of Astronomy... we shall find nothing better approv'd of, nothing more universally entertained among the several Sects of Philosophers, than this notion of the Gravity of the Celestial Bodies."

"Although in every age there have been those who cultivated astronomy, either by... observations... or by theories and systems made up according to the state of understanding of any period, or by a talent for exposition, yet the lucubrations of all these astronomers do not reveal the ways of the heaven any more than they reveal the skill and experience of their progenitors in geometrical matters."

"That saying is well known, so often used by Anaxagoras, and his Scholars, Achelaus and Euripides, Namely, "That the Sun and Stars were fiery or red-hot Stones and Golden Clods." Of the same mind also were Democritus, Metrodorus, and Diogenes..."

"[A]s we are told by Democritus these notions about the Sun and Moon are not to be ascrib'd to Anaxagoras as their original... He had them from his Master Anaximenes whose Opinion... was, that the Stars were of a fiery nature and substance, that there were also mingled with them certain Earthly Bodies... [H]e plainly means, Planets of a terrestrial nature, performing their revolutions in the System of every Fix'd Star."

"These notions Anaximenes received from Anaximander, Anaximander from Thales himself, who was the Head and Founder of the Ionic Philosophy; and spread this opinion of the Gravity of the Fix'd Stars among his Sect."

"Lucretius and those whom he followed, believ'd that all Bodies did Gravitate towards the Matter placed around them, and that every single Body was carried by the more prevailing Gravity, towards that region where there was most Matter."

"[S]o also they were not unacquainted with the Law and Proportion which the action of Gravity observ'd according to the different Masses and Distances. For that Gravity is proportional to the Quantity of Matter in the heavy Body, Lucretius does sufficiently declare, as also that what we call light Bodies, don't ascend of their own accord, but by the action of a force underneath them, impelling them upwards, just as a piece of Wood is in Water; and further, that all Bodies, as well the heavy as the light, do descend in vacuo, with an equal celerity."

"[T]he famous Theorem about the proportion whereby Gravity decreases in receding from the Sun, was not unknown at least to Pythagoras. This indeed seems to be that which he and his followers would signify to us by the Harmony of the Spheres: That is, they feign'd Apollo playing upon an Harp of seven Strings, by which Symbol, as it is abundantly evident from Pliny, Macrobius and , they meant the Sun in Conjunction with the seven Planets, for they made him the leader of that Septenary Chorus, and Moderator of Nature; and thought that by his Attractive force he acted upon the Planets (and called it Jupiter's Prison, because it is by this Force that he retains and keeps them in their Orbits, from flying off in Right Lines) in the Harmonical ratio of their Distances. For the forces, whereby equal tensions act upon Strings of different lengths (being equal in other respects) are reciprocally as the Squares of the lengths of the Strings."

"[A]fterwards it diffused it self thro' the Italic Philosophy, the followers of which taught, that each Star was a World in the infinite Æthereal Space, containing Earth, Air and Æther; and that the Moon, not only was like our Earth, but inhabited by Animals of a larger size, and furnish'd with Plants of a more beautiful appearance."

"Every time we think about the past, we rewrite history as part of bringing a moral order to the present. (2021)"

"Theology and science have got a lot in common. For one thing, they’re often considered too hard, or too abstract, for ordinary people to understand. Their study is — apparently — reserved to those rare brains who can understand the complexity of the natural or social world. Ordinary people can only begin to understand a simplified version of these subjects. But despite this stereotype, both subjects also form part of our common human heritage, helping us to ask and answer key questions about what makes up the world around us, as well as how and why it works. (2022)"

"But science fiction’s entanglement with theology goes far deeper... Writers in this genre explore the consequences of technological innovation for human communities and individual human lives, whether those consequences are intentional or accidental, emotional or economic. They consider the impact that scientific theories and concepts have had on our understandings of what it means to be human, and on the limits of individual human identity. They examine how the characteristics that make us human (big brains, tool-making hands) might also lead to the end of humanity, either with a bang (“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”) or a whimper (“Day of the Triffids”) or both (“Threads,” “The Day After”). As such, science fiction asks its audiences not just who they think they are, but who they want to be. It creates visions both of the world as it could be and as it must not be allowed to be, with science and technology together building the future of faith."

"In any case, this superficial glance at Sangam literature makes it clear at the very least that, in the words of John R. Marr, “these poems show that the synthesis between Tamil culture and what may loosely be termed Aryan culture was already far advanced.”"

"This also shows that Smith is not as great an imperialist as he is occasionally made out to be. In fact, on close reading, it is impossible to characterise Elphinstone and Smith as imperialist and anti-India historians. This cannot be said about E J Rapson, a Cambridge University Sanskrit professor, the editor of the ancient Indian history volume in the Cambridge History of India series, and the author of brief book, Ancient India, meant for the Indian Civil Service candidates. To Rapson there never was any originality in ancient Indian history, which was also a collection of histories of many separate countries. It is against characters like Rapson that Indian scholars of ancient India wielded their pens."

"Their oldest literature supplies no certain indication that they still retained the recollection of their former home; and we may reasonably conclude therefore that the invasion which brought them into India took place at a date considerably earlier."

"In Sharifabad the dogs distinguished clearly between Moslem and Zoroastrian, and were prepared to go, with a diffident politeness but full of hope, into a crowded Zoroastrian assembly, or to fall asleep trustfully in a Zoroastrian lane, but would flee as before Satan from a group of Moslem boys. Moslems are not, of course, invariably unkind to dogs. Some themselves own herd- or watch-dogs, and apart from this there are naturally many Moslems who would not deliberately harm any creature. But undeniably there are others who are savagely and wantonly cruel to dogs, on the pretext that Muhammad called them unclean; but there seems no factual basis for this, and the evidence points rather to Moslem hostility to these animals having been deliberately fostered in the first place in Iran, as a point of opposition to the old faith there. Certainly in the Yazdi area na-najib Moslems found a double satisfaction in tormenting dogs, since they were thereby both afflicting an unclean creature and causing distress to the infidel who cherished him. There are grim old stories from the time when the annual poll-tax was exacted, of the tax gatherer tying a Zoroastrian and a dog together, and flogging both alternately until the money was somehow forthcoming, or death released them. I myself was spared any worse sight than that of a young Moslem girl in Mazra' Kalantar standing over a litter of two-week old puppies, and suddenly kicking one as hard as she could with her shod foot. The puppy screamed with pain, but at my angry intervention she merely said blankly, ‘But it’s unclean.’ In Sharifabad I was told by distressed Zoroastrian children of worse things: a litter of puppies cut to pieces with a spade-edge, and a dog’s head laid open with the same implement; and occasionally the air was made hideous with the cries of some tormented animal. Such wanton cruelties on the Moslems’ part added not a little to the tension between the communities."

"“…in the mid nineteenth century disaster overtook Turkabad, in the shape of what was perhaps the last massed forcible conversion in Iran. It no longer seems possible to learn anything about the background of this event; but it happened, so it is said, one autumn day when dye-madder – then one of the chief local crops – was being lifted. All the able-bodied men were at work in teams in the fields when a body of Moslems swooped on the village and seized them. They were threatened, not only with death for themselves, but also with the horrors that would befall their women and children, who were being terrorized at the same time in their homes; and by the end of the day of violence most of the village had accepted Islam. To recant after a verbal acknowledgement of Allah and his prophet meant death in those days, and so Turkabad was lost to the old religion. Its fire-temple was razed to the ground, and only a rough, empty enclosure remained where once it had stood."

"A similar fate must have overtaken many Iranian villages in the past, among those which did not willingly embrace Islam; and the question seems less why it happened to Turkabad than why it did not overwhelm all other Zoroastrian settlements. The evidence, scanty though it is, shows, however, that the harassment of the Zoroastrians of Yazd tended to be erratic and capricious, being at times less harsh, or bridled by strong governors; and in general the advance of Islam across the plain, through relentless, seems to have been more by slow erosion than by furious force. The process was still going on in the 1960s, and one could see, therefore, how it took effect. Either a few Moslems settled on the outskirts of a Zoroastrian village, or one or two Zoroastrian families adopted Islam. Once the dominant faith had made a breach, it pressed in remorselessly, like a rising tide. More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lot to the old faith. Several of the leading families in Sharifabad and forebears who were driven away by intense Moslem pressure from Abshahi, once a very devout and orthodox village on the southern outskirts of Yazd; and a shorter migration had been made by the family of the centenarian ‘Hajji’ Khodabakhsh, who had himself been born in the 1850s and was still alert and vigorous in 1964. His family, who were very pious, had left their home in Ahmedabad (just to the north of Turkabad) when he was a small boy, and had come to settle in Sharifabad to escape persecution and the threats to their orthodox way of life. Other Zoroastrians held out there for a few decades longer, but by the end of the century Ahmedabad was wholly Moslem, as Abshahi become in 1961. [The last Zoroastrian family left Abshahi in 1961, after the rape and subsequent suicide of one of their daughters.] It was noticeable that the villages which were left to the Zoroastrians were in the main those with poor supplies of water, where farming conditions were hard.”"

"The original name of the Indo/Iranian Goddess was Sarasvati ‘she who possesses waters’. In India she continued to be worshipped by this name which she gave to a small but very holy river in Madhyadesa (Punjab) whereas in Iran Sarasvati became, by normal sound changes Harahvati, a name preserved in the region called in Avestan Harakhvaiti and known to the Greeks as Anacosia, a region rich in rivers and lakes. Originally, Harahvaiti was the personification of the great river which flows down from the high Hara into the sea Vourukasa and is the source of the waters of the world, and just as the wandering Iranians called the great mountains near which they lived Hara, they gave Harahvaitis name to the life giving rivers and their Indian cousins did the same."

"Darwin was a traveler, a family man, a thinker, a much-loved husband, father, friend, and neighbor—a likeable and genial figure, as expressive in his letters as he must have been in life. Although his theories were first conceived in the smoky atmosphere of London, just after his return from the in 1836, his major books and articles were all researched and constructed in the domestic setting of his home at in Kent. There he lived for 40 years with his wife Emma Wedgwood and 10 children, of whom only seven survived to adulthood. The house still exists and is now a museum restored to show how it was in Darwin’s time. It is an inspiring place to visit, quiet and rural, and one can almost imagine Darwin stepping in through a doorway. Visitors used to record how he would greet them with an outstretched hand."

"Taxonomic systems of the past—particularly those found in , biology, and geology—are now seen to be one of the most important resources for understanding the interconnections of science and culture."

"The great majority of British naturalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in fact considered foreign organisms much more exciting and interesting than those found at home. This is not to say that local natural history suffered: David Allen's important book describing the Naturalist in Britain indicates the wealth of popular interest in animals and plants and the depth of knowledge relating to British organisms ... Yet the inexhaustible lure of travel and the anticipated pleasures of foreign lands, both mental, moral, and physical, were important components in the history of this subject. Excitement, change, and the thrill of difference were integral emotional factors in the growth of British interest in biogeographical topics—indeed crucial as the relaxed aura of eighteenth-century social life metamorphosed into a strait-laced Victorian era. Nevertheless, a love for natural history and a desire to travel were in no way sufficient reasons to account for the increase of overseas activitiy among naturalists. Far more significant was the hierarchical structure of British society and expansionist national ethos."

"... if you take the s, we have a classification of them ... And then we've got a very simple explanation of why this list turns up, that they more or less correspond to finite reflection groups. And we know who to classify finite reflection groups. ... we can give single uniform construction of all the compact Lie groups. But there's nothing like that for the sporadic groups."

"(quote at 35:35 of 1:36:06 in video)"

"The classification of s shows that every finite simple group either fits into one of about 20 infinite families, or is one of 26 exceptions, called . The is the largest of the sporadic finite simple groups, and was discovered by and ... Its order is 8080,17424,79451,28758,86459,90496,17107,57005,75436,80000,00000 = 246 ⋅ 320 ⋅ 59 ⋅ 76 ⋅ 112 ⋅ 133 ⋅ 17 ⋅ 19 ⋅ 23 ⋅29 ⋅ 31 ⋅ 41 ⋅ 47 ⋅ 59 ⋅ 71 (which is roughly the number of elementary particles in the earth). The smallest irreducible representations have dimensions 1, 196883, 21296876, ... The has the power series expansion j(τ) = q−1 + 744 + 196884q + 21493760q2 +... where q = e2π iτ, and is in some sense the simplest nonconstant function satisfying the functional equations j(τ) = j(τ + 1) = j(−1/τ). noticed some rather weird relations between coefficients of the elliptic modular function and the representations of the monster as follows: 1 = 1 196884 = 196883 + 1 21493760 = 21296876 + 196883 + 1 where the numbers on the left are coefficients of j(τ) and the numbers on the right are dimensions of irreducible representations of the monster. At the time he discovered these relations, several people thought it so unlikely that there could be a relation between the monster and the elliptic modular function that they politely told McKay that he was talking nonsense. The term “monstrous moonshine” (coined by ) refers to various extensions of McKay’s observation, and in particular to relations between sporadic simple groups and modular functions."

"I am not chiefly anxious to prove or disprove this or that influence. But I boldly make the claim that the Platonic doctrines are not easily understood without reference to the Indian teaching. And, in reference to the quest of Socrates, his character and his faith, I will be content to let the resemblance to the quest and character and faith of the ancient Indian sages speak for itself. I will not attempt — it would need a separate volume — to show how the Indian thought may have filtered through to Socrates and Plato ; how far it may have reached Plato in his wanderings, how far through Pythagoras, how far, even before the death of Socrates, a direct stream of the Eastern doctrine may have flowed through Asia Minor into Greece. But I affirm very confidently that if anyone will make himself familiar with the old Indian wisdom-religion of the Vedas and Upanishads : will shake himself free, for the moment, from the academic attitude and the limiting Western conception of philosophy, and will then read Plato's dialogues, he will hardly fail to realise that both are occupied with the selfsame search, inspired by the same faith, drawn upwards by the same vision."

"This view [that Jesus never existed] is demonstrably false. It is fuelled by a regrettable form of atheist prejudice, which holds all the main primary sources, and Christian people, in contempt. This is not merely worse than the American Jesus Seminar, it is no better than Christian fundamentalism. It simply has different prejudices. Most of its proponents are also extraordinarily incompetent."

"In the last analysis, the whole Christ-myth theorizing is a glaring example of obscurantism, if the sin of obscurantism consists in the acceptance of bare possibilities in place of actual probabilities, and of pure surmise in defiance of existing evidence. Those who have not entered far into the laborious inquiry may pretend that the historicity of Jesus is an open question. For me to adopt such a pretence would be sheer intellectual dishonesty. I know I must, as an honest man, reckon with Jesus as a factor in history... This dialectic process whereby the Christ-myth theory discredits itself rests on the simple fact that you cannot attempt to prove the theory without mishandling the evidence."

"The fact, however, that he (Pythagoras) derived his doctrines from an Indian source is very generally admitted. Under the name of Mythraic, the faith of Buddha had also a wide extension."

"Greek was nothing more than Sanskrit turned topsy-turvy."

"Mathematical science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths of the sun and the moon were accurately measured. The philosophy of the learned few was perhaps for the first time, firmly allied with the theology of the believing many, and Brahmanism laid down as articles of faith the unity of God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the responsibility of man. The remote dwellers upon the Ganges distinctly made known that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punishment which awaited evil deeds."

"From the mid-1990s I became persuaded that many of the gospel traditions are too specific in their references to time, place, and circumstances to have developed in such a short time from no other basis, and are better understood as traceable to the activity of a Galilean preacher of the early first century, the personage represented in Q... This is the position I have argued in my books of 1996, 1999, and 2004, although the titles of the first two of these—The Jesus Legend and The Jesus Myth—may mislead potential readers into supposing that I still denied the historicity of the gospel Jesus. These titles were chosen because I regarded (and still do regard) [the following stories;] the virgin birth, much in the Galilean ministry, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the resurrection—as legendary."

"[In Did Jesus Exist] I agued that Paul sincerely believed that the evidence (not restricted to the Wisdom Literature) pointed to a historical Jesus who had lived well before his own day; and I leave open the question as to whether such a person had in fact existed and lived the obscure live that Paul supposed of him. (There is no means of deciding this issue.)"

"Jesus is nowhere in the Talmud said to have been executed by the Romans; his death is represented as solely the work of the Jews: and nowhere is his alleged Messiahship mentioned, not even as a reason for putting him to death."

"Paul sincerely believed that the evidence (not restricted to the Wisdom literature) pointed to a historical Jesus who had lived well before his own day; and I leave open the question as to whether such a person had in fact existed and lived the obscure life that Paul supposed of him. (There is no means of deciding this issue.)"

"The Q material—whether or not it suffices as evidence of Jesus's historicity—refers to a [human] personage who is not to be identified with the [mythical] dying and rising Christ of the early epistles."

"The most striking feature of the early documents is that they do not set Jesus’s life in a specific historical situation. [...] In Paul, for instance, there is no cleansing of the temple (which, according to Mark and Luke, was the event that triggered the resolve of the chief priests and scribes to kill Jesus), no conflict with the authorities, no Gethsemane scene, no thieves crucified with Jesus, no weeping women, no word about the place or time, and no mention of Judas or Pilate. Paul’s colorless references to the crucifixion might be accepted as unproblematic if it were unimportant for him. But he himself declares it to be the very substance of his preaching (1 Cor. 1:23 and 2:2). Yet he lived as a Christian for three years before even briefly visiting Jerusalem (Gal. 1:17f.), and says nothing that would indicate that he took interest in, or even had awareness of, holy places there."

"That Jewish Wisdom ideas influenced early Christian writings is undeniable, for Jewish statements made about Wisdom are there made of Jesus. Christ is called “the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24); in him are “hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Cols. 2:3). Like Wisdom, Christ assisted God in the creation of all things (1 Cor. 8:6)—an idea spelled out in the Christological hymn of Colossians 1:15-20. And like the Jewish Wisdom figure, Jesus sought acceptance on earth but was rejected and returned to heaven. Furthermore, in the Wisdom of Solomon, the righteous man, Wisdom’s ideal representative (no particular person is meant), is persecuted but vindicated post mortem. His enemies have condemned him to “a shameful death” (2:20), but he then confronts them as their judge in heaven, where he is “counted among the sons of God" (5:5)."

"I have argued that there is good reason to believe that the Jesus of Paul was constructed largely from musing and reflecting on a supernatural 'Wisdom' figure, amply documented in the earlier Jewish literature, who sought an abode on Earth, but was there rejected, rather than from information concerning a recently deceased historical individual. The influence of the Wisdom literature is undeniable; only assessment of what it amounted to still divides opinion. [...] The Jewish literature describes Wisdom as God's chief agent, a member of his divine council, etc., and this implies supernatural, but not, I agree, divine status."