The Philosophical “Big Ideas” in the Old Testament

Remember that church in Dura-Europos with its pictures of Jesus as a philosopher? Not far down the street in the same ancient town there was a synagogue, a gathering place for metropolitan third-century Jews. Throughout this beautifully decorated space, various scenes from Israel’s history encircled the faithful.1 Most of these pictures feature the greatest man in Israel’s history, Moses. No fewer than seven scenes from Moses’s life appear in the Dura-Europos synagogue. And how is he depicted? The answer may be surprising: Moses is dressed in a toga, with the posture, haircut, and beard that show him clearly to be a great philosopher. The Christians weren’t alone.

Moses a philosopher? Wasn’t he a prophet? A miracle worker? The famous lawgiver of the Ten Commandments? Yes, he was all those things, but for the worshipers in the Dura-Europos synagogue, this didn’t exclude him from being a philosopher (see fig. 4). In fact, if we could ask the faithful Jewish wall painter who depicted Moses this way, he would be ready with an answer. It is precisely because of Moses’s teaching and ruling roles that he should be considered a philosopher. Moses was the one whom God used in a special way to rescue God’s people and then give them instructions on how to live life together so that they might know God’s favor. This is what it means to be a philosopher of God.

Figure 4. Wall painting of Moses and the burning bush from Dura-Europos [Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons]

The synagogue painters in Dura-Europos were not alone. Already by the first century BC, Jewish people were talking about the sixteenth-century-BC Moses in this way—Moses was a great philosopher long before Socrates and company even came on the scene. The ancient author Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 BC–AD 50) was a Jew trained as a Greek philosopher, and he readily interpreted Moses this way. The “of Alexandria” in his name shows that Philo was shaped by one of the greatest educational systems of the ancient world, that of the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The “Philo” part of his name is not Jewish but Greek, a pointer to the fact that he loved wisdom (philosophia) and also that he loved God. Philo left us with many writings showing his deep piety and dedication to God’s revelation in the Bible. For him it was natural to speak of Moses as a philosopher.

Philo understood the Jewish synagogues in terms of Greek paideia (whole-person education), because they are doing the same thing—they are schools of virtue that train people to see the world and be in the world in certain ways. The rabbinic schools of Jesus’s day were modeled on the Greek philosophical schools. One of Philo’s most important arguments along these lines is that Moses was in fact a great philosopher. Moses spoke of the great mysteries of the world, he gave laws from God to enable people to live well, and he ruled over God’s people with great wisdom. He was, in short, the ancient ideal of what a leader should be—not a mere politician but a philosopher-king, sage, prophet, and priest from God. Early Christians picked up on these same arguments and used them to argue for the ancient wisdom of the Jewish-Christian tradition.

We saw in the previous chapter that ancient philosophers taught a way of seeing and being in the world that promised human flourishing through learning what the Good is. Was Philo right that Moses was a philosopher? Yes! And Moses is not alone in the Old Testament. Moses and his writings are the foundation of the rest of the Bible for a great truth that we have forgotten in modern times—that the Hebrew Scriptures present themselves as a work of divinely revealed ancient philosophy.

The orthodox Israeli scholar Yoram Hazony has been one of the strongest voices arguing for a rediscovery of this idea—the philosophical reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.2 Hazony observes that the modern turn in the study of philosophy has created a false distinction between reason and revelation, between philosophy and faith. This prejudice against revelation and faith has blinded modern people from recognizing that the Hebrew Scriptures do actually present themselves as a philosophy of life in the ancient sense. As Hazony points out, the Bible’s claims to be rooted in the revelation of God do not disqualify it from providing a philosophy worth examining. The idea that a book can’t be considered philosophy because it claims to be revealed is “nothing but a bare prejudice.”3

Hazony seeks to show that the Hebrew Scriptures can and should be read as works of philosophy, with readers seeking to hear what the Scriptures have to say about the nature of the world and how humans should live justly.4 In other words, the Hebrew Bible can be read fruitfully as an ancient (and still-relevant) philosophical work.

In our previous discussion of ancient philosophy, we identified four compass points by which ancient people explored the Good and how to pursue the Good Life—metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. When we read the Old Testament we see that these four issues are discussed extensively.

Metaphysics. Metaphysics in philosophy deals with what are often called first principles—the big abstract ideas of being, nature, time, identity, and cause. Or more simply, What is the true nature of the universe, and how does the world work? Does the Old Testament address these issues? Very much so. To hear the metaphysical music of the Bible, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. The very beginning of the Bible’s story is an account of how everything came to be, the creation account of Genesis, a metaphysic extraordinaire.

Ancient people had various views on how the world was created, typically through the combination, conflict, or consummation of ancient gods or forces, such as the Egyptian Geb and Nut, whose sexual union formed and frames the world. There were a lot of gods hanging around in ancient Near Eastern minds—gods of rain, fertility, war, agriculture. Subsequently, most ancient people were polytheists, believing in various gods that ruled different aspects of human life and the world.

But not the Hebrew people. What sets the ancient faith of the Hebrews apart is their radical claim that there is only one true God, who spoke and created the whole universe by his own power, and that this same God is active in controlling and sustaining all of his creation. All other “gods”—and there are other spiritual beings—are actually created beings who are subservient to the God of the Hebrews. And very importantly, this one God is benevolent and personal, revealing himself and caring for his creatures and creation.

This is what we see in the first pages of the Bible, in the account of the genesis of the world. We meet a singular personal deity who has a counsel of created beings around him and who speaks the world into being by the power of his mouth. His Spirit is hovering over the primordial chaos of the watery world and then, “Yehi or!”—Let there be light! And there was. God continues to create and form the world over the course of six days, and then he rests, declaring it all to be Good (not an accident that this is the same word we saw in ancient philosophy).

This description of the nature of reality is a bold and important claim that sets the key and rhythm for the music of the whole Bible. The biblical metaphysic is that the world does not consist of mysterious and impersonal forces that are in conflict with each other and striving for dominance or balance (such as a yin-yang dualism). The world is not an impersonal mixture of various atomic elements such as fire and water. Rather, the world is one consistent reality, because it comes from one personal and kind God who exercises sovereign and wise control over the whole world. This metaphysic of creation also means that there are key distinctions in place—distinctions between the Creator and his creatures, between the Creator and creation, and between human creatures (who alone are made in God’s own image) and other created beings (such as animals), unlike many belief systems that blend these.

The creation story is foundational, but it’s not the whole story. Very soon—only three chapters in—Genesis tells us that the creation has undergone a breaking, a disruption. This means that our experience of the world is not as it was originally designed nor where it will finally end up. The fall and the promised restoration of creation are central to the Hebrew metaphysic of nature, because the world is not trapped in a cyclical state. The narrative of the Bible is a linear story with a beginning, middle, and end yet to come. In other words, the Hebrew Scriptures have great interest in providing a clear metaphysical description of the world and where it is going.

If God created only an inanimate world or a world with conscienceless creatures, then we wouldn’t need a metaphysical discussion. But we exist and we think and we wonder and we struggle and we suffer. The same creation account in Genesis describes not only how the physical world came into being but also how humans were made. Humans are not a random assortment of atoms, the result of various elemental forces, or the offspring of the mating of certain gods. Rather, humans were made male and female in the image of the one true God, after the pattern of God’s own uncreated being. The Hebrew metaphysic concerning humanity means that as bearers of God’s image and commissioned with a role of tending God’s creation, humans have inherent worth and meaning. Even with the corrupting effects of the fall, this value and purpose for humanity remains—the image of God is marred but not obliterated. This is a very sophisticated metaphysic of the world.

Epistemology. To be human is to be conscious and to think. A sign of maturing humanity is when a person begins to be aware of their own thinking processes. Since ancient times, humans have been engaged in such meta-thinking—thinking about thinking. The Greek tradition particularly highlights this awareness of meta-thinking, with Socrates famously emphasizing that he actually knows nothing—the way to wisdom is to become aware of one’s own lack of knowledge. Epistemology concerns reflections on how we know things and how to evaluate what is right and wrong and what is true and false.

Once again, we see that the Hebrew Scriptures show keen awareness of this kind of philosophical question and speak directly to it. What knowledge is and how we obtain it is a major theme throughout the Bible. Unlike our modern conception of “knowing,” which conceives knowledge as the objective possession of facts, in both the Hebrew and Greek worlds knowing is intimately related to experiencing, even to having a personal relationship. “Knowledge” in the Bible is practical and living, obtained by experience and resulting in a change of who we are. “Know” can even be used to describe the most intimate of interpersonal relations possible—sexual intimacy (Gen. 4:1; Matt. 1:25). Indeed, it is probably best to speak of the verb “knowing” more than the noun “knowledge,” because knowing is a process of learning to see in a certain way. To know is to experience.5

Issues of epistemology in the Hebrew Scriptures start with the biblical creation account, where the tree forbidden to Adam and Eve concerns the “knowledge of good and evil.” This tree represents a kind of knowledge that was the possession of God alone. By partaking of the fruit of this tree in disobedience to God’s command, the first humans simultaneously grew in awareness while also becoming darkened in their understanding and wills because of the broken relationship with their Creator.

The subsequent story of Israel, which takes up most of the space of the Old Testament, can be described as a cyclical story of knowing God, forgetting God, and coming to know God again. Time and again God’s people went through seasons and generations of intimacy and true worship of God through listening to his instructions and obeying his revelation. These are followed by times of neglect or rejection of the knowledge of God. The result of this was foolishness, suffering, and judgment.

God continually sent prophets to call his people back to a true knowledge of him that came through obedience to what he commanded. The prophets proclaim that God’s people are not flourishing and are on a path of destruction precisely because they do not know God rightly and intimately. This is stated over and over by prophets such as Isaiah (1:3; 5:13; 44:18–19; 45:4–5, 20; 47:10; 56:10; 59:8) and Jeremiah (2:8, 19; 4:22; 5:4; 8:7; 9:6; 14:18), as well as several times in the minor prophets (e.g., Mic. 4:12).6 In one striking example, the foreign king Nebuchadnezzar is divinely judged for his arrogance and is turned into a hairy, long-clawed beast in the wilderness until he comes to know and acknowledge that the God of Israel rules over all (Dan. 4:25, 32; 5:21). Then he is restored to his humanity. What a powerful picture of proper knowledge and its relationship to virtue (being human) not vice (being vicious, animallike).

The book of Hosea also stands out as a good example of this theme.7 Hosea lived and prophesied in a very tumultuous time, and he understood Israel’s catastrophic situation to be divine chastisement for her sins. Hosea provides a piercing diagnosis of what Israel’s spiritual malady is—it is a lack of knowledge of God: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children” (4:6; see also 4:1; 5:4; 11:3).8

The solution to this spiritual brokenness corresponds logically. Israel’s need is to know the Lord, as we find in several passages (Hosea 2:20; 14:9), including the beautiful summary prayer-exhortation: “Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth” (6:3). We should press on to know the Lord because, though shocking to hear in light of the sacrificial system that God has ordained, God cares more about mercy and faithfulness than he does about sacrifice, about the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings (6:6).

So the Hebrew Scriptures, like the rest of ancient philosophy, very clearly focus on the central role that self-aware knowing plays in what it means to live well. One portion of the Old Testament—the Wisdom literature (Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes)—particularly focuses on the related epistemological question of how one comes to know. In many ways the book of Proverbs is the quintessential place to turn to when asking about the Bible and knowledge. This is because the whole point of Proverbs is to provide succinct and pithy knowledge about how to live wisely and virtuously in the world. And from the very beginning of the book, it is stated clearly that this way of wisdom and knowledge is possible only if one is oriented rightly toward God—“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7).9

This sets the parameters for what true knowledge and wisdom is for all of Scripture. True knowledge is not merely a matter of assembling and compiling facts, having knowledge in a “scientific” sense. Rather, knowledge (which leads to wisdom) is a function of a relationship with God. As one scholar has wisely noted, “The fear of the Lord is the key to Israel’s epistemology [knowing] . . . , for knowing the Creator puts one in position appropriately to know the creation and humans with their divinely given possibilities and limits.”10

The questions of knowing in the Old Testament are very sophisticated and nuanced. We mentioned how Proverbs gives principles for wise living that are rooted in the fear of the Lord. At the same time, the Hebrew Scriptures acknowledge that life is complicated and confusing. Proverbs provides paradigms of general wisdom for life, but the story of Job sensitively shows that life is more complicated than pithy wisdom sayings—there is suffering that is often inexplicable and unjust. Thus wisdom includes a recognition of the limits of our understanding and our need to trust God even in the midst of the pain and confusion of suffering. The book of Ecclesiastes likewise overflows the banks of the simple understanding of the book of Proverbs. The author of Ecclesiastes faces the great existential question that any person who has lived a while will eventually face: Is life really predictable and meaningful, or is everything random and fleeting emptiness? Comparable to Job, the book faces these complex questions head-on and finally concludes that living according to God-fearing wisdom is the only way forward.11 Once again we see the Hebrew Scriptures are engaging in philosophy.

Ethics. The question of what the Good is drives all of ancient philosophy. The subcategory of ethics addresses specifically how to live in accord with the Good such that one can live well. This central focus in philosophy once again finds a parallel in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The God of the Bible works out his interaction with humanity through a series of covenants—God-initiated reciprocal relationships. God has all the power and glory, and he gives benefaction to his beloved creatures. The reciprocal response of humans to this benefactor covenant is called torah. “Torah” in English has come to be translated as “law,” but this is a bit off. “Covenantal instructions” would be better. The German language has a great word that could be used here too, Lebensordnung—structure or way of life. God’s torah consists of specific instructions for lots of situations—for example, when someone crashes his ox cart into your house. Torah contains ethical teachings and instructions about what is right and wrong (think the Ten Commandments), how to properly relate to God (think Leviticus), and how to properly handle relationships in the community, especially when something has gone wrong (think Numbers and Deuteronomy). But a covenantal relationship with God is just that—a relationship—and so the ethics of the Bible are from beginning to end characterized by relating to God and each other in ways that accord with God’s own nature.

In this way the ethics of the Hebrew Scriptures very much accord with ancient Greek and Roman philosophy—not always on the specifics of what the Good is, but on the focus on ethics as being about virtue. This means that the ethical teaching of the ancient world was not voluntaristic (the right thing to do is whatever is commanded) nor deontological (the right is based on principles that have nothing to do with the person) but virtuous, meaning that the character of the person must be formed according to the Good. An ethics of virtue, which is shared by ancient philosophy and the Bible, focuses on the development of our sensibilities, values, and habits. Virtue teaches people to live wisely so that, in the great variety of life experiences, we will be able to discern what the Good is in each circumstance. What distinguishes the Hebrew Scripture’s virtue ethic from others in the ancient world is its focus on this ethic coming through the revelation of a personal, covenantal God. But the Hebrew Scriptures share the same focus on virtue.

Politics. The word “politics” has become loaded with negative connotations in modern English, evoking images of backroom deals, posturing, power grabbing, and polarizing rhetoric. There have always been bad politicians and bad governments, but this does not have to necessarily be so. “Politics” doesn’t have to be a negative word. Our word “politics” has its origins in something much more positive and constructive: the Greek philosophical reflection on how the Good should be worked out in society, in relationships between individuals, and in how to build a society that will inculcate flourishing and the Good Life for its citizens (Greek, politeia).

This idea of politeia has been the basis for democratic- and republic-based governments in Western civilization for millennia. This older, constructive sense of “politics” was a natural and crucial aspect of the ancient philosophical perspective because the philosophers understood that (1) flourishing is not possible apart from societal stability and structures that promoted beauty, goodness, and virtue; and (2) humans need each other to flourish.

Indeed, it was not good for the first human to be alone, as we learn in the second chapter of Genesis, even before the fall (Gen. 2:18). Human flourishing can be found fully only in relationships. Humans need friends. Consequently, the Hebrew Scriptures are very keen on providing a political philosophy or vision for how to structure society for the Good. This vision, like the Old Testament’s metaphysic, epistemology, and ethics, is rooted in the revelation of the personal God to his creation.

Most of the torah concerns relationships between humans. Of course, portions of God’s instructions focus on the vertical relationship of humanity toward God. But the torah puts great emphasis also on the horizontal—on interpersonal relationships and the relationships of individuals to societal structures. We can see this in shorthand form in the Ten Commandments, which are divided into two tablets. Commands 1–4 concern relationship with God, while commands 5–10 are about relating to each other (Exod. 20:1–17). Hebrew tradition has summarized all of torah with two comprehensive required loves—love for God and love for neighbor (Deut. 6:4–5; Lev. 19:17–18). Forming a loving politeia is essential to life.

The height of Israel’s political state occurred under King David. The instructions God gave for kingdom conduct were rooted in God’s own nature. Of course, people groups and empires that were contemporary with Israel also had a vision for how to structure society. But the Hebrew political philosophy is strikingly beautiful in comparison. As Yoram Hazony points out, the unification of the twelve tribes of Israel into one political entity under a king who remains humble and treats his kinsmen as a brother is very different from the surrounding ancient Near Eastern imperial states. In other ancient kingdoms there were no divine-ethical limits on territorial ambitions, or the size of the military, or the amount of resources that the king could extract from the subjects in taxes and forced labor. The emperors were often worshiped as gods.12

But the God of Israel put limits on all his appointed human kings. Ultimately, God was the real king of Israel, and any appointed kings were his sons, not independent sovereigns. Of course, to have an organized government, some degree of power and sovereignty must be invested in the human king. But the Hebrew vision for the political state set limits on all of this. The Hebrews’ ultimate allegiance was to God himself, not to the human king. The human king and other leaders were brothers and coworshipers of the one true God. This is a politeia rooted in the just and good way.

This divinely revealed political philosophy was not just for the sake of the Hebrew people but was also a model for all the nations. It is a picture of how the true God has structured the cosmos and the means by which humans may experience flourishing or shalom. It is easy to miss this because of the Hebrew-centricity of the Mosaic covenant. But, as the Hebrew Scriptures make clear, the God of Israel is not just the benefactor of the Hebrews; he is also the kind Creator of the whole world. Therefore, if the God of Israel “is indeed the god and benefactor of all the earth, then his actions, commands, and pronouncements, unlike those of the other tribal or national gods known to the ancient world, must in some way be a reflection of that which is good, not only for this or that nation, but for all mankind.”13

This investigation into the nature of the Good in the moral and political realms is precisely what the Greek and Roman philosophers were keen to explore and was a crucial part of philosophia. Major works such as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics dealt with precisely the same issues, and these works were central to ancient philosophy’s contribution to society. In the Old Testament, God is revealing to his creation through the Hebrews what the Good is and what offers true life (Deut. 29:28; 30:11–15). This is a revelation of what justice and righteousness is. Israel stands as a model for the world of “a certain way of life, . . . a certain way of looking at the world,” a philosophy.14

Earlier, we met Yoram Hazony, the Israeli scholar who argues convincingly for a philosophical reading of the Hebrew Scriptures. With the keen insight of an orthodox Jew steeped in the study of the Scriptures, Hazony provides a fascinating account of how the canon of the Hebrew Bible is intentionally structured. The books that constitute the “history of Israel” (Genesis through Kings, with Deuteronomy as central) are the base for the whole vision of the rest of the Bible. On this base, the goal of the Hebrew Scriptures, Hazony argues, is to show that “Israel stands for a certain way of life, and a certain way of looking at the world.”15 This particular way of life and way of looking at the world has a goal: that through learning God’s ways, the whole world might be blessed. In other words, God has given his wisdom to Israel, which must maintain its faithfulness to this true vision of the world, so that they can be the conduit of this blessed way to all nations. The point of the whole Bible is to give wisdom that leads to life in his kingdom.

Thus, the Hebrew Scriptures provide “a general account of the nature of the moral and political order,” “the provision of a general account of why ‘life and the good’ have escaped the nations, and of how mankind may attain them nonetheless.” The point of the history of Israel is not simply to give facts about historical events but to cast a vision of the true and the good for all the world. This goal of exploring and explaining what constitutes the Good Life for individuals and society is, as we have seen, precisely what the Greeks called philosophia. The Hebrew Scriptures / Old Testament are providing a philosophy for the world.16

And now we are arriving at our destination. The Hebrew Scriptures are given to provide the true, divinely revealed answers to these great human questions. To quote Hazony once more, the Hebrew Scriptures exist “to establish political, moral, and metaphysical truths of a general nature” and apply these to the Jewish people and then beyond.17

The point of all of this reflection is that these big philosophical ideas in ancient philosophy are not found only there. Rather, the same ideas prove to be very important to the story and theology of the Old Testament. The Hebrew Scriptures provide a divinely revealed metaphysic, epistemology, virtue ethic, and political philosophy based on the ultimate Good, God himself. This revelation is for the good of humanity, to shape and train humanity to see and be in the world in the particular ways that alone promise true flourishing and happiness because they are rooted in God’s nature. “Happy is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked . . . , but whose delight is in the Torah of God and who meditates on it day and night. This person will be like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do flourishes!” (Ps. 1:1–3, my translation). Moses was a philosopher. The prophets were (often fiery) philosophers. The psalmists were philosophers. Solomon was a philosopher. They all offer wisdom for life.

Dallas Willard was one of the twentieth century’s great minds and great hearts. He lived a long and productive life, full of joys and sorrows. From a humble boyhood in the Missouri dustbowl to his renown as a philosopher at the University of Southern California, Willard was a faithful minister with a sharp and winsome intellect. As a graduate student at Baylor University in the late 1950s, Willard came to see something that forever marked his life and ministry—that the vocations of preaching, teaching, and philosophy were not and need not be separated. Willard saw that the Bible was addressing the big philosophical questions of life. He articulated it this way: “You look at the fundamental teachings of the Old Testament; for example, [the commandant of] having no other [gods] before you. This attempts to address the same questions as philosophy. The two main issues in philosophy have been historically, who is well off and who is a really good person, and those run together and they push you to the question, what is real. That is what the Bible is about. The need to see what the questions are is what is commonly over-looked.”18

Who is “well off,” “who is a really good person,” and “what is real” are Willard’s humble and accessible ways of describing to laypeople what he knew to be the great philosophical questions: What is happiness/flourishing? What is goodness? and What is reality? As Willard’s biographer goes on to paraphrase, “The Bible presents us with answers to these fundamental, philosophical questions. In the Bible, God is the ultimate reality, and one is a good person and truly well off when one is in a right relationship to God.” The Bible is addressing precisely the same questions as traditional philosophy.19