Most scholars believe that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible were compiled (incorporating some much older material) in the fourth or fifth century B.C.E.—around the times of the major Greek thinkers. Likely through such Jewish Platonist philosophers as Philo of Alexandria, Plato’s divine crafter profoundly influenced Judaism and, later, Christianity. Plato had positioned his divine crafter as outside of space and time, creating the world we’re in. In the Bible’s Genesis, a similar God, existing before everything, outside of everything, creates Heaven, creates Earth, and then: God
...more

