LETTER: Better ideas needed in Middle East

Christianity can be confusing. It has just enjoyed the Easter festival, named for the German pagan deity Eostre. Both eggs and rabbits are somewhat unchristian fertility symbols.

But that’s just the start. Who knows of Philo of Alexandria? One scholarly emailed paper on him prompted an algorithm to send me more on a daily basis. An erudite Hellenised first century Jew, not a pastry chef, Philo’s writings overlaid the Torah with a veneer of Greek thought.

John’s Gospel is vintage Philo, as are several of Paul’s letters. This resurgence in interest suggests academia has concluded that Philo was the brains behind Christian theology.

How his ideas travelled from his study to the world at large, creating possibly the most pervasive cultural and religious movement humanity has seen, is an epic tale, a Roman attempt to solve its intractable Judaean problem, which had led to the Jerusalem massacre of AD70.

With input from emperors and their mistresses to adventurers such as Josephus, the gospels and supporting documents created a pro-Roman, peace-loving Judaism to counteract the destructive zealotry of the time.

Ironically, Western civilisation once again finds itself in a similar situation 2,000 years on. Destructive ideas can only be defeated by better ones, as Philo tried to do. Physical separation, as in a two-state solution, can at best only be a temporary solution.

James Cunningham
Camps Bay

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