diagnosis
He reads the Septuagint as a Ptolemaic strategy to bribe Jewish priests, control the Levant, and fold Jewish culture into Greek imperial administration.
Topic brief
A Jiang Lens evidence brief for this topic, built from source tags, transcript matches, and linked source refs.
Ptolemy
He reads the Septuagint as a Ptolemaic strategy to bribe Jewish priests, control the Levant, and fold Jewish culture into Greek imperial administration.
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Key Notes
evidence
Ptolemy's geocentric model endured because it was mathematically detailed, refined by centuries of work, and aligned with theology, whereas Copernicus's Catholic-supported heliocentric model initially lacked comparable mathematical refinement.
diagnosis
Jiang argues that Ptolemy could not rely on Persian-style tolerance in Egypt because Egyptian resistance made legitimacy require a new imposed culture that showed Macedonian-Greek superiority and divinity.
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evidence
Jiang says Ptolemy stole Alexander's body from Babylon and brought it to Egypt because Egyptians saw Alexander as a god, making the body a tool of legitimacy.
Timestamped Evidence
Transcript
"...part of the cultural imperialist project um the Egyptians uh under Ptolemy they also started to work with the Jews okay why because Egypt..."
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"getting their priest by saying to the priest you know what we love your tradition we love your culture let us translate your bible..."
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"In about 150, a Greek scientist named Ptolemy, working in Egypt, he developed the first comprehensive cosmological system. And this cosmological system, which he..."
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"...there's a lot of mathematical detail in the book. And because Ptolemy's perspective aligned with theology. The Bible. It was accepted, it was accepted..."
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"...you, Copernicus' book called On the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres or Ptolemy's book, well, most scientists would tell you that Ptolemy's book is better...."
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"...in Egypt, the Egyptians rebelled against Persia many, many times. So Ptolemy and his hearers didn't want to make the same mistake. Okay? They..."
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"...But the museum was really the world's first research university. So Ptolemy and his heroes brought together the greatest Greek scholars in the world..."
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"...there were a lot of people who opposed Julius Caesar, including Ptolemy and including Cato. Cato chose to kill himself rather than submit to..."
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"the four major parts are Ptolemy takes Egypt which is the wealthiest part of the empire um then you have Macedon then you have..."
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"...and then after some time the Athenians said said to uh Ptolemy hey man give give us back the scrolls and then Ptolemy's like..."
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"...vassal state to the Persians. Then after the Persians came the Ptolemies of Egypt, and after that were the Seleucid Empire. The Jews were..."
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"...the founder of Zoroastrianism. Okay? The religion of Persia. You have Ptolemy who investigated how the planets move. All right? And as you can..."
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Relevant Lectures And Readings
Reading
A source-grounded reading of Jiang's Hellenistic World lecture: empire stabilizes itself into stagnation, borderlands beat it with energy and openness, Greece wins as a borderland, then becomes the empire whose universities, cities, and translations...
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Science begins here as a theological discipline of doubt.
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Aristotle is not treated here as the solitary genius behind Western reason.
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