I wasn't aware that there was any reincarnational element in Gnostic thought and I've never heard of Plstonic Gnostics ... although neo-Platonism certainly had a strong influence on early forms of Christianity.
Apologies for being boringly Creedal but I'm happy to stock wotj the mainstream traditional narrative, although I can see how the line of reasoning that @Gramps49 has outlined and which I've echoed could certainly resolve some issues in the more gnostic schema you appear to favour.
No apologies necessary. It may come as a surprise to you that reincarnation was not a rare concept in first century Mediterranean thought. Plato got it from his mystery school in Alexandria and the Hebrews have long held the concept of the gilgul or transmigrational soul.
Not every gnostic school of thought held the same concept, but it was far from unusual.
Has anyone pointed out that the more common concept of hell today is based on Dante's Inferno?
Yes, a number of shipmates have noted how Inferno shaped concepts of Hell.
The ancient concept of the place of the dead (Sheol in Hebrew) or the Underworld in Greek was basically a place of shadows, dark, dreary. No real torture, just a place of nonexistence.
Not nonexistence. The spirits there existed; it was just a very static existence.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The narrative of Christ punching a hole in the back wall of Hades and liberating those divine sparks trapped in the cycle of eternal recurrence, while simultaneously rising again into the world to rule and cleanse it of all the impossibly tangled and unintended consequences of our sins was a powerful "happily ever after" that Plato couldn't offer.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Comments
No apologies necessary. It may come as a surprise to you that reincarnation was not a rare concept in first century Mediterranean thought. Plato got it from his mystery school in Alexandria and the Hebrews have long held the concept of the gilgul or transmigrational soul.
Not every gnostic school of thought held the same concept, but it was far from unusual.
AFF
Not nonexistence. The spirits there existed; it was just a very static existence.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.