Before and After Muhammad The First Millennium Refocused

58 | CHAPTER 3

First Millennium cultural traditions: Prophetic, scriptural, and exegetical phases

GREEK PHILOSOPHy
(ARISTOTELIANISM) CHRISTIANITy JUDAISM
SCRIPTURAL SCRIPTURAL
after 86 BCE Aristotle’s “eso-
teric” works become known at
Rome.
c. 30 BCE Andronicus of
Rhodes’s edition of Aristotle.
PROPHETIC
c. 4 BCE–c. 30 Jesus of
Nazareth.
SCRIPTURAL
c. 50–c. 120 Composition
of New Testament writings.

c. 70 Destruction of Jerusalem
Temple.
c. 100 or later Contents of
Jewish Bible finally fixed.
EXEGETICAL
c. 130 Emergence (as yet
incomplete) of N.T.
proto-canon.

c. 80–c. 180 Mishnaic sages.

EXEGETICAL
c. 200 Alexander of Aphrodi-
sias, Aristotle’s earliest surviving
major commentator.

c. 200 Compilation of

Mishnah.

EXEGETICAL
c. 215 Death of Clement
of Alexandria, theologian.

c. 220–c. 375 Jerusalem

Talmud sages.

270 Death of Plotinus, eminent
Platonist but also student of
Aristotle.

c. 254 Death of Origen, lead-

ing Alexandrian exegete.

c. 220–c. 500 Babylonian

Talmud sages.