Greek philosophy is unavoidable when you've got a Greek New Testament in one hand and a Koine lexicon in the other. In a language with such a vast body of text behind it, every word is allusive to those words; every word a link to hypertext.
I'm not telling you anything radical or new. That's just the way language works: the meaning of key words of the NT (like "Logos" and "Ousios") is understood by the way in which they were used in a Hellenistic social and intellectual context, especially by their best speakers/writers, the poets and philosophers.
"Pagan" Greek philosophy, recast in the discourse of Christian believers, becomes Christian Greek philosophy. It is an Areopagus moment: Acts 17:28 "For in him we live, and move, and have our being". as certain also of your own poets have said " For we are also his offspring."
So pagan Greek poets’ words, too, are in the Word.
You are always going to be in dialogue with these Greek philosophers if you are pondering what NT words mean. So, my friend, if you are reading Biblical (Koine) Greek, you are already, in a sense, "speaking with Aristotle." The words were shaped by Hellenic clusters of ideas, years before they flowed from the pen of John the Evangelist, let alone the 300+ bishops of Nicaea, who came from three continents, and all worshipped one Lord Jesus Christ, in more or less the language of Epimenides and Aratus.
Read John 1:1. If you try to figure out the implications of θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, you're already in dialogue with Greek metaphysics.
All Christians, whether they realize it or not, are deeply indebted to that.
Lambs and mammoths too.
:o)
Who told you that? Quite to the contrary. For example when Peter used the term "Hades" as a Greek quivalent of the Hebrew "Sheol"(Ps. 16:10) in Acts 2:25-28 "Hades" was being used as simply the abode of the dead without all the philosophical trappings of classical Greek thought.
The same is true of the term "Logos" as John used it in John 1:1. John used "Logos" in a very restricted sense as is obvious from the rest of his gospel but the so-called "higher critics" would have us believe that John's usage was in some way reflective of the Greek philosophers.
They used "Logos" in the sense of reason or an ordering principle of the universe. John used the term for the prehuman Christ as a representive of his father, a spokesman.
"Read John 1:1. If you try to figure out the implications of θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, you're already in dialogue with Greek metaphysics."
Not so since John wrote under the influence of the holy spirit and not according to the hash of Greek metaphysical philosophy prevalent in his own day. It's not surprising that men steeped in the learning of the day would attempt to explain Christianity in the language of pagan Greek philosophy in order to make one palatable to the other.
"Pagan" Greek philosophy, recast in the discourse of Christian believers, becomes Christian Greek philosophy"
Really? Just consider for a moment the confusion wrought in the Bible's use of the terms Sheol, Hades, Gehenna and how these words are translated or the how the term soul is treated.
Attempting to hammer the teachings of Scripture into the shape of pagan Greek philosophy has produced such "kerosene in wine" teachings as purgatory and confusion over what the resurrection is.
"Read John 1:1. If you try to figure out the implications of θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, you're already in dialogue with Greek metaphysics."
Paul called the wisdom of the world folishness. "... It is an Areopagus moment: Acts 17:28 "For in him we live, and move, and have our being". as certain also of your own poets have said " For we are also his offspring."
These Stoics and other Greek philosophers ridiculed Paul since he preached Christ and the resurrection of the dead. These Athenians owed Paul a debt as some became believers and are named near the end of Acts chapter 17.