DasThothbuch: eine ägyptische Vorlage der platonischen Schriftkritik imPhaidros?

Abstract

AbstractIn 2005, an Egyptian dialogue’seditio princepswas published, named by its editors the ‘Book of Thoth’. While prior research on the relation between this dialogue and theCorpus Hermeticumcould not identify far reaching parallels, another relation has not been taken into account yet: the relation to Plato’s critique of writing in thePhaedrus. The present article argues that very likely theBook of Thothforms a source of the Platonic text, to which Plato responds with a diametrically opposed criticism. To underline the argument, literal and thematic parallels are pointed out in a first step. Then, secondly, the focus is put on the order of the two texts. Finally, a systematic comparison between the Platonic and the Egyptian understanding of scripture underscores the argument. Thematic parallels and literal correspondences are numerous and therefore suggest excluding a similarity by accident: In theBook of Thothwe grasp a concrete Egyptian source of Plato for the first time.