So Im reading Xenophon doing a Socratic dialogue and he goes into a
>God ordered things this way
>God made man this way
>God made woman this way
He doesnt say which god and is singular instead of plural. I thought ancient Greeks were polytheists, cant remember a specific line but I think I saw this reading Aristotle too.
Is this a translator messing with the contents to fit his "modern" christian view? Im not very well read, Im just starting with the greeks but this feels like a common thing.

>>24566845 (OP)
Even Homer used God in a singular sense in the Odyssey and Iliad sometimes

>>24566846
Did he? Or is that what the translator wants you to think?

>>24566853
Just compare different translations

>>24566862
Too much work, I will just move on I guess, plurar or singular is not an obstacle to get what I want to get out of it. I just thought worth mentioning.

>>24566865
I like to think that Ancient Greeks had a more accurate conception of God than is believed to be

>>24566845 (OP)
Θεός
The Greeks may have been polytheistic in their mass, but perhaps some part of Greek society had developed a purely intellectual monotheism several hundred years before Socrates. That there is one god - and that god is GOD, Θεός , The One = τὸ ἕν. It wasn't like the Jews, where one of the gods became the universal god, but on the contrary, where the abstract One could be associated with different Greek gods. And it didn't affect religion, it could be understood by individuals, but not by the crowd.
The crowd could worship Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, etc. and it was good for them. In Xenophon's understanding, Socrates as a wise man could understand that there is only One God, although there can be different gods. And Socrates was accompanied by a demon (demons are small gods, they are good), who prompted him to act.

tldr; Greek philosophers developed their own philosophical monotheism, which until late antiquity did not influence religion

>>24566862
Maybe all translators are stupid illiterates?

>>24566902
Well you couldn't judge that anyway.

>>24566845 (OP)
It's a stand-in not a theological statement.

>>24566845 (OP)
I've also had this question for a while. I've read that its the translation not being literal and that its usually the author saying "The god" or "a god" just to refer to one in particular but that doesn't make sense either

>>24566845 (OP)
When Xenophon (and sometimes Plato) uses "ho theos" (ὁ θεός) "the god" in the singular, it's often not referring to Zeus or Apollo in particular. It's more like "the divine" or "god in general" a kind of abstract, universal deity or cosmic intelligence. This isn't full-blown monotheism like in Judaism or Christianity, but it's closer to what we might call philosophical theism.
Xenophon, in particular, presents Socrates as believing in one divine ordering intelligence behind the world, even if he doesn't deny the existence of other gods per se. Xenophon’s Socrates tends to speak as if there’s one supreme guiding intelligence, sometimes identified with Zeus, sometimes just called "the god."

>>24566845 (OP)
There is a God that created it all, he is singular. Then there are gods (in greek mythology, of course) that represent the creations of God, they are plural.

>>24569183
*she

>>24566845 (OP)
>>24566846
>>24566872
The singular god the philosophers are talking about is Zeus. He is the 'Father of Gods and Men', 'Law-giver of Cosmos'.

You can read the Stoics explaining how the Good Demiurge is Zeus, Plato called Zeus as Zen ('Cause of Life, Giver of Life') in his work 'Cratylus'.