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A fun and sometimes difficult read... a strange book to review. It presents itself as a sort of science textbook, "the story of the universe so far as to the generation of man", Timaeus (the main character) says toward the end. And were I reviewing it as a modern science textbook, I would have to say "uh, LOADS of what this guy says we now think are incorrect, do not read!". However, as a book written in 360 BC by a smart man who had reason, basic observations about the world, and some theology to guide him, it is quite interesting and more than once has remarkable parallels to what modern science does teach us about the world... discussing those parallels could be a whole book in itself, and surely is somewhere. (It's also often quite funny, particularly when Timaeus is dismissing people who think other than he!)

I actually heard the book recommended at a classical Christian schooling conference as "science teachers should read this". Why? For one, Plato's method of reasoning is interesting to follow, even as we (with much better observations now than he had) would not agree with his conclusions. But he does also take the position that the Demiurge and subsidiary gods created the universe to be intelligible, and that it is a "divine" activity of man to study and reflect upon that intelligibility. There is something for Christians to appreciate in his mindset, therefore.