It is interesting to compare Deuteronomy 32:17 with Plato's Apology.
Deut:
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared.
Plato's Apology (in the context of Socrates defending himself):
What do they say? Something of this sort:
That Socrates is a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the state, and has other new divinities of his own.
Moses warns against sacrificing to new deities. In context, this is a warning against sacrificing to idols in four parts: they are “demons,” they are “not God,” there is no long-term relationship with them, and they are “new.”
Deuteronomy was written in Hebrew. There is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew called the Septuagint or the LXX. In the LXX, this verse says "ἔθυσαν δαιμονίοις... καινοὶ πρόσφατοι."
Socrates is accused of worshipping new divinities, which Plato (also writing in Greek) says are "δαιμόνια καινά."
There is considerable overlap from the LXX to Plato (just minor changes in the ending, which makes the two nouns plural).
δαιμονίοις → δαιμόνια
καινοὶ → καινά
Was the author of Deuteronomy alluding to Plato? Was Plato influenced by Moses? I’m not sure. There is a whole field of research debating this. (Certainly, years later, Augustine and other church fathers had no problem leveraging some aspects of Plato. Perhaps Plato had no issue in leveraging Moses?)
Anna Angelini wrote a helpful article in 2019 discussing these “striking” similarities. She says we shouldn’t make too much of them, as some have done. Why not? She points out that there's no real theological conflict in the context of Plato, just a practical one. There isn't anything quite like a "false god" in Plato, whereas Deuteronomy emphasizes the contrast between the “nothing” idols and the one living God.
But there are still similarities! And based on them, Angelini concludes:
qualifying a cult or a god as "new" is a widespread and rather common strategy of delegitimization in antiquity.
Which is the key takeaway for me. New used to be bad.
We live in a culture where "new" and "progress" are inherent goods regardless of telos or purpose.
Theologian Kenneth Hamilton has said the "Great God Change" is one of the primary idols of our day. He said this in the 1970s, mind you, but his point still stands! As Michael Burdett would say, people today tend to believe in the myth of progress. It’s in the air we breathe. We can’t help but support change, any change, because we have a default belief that change is good. Is it newer? It must be better.
Hamilton and Burdett question how we treat “something new” as inherently good. Meanwhile, Moses rebukes idols because they are new. The cultural assumption in Moses’ day is the opposite of ours.
We live in very disorienting times. At the beginning of this year, NVidea was coronated as the next big technology company on countless podcasts, social media platforms, and newspapers. A couple decades ago, NVidea began making computer chips for video games. Then Generative AI came along (e.g. ChatGPT), and people learned that this kind of AI runs best on video game chips. NVidea rose from a niche supplier to a world leader. Until they fell. Just a few days ago, NVidea’s stock fell 15% — the biggest market loss in history at ~$600 Billion dollars!
The cause? A new AI company, DeepSeek, has demonstrated incredible efficiency, and therefore, NVidea’s chips don’t seem so valuable. This is a complicated story. DeepSeek is not a competitor to NVidea. They are just using NVidea’s chips more efficiently. It is as if an aircraft company found a way to fly planes further distances with the same amount of fuel. This may mean there is less fuel per flight. But it also might decrease the cost of travel, such that more people will choose to fly when they wouldn’t have otherwise. NVidea is still a market leader in “fuel” for Generative AI. They aren’t going away. But regardless, the point stands that we live in a whirlwind of technology disruption. This is just one recent example. For some, disruption itself is a sign of strength. Since everything is new and changing, it must be good. I’m not so sure.
Do you believe that new is good?
If you’ve listened to my What Would Jesus Tech podcast, you’ll know I wrestle with this question. On one hand, God created a world and called it good. And then he told us to manipulate it, care for it, build with it, and fill it. In the first three days of creation, God created spaces. In the next three days, he filled them. Likewise, we are tasked with filling the world out of the materials He has given us. Just as Adam and Eve were called to multiply, so too were the animals, and Adam and Eve were to use the latent potentiality in the ground to craft great things. This is stewardship. This is the cultural mandate. This is what it means, in part, to be made in His image. In this sense, then, new can be good.
Did Moses believe that new is good?

Moses believed in God but did not always obey. In one instance, without consulting God, he leveraged a technique that had previously worked well for him. I can hardly blame him. In a pragmatic mindset, we ought to use what works. Right? Why not keep on using what has seemed to make life flourish? Why not expand, grow, and multiply our techniques that have brought fresh water in the past?
I don’t think Moses’ first and second strike of the rock correspond to the Internet revolution and the AI revolution, as if digital mediums are good and building AI is fundamentally an act of disobedience. But I do think our enthusiasm for technology and our shared belief in the Great God Change restricts our enjoyment of life. The person who always seeks what’s new will always be seeking, never at rest.
For now, I’d rather not get into all the related ethical matters we ought to deal with when discussing AI. I simply want to raise in our minds the possibility that we succumb more to the idol of technology than we realize.
In our age of walking robots, self-driving cars, and alluring AI possibilities, we must ask ourselves: is this change truly good, or are we sacrificing to Change, which is not God? Perhaps we need to figure that out before we strike the rock.
A brief reflection on the nature of this substack…
What level should I write at? As part of my academic research, naturally, I am writing a thesis at an academic level. When I write academically, I use jargon without defining it. But I want to be careful not to let that niche style influence my public writing too much (like I think it has in this post).
Part of this is because I want to link aspects of theology with aspects of technology, and I hope to have readers in both spaces who have limited knowledge of the other.
Part of this is learning from Brad East, who has read and written far more than me.
Academic writing is normally “Tier 4” in Brad East’s Four tiers of Christian/theological publishing. It is written for subject matter experts. It is filled with undefined jargon. Meanwhile, Tier 1 is the opposite. It’s universally accessible and easy to read. Nearly no long sentences. Plenty of illustrations and stories.
In the middle, you have Tier 2, which has substance but is still written at a popular level. Andrew Wilson and Jen Wilkin are good examples here. Tier 3 is a little more dense; it often popularizes academic writing. C.S. Lewis and Timothy Keller are often in Tier 3, though they both, due to their great skill, could speak and write in Tier 2. Historically, I’ve aimed to write at a Tier 2 level. Brad East commends this, as he worries that some people like me fall into academic-style writing, which is difficult for a broader audience to understand. I’m sensitive to his concern. And frankly, the post above is perhaps too nerdy. But maybe that’s okay sometimes?
This post leaned more into nerdy categories. I don’t know a majority of my readers very well so perhaps there is interest in some nerdy tangents? Going forward, I plan to continue posting about things worth sharing, especially related to technology, theology, and the Christian life. And I think the “tier” of writing may vary.
I love God with my mind and I write to serve yours.
Thanks for reading.
Recent podcasts I’ve produced:
Thinking About The Faith (Links: Website | Apple | Spotify):
Q1: What Is Our Only Hope in Life and Death?
Q2: What is God?
Q3: How Many Persons Are There in God?
Q4: How and Why Did God Create Us?
What Would Jesus Tech (Links: Website | Apple | Spotify | YouTube):
2025 Technology Predictions
Technology Literacy 101, with Keith Plummer
Canadian Christian Technologists in Trump’s Economy?!?
Word & Words (Links: Apple | Spotify | YouTube):
Rethinking “Vibe” Rhetoric and Responding to a “Negative” World
Interesting I always had the mindset that new was better but will be more critical in the future of new things that come into play in our lives. Great post