I. History of Religions

The Greek noun διασπορά/diasporá derives from the composite verb διασπείρω/dia-speírō, translated “to disperse, scatter, be separated.” Epicurus, following Plutarch, used diasporá in the context of his philosophical doctrine of the atom in the sense of “dissolution down to the last units, to have become without context.” The Jewish translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (LXX; Bi…