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but what other measure could we use? it's no good arguing that the standing of some philosophers has a separate sort of legitimacy that cannot be accorded to others. you must take king solomon in his context just as you would take lao tzu or protagoras in his.
king solomon may not have much relevance today in your philosophical studies but the same could be said for Socrates in the studies of a person in China. influence and legitimacy through the ages is tied to circular patterns, i'll wholeheartedly agree with you there, but you must not conclude that the philosophy of the old testament or any other religious source is less circular than other branches of thought.
i think it's important to make a distinction between philosophy of religion/politics/metaphysics etc. and philosophy of science. we can both agree that the starting points for the philosophy of science is different than the other variety as it has no real starting assumptions. this is in contrast with the main body of philosophical thought as most of it is built on fundamental premises that cannot be proven either way (i.e. we have/don't have souls, there is/is not a god, we exist/we do not exist.)
if you're going to discount religious philosophy as circular then you must also discount the bulk of philosophy on the same grounds. of course, i do not discount all philosophy that does not have empirically provable evidence... which allows me to logically place legitimacy on religious texts from a philosophical perspective.
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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
~ Winston Churchill
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