 Ever since Aristotle rejected the cosmology of the Timaeus on the ground that it required not just a beginning of the universe in time, but a beginning of time itself (Physics 251b14–26), defenders of the dialogue—perhaps wishing to neutralize Aristotle’s critique while conceding that the assumption of a beginning of time is problematic—have claimed that the creation story is not to be read literally, but  metaphorically.[5]  This metaphorical reading of the dialogue became the prevailing (though not exclusive) view among Platonists, from the Old Academy of Plato’s immediate successors to Plotinus (third cent. CE). The question of how literally the creation story is to be interpreted remains an intriguing one that continues to interest (and divide) scholars to this day: if we follow the metaphorical interpretation, we will read the account not as a process by which an intelligent Craftsman put the world together at some time in the past, but as a statement of the principles that underlie the universe at all times of its existence. Key questions raised by this issue include the following: (1) Is Intellect (personified by the Craftsman) literally an intelligent agent of some sort, an entity that is ontologically distinct from both the model and its copy, or can the Craftsman be identified with some aspect of either the copy or the model—the world soul, for example, or one or other of the forms—and thus be reducible to something else? (On this question, see more below, under “Teleology.”) (2) How do we understand the relation of the “pre-cosmic” state of the universe to its finished state? The account posits that pre-cosmic state “before” the creative process by which the ordered universe comes into being. But if there is no time apart from the measured celestial motions, how is that “before” to be understood? (3) If the creation story is read literally, is it consistent with Plato’s views on related subjects set forth in other dialogues?  [6]