A lucid and wide-ranging book arguing that the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, first advanced by Plato's Timaeus, was highly influential on the many discussions of world-generation operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first three centuries AD, until its demise in Neoplatonism.

This book examines religious and 'scientific'/philosophical accounts of world-generation as represented by the figure of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god.