Although arabic translations of plato's timaeus were circulating in some form or other by the ninth century, it is unclear how much of the dialogue Maimonides knew. The best guess is that he did not have a full text or line-by-line commentary and may have relied on paraphrases or secondary sources. He lists Platonism as one of the three options for explaining the origin of the world but never cites the Timaeus directly, and in a letter written to Samuel ibn Tibbon complains that there are so many parables in Plato's writing one can dispense with it and stick to Aristotle.

In view of this remark, we should not be surprised that at GP 2.13 and 2.15, Maimonides cites Aristotle's authority (presumably Physics 251b16–18) to argue that Plato believed the world was created and that the heavens are subject to generation and destruction. What Aristotle actually says in that passage is that Plato alone believed that time was created and had a beginning together with the world. There is no mention of the destruction of the heavens. Moreover, at De Caelo 280a31–32, Aristotle criticizes Plato for holding that the heavens, although generated, will last forever.

In the Timaeus itself (38b), Plato raises the possibility that the heavens will be destroyed but does so only to emphasize that time and the rotation of the heavens go hand in hand so that if you take away one, you take away both. Nothing indicates that having been created, they must eventually pass away.