I'm off..

As some of you may know, we have 5 weeks of vacation in Norway. Those over 60 have 6. Most of us take one week off in the spring, one in the fall, and 3 in the summer. At least, that's what I'm doing. Tomorrow morning I am off for a 3 week vacation. Hence there will not be any blogging on this Philo WeBlog untill ca. July 19. However, if anyone has some information that should have gone into my RPBS pages, or into this blog, please e-mail it to me. You'll find my email url on my homepage if you click on my name in the heading of this page.
Have a nice summer all of you! Don't forget to take at least one Philo book with you on your vacation! :-) 

Philo’s Exposition of the Law and Social History

I am happy to announce that today I have posted a 'new' article on my Philo Resource page. Some time ago,- in fact a couple of years, I got a permission from Adele Reinhartz to post one of her articles on Philo on my site. The article was originally published as 'Philo’s Exposition of the Law and Social History:Methodological Considerations,' in Eugene H. Lowering Jr. (ed.), SBL Annual Meeting 1993 Seminar Papers (Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993), pp. 6-21. I have scanned the work, and it is now posted on my site in .pdf format.
You can access the article by clicking on Philo's Exposition of the Law and Social History.
Adele Reinhartz was then at McMasterUniversity, now she is at Wilfrid Laurier University.
I find the article very valuable as a discussion of some of the methodological difficulties we have to deal with when using the Exposition of Philo as a source for social aspects of Alexandria at his time. Thanks to prof. Reinhartz for the permission to include this article on my site. Tolle lege!

Some bibliographic notes..

The New Testament Abstracts is indeed a very valuable publication. As the publishers state on its homepage, "Founded in 1956, New Testament Abstracts has become an indispensable research and bibliographic aid for scholars, librarians, clergy, and students of the New Testament and its historical milieu. Every year NTA abstracts up to 2,150 articles chosen from more than 500 periodicals in numerous languages. Nearly 800 current books are also summarized annually." I can fully agree to that. There is also a CD version available; CD-ROM Release 1.0, contains all abstracts and book notices published in NTA from 1988 through 1998. I might just wonder, is there any plans about making the bibliographies available online?
As for my self, working in a College with a good, but nevertheless a minor library available, I find publications as NTA really indispensable. The last issue (vol. 48 (2004) no. 2) just arrived, and I gathered the following bibliographic information on relevant Philo literature:Articles:
C. Conway, "Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of alexandria," JournStudJud 34 (4, '03) 471-491.
D.S. Dodson, "Philo's De Somniis in the Context of Ancient Dream Theories and Classifications," PerspRelStud 30 (3, '03) 299-312.
J.E. Ellis, "Philo's View of Homosexxual Activity," PerspRelStud 30 (3, '03) 313-323.
L.H. Feldman, Philo's Interpretation of Jethro," AusBibRev 51 ('03) 37-46.
L.H. feldman, "Questions about the Great Flood, as Viewed by Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus and the Rabbis," Zeit AltWiss 115 (3, '03) 401-422.
Books:
K. Berthelot, Philanthropia judaica. Le debat autour de la "misanthropie" des lois juives dans l'Antiquite, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 76 (Leiden-Boston; Brill, 2003).
F. Calabi (ed.), Italian Studies on Philo of alexandria, Studies in Philo of Alexandria and Mediterranean Antiquity 1 (Bosten-Leiden, Brill, 2003)
It looks like the Perspectives on Religious Studies had a volume dedicated to Philo studies in 2003, and a search on the WWW made the following information available. The journal has it own website: Perspectives on Religious Studies that contain lots on information about the journal and its published issues. (I should have known this, but I don't know evrything.....:-)).
It turns out that their Issue 03 - Fall 2003 in addition to the articles mentioned above, contained the following articles on Philo of Alexandria: Gregory E. Sterling, “Philo Has Not Been Used Half Enough”: The Significance of Philo of Alexandria for the Study of the New Testament: pp. 251-270
Michael Martin, Philo’s Use of Syncrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata: pp. 271-298
Andrew E. Arterbury, Abraham’s Hospitality among Jewish and Early Christian Writers: A Tradition History of Gen 18:1-16 and Its Relevance for the Study of the New Testament: pp. 359-376. The site also presents abstracts to each article, but with no search function. I read through some of the indexes, but did not find any other articles on Philo. But there might be, as I did not read through all.

Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum online

Due to a posting by Jim Davila on his PaleoJudaica,I was made aware of the website of Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum. Thanks :)
The self-presentation of the IJD runs thus: The Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum is successor to the Institut für Judenmission which was founded in Leipzig in 1884. It continues the work of the Old Testament scholar Franz Delitzsch, who provided a model of understanding between Christians and Jewish which was exemplary for its time. In 1948 the institute was re-founded in Münster as part of the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät . The academic study of Judaism, which had been destroyed by the National Socialists, was revived in this institute in the form of historical-critical studies, researched in cooperation with Jewish partners. The site have several pages, containing interesting info about Faculty and Staff, Publications, Events, report, Development. Of special interest to readers of this blog may be their current projects on Philo and on Josephus.On Philo: A research position was being set up at the Institutum Judaicum Delitschianum with the support of the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". The purpose will be to deliver the first German translation of the Quaestiones in Genesim and the Questiones in Exodum by Philo of Alexandria which are currently extent only in Armenian. The translation will be more directly from Armenian into German, but with reference to Greek idiomatics which are still traceable tin the text. A provisional translation of the first part (QG, Book 1) can be found online (see link on page).
On Josephus: A special team has been working in the institute since 1996 on an annotated Greek-German edition of the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus: Namely the Vita, Contra Apionem and later the Antiquitates Judaicae.
The first volume has been published: Flavius Josephus, Aus meinem Leben (Vita): Kritische Ausgabe, Übersetzung und Kommentar von F. Siegert, H. Schreckenberg, M. Vogel, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001.
Currently the team is working on the translation and edition of Contra Apionem. A provisional translation can be viewed online(see link on page). It will be published at Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen in 2004. In addition, they are also working on a bibliography on "the complete relevant literature on Flavius Josephus (is) being systematically registered and bibliographically processed with the goal of providing an electronic bibliography. It shall include all monographs, anthologies, and periodical essays beginning in 1985 in order to continue the extensive bibliographies of Heinz Schreckenberg and Louis H. Feldman." A link is provided to the present version of the Josephus-Bibliography.

More resources for the study of the Septuagint (LXX)

Due to my work of updating my RPBS, I have collected some links of valuable resources for the study of the Septuagint. I hope readers of this blog may also find some of these interesting.

Texts/Translations
New Testament and the Septuagint
This site provides .pdf files of each books of the New testament and of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint LXX:
Greek and English by Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton Published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851.
The Septuagint in Greek and French: La Septante
The texts are presented in parallell columns, the Greek is given in beautiful letters, very readable.The french is obvious taken from several sources
New English Translation of the Septuagint.
NETS is a new translation of the Greek Jewish Scriptures, entitled A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (and abbreviated as NETS). This project is being carried out under the aegis of The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS).
La Bible Annotée
Malgré son titre sans prétention et son grand âge, la Bible Annotée, ou Bible de Neuchâtel, reste une œuvre inégalée. Elle se compose d'une traduction française originale de l'Ancien Testament, et d'un commentaire accompagnant chaque verset ou presque.
Septuaginata Deutsch
Dieser Projekt, das in den folgenden Verlautbarungen ausführlich beschrieben wird(check out the link..), verfolgt das Ziel, der Septuaginta in der deutschsprachigen Forschung die ihr gebührende Bedeutung zukommen zu lassen.

Resources

The United Bible Societies' Translation Information Clearinghouse
was set up in April 1987 with the aim of providing reference services to UBS translation personnel and others involved in Bible translation, and developing bibliographies on topics related to their research interests. These pages are primarily for their benefit, but it is hoped that others will profit from the information presented here, as well. You will find here the current issue of the clearinghouse newsletter TIC Talk, and links to sites related to the areas of biblical studies, linguistics, and translation.
The Septuagint Online. Electronic resources for the Study of the Septuagint and Old Greek Versions.
The International Organization for
Septuagint and Cognate Studies
The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) is a nonprofit, learned society formed to promote international research in and study of the Septuagint and related texts.
Bulletin of the International Organization for
Septuagint and Cognate Studies
The IOSCS produces an annual bulletin, the Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (BIOSCS). Each bulletin contains articles, news, and a record of work published or in progress.

Research projects
The Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World
The project has two related goals.
1. A systematic assessment of existing criteria for the contextualisation of the translation of individual books or groups of books. Emphasis will fall on those books of the Greek Bible, which, by virtue of their content matter, offer substantial sources for historical contextualisation.
2. A major investigation into the language of the translators. The project will focus on a comparative examination of the political, legal and administrative terminology of the books (examples for comparison include court titles, legal terminology and conceptions of the hellenistic monarch).
Commentary on the Septuagint
Though other scholarly work has been undertaken with a focus on the Septuagint at various stages of its reception history or on the original meaning of individual books, a sustained effort, for the whole of the Septuagint, to understand the text at its point of inception remains, we believe, a desideratum.
La Bible d'Alexandrie. Cette traduction a choisi de considérer le texte grec de la Bible non comme le décalque de l’hébreu, mais comme une création littéraire linguistiquement remarquable et historiquement féconde. Le texte est celui d’Alfred Rahlfs, «Septuaginta, id est Vetus Testamentum Graeca iuxta LXX interpretes», Stuttgart, 1935
Centre for Septuagint Studies
The Centre is involved in the comparative study of the Greek translations of the Old Testament – esp. the Septuagint – with the Hebrew text.

• Tools for Septuagint Studies A Bibliography.

The Septuagint in Greek and French

The following website presents the texts of the Septuagint according to the edition of Ralphs, and translations in French: http://ba.21.free.fr/septuaginta/cover.html
The texts are presented in parallell columns, the Greek is given in beautiful letters, very readable.The french is obvious taken from several sources. Have a look!

Jewish Law and Hellenistic legal practice

Just a brief posting to day on an article available on the web: JOSEPH MÉLÈZE MODRZEJEWSKI,
JEWISH LAW AND HELLENISTIC LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE LIGHT OF GREEK PAPYRI FROM EGYPT.
The author works at Université de Paris I ‑ Sorbonne, and the article is available at
http://www.juedisches-recht.de/Rechtsgeschichte-Hellenistic-Practice.htm
Mordzejewski deals primarily with the Ptolemaic period, and argues here in his footnoted article, inter alia, that a) voluntary immigration and not captivity was by far the principal source of the Jewish settlement in the Ptolemaic kingdom, as it was for other Greek‑speaking immigrants; b) The concept of Jewish politeumata as independent political units must be regarded as a 'historiographical legend' (Aristeas); c)To be a Ioudaios in Ptolemaic Egypt was not very different from being a Makedon. As distinguished from the native Egyptians, both were 'Hellenes'; d) the existence of Jewish tribunals in Alexandria is highly questionable. Philo's book De Specialibus Legibus reflects his own interpretation of the Biblical laws rather than the actual jurisprudence of Jewish courts.
Most of these issues are debated in recent research. The article also deals with several other aspecs of Law, especially family law. The main part of his conclusion runs thus: " From the viewpoint of legal history, there is no contradiction between the desire of the Egyptian Jews 'to follow old national and religious traditions' and their ambition 'to participate vigorously in all aspects of Hellenistic life'. The influence of Greek models in social life as well as in everyday legal practice is indisputable. But it did not inevitably lead to apostasy. Renegades like Dositheos son of Drymilos or Tiberius Julius Alexander were rather exceptional. Adherence to Greek culture was compatible with the maintenance of Jewish identity. To paraphrase the author of the Third Book of Maccabees, the great majority of Jews in Egypt 'remained faithful to the religion of their fathers'. Whatever the degree of the Jews' acculturation, including the use of Hellenistic law, there were never any signs of Judaeo‑pagan syncretism."

Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense 2004 — The Septuagint and Messianism

Strongly related to the ongoing project presented in the former posting below, this summer there will be arranged an interesting conference in Leuven, Belgium, July 27-29, on The septuagint and Messianism. The picture and following is snipped from the webpage mentioned above:Speakers:‘The Septuagint and Messianism’ forms the theme of the fifty-third Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense that will be held under the Presidency of Professor Michael Knibb (King’s College London) in Leuven from 27 to 29 July 2004. In addition to the Presidential address, main papers will be given by Professors A. Aejmelaeus (Göttingen/Helsinki), P. Bogaert (Leuven), J. J. Collins (Yale), H.-J. Fabry (Bonn),W. Horbury (Cambridge), J. Lust (Leuven), O. Munnich (Paris-Sorbonne), A. Pietersma (Toronto), and A. Schenker (Fribourg). During the Colloquium four seminars will also be held, and these will be led by E. Bons (Strasbourg), M. Menken (Utrecht), M. Roesel (Rostock), and R. Sollamo (Helsinki).
Theme
A number of scholars, including the late Professor J. Coppens (one of the co-founders of the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense), have claimed that, in comparison with the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint provides evidence of the gradual emergence of messianism and prepared the way for the messianic interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. This claim has recently again found expression in a number of publications, but has by no means won universal acceptance amongst scholars, and it has seemed therefore an appropriate moment to examine the whole question of whether the Septuagint does provide evidence for the gradual emergence of messianism.The Colloquium will end immediately after lunch on 29 July, and the IOSCS meeting begins on the following day in Leiden.

The Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World

Commenting on my post on The impact of LXX on Philo Ellen Birnbaum reminds me of the fact that there is an interesting project going on at Reading University on The Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World.
It is in fact a joint venture between the University of Reading and the University of Southampton (and maybe some other institutions.)Directors of the Greek Bible Project are Professor Tessa Rajak, (University of Reading), Dr Sarah Pearce (University of Southampton), Post-Doctoral Research Fellow: Dr James Aitken (University of Reading), Research Associate: Dr Jenny Dines (University of Cambridge), Director, AHRB Parkes Centre Professor David Cesarani (University of Southampton), Projects Coordinator, AHRB Parkes Centre, and Dr. Jo Reilly (University of Southampton).
The aim of this interesting project is
to will provide a re-evaluation of the Greek Bible as a source for Jews' interpretation of the political, social and intellectual culture of their hellenistic world (defined as continuing into the period of the early Roman Empire).
Objectives
1. to evaluate existing criteria for dating and contextualising the translation of the various books of the Greek Bible;
2. to create a computer-based lexicon of political, legal and administrative vocabulary in the LXX Corpus (broadly interpreted);
3. through a comparative examination of the translators' vocabulary, to develop new criteria for determining, where possible, the chronological, cultural and political context of those translations;
4. to produce a synthesis of proposals, resulting from the research, about a range of critical issues including:
a. Jewish translators' appropriation of political, social and intellectual constructs in the hellenistic world;
b. reflections in the translations of any of the following: the development of Jewish political ideas and practice; a sense of ease or unease in the hellenistic world; a response to criticism of Judaism; Jewish fears about assimilation. Further information about the project can be gained at its homepage. There is a lot of interesting info to be found on the many subpages of the project's homepage.

Ellen B also mentions that there was a session devoted to this project at the last SBL meeting, and I understand that the participants hope to maintain a regular presence at these meetings. I in fact attended parts of teh Atlanta session, listening in to the lecture by Robert Kraft. I thought he had published that lecture on the web, but now I am not able to find it any more. He might have removed it.

Joseph in the Qur'an,- and in Philo.

Joseph is quite an important figure to Philo; his De Josepho and De Somniis deal a lot with the Joseph Character of the Pentateuch, presenting partially different pictures of him.
Now there is a book out on Joseph in the Qur'an, and that may be interesting reading also for Philonists. Se now John Kaltner, Inquiring of Joseph: Getting to Know a Biblical Character through the Qur'an (Collegeville: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier, 2003)pp. xx + 132 Paperback. There is a bookreview out in the recent edition of Review of Biblical Literature, written by R. Christopher Heard. You can read the review by clicking HERE.

R. Kraft; Philo (Fall 2003) & his Scriptures

Among the many pages of Robert kraft on the Internet, I also found one on Philo. It is obviously supposed to function as a resource page for one of his courses this spring: RelSt 999: Philo (Fall 2003) & his Scriptures (Spring 2004).
In addition to links to my own Philopage, and links to most of the articles mentioned on my page, he also has references to printed literature relevant for his course.
Have a look if you are interested. But he forgot to have a link to this PhiloBlog!
Hm.....

More on the Therapeutae

I have pointed to info about the ongoing research on the Therapeutae in some earlier postings (see here), and here is some more:
Philonics - and others interested in the Therapeutae - going to the SBL Annual Meeting in Texas this November might be interested in the fact that a whole program unit willl focus on meals in the Therapeutae community. (The text below is taken from the description of the Program Unit at Annual Meeting program. Meals in the Greco-Roman World
Hal Taussig
Dennis Smith
Description: Bringing a variety of recent research strands together, this consultation seeks insights into early Christianity and Judaism as reflected in meals of the Greco-Roman world. The 2002 session references archeology, women, ritual, Christian origins, first century Judaism, and eucharist.
The topic for 2004 is "Deciphering an Ancient Meal: The Therapeutae as a Test Case." The session will consist of a series of brief papers (already assigned) which will analyze the Therapeutae text in Philo from a variety of methodological perspectives. We invite all interested parties to join us in a roundtable discussion that will follow the presentations. Philonics should note this, and I do hope the session will not be set up at the same time as the meetings of the Philo of alexandria Group.

BTW, Dennis Smith is the one wrote From Symposium to Eucharist. The Banquet in the Early Christian World (Fortress press,2003). He comments on the Therapeutae on pp.158-159 and a few other places scattered in the book. Tolle lege! See you in San Antonio?

Throttled Links; A throttle to knowledge?

A recent posting of Mark Goodacre makes me aware of a posting by AKMA, and reminds me of the discussion we had at the beginning of this year on megasites. The discussion evolving now raises a lot of important issues and questions, of which I am sure we will have to deal with in the coming months and years. You should investigate the following inputs by yourself: Cards, Links and research; teaching Technological Learners, from AKMA'sRandomThoughts.
Response by Mark Goodacre: Throttle to Knowledge? Response to AKMA on "Links Pages". Then Stephen Carlson enters the debate at his Hypotyposeis.I in a way initiated the former discussion on Megasites (you can see my "Finals Comments(?)" and links to the other particpants here), and I can follow AKMA's worries about the work involved in keeping such sites updated. But his article referred to above goes much further. I appreciate very much Mark's lengthy response and find my self much in agreement with his pinpointing of other issues raised by AKMA's article. This will surely be issues to be disussed further.
So much for today. Back to work! I got to finish my magic article, cf. my former posting! ;-)

The Impact of the LXX on Philo

As I am working my way through Philo's references, expositions and comments upon the issue of magic, I realize again and again how much he is dependent upon the LXX. Being an expositor of the Scriptures, that is just what one should expect from Philo. But I am nevertheless struck by how important it is to investigate the vocabulary of the LXX on a given topic before working on what Philo says. His adaptions, changes, elaborations etc of the LXX become an important issue when investigating on how Philo consider a specific topic.
This is not a new discovery. Philonics are fully aware of it. But I think there is still room for more work in this area.
Hence it is also interesting to note the advertisement of Eerdmans of a forthcoming book on these issues, focusing on a particular topic:
William Loader, The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament: Case Studies on the Impact of the LXX in Philo and the New Testament. (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, july 2004) 168 pages.
Their further presentation of the book runs thus:In this groundbreaking book William Loader shows how the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures created new slants and emphases on sexuality that would leave their mark on the writings of Philo and the New Testament — and ultimately on Christian thought itself.
According to Loader, "Some things are lost in translation, others gained." The making of the Septuagint could not help but result in verbal connections, lost emphases, and novel wordplays that opened the door to new interpretations. One particularly important instance of this effect of translation is the Septuagint's treatment of sexuality. In the course of his book Loader explores sexuality as it is presented in the Decalogue, the stories of Creation and the Garden of Eden, and the brief reference to divorce in Deuteronomy 24, looking in turn at their Septuagint translations, their use in Philo, and their possible impact on the New Testament. These fascinating studies have important implications for thinking about gender issues and male-female relations.
Those wanting to pursue this, may also be interested in the books listed on this very Eerdmans page related to The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research.

Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans

One of the more interesting books about the Diaspora published in 2002 and reviewed recently (6/6)on SBL's Review of Biblical Literature is this:
Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002)pp. ix + 385.
The reviewer (Andrew S Jacobs) introduces his review thus:The thesis of Erich Gruen’s highly readable and thoughtful study Diaspora is easily, and frequently, stated: "Jews of the Second Temple period did not perceive themselves as victims of a diaspora" (135; see similar statements on 6, 53, 69, 131. 158, 193, 243). The traumatic shadow of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., Gruen claims, has skewed perceptions of the ancient Jewish Diaspora, leading scholars to view
the preceding centuries as the tense build-up to an inevitable, and devastating, conflict between ethnically and cognitively displaced Jews and hostile and ferociously displacing Gentile powers. Gruen refuses to read the momentous Jewish War backward into the centuries-long Diaspora that preceded it, instead preferring to read evidence of the pre-70 Diaspora on its own terms (7). The result, for Gruen, is a portrait of Hellenistic Jewish life outside of Palestine characterized by "self-assurance and comfort in the Greekspeaking lands of the Mediterranean" (212). This challenge to the prevailing view of the Jewish Diaspora is welcome and inspiring. You can read the rest of this review by clicking here.

Studia Philonica Annual vol.16

David Runia (Melbourne) has informed me that he and the editorial
team are working hard on volume 16 of The Studia Philonica Annual. It
will have a number of articles on Philo and related subjects by an
international group of scholars, including Cristina Termini, Sabina
Inowlocki, Daniel Schwartz, James Royse, a special section on
Etymology and Allegory (papers from the 2003 SBL conference), about a
dozen book reviews and the usual Bibliography section giving an
annotated bibliography of works published on Philo in 2001.
The volume should be available by October in readiness for the SBL
conference in San Antonio in November.
For those readers who have not yet purchased vol. 15, please consult
the website of the Annual at www.nd.edu/~philojud.

Pseudo-Philo on line

Due to a note in Jim Davila's Weblog I became aware of the fact that the socalled The Biblical Antiquities of Philo are now available online.

This work, which is also called Pseudo-Philo Antiquites, is not written by Philo of alexandria; its author is unknown, but it was probably written around 70 CD. It is now extant only in Latin, a version that many think is a translation of a Greek original.The english translation mentioned above is from 1917.

Link checking

I have run a link checker on my Philo page. All links should now work properly. Please notify me if you find dead links, or if you have info links you think should have been included on that page. Use the comments field below, or torreys@gmail.com .

Holger Szesnat's Virtual Space

When updating my resource page on Philo, I discovered some outdated links, among them several links to Holger Szesnat's articles on Philo. His webpage, called Holger Szesnat's Virtual Space, now have link to pdf versions of his articles, not zip files. Go here to see the list of his relevant articles.

Some interesting new books forthcoming...

Skimming some catalogs and announcements, I find the following books to be interesting to philonics:
John Lierman, The New Testament Moses. Christian Perceptions of Moses and Israel in the Setting of Jewish Religion
2004. XIV, 368 Seiten ( Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe 173) € 64.00.

Yuval Shahar, Josephus Geographicus. The Classical Context of Geography in Josephus
2004. IX, 305 Seiten ( Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 98) Leinen € 84.00

John M.G. Barclay (ed.,) Negotiating Diaspora . Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire. November, 2004 184 Pages £30.00
And Lester L. Grabbe seems to be publishing a multivolume history of Jews and Judaism. The first volume is announced for this year thus: Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1 Yehud, the Persian Province of Judah May 1, 2004 hardcover 480pp, £55.00.
Description
"In the first of four volumes on A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Lester Grabbe presents a comprehensive history of Judah (Aramaic Yehud) during the Persian Period. Among the many crucial questions he addresses are: What are the sources for this period and how do we evaluate them? And how do we make them “speak” to us through the fog of centuries? Grabbe argues that there is a danger of seeing everything from a Judaeo-centric point of view, or using the biblical texts and out-of-date secondary material to provide the main perspective in understanding history, whereas any scholar writing about this period should be familiar with the classical historians and the Near Eastern sources as well. This study brings together and analyzes the original sources, sifts and evaluates the secondary sources, develops a substantial historical synthesis, and points to areas where further research is needed."
I hope to be able to have a closer look at at least some of these volumes in this year. What worries me about them, however, is not their length, but the prices. € 84.00 or £55.00 is simply too much for my resources. :-(

SBL International Meeting 2004

Yesterday I received my program book for the SBL International Meeting 2004, to be held in Groningen, Netherlands July 25-28. This years conferance will be held with The European Association for Biblical Studies, The International Association for Qumran Studies, and the UNiversity of Groningen.
Looking through the program for what intersting topics there might be for a philonic, there was not much to find. There are sessions related to diaspora Judaism, as e.g., sessions on Early Christianity between Hellenism and Judaism (though I thought that was an outdated way of phrasing oneself: Hellenism AND Judaism...).
But there is, alas not much directly related to Philo and his works: One, however, is quite relevant:In the Session on "Themes in Biblical Literature; on The Revelation of the name of YHWH to Moses: Exodus 3 & 6 and Its interpretation". On Tuesday July 27 Albert Geljon from Christian Gymnasium Utrecht is to read a paper (45 min) on: God's Revelation in the 'Vita Mosis' Literature by Philo of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa. The book also contains abstracts on most of the lectures to be presented, but the one by Geljon is missing. And one might wonder why Philo is so slightly represented among the many interesting themes and topics at this SBL International Meeting. Where are the Philonics?

How to cite from online material

There has been som discussion lately in some other blogs on how to quote from electronic sources, se e.g., Bible Software Review WeBlog and NTgateway Weblog.

I have always found it important to have correct reference-'formulas' from electronic sources; there is no reason not to use electronic sources in scholarly works, and we now see they are present in e.g., some more recent dissertations. I have now added a link on this page to The Columbia Guide to Online Style. On my own Resource Pages for Biblical Studies I have had a similar link for years. This latter link is somewhat old (1996; means ages back in cybertime....), but it may still be helpful.