The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity

The co-blogger has attended a conference January, 27-31, 2005,
organised by the Danish circle of scholars working on "Jøder, Kristne og Hedninger i Antikken – Kritik og Apologetik" (Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity, Criticism and Apologetics) at the University of Aarhus. The theme of the conference was: The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity. See this URL to find a complete program for the conference.

Of particular interest for Philo scholars was the lecture by Maren Niehoff on "Philo’s Contribution to Contemporary Alexandrian Metaphysics". She argued that the Aristotelian features in Philo's De Aeternitate Mundi was a well-grounded strategy by Philo not to say that he supported the Aristotelian doctrine that the cosmos was not created, but to say that Aristotle was right in supporting the literal reading of Plato at this point. She used the development of the ancient discussion among Platonians and Peripatetics to demonstrate the probability of this theory in a quite novel way. As a responder to the lecture the co-blogger argued that another possibility is that Philo did not write Aet. Dr. Niehoff supported the view of several leading Philo scholars, such as Leisegang and Runia.

Another interesting lecture from a Philonic point of view was Claudio Zamagni "The Reception of the Antique Question and Answer Genre in Judaism and Early Christian Literature, up to 500 A.D." where ho pointed out the main differences between Philo's use of the genre and the later use.

The lectures from the conference and some of responses will be published (in English)