Philo's 'Therapeutae' Reconsidered

The great book by Joan E. Taylor on Philo and the Therapeutae, which has been mentioned several times on this blog, has now received a review on www.bookreviews.org.
Joan E. Taylor,
Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philo's 'Therapeutae' Reconsidered
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
pp. xv + 417, $99.00. Hardcover.
The review is written by the Norwegian scholar Jorun Okland, now resident at University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
The reviewer finds that "the main contribution of the book is exactly the way it brings together different perspectives and research in different fields in order to illuminate one particular text and a group it refers to. The book can be seen as an attempt to place the Therapeutae properly back into a first-century Alexandrian Jewish context and not just configure them in light of later Christian monasteries or in light of Qumran materials as Philo’s unsuccessful attempt at describing the Essenes.
The book is another example of how entry through the gates of gender criticism may in fact lead to new and striking insights into unexpected places, such as the spatial organization of the Jerusalem temple and its replication in Alexandria and elsewhere.
This reader found the discussion of the convergence of cult and philosophy particularly valuable. Maybe Philo did not use the wrong word when he described Judaism as a philosophy but rather modern people have very limited ideas of what “philosophy” meant in the ancient world."
You can read the rest of the review HERE.