The SBL International Meeting and Philo

The program of the SBL International Meeting, to be held June 26 - July 1,in Singapore, is now available online. Searching the topics, I find primarily two topics that should be especially interesting to philo scholars:

27-2 Greco-Roman World
6/27/2005 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: 833 - Meritus Mandarin
Richard Phua, Trinity Theological College, Presiding

Michael Tilly, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Die griechische Bibelübersetzung als Zeugnis der kulturellen Begegnung (30 min)
Author's abstract:
Die Übersetzer der griechischen Bibel lasen ihre hebräischen Vorlagen mit dem Wissensstand und vor dem kulturellen und religiösen Hintergrund ihrer Epoche. Die Septuaginta enthält wertvolle Informationen darüber, wie die heiligen Schriften des Judentums insb. in der alexandrinischen Diaspora verstanden und seine normativen, narrativen und poetischen Inhalte mit der eigenen Weltdeutung und der eigenen Lebensgestaltung in Beziehung gesetzt wurden, insbesondere vor dem Hintergrund der kulturellen Begegnung von Judentum und Hellenismus. In den griechischen Bibelübersetzungen kommt das Bedürfnis ihres jüdischen Lesepublikums nach aktualisierenden Übertragungen der hebräischen Vorlagen zum Ausdruck. Ebenso begegnet in der Tiefenstruktur dieser Texte durchgängig das Problem der Vermittlung zwischen dem Streben nach Bewahrung der kulturellen und religiösen Eigenheit durch Festhalten an der jüdischen Tradition und dem Streben nach Annäherung an den Hellenismus durch Übertragung der Bibel in die zeitgenössische Kultur.

29-7 Paul and Pauline Literature
6/29/2005 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Room: 833 - Meritus Mandarin
Theme: Romans and Pauline Argumentation
Kim Huat Tan, Trinity Theological College-Singapore, Presiding

Peter Frick, University of Waterloo
Jewish Monotheism and Middle Platonic Philosophy: A Note on the Concept of God in Philo and Paul (30 min)
Authors abstract:
Philo of Alexandria and Paul the Apostle are both deeply embedded in the monotheist understanding of God that they inherited from their Jewish traditions and scriptures. I this study I will (1) briefly discuss Philo’s concept of God (divine simplicity, transcendence, ineffability, the Middle Platonist distinction between divine existence and divine essence) and (2) examine how Philo’s philosophical nuances in his concept of monotheism have echoes in Paul’s articulation of his understanding of God. Our main Pauline text is Romans 1:18-21.

'Strangers in the Light 'in the process

May I, as the humble(?) person I am, direct your attention to the presentations of forthcoming books on the front page of Brill Academic Publishers...

A new relevant blog

Philip Harland, whose web-pages on the associations I have referred to several times, have started his own blog, called Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean blog.
Welcome Philip, but be aware of the possible addiction! :-)

The focus of his blog is described thus: This blog on the religions of the Roman empire and the social history of Christianity serves two main purposes. On the one hand, it will provide an opportunity for me to share interesting (to me and hopefully to you) things I encounter in my research (I am an assistant professor in the Religion department at Concordia University in Montreal). My own interests focus on archeological and epigraphic (inscriptions) evidence for small groups or associations in the Roman empire and on comparing groups of various kinds (Jewish, Christian, and "pagan") from a social historical perspective. More recently I have also focused attention on the intersection of travel and religion in antiquity (e.g. pilgrimage, ethnography, immigrant groups). On the other hand, this blog will offer a venue for interactions with students on topics addressed in my courses, which include courses not only on ancient religions but also on the history of Christianity generally. I have added a link to his blog in the left frame here.

Congratulations to Mark Goodacre

One of the most productive bibliobloggers, Mark Goodacre, is moving to the United States, to take up a position at Duke University. Congratulations. I am glad to se that he has already promised to keep up his New testament Blog, and his New Testament Gateway resources pages.

As for myself,
by August 1, I am moving southwards in Norway, to begin in a new position as a professor in New Testament studies at the School of Mission and Theology in Stavanger.
How that move will influence and eventually restrict my work on the RPBS and this Philo of Alexandria blog is something I will have to consider more closely in the fall. At the present time, I think there will have to be some changes in this work of mine.

A Bibliography

This bibliography may be relevant for some readers of this blog:DAVID W. CHAPMAN AND ANDREAS J. KÖSTENBERGER,
'JEWISH INTERTESTAMENTAL AND EARLY RABBINIC LITERATURE: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIC RESOURCE,'
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43/4 (December 2000) 577–618.

Gender and Divine Relativity

Colleen Conway,
'Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of Alexandria,'
Journal for the Study of Judaism Volume 34, Number 4,2003, pp. 471 - 491
Abstract
Philo''s apparent divinization of Moses is considered vis-à-vis ancient conceptions of gender. Philo''s Moses is a perfect illustration of the ideology of masculinity evident in a wide range of Greco-Roman literature. Moreover, with Philo''s Moses, perfect masculinity is commensurate with divinity, but both remain relative to the "asexual masculinity" of God.

Critical Review of Books in Religion

Snipped from SBL's website:
"The Society of Biblical Literature has partnered with Logos Research Systems to make all 11 issues of CRBR (1988-1998) available in a fully searchable electronic form. Critical Review of Books in Religion is the precursor to the SBL's Review of Biblical Literature. Published through a cooperative effort of the Journal of Biblical Literature and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, each of the volumes contain a handful of lengthy review articles, between 150 and 300 brief (1-3 page) book reviews organized by subject, and a listing of translations, new editions and reference works. The final volume in the series contains review articles only.
If you would like the complete run of CRBR in electronic form, go to http://www.logos.com/crbr to read more about this opportunity."

What happened to the Library?

What happened to the Library of ancient Alexandria? No undisputable response to this question seems to have appeared so far, but 26-28 September 2004 there was a conference in Alexandria dealing with just this question: What happened to the Ancient Library in Alexandria? The conference was a part of a greater project on Alexandria which aims at making the BA a center for research and a depository of all forms of information on the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Alexandrian scholarship and other related topics.
See link on the page mentioned above; here you will also find a link to a detailed program of the conference (Word), list of contributors, and a link to abstracts of the papers given.

One of the papers, that by Magdy Kilany, has the curious title of "Indications of Early Christian Tradition in Philo" (sic!). The abstract, however, seems to indicate that it deals rather with the influence of Philo on early Christian thinking, than with 'Indications of Early Christian Tradition in Philo.'

Abstract:
"This paper will try to prove that Philo was the first to make philosophy at the service of religion and so he is considered as a forerunner both for Christian and Muslim philosophers. However, it concentrates mainly on his influence on Christian thought. The argument will depend on his original texts, comparing them with quotations from the Gospels to clarify this idea.
Philo used Plato’s allegorical method of interpretation to interpret the Old Testament. Through this method, the writings of Philo contributed to the formation of the early Christian concept of Christ and his divinity. To illustrate the above mentioned idea, the paper will deal with the origins of the word of God which became Jesus himself afterwards."

I presume the papers read at the conference will be published in a year or so. If you have any information on this, please use the comments field below.

Alexandria, Real and Imagined

I have also been made aware of (thanks again, Ellen; I appreciate it very much. I need this to get this thing going..) another publication dealing with ancient Alexandria: Anthony Hirst and Michael Silk,
Alexandria, Real and Imagined.
Publications for the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London
(ISBN: 0 7546 3890 1). Ashgate, 2004. 432 pages. Price $109.95/£57.50.
To quote from the announcement of the volume:
"Alexandria, Real and Imagined offers a complex portrait of an extraordinary city, from its foundation in the fourth century BC up to the present day: a city notable for its history of ethnic diversity, for the legacies of its past imperial grandeur – Ottoman and Arab, Byzantine, Roman and Greek – and, not least, for the memorable images of 'Alexandria' constructed both by outsiders and by inhabitants of the city.

In this volume of new essays, Alexandria and its many images – the real and the imagined – are illuminated from a rich variety of perspectives. These range from art history to epidemiology, from social and cultural analysis to re-readings of Cavafy and Callimachus, from the impressions of foreign visitors to the evidence of police records, from the constructions of Alexandria in Durrell and Forster to those in the twentieth-century Arabic novel."

A full list of contributors and contents can be found HERE.

Portrayals of the Wise and Virtuous

In the collection of conference papers presented below, I have received a copy of the this contribution, directly related to the study of Philo: Ellen Birnbaum, Portrayals of the Wise and Virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish Works: Jews' Perceptions of Themselves and Others (pp. 125-160). E. Birnbaum here sets out to try to understand how Alexandrian Jews perceived themselves and others, by focusing on the literary evidence available in the Letter of Aristeas, the Wisdom of Salomon, and the works of Philo. These sources, she states, portray in very different ways how wise and good people may overlap with Jews and non-Jews. Her particular concern, furthermore, is to determine who the wise and good people are, both among Jews and non-Jews.
Her conclusion (p. 159) is that even though the three sources here studied vary somewhat in their positions on interacting with non-Jews, they share a general agreement about the differences between Jews and non- Jews. Viewed from the perspective of their most open stance, Aristeas and Philo both acknowledge that non-Jews can recognize God and can display an admirable degree of wisdom and virtue. From another perspective, however, both authors share with the author of the Wisdom of Salomon the notion that only the Jews believe in and worship the one true God. In addition, Jews’ obedience to God’s laws sets them apart even more from non-Jews. .. The one constant theme running through all these works is a commitment to the one true God and to his Laws. For the authors of these works, it is this commitment that renders Jews wiser and more virtuous than non-Jews.

This is only a brief glimpse of what is to be found in this interesting article, a glimpse meant to inspire readers of this blog to go on, and read the whole article for themselves. Tolle lege!

Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece

On October 11-12, 2002, there was a conference at the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University, entitled Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. A collection of articles from this conference was published last year as Ancient Alexandria Between Egypt and Greece, Edited by W.V. Harris and Giovanni Rufini (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition Vol. Xxvi, Leiden; Brill, 2004).I have not seen the whole volume, but have received a copy of the list of contents, and one of the articles. Here seem to be several papers relevant to the study of Philo and/or Diaspora Judaism:

1. Chapter One; Creating a Metropolis: A Comparative Demographic perspective (Walter Scheidel), pp. 1-32.
2. Chapter Two; Egyptian Elite Self-presentation in the Context of Ptolemaic Rule (John Baines), pp. 33-62.
3. Chapter Three; Posidippus' Poetry Book: Where Macedon Meets Egypt (Susan Stephens), pp. 63-86.
4. Chapter Four; Realismo ed eclettismo nell'arte alessandrina (Nicola Bonacasa), pp. 87-98.
5. Chapter Five; Les hierothytes alexandrins: une magistrature grecque dans la capitale lagide (Fabienne Burkhalter), pp. 99-114.
6. Chapter Six; The oikos of Alexandria (Livia Capponi), pp. 115-124.
7. Chapter Seven; Portrayals of the Wise and Virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish Works: Jews' Perceptions of Themselves and others (Ellen Birnbaum), pp. 125-160,
8. Chapter Eight; Alexandria and Middle Egypt: Some Aspects of Social and Economic Contacts under Roman Rule (Mohammed Abd-el-Ghani), pp. 161-178.
9. Chapter Nine; Galen's Alexandria (Heinrich von Staden), pp. 179-216.
10. Chapter Ten; Hellenism and Opposition to Christianity in Alexandria (Christopher Haas), pp. 217-230.
11. Chapter Eleven; Some Unpublished Wax Figurines from Upper Egypt (Mona Haggag), pp. 231-240.
12. Chapter twelve;Late Antique Pagan networks from Athens to the Thebaid (Giovanni Ruffini), pp. 241-258.
13. Chapter Thirteen; The Island of Pharaos in Myth and History (Mostafa el-Abbadi), pp. 259-268.

The volume also contains a Bibliography, and indexes of Subjects and of Papyri.

Alexander the Alabarch

In 1995, at the Philo of Alexandria Seminar in the Nov. 1995 annual meeting of Society of Biblical Literature Kathrine Evans presented a paper on Alexander the Alabarch, the brother of Philo: Alexander the Alabarch: Roman and Jew. (Full text of article is published in SBL Seminar Papers, 1995, pp. 576-594. A summary of this paper is available here: Alexander the Alabarch. Now it turns out that she has also set up a webpage on Alexander, and works on this figure in a more fictional way. This site contains also further information about Kathrine Evans herself, on Alexander the Alabarch: His Social World, and other aspects concerning her fictional work on Alexander.

According to a note on one of her pages, it looks like she is also planning a webpage on Philo.

More book reviews

A couple of new book reviews related to Diaspora Judaism are to be mentioned here:
Evans, Craig, editor
Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture: Volume 2: Later Verions and Traditions
Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity/Library of Second Temple Studies, 10/51. London: T & T Clark, 2004. pp. x + 185. $130.00. Hardcover.

Hengel, Martin,
Biddle, Mark E., translator
The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon
Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004. pp. xvi + 153. Paperback. $24.99

Holidays - holy days

Norway is probably one of the countries in the western world that has most holidays. Tomorrow, Sunday the 15, is the Day of Pentecost; in Norway the folllowing day, what we call the Second Day of Pentecost, is also celbrated as a kind of holiday. At least most people don't work that day.
And the again, this year, the 17. of May, our national day of liberation, is on the immediatly following day. Hence we have three days in a row that I will not be in my office, and probably not have much time for this log. In addition, I will be busy as a grandfather all these days, so I hope you will understand how busy I'll be!! :-)

But stay tuned; the PhiloBlog will be back again .....

Great News!

The posting of Kåre below is indeed great news: finally we are getting a digitalized version of Philo's texts. Those of you who have the TLG disk available, will already have a lot of ancient texts available, Philo included. But the version Kåre has been working on is a morphologically tagged version. Hence you will be able to do a lot of various searches on these texts.

I do think it is smart to have the texts of the Philo Concordance Project joined to the Logos platform ( www.logos.com ). Logos has a terrific library of scholarly tools and books in their set.
Hence the Norwegian Philo Concordance project is to be congratulated with this new progress which I am sure will be interesting to all philonists.

Digital Philo?

The Norwegian Philo Concordance Project is happy to announce that we have signed a contract with Logos Research System for a digitial publication of our database of Philo words. I'll come back to more information later. I know Torrey will be thrilled :-)
Kåre

Offline

Due to some days off the hook,
being away from my office and book(s),
enjoying some days of recreation,
this blog will be a quiet location.
¤ ¤ ¤

I'll probably be back on Wednesday May 11th.

Philo in Lithuania

Surfing a little on the net, trying to spot some Philo stuff, a Lithuanian site turned up with some introductory pages to Philo. My knowledge of the Lithuanian language is next to nothing, but it looks like that the following pages are introductory pages to Philo and some of his ideas:

• Filonas Aleksandrietis (Judėjas)
• Esenai (Philo on the Essenes?)
• Logoso koncepcija Filono Aleksandriečio raštuose (Philo on the Logos concept?)

If any of you who reads this posting, and understands Lithuanian, would be so nice as to write a little comment (in the comments field below) on the nature and quality of these web pages, I would be most grateful.

New article on the associations

Due to my interest in the phenomena of the Greco-Roman clubs and associations, a note here on a new article recently published and now made available on the Internet:Philip A. Harland (Concordia University, Montreal),
'Spheres of Contention, Claims of Pre-eminence:Rivalries Among Associations in Sardis and Smyrna.'
Originally published in Richard S. Ascough, ed., Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success in Sardis and Smyrna. Studies in Christianity and Judaism, vol. 14. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005, pp. 53-63, 259-262. Reprinted by permission of the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion and the ESCJ series editor, and with the approval of the editor and publisher.

Greek-English Lexicon on CD

In a recent review on BrynMawr, Willeon Slenders writes: Computerisation has gained a firm foothold in the world of the Classics. Digital data carriers like the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae CD-ROMS and the Perseus website have had a distinct influence on research in the fields of the classics. Research has been given a
broader range, a larger degree of precision and increased speed: in very little time certain expressions can be looked up in a huge corpus. Until recently a digital version of the complete LSJ, the standard Greek-English lexicon, was a real desideratum, but fortunately Logos Bible Software (http://www.logos.com/products/details/1772) have met this need now.
You can read the rest of this review by clicking below here:
Libronix Digital Library System, H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A
Greek-English Lexicon (rev. H.S. Jones and R. McKenzie, rev. supp. by
P.G.W. Glare) Oxford 1996. Bellingham: Logos Bible Software, 2003. $145.00.
Reviewed by Willeon Slenders, Radboud University Nijmegen