Review of Hindy Najman's book

SBL's BookReviews service now presents a review of Hindy Najman's book from 2002; both the boook and the review are relevant for philonists:Hindy Najman,Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Pp. xiv + 176. The volume is reviewed by Thomas Römer, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. Let we me give a couple of excerpts from the review:

"This book is a very important contribution to the understanding of Second Temple
Judaism. Najman investigates how Jewish “noncanonical” writings at the end of the Persian period down to the Roman era sought to legitimate themselves by reference to Mosaic discourse. In the first chapter, Najman investigates the connection between the Deuteronomistic concept of Torah and the figure of Moses. After preliminary considerations on Foucault’s theory of discourse, Najman opposes the common view that Deuteronomy would have been written in order to replace the older Covenant Code. In her view such an idea is purely anachronistic. First of all, she states that there is no evidence in the book of Deuteronomy that it was written as a replacement of a former code (24). One should think instead of co-existence of both law collections, which “served as a license to continue the creative hermeneutical endeavor in the future” (25). Since the book of Deuteronomy refers to itself as Torah and presents itself as a Mosaic discourse, it claims authority as a “re-presentation” of Sinai. This model of authoritative interpretation of tradition will play an important role in later Second Temple Judaism."

The third chapter of the book deals with Philo:
"Chapter 3 deals with the reference to Moses in the work of Philo of Alexandria. Philo’s main concern was to show that the laws of Moses were superior to the laws of all the other nations because they were copies of the laws of nature. But since in the Greek conception the law of nature could not be a written law, Philo had to claim that the universal law found a perfect particular copy in the law of Moses. The law of Moses (the Pentateuch) is not simply a code of precepts but contains also the account of the divine creation of nature as well as of the patriarchs, who conformed to the laws of nature. Finally, it contains also the life of Moses, which Philo presents following the conventions of Greek aretalogies (initiation into mysteries, foundation of a legislation, his almost divine character). In contrast to Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, Philo subordinated the law of Moses to the figure of Moses, since the Sinaitic law is presented as a copy of the law of nature."

Read the whole review for yourself by clicking here: Seconding Sinai.