Some more lectures on Philo

Using some simple search procedures, I was able to detect the following sessions including one or more lectures on Philo at the upcoming SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego. If you know of some papers I have missed, please use the comments field (kommentarer) below.

Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
11/18/2007. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward A - GH

Theme: Literary and Historical Contexts of Early Christian Anthropology

Matthew Goff, Florida State University
"Spiritual" and "Fleshly" Types of Humankind in 4QInstruction, Philo and Paul (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

Abstract: 4QInstruction is a sapiential text in Hebrew that was written during the second century BCE and published in 1999. The emergence of this composition provides a new perspective for comparing Diaspora Jewish texts, and Hellenistic literature in general, to the Hebrew wisdom literature of the late Second Temple period. My paper will examine the anthropology of 4QInstruction and compare it to that of Philo's On the Creation of the World and 1 Corinthians. All three texts make a distinction between "fleshly" and "spiritual" kinds of people. Moreover, these three compositions ground their understanding of humankind in an interpretation of Gen 1-3. These and other works include variants of an early Jewish exegetical tradition attested in both Palestine and the wider Hellenistic world.

Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität
A Case of Psychological Dualism: Philo's Interpretation of the Instruction of the Two Spirits in QEx I 23 (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Abstract: The Instruction of the Two Spirits (1QS III,13-IV,26) is one of the best-known dualistic texts from Qumran, combining cosmic, ethical and psychological dualism. However, A. Lange and others have shown that it did not originate in the Qumran community, but represents a tradition taken up from outside. In his Quaestiones, Philo presents a wide variety of traditions, not all of which he agrees with. In QEx I 23, he takes up the tradition of the two spirits and interprets it in an emphatically psychological way. This paper argues that Philo is acquainted with the Instruction of the Two Spirits, but takes it up in a way that emphasizes the already existing psychological dualism and allows him to tone down the cosmic aspects which do not fit into his own view.

S18-18 Hellenistic Judaism
11/18/2007. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward D - GH

Theme: Philosophy and Wisdom in Hellenistic Judaism

4^th and 5^th lecture:

Erin Roberts, Brown University
Philo, Wealth, and Stoic Ethics (20 min)

Abstract: The question of whether Philo of Alexandria expresses a consistent ethical view of wealth has been a matter of dispute. Arguments against a consistent view proceed either by drawing attention to the discrepancy between Philo's own personal wealth and passages from his writings that portray wealth as something which should be avoided, or by highlighting the contradictory ways that Philo depicts wealth in his writings (sometimes disparaging it, other times praising it). Arguments for a consistent view maintain that what really matters to Philo is the will of the possessor of wealth or the measure of one's desire for riches; by turning the focus inward, these arguments ameliorate the two sorts of inconsistency mentioned above. The purpose of this paper is to reframe the discussion so that our evaluation of Philo's ethical consistency turns upon the question of whether Philo has a doctrine akin to that of the Stoic adiaphora, and, if so, whether he considers wealth to be contained therein. My argument aligns with those who claim that Philo's view of wealth is consistent, but I think that we have sufficient evidence to take the argument further. With attention to two Stoic paradoxes--"virtue is the only good" and "the sage alone is rich"--I explain how Philo portrays desire to be dangerous to virtue and consider how he proposes that one may overcome or control desire. I maintain that Philo views desire not so much as being dangerous to virtue as being indicative of the absence of virtue and that Philo supports the extirpation of passions from the human soul. Finally, I argue in favor of Philonic consistency because the literature points us toward the conclusion that Philo does have a doctrine of adiaphora which can be seen to underlie his views about economic wealth.

Philippa Townsend, Princeton University
Being Jewish Under Rome: Philo on Greeks and Egyptians (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)

Abstract: Most scholarship on Philo makes a sharp distinction between his attitudes towards Greeks and Egyptians. However, this paper argues that in Against Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius, Philo quite deliberately elides the distinction between Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria, consistently referring to the Greek citizens of Alexandria as "Egyptians," with all the attendant connotations of extreme barbarism which that term consistently has in his work. While these texts have often been taken to show that the tension in Alexandria was between Jews and the native Egyptians, this reading suggests that Philo's complaint was actually with the Alexandrian Greeks. Further, this paper argues that the conflation of Greeks and Egyptians in these texts should be understood within a broader context in which Philo was concerned to undermine Greek cultural prestige in the eyes of the Romans. Drawing on evidence from On the Contemplative Life, among other texts, I will argue that in his depiction of Greeks, Philo plays on xenophobic anxieties within Roman society about the degenerative effect of Greek moral laxity, while at the same time attempting to bolster the status of Jews as moral exemplars within the Empire. This paper argues, then, that Philo's depiction of both Greeks and Egyptians can only be understood within the context of a conversation with Rome.

S18-66 Hellenistic Judaism
Joint Session With: Josephus, Hellenistic Judaism
11/18/2007. 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Point Loma - MM

Theme: Josephus

Tessa Rajak, University of Reading, Presiding
Fabian Eugene Udoh, University of Notre Dame
Joseph as a Prototype of the Enslaved: Philo (De Iosepho) and Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 2.39-90) (20 min)

Abstract: John Byron, in his 2003 study, Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity, entitles his section on the representation of Joseph in both Philo (De Iosepho) and Josephus (A.J. 2.39-90): “Joseph as a Paradigmatic Enslaved Figure.” He concludes his brief study by noting that “Joseph, as a paradigmatic enslaved figure, represents the pattern of Humiliation-Obedience-Examination.” While one will readily agree that, in both Philo and Josephus, Joseph is a prototype of the enslaved, Byron’s work as a whole betrays negligible contact with the ideology and practice of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. This contact is certainly lacking in his analysis of the figure of Joseph. Byron, consequently, fails to show how Josephus and Philo might be said to see in the slave-Joseph “a prototype of the enslaved.” In this paper, I will examine the notions of slavery that underlie the presentation of Joseph by both Philo and Josephus. I will draw from the extensive literature of slavery (though there is no “slave literature”) by Greco-Roman authors in order to explore the ways in which Philo and Josephus assimilated, and perhaps flouted, the various modes by which the free negotiated and legitimized the social structure of slavery and the meaning it generated. In so doing, I shall seek to uncover in what manner, and to what end, the slave-Joseph is an exemplary slave. This paper will further the on-going discussion of slavery in first-century Judaism and early Christianity, particularly in the New Testament.