Philo at SBL International Meeting?

The 25th SBL International Meeting will be held this summer in Vienna, Juli 22-26. Due to some other events, I will not be able to attend, but is nevertheless interested in how Philo will be present(ed) at the meeting.

There will be no session exclusively devoted to the works of Philo, but as often is the case, he will be present(ed) in several papers. Here are the papers that - according to my search of their abstracts - Philo will be present(ed):

Elena Narinskaya, Durham University
A Dialogue of Ideas through the Centuries: Ephrem and Philo in Their Approaches to Various Aspects of Life
There are self-evident differences between the Church Father of the fourth century, St. Ephrem the Syrian, and the Jewish scholar of the first century, Philo of Alexandria. They belonged to different historical periods, they lived in different countries, and they confessed different religious traditions. However, one can identify similar presentations in the writings of the two authors and their comparable ideological perception. The paper will compare writings of the two authors on the various aspects of life including, De Vita Contemplativa, the life of
virtue, the life of nature.. The paper will emphasise the similarities of the two authosrs’ approaches to life and to highlight their shared ideas, which will be presented and sorted out thematically. The presentation will deal with two basic questions: 1) Are there more then just striking similarities between the presentations of the two authors? 2) Are we to give more credit to the interactions between Christian and Jewish Scholarship?


Hindy Najman, University of Toronto
The Authority and Transformation of Mosaic Law in Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls
I will consider the variety of ways in which Mosaic Law is invoked, appropriated and reconceived in both the writings of Philo of Alexandria and some of the scrolls discovered at Qumran. The authority of the Mosaic Torah is essential to comprehending communal self-definition. Similarities and differences will be considered.
In addition, the paper will address the transformation of Mosaic Torah within the context of its appropriation.

24-10
Nicola Hayward, McGill University
Women’s Commensality and Women’s Empowerment in Greco-Roman Banquet Settings
This paper focuses on women’s commensality in relation to the sensual setting of the banquet. Themes to be engaged include how meals function in the sensual setting of the banquet, the implication for women and male reactions. There is a connection between sexual activity, the belly and the appetites. This is reflected in Philo’s
and Clement of Alexandria’s anxiety about the body. Given this connection between food and sexual appetites, women’s presence at public meals added an element of danger to the context, since women were identified with licentious carnality. The dominant discourse in antiquity presented women who participated in banquets as
sexually promiscuous. This discourse, facilitated by negative perceptions of the female body and the sexualized nature of banquets, elicited criticisms of women from Greco-Roman writers who saw a respectable woman’s participation in them as being unchaste. This discourse has always considered the topic from the male’s perspective.
Recently the theme of meal settings has generated significant interest from scholars, with particular focus on understanding early Christian meal practice, including the importance of dining for males. Previous studies, which focus on women’s commensality, tend to concentrate on private/public distinction, yet the sensual
setting of the banquet and its implication for women, from a woman’s perspective, remains unexplored. I argue that women’s participation in public meals continued to received harsh criticism from the male elite, partly because women were moving from private to public space, but also because women’s commensality provided an environment that empowered women. My contribution considers what forms such empowerment might have taken from the perspectives of the female courtesan and “respectable women.” I will locate my research between Kathleen Corely who articulates female commensality in relation to public/private roles, and Joan Burton
who argues for the loosening of gender and class restrictions in the Hellenistic period.

Markus Tiwald, University of Vienna
Paul: Apostle of Christ and Jew
The interpretation of the “Tora” – and all that was included in this very complex expression – was the central topic in early Judaism and was handled in a wide range of different theological concepts. The diversity of these concepts can be highlighted by the differing theology in the scriptures of Qumran, Jewish pseudepigrapha and
the writings of Philo and Josephus. According to these results it can be shown, that the theology of the apostle Paul has to be understood as an inner-Jewish dialogue about the right fulfillment and interpretation of scripture – but not as an “abrogation of the Tora”, as often suggested by some exegetes. Paul was Jew – and he remained Jew also in his Christian times. As a Christian he did not abrogate the Tora, but adopted the position of a liberal Tora-interpretation that was already present in early Judaism.

Ljubica Jovanovic, Vanderbilt University
‘Open His Mouth and His Ears to Hear and Speak with His Tongue in the Revealed
Language’: Jubilees 12:25-27
The Hellenistic identification of patriarch Joseph with a scientist of ancient optics who interprets dream images and light reflected on shiny surfaces could explain otherwise problematic biblical reference to his magical use of the silver cup (Gen 44:5.15). It is a major reason for a renewed interest in Joseph of the Hellenistic era and for the outburst of the texts that elaborate on this scientific image, such as historical writings of Josephus, the philosophical writings of Philo, and the ancient play: Ethiopic Joseph. This Joseph as an ancient scientist of optics gains an access to esoteric knowledge, religious experience, and scientific understanding through sight.
Jubilees holds that vision is deceptive and therefore cannot be relied on as a source of divine revelation: sight leads people into sin. Thus, Jubilees gives an alternative depiction of Joseph, rejecting his image as a Hellenistic scientist and systematically suppressing any indication that dreams and visions could be symbolic by expunging all references to them, from Joseph’s youthful dreams to God’s apparition in the form of burning bush. Jubilees further censors any mention of divination by rendering, “I can practise divination?’ (Gen 44:15), with, “A man
takes pleasure in his cup as I do in this cup? (Jub. 43:10). Science and augury are not paths to divine knowledge but “errors of the earth” and impurity (Jub. 11:16-17). For Jubilees, truth lies not in the vision, but in the voice. Its revelations are speeches devoid of imagery or descriptions (e.g. 1:1-27; 32:17. 21-26). Vision leads to magic and to Hellenistic syncretism, which Jubilees rejects. And Joseph is a good Jew, and not a magician. Jubilees’ worldview promotes hearing, not vision, as the only portal to divine communication.

Philo at SBL Annual Meeting IV

S20-75

---

Philo of Alexandria
11/20/2006
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: 305 - CC

Theme: Philo's Legum Allegoriae

Gregory Sterling, University of Notre Dame, Presiding
Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., Loyola University of Chicago
Philo's Legum Allegoriae I–III: The Thread of the Argument (40 min)
Annewies van den Hoek, Harvard University, Respondent (20 min)
Steven Di Mattei, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
Moses Allegorizes phusikôs: Reevaluating the Notion of Physical Allegory in Philo of Alexandria's Legum allegoriae (30 min)
General discussion
Business meeting
Editorial Board meeting for Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series

This session has been organized in collaboration with the Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series published by Brill and SBL Publications. Papers will not be pre-circulated.

Philo at SBL Annual Meeting (III)

We continue our third presentation of the sessions at this years SBL Annual Meeting in which lectures or papers focus on Philo of Alexandria.

This time we point to
S19-72Philo of Alexandria
Joint Session With: Philo of Alexandria, History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
11/19/2006 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM Room: 140A - CC

Theme: Reception of Philo of Alexandria in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity: The Question Revisited

Hindy Najman, University of Toronto, Presiding

James L. Kugel, Bar Ilan University
Philo and the Problem of the Book of Genesis (30 min)
Abstract: "The very existence of the book of genesis posed a problem for Jews of the late second temp period: unlike the other 4 books of the Pentateuch, it had no laws or halakhic instruction per se. What was it there for? Along with the authors of Jubilees and other biblical pseudepigrapha, Philo of Alexandria wrestled with this question."

Maren Niehoff, Hebrew University
Philo and Genesis Rabbah: Similar Questions and Answers (30 min)
Abstract: "A comparison between Philo's "Questions and Answers on Genesis" and Genesis Rabbah against the background of the genre of "Questions and Answers" in Homeric Scholarship. I shall discuss whether the exegetes in Genesis Rabbah raised the same or other questions and whether they may have been familiar with the genre as it appears in Philo's work."


Daniel Boyarin, University of California-Berkeley
From Greek thought to Jewish and Christian Scriptural Allegory (30 min)
Abstract:"In this paper, I propose to work out in a general way some new thinking about continuity, rather than rupture, in the history of allegoresis, in particular I wish to locate allegorical thinking in some persistent themes of Greek thought of various types and argue then that it is not as foreign to rabbinic interpretation as once I would have claimed."


Judith H. Newman, University of Toronto
The Composition of Prayers and Songs in Philo's De Vita Contemplativa (30 min)
Discussion (30 min)
Abstract: "In contrast to Greek pagan prayer and in spite of its infinite variety, early Jewish prayers are marked by their interpretive engagement with Torah. How can we account for this production of scripturalized prayers? This paper compares the "philosophy" practiced by the Therapeutae at Mareotis with the nature and function of prayers at Qumran to argue that all such utterances were offered as manifestations of internalized torah, conceived through the prophetic gift of divine spirit."

Philo at SBL Annual Meeting (II)

We continue our presentation of sessions that focus on Philo of Alexandria at this year's SBL Annual Meeting in Washington:

S20-18Hebrews
11/20/2006 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: 140A - CC

Theme: Emerging Studies in the Book of Hebrews
Kevin B. McCruden, Gonzaga University
High Priestly Patronage and Philanthropia in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(30 min) Discussion (15 min)
Abstract: "Integral to Hebrews' highly sacrificial portrait of the Christ event is a profound emphasis on the beneficent aspect of Christ's high priestly status. Hebrews depicts Christ as a "merciful and faithful high priest," (Heb 2:17) who actively "sympathizes" with the "weaknesses" of the faithful (Heb 4:15). This paper explores the exegetical connections to be made between such beneficent christology and the ideas surrounding the virtue of philanthropia as a both a royal and divine attribute in the roman imperial period. Particular attention will be paid to the following areas: the prominent place given to the virtue of philanthropia in relation to the Roman Caesars; the ancient testimonies concerning the beneficent activity of the god Asclepius; and lastly, Philo of Alexandria’s encomium on philanthropia in the De virtutibus. This paper will argue that ancient reflection on the virtue of philanthropia in both Greco-Roman and Jewish sources offers a new and fruitful vantage point from which to appreciate the highly beneficent dimension of Hebrews’ priestly christology. In essence, Hebrews depicts the exalted Christ as the divine patron Son, who in consequence of death is now presently and beneficently available to a beleaguered community likely residing in Rome."

Philo at SBL Annual Meeting (I)

Some people are already trying to get information about the SBL Annual Meeting that this year is to be held in Washington; such information is now available at the SBL homepages, but here is some info about one of the sessions that includes papers on Philo, namely the session on

S19-13Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity
Nov 19. 2006 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM Room: 150B - CC

Theme: Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity

L. Michael White, University of Texas - Austin, Presiding
Part 1: Allegory in Philo and the New Testament
Henrik Tronier, Copenhagen University
Philonic Allegory in Mark (20 min)
On a superficial view the earliest and supposedly most primitive of the four Gospels seems to constitute a strong argument against finding philosophy at the roots of Christianity. However, when Mark is read in the context of contemporary Jewish allegorical hermeneutics another impression surfaces. In this paper it is argued that Mark’s biography of Jesus was written the way Philo interpreted the biblical narratives about the lives and journeys of Abraham and Moses, the founders of the Jewish people. They are stamped images of God’s logos and sophia in history; their journeys are the outward appearance of the interpretive activity of logos-transformed, perfected knowledge, which the allegorical reader will recognise as the defining mark and nature of God’s elected people; the various locations, people and persons along the journey constitute deficient or lower levels of knowledge and ethics in the unified epistemological, cosmological and anthropological framework that is plotted in the geo-, ethno- and topographical space of the narrative. The various literary strategies by which Mark construes the allegorical level of meaning and guides the readers to an allegorical interpretation of the surface story are analysed in the light of Philo’s interpretive strategies. Finally, the paper discusses the different ethnic strategies involved in the allegorical hermeneutics of Philo and Mark. Here it is argued that Mark’s aim is in line with Paul’s allegorical interpretation of Jewish identity markers. At crucial points Mark’s biography of Jesus is an allegorical inscription of Pauline concepts, including his cosmologically framed idea of Christ as God’s wisdom, into the scattered historical traditions about Jesus.


Stefan Nordgaard Svendsen, University of Copenhagen
Philonic Allegory in Hebrews (20 min)
For decades, biblical scholarship has been divided over the question whether or not the author of Hebrews was intellectually influenced by Philo of Alexandria. According to some interpreters, the author was entirely unfamiliar with Philo's work whereas others claim that he must have belonged to the circle around the Alexandrian at some point of his life. In spite of this disagreement, however, practically all scholars agree that he was not influenced by Philo's hermeneutics. Philo, it is argued, read The Old Testament allegorically whereas Hebrews applied typology. The paper challenges this consensus by arguing that the hermeneutics of Hebrews are in fact allegorical and deeply influenced by the Alexandrian philosopher. In the first part of the paper it is argued that the author adopted a number of Philo's allegorical readings (those of the Promised Land, the tabernacle and the Jewish high priest) and developed his argument around them. However, since he operated within an apocalyptically inspired outlook on the world, which differs significantly from Philo's Platonic metaphysics, the allegorical method is transformed in important ways by the author. These changes are identified and explained. In the latter part, it is discussed how the insights into the author's hermeneutics may help us understand the letter's rhetorical aim. It is argued that the author used the allegorical method principally as a means to expose the worthlessness of the Jewish religious institutions in order to dissuade the the recipients from supplementing their Christian faith with observance of the Torah.

Margaret M. Mitchell, University of Chicago, will be the respondent to these papers(15 min).Then there will be an 18 min discussion.

These two Danish scholars, both from the University of Copenhagen, are involved in a Philo related research project called "Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity."
On this project, see my posting below.

SNTS

I am off to the 61st Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Aberdeen.

Arrived half dead...

Arrived in Philly yesterday; after 18 hours of travel; and the jetlag is heavy.... But I have attended two sessions today: the first one on Biblical Exegetical Software in the Classroom, and then the first part of a Workshop on Bibleworks.

Some of the guys in the first session were quite clever; both in their presentations and in what they had accomplished. But most of them were presenting how to teach Greek or Hebrew with computer technology; I would have liked to have listened to someone coming up with something more related to historical (and exegetical)studies. And second; it looked like Bibleworks was quite popular here, so both sessions must have been very valuable for the Bibleworks company...

My institution has an older version of that program; maybe I should have a closer look at it. But so far I have been very satisfied with my version of its competitor, a name I perhaps should reveal here so it can get some PR in this posting too...

Tomorrow is one of those looong days; I only hope I do not wake up 3 o'clock in the morning,- as I did today...
Good night....

Update:
I did....

Preparing for the SBL Annual Meeting

On Thursday morning (very early in the morning..) I am leaving Norway for a short week, heading for the SBL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. And just when I feel I have recovered from the jet-lag, I am no return back home, to take up another term of teaching.
The list of lectures and discussions to attend is written up, and so is the list of books wanted...

Acccording to the Program Book, it looks like Philo is popular at this Annual Meeting; in the 10 to 12 years I have been a participant I have never seen so many lectures and topics dealing with Philo, or at least including him in the material discussed. Early in the fall I listed the relevant sessions, but here is the relevant list of sessions I have on my schedule (including both Philo and non-philo related sessions):

S18-51Biblical Exegetical Software in the Classroom—Integration 101
11/18/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 112-A - Pennsylvania Convention Center

S19-23Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
11/19/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 409 - Marriott
especially: Celia Deutsch, Barnard College
Text Work and Religious Experience: Philo and Clement

S19-72Religion in Roman Egypt
11/19/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 106-A - Pennsylvania Convention Center
especially Steven Weitzman, Indiana University at Bloomington
Philo on How to Befriend an Emperor (25 min)

S19-123Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
11/19/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Room 409 - Marriott
(some of these will include Philo, according to the Abstracts)

S19-133Presidential Address
11/19/2005
7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Room: Salon G/H - Marriott

S20-12Computer Assisted Research
11/20/2005
9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Room: Room 411 & 412 - Marriott
(probably not much about Philo, but I am a participant in the panel)

S20-58Construction of Christian Identities
11/20/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Liberty Ballroom A - Marriott
Theme: Ephesus and Antioch: Plurality of Christian Groups and Christian Texts in the First Two Centuries.
or
S20-62Hellenistic Judaism
11/20/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Independence I - Marriott
Theme: Boundaries and Limits in Diaspora Judaism
here especially
Sarah Pearce, University of Southampton
Philo on Atheism, Judaism, and Egyptian Identity (20 min)
Abraham Terian, St. Nersess Armenian Seminary
Philo's Definitions of Israel in Relation to Historical Realities in the Greco-Roman World (20 min)

S20-119John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
11/20/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM

S21-29 Philo of Alexandria
11/21/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 103-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center
Theme: Linguistic Border Crossing: Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls

S21-68Hellenistic Judaism
11/21/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 404 - Marriott
Theme: The Cultural Context of Judaism in Alexandria

S21-127Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
11/21/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Salon I (Level Five) - Marriott
Theme: Ethnicity, Identity, and Social Boundaries

S22-16Philo of Alexandria
11/22/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 109-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center
Theme: Interpreting Philo’s De Virtutibus

Well, I will probably not be able to show up at all these sessions; by experience I know that the time spent in book exhibition area is eating up session-time every day. But where else do you get interesting (and sometimes expensive) books for 50 % discount? Long ago I discovered that people attend these annual meetings for three reasons; meeting people, buying books, and attend sessions. But not necessarily in this order....

By the way, did you ask for my book list? There is not one Philo-book on it! I did not find any in the advertisements texts in the printed Program book. Hopefully there might be some on the tables at the book exhibition.....