Some Journal blogging

Some relevant articles for Philo and -or diaspora Judaism from the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha:

Jared W. Ludlow, 'The Testament of Abraham: Which Came First-Recension A or Recension B?' Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Vol. 13 No. 1 (April 2002): 3-15. An intriguing aspect of the Testament of Abraham’s transmission history is the existence of two Greek recensions. Which recension came first? Why were changes made to the ‘original’ story? This article addresses these issues from a narrative viewpoint. Some scholars suppose that both recensions come from an original Ur-source but are not directly dependent on each other. Through a close examination of the narratives of both recensions, however, this article concludes that there is a direct relationship between the two Greek recensions with Recension A coming first and Recension B reacting to the earlier Recension A.
Erkki Koskenniemi, 'Greeks, Eygptians and Jews in the Fragments of Artapanus,' Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Vol. 13 No. 1 (April 2002): 17-31. Artapanus, an Egyptian Jew who wrote the treatise About the Jews, lived in a society in which tensions between the native Egyptians and the Greeks were strong. As elsewhere in the Hellenistic world, the Greeks formed the upper class and the natives the lower. If the Jews were numerous, as they were in Egypt, they would have tried to separate themselves from the native inhabitants and to seek contacts with the Greek population. Scholars dealing with Artapanus’ fragments have seldom differentiated between Greeks and Egyptians, but the point of view is fruitful: this article shows that Artapanus never writes negatively about the Greeks, though he does consider the Egyptians to be a simple people led by wicked rulers. Moses has a role as founder of the Egyptian religious practices, but misunderstandings and errors led to a cult suited for lower people.
Louis H. Feldman, 'PHILO’S INTERPRETATION OF JOSHUA,' Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Vol. 12 No. 2 (October 2001): 165-178.Philo, especially in De Vita Mosis, diminishes the role of Joshua as compared with that of Moses, whom he seeks to defend against the Greeks who belittled him. In the war with Amalek it is Moses who takes the lead. In the Golden Calf incident Joshua represents subjective feeling toward the tumult in contrast to Moses, who understands the true cause. In his version of the spying mission it is to Caleb that Philo gives greater importance. However, in the account in De Virtutibus of a choice of successor to Moses, Philo stresses that Moses did not select one of his own sons, although he says in De Cherubim that the seed in Moses’ wife Zipporah was divinely planted.

Joan E. Taylor, 'Virgin Mothers: Philo on the Women Therapeutae,' Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Vol. 12 No. 1 (April 2001): 37-63. Philo of Alexandria describes the Jewish men and women known as the ‘Therapeutae’ in his treatise De Vita Contemplativa (c. 41 CE) as people who are truly good. They live a virtuous existence, practicing an ascetic, contemplative life of philosophy. However, in antiquity women philosophers could be seen as unfeminine and dangerously sexual. Women Therapeutae were therefore a rhetorical problem for Philo, as it would have been difficult for him to ensure that they were clearly seen as ‘good’. To solve the problem Philo insists on their virginity, while also characterizing them as maternal (thereby feminine). By considering Philo’s rhetoric here we not only better understand his concerns but also aspects of the historical Therapeutae that this rhetoric can both illuminate and obscure.

Jewish Magic Bibliography

I am trying to update my self on Magic in antiquity, and especially on magic among the diaspora Jews, Philo included. I have found this bibliography in particular valuable: Jewish Magic Bibliography. It does not, however, contain many items on magic in Philo.

One aspect of magic is the 'evil eye' syndrome. In several texts this is apparently the meaning behind the use of the baskainw word group. This verb and its related nouns are fairly frequent in the works of Philo, though not always in contexts of magic. There are several studies on the phenomenon of the 'evil eye' in the New Testament. Mark Nanos has an article on his website that is very informative on both the bibliography of 'evil eye' and on the use of this feature in Gal. 3:1. This article is missing in the bibliography mentioned above.

If anyone else is working on magic in the Jewish diaspora, and have further references, I would be very pleased if they could get in touch via the 'comment' field below.

Famous quote,-

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Several persons have e-mailed me, presuming that the saying quoted above is from Philo. But I have not been able to verify it in any of Philo's works.
Some webpages also accredit it to Philo; more often, however, it is said to come from Plato, but with no further references.

Can anyone out there help to locate the origin of this saying? Use the comment field below for your suggestions.

Back again....

I'm back again from my brief vacation, cf. my former posting......

I got a mail last week from the Ingenta search engine. Using the search word 'Philo' it brings up the following articles about Philo of Alexandria from 2003: Conway C., 'Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of Alexandria,' Journal for the Study of Judaism, 1 December 2003, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 471-491.

Rooke D., 'Writing the Wrongs. Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo through the Reformation,' Journal of Theological Studies, April 2003, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 169-171.

Hultgren S., 'The Origin of Paul's Doctrine of the Two Adams in 1 Corinthians 15.45-49,' Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 1 March 2003, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 343-370.

For those of us working in an institution with strongly limited library access to Journals, services as Ingenta is a great help to locate relevant articles and books.

BTW, I see it has been quiet on this WebLog last week. I presume Kaare has been away
on some winther holiday. Did you know that by the end of February many people in Norway use to have one week off work, going skiing in the mountains. And at Easter time, they go to the mountains again for skiing, enjoying the last snow before spring time and summer?
According to the mass-media most of us do so, but that is a media-created world. We don't. But many do. And then; nobody can praise the summer like the Norwegians.....:)

From megasites to 'minisites'....

Some weeks ago we had an exchange of opinions on 'megasites'. Sites like my RPBS and NTGateway is a kind of megasites; trying to gather links to valuable resources on the Internet for the whole New Testament, or even wider. There are similar sites out there on the 'Old testament'.

Here is however, another kind of site: WWW Resources for the Study of Genesis 1-3. It is obviously established by and for Anne McGuire for a teaching course at Department of Religion, Haverford College. What it demonstrates, however, is the fact that there is coming up so much material now on the Internet, that it can be useful to establish not only sites for individual works of the Bible, but even on chapters or groups of chapters like Genesis 1-3. We may probably see more of this kind of 'mini-sites' in the future.

I am taking the rest of the week off, leaving for the southern part of Norway today to do some carpenter work on our 'cabin'. 12 hours driving- 740 km in winther Norway. Hope to be back on Monday.....

Are you reading this, Kåre? how is your work with revising your dissertation proceeding???

Some recent reviews

Some recent reviews of posssible interest to studies of the works of Philo and Diaspora Judaism in general have been posted on Bryn Mawr Classical Review:
David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xv, 448. ISBN 0-691-11465-X. $35.00.
Reviewed by Molly Myerowitz Levine, Howard University (myerowitz@comcast.net)

Clifford Ando (ed.), Roman Religion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003. Pp. xxi, 393. ISBN 0-74386-1566-0. £14.99 (pb). Contributors: Jonathan Z. Smith, Greg Woolf, Richard Gordon, Arthur Darby Nock, Denis Feeney, John Scheid, Arnaldo Momigliano, John North, Sabine MacCormack, Mary Beard, Carl Koch, and Georg Wissowa. Reviewed by Alison B. Griffith, University of Canterbury.

Sophia Aneziri, Die Vereine der Dionysischen Techniten im Kontext der hellenistischen Gesellschaft. Historia Einzelschriften 163. Munich: Steiner, 2003. Pp. 542. ISBN 3-515-08126-7. EUR 96.00.
Reviewed by William Slater, McMaster University.

Exit HTR online...

Mark Goodacre has noted that my reference to an article of Gregory Sterling in my last update of RPBS was, in fact, a reference to a dead link. It turns out, alas, that all the former references to Harvard Theological Review on FindArticles are to dead links.

I can understand that one can not expect a publisher of a journal to publish all the articles of a paper print edition free on Internet. Though some really do just that. But it is annoying to see some articles available for a while, and then they suddenly disappear. Shouldn't we at least expect a note of explanation, og even better, a note warning readers that this article is just temporarily available on the Internet?
Well,I have checked my RPBS; there shouldn't be any more references to articles from HTR.

RPBS update

My RPBS has been updated; most update items are articles on aspects from Philo's works.
I have also expanded the range of this WeBlog a little by including Diaspora Judaism in its headline. The label 'Hellenistic Judaism' has been deliberately avoided as that is not a very helpful term for dealing with Philo or the Judaism of of the second temple period in the western diaspora that is my focus.

Last Saturday was a wonderful day; clear sky, bright sun, and a meter of snowin the fields and mountains; a perfect day for skiing. And so I did. But how was Sunday; wet, wet, wet, and gray and rainy. That's how weather is in this part of the globe; wonderful the one day, terrible the next. Do you know how heavy wet snow can be? Sometimes I envy those of you living in a great city, with no worries about the snow. But when the weather is like last saturday: you can have the city for yourself......:-)
You don't believe me? OK, have a look at these pictures from my area.