Talmud on-line

Scholars discuss wether Philo knew Hebrew or not; most seem to be of the opinion that he did not. He probably knew some terms, but that he read Hebrew is doubted. His language was Greek, and his 'Bible' the Septuagint, in some version. But whether he knew much of the Jewish traditions is quite another issue: In writing about Moses, he said: I tell the story of Moses as I have learned it, both from the sacred books, the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him, and from some of the elders of the nation; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge that others of his life's story. Hence he most probably was acquainted not only with the Torah, but with Jewish tradiitons of Haggadah and Halakah. The sites listed below provide access to the both the Jeruslalem and the Babylonian Talmuds, some of them given in both English and Hebrew.
The Babylonian Talmud, The Babylonian Talmud, Translated by Michael L. Rodkinson. Not complete, and criticized by some. You can read, and avaluate for yourself, more Jewish texts from this site here.
In Hebrew: Torah, Neviim and Ketubah
The Mishnah
The Talmud Jerusalaiim
The Talmud Babli - Babylonian Talmud
Those not so familiar with Philo or these Jewish works, may want to read further information on the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. As always, read critically!: on Philo, read here; on the Talmuds, read here, the Free Encyclopedia.

'Still going strong..'

I just want to tell you that last Monday I had the pleasure of visiting Prof. Peder Borgen and his wife Inger at their home at Lillestrøm, a 'town' just north of Oslo.
I can tell all you 'philonics' out there that he looked quite well, passing his 76 birthday two months ago, and is publishing at least one article this year. It is always interesting to meet a scholar who integrates philonic and New Testament Studies in the ways he does.

The primary purpose of my visit to this part of the country was to attend a conference on the implementation of Master programs in the University- and College- systems of Norway. Due to the decision of the government we are introducing a major reform in the system of Higher Education in Norway which, it is hoped, will make our study programs much more compatible with other programs in Europe and other countries. But as this is part of my job as a dean, and not as a philonic scholer, I'll say no more about this here.....

Sexual Desire, ‘Deviant Behaviour', And Moral Discourse

In an earlier posting I mentioned Holger Szesnat's webpage on Hermeneutics, but I do think I at that time overlooked his reference to his dissertation on Philo and Paul. My recent visit to his site made that clear to me. It turns out that Holger wrote his dissertation on Sexual Desire, ‘Deviant Behaviour', And Moral Discourse In The Writings Of Paul And Philo: An Historical-Exegetical Study of the Moral Problematisation of Sexual Desire and Behaviour in First-Century Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity, with Special Reference to the Work of Michel Foucault. Submitted in fulfilment of the academic requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Theology, University of Natal, Mankweng, South Africa, August 15, 1998.
His own summary runs like this:This study is concerned with the moral problematisation of sexual desire and intercourse in two Jewish / Christian writers of the first century of our era, namely Philo of Alexandria and St.Paul. A detailed methodological chapter argues for a fundamental re-thinking of the analysis of Jewish and Christian writings of this period in line with the theoretical discussion which is taking place in cognate disciplines like classics, philosophy, sociology and history: the author argues that a social constructionist perspective on the study of ‘sexuality' in antiquity is called for in the study of Philo and Paul, that is, an approach which regards sexual desire and behaviour as a social phenomenon rather than a ‘natural given'. This methodological part is followed by an extensive summary and review of the critical responses to the historical proposals of Michel Foucault on the history of ‘sexuality' in antiquity, which are taken as the focus of this study. Rather than an extensive critique of Foucault's proposals themselves, however, the focus of this study is on reading two important authors representing strands of first-century Hellenistic Judaism, which Foucault's work ignores altogether. The author presents an extensive study of Philo and Paul, analysing their moral problematisation of desire and intercourse, and comparing Foucault's historical suggestions with the results. The study suggests that reading Hellenistic Jewish texts would help to correct and sometimes explain some of Foucault's suggestions with regard to this historical period in the ‘history of sexuality'. If you use this link, you can get a .pdf list of the content of the dissertation.

Now I just wonder, Holger, do you have any plans of publishing this work, e.g., on the Internet?

Greek encyclical education, philosophy and the Synagogue

Articles printed in Festschriften are sometimes hard to get hold of, and soon to be forgotten, especially if the Festschrift belong to another field that the article looked for, or if the field of the volume is broad and general.
In writing for the Philo Bibliography Project I have to deal with one such article, ’hidden’ in a Festschrift hardly known to Philonics in general:Peder Borgen, ’Greek Encyclical Education, Philosophy and the Synagogue. Observations from Philo of Alexandria’s Writings,’ in Olle Matsson, Åke Frandberg, Monica Hedlund, Sten Lunell, Gunnar Sedin (reds.), Libens Merito. Festskrift till Stig Strømholm på sjuttioårsdagen 16 sept 2001 (Acta Academiæe Regiæ Scientarum Upsaliensis / Kung. Vetskapssamhallets i Uppsala Handlingar 21; Uppsala 2001), pp. 61-71.
(Among the 35 articles in this volume, only one more is concerned with biblical or related studies; Lars Hartman, ’…”with the overseers and servants”- The Opening of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, when Considered in the Light of Certain Letter Conventions of the Time,’ pp. 169-178.)
In this study, Borgen deals with Philo’s views on the relationships between Greek encyclical education, philosophy and the Jewish synagogues. In Philo, we find all the 7 artes generales (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy) mentioned, though not all, in one and the same work. Furthermore, as there were Greek debates on encyclia and philosophy, Philo’s writings also reflect these debates. Philo allows the encyclical education to be characterized as ‘virtue’, but as a kind of lower virtue than that of revealed wisdom. This distinction is interwoven in Philo’s writings. The encyclia is primarily a preparatory form of education. It should prepare for the true philosophy, which to Philo is the wisdom of Moses.
To Philo, the Jewish synagogues are places of Philosophy; they are schools of the sacred laws. Several aspects of Greek educational ideas are brought together in Philo’s discussion of these issues. But a basic difference between these ‘two schools’, is that “the encyclia uses human teaching as its basis, whereas the philosophy of the Laws of Moses studied in the synagogues has its basis in self-taught wisdom brought forth by nature itself” (67). The last part of this article deals with the dangers to be avoided. One is that the student should not become so charmed by encyclia that he ignores philosophy, that is that he forgets to proceed. Another danger is getting a false impression of God, still a third one is to misuse it for social and political offices of prestige.
In this way, Philo's writings demonstrate how central issues in his Greek educational environment also are mirrored in the Jewish fight for identity in their Greco-Roman world.

Joseph and Aseneth: Rewritten Bible or ..

In view of the fact that several scholars have argue that some of Philo's works may be characterized as 'rewritten Bible', the folowing article may be of interest:
Docherty S., 'Joseph and Aseneth: Rewritten Bible or Narrative Expansion?', Journal for the Study of Judaism 1 January 2004, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 27-48. This study is concerned with the literary genre of Joseph and Aseneth in particular and the genre of rewritten Bible in general. To date, no real scholarly consensus has emerged as to the date and purpose of Joseph and Aseneth, and it is assumed by many commentators to be based only loosely on the Hebrew Bible. I have undertaken a detailed examination of the text and its relationship to the Joseph Story as narrated in Genesis. This has led me to the conclusion that the work is most appropriately classified as an example of rewritten Bible, thereby shedding some new light upon both the purpose of Joseph and Aseneth and the genre of rewritten Bible.

Busy Blogger

It has been busy times lately, and little blogging on this page. I apologize, but work has to have my priority. I have deliberately restrained myself from commenting on Gibson's The Passion as that is very well covered by other bloggers. In addition, it is not that close related to Philo or the Diaspora Judaism of his time. And, what is more crucial, the film has not arrived in the cinemas in Norway yet. But I presume I will to see it when it arrives....
I am also doing some work on the Philo Bibliography Project. I have here replaced the finnish scholar K.G. Sandelin, being responsible for commenting on Scandinavian works. Unfortunately, the webpages for Studia Philonica Annual and this bibliography is a couple of years behind in its updating.
I will be back here soon commenting on some work that has ben published in a somewhat little known publication. So stay tuned, come back here now and then to look for more on Philo.......:-)

Missing site: D.Binder's 'Second Temple Synagogues'

Donald Binder had a fine web site based on his 1997 Southern Methodist University PhD dissertation, Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period. Its url was http://www.smu.edu/~dbinder/.

But I have not been able to spot this site anymore. Its url does not work, and I have not been able to find it through Google. Anyone out there who knows what happened to this site? Please notify me.

Update:
I found the old website at quite another site: you will find it at http://www.pohick.org/sts/index.html.

Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism

I want to direct your attention to this very informative site: Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism. It is, in fact " an interdisciplinary seminar on the Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism designed as the internet version of an ongoing research seminar of graduate students at the department of theology of Marquette University (Milwaukee, USA). The seminar is directed by Alexander Golitzin, a professor of eastern Christian theology (Marquette University). The seminar started in March 2002 as an attempt to investigate Jewish mystical traditions in the eastern Christian theological and liturgical texts. It was thought that the seminar would help initiate and inspire the discussion about the Jewish influences on eastern Christian mysticism among a broader audience.
The internet version of the seminar was constituted on April 17, 2002. It is a regular text seminar consisting of scholars and graduate students of ancient languages, systematic theology, philosophy, patristics, biblical exegesis, and Judaism.

Currently the seminar is not confined solely to the students of Marquette University but also includes participants from various scholarly communities.
Themes are announced and resources pertaining to them are posted on this webpage. The resources normally include previously published and unpublished scholarly articles, electronic publications, lectures, reviews, and sometimes the critical responses to these materials. All copyrighted materials on this page are for classroom use only. Reproduction other than "fair use" quotations is prohibited. The articles, reviews, lectures, and critical responses must be send to the project moderators in order to be posted on the webpage."

The site has an important and informative list of links related to the 28 topics focused in the seminar. An additional bibliography on bibliographies is added at the end of the file.