Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis

A new review, relevant for students of the Jewish Diaspora, has appeared on the Bryn Mawr Classsical Review, on the following book:
David Noy, Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis. Vol. III: Syria and Cyprus. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 102.
Tu+bingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2004. Pp. xvi, 284. ISBN 3-16-148188-7. EUR 89.00.The review is written by Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra, Scholion Center, Hebrew University, Jerusalem: "This outstanding collection of the Jewish Inscriptions of Late Antiquity in Phoenicia, Syria, Osrhoene, Dura-Europos and Cyprus by David Noy and Hanswulf Bloedhorn concludes the updating of Frey's Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum (CIJ), indispensable for anyone working in the field of early Judaism, Christianity or religious studies in the
Late Antique Middle East."You can read the rest of the review here.

More books to read...

Yesterday,- at last, I got my copy of the latest Studia Philonica Annual Vol XVI 2004.

It has taken a long time to get at my desk; it was posted in the US Jan 5., and even had been investigated by Norwegian custom office. They don't use to do that with books.....
But now I have more interesting stuff to read; I think I will start with David R Runia's Etymology as an Allegorical Technique in Philo of Alexandria (pp. 101-121).

By the way,there is a very kind note about this blog on p. 322; thanks to the editor(s). :-)

At the same time, don't think I am out of work; today we are having a meeting, hiring a research fellow for my department. As a small college, we are not used to having many research fellows; but now we have about a total of 15. That's not that bad, compared to the size of our institution.
Furthermore, on Wednesday and the day thereafter, we are having a great 'seminar': 209 persons going away to a nice hotel, spending two days discusssing how we can rearrange the organizational structure of our college to better fit the needs of our time (and the expectations of our government....). It's a discussion imposed upon us and all other higher institutions of education by the state government (yes, we are run by the state...)

Hence, back to work....
Have a nice day, you too.

La Rivelazione in Filone

I have just received (thanks to Francesca Calabi) the volume containing the papers from an Italian conference, held in Bologna 29-30 sept. 2003. The volume is: La Rivelazione in Filone di Alessandria: Natura, legge, Storia.
Atti del VII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Recerca su Origine e la Tradizione Alessandrina.
A cura di Angela Maria Mazzanti & Francesca Calabi.
(Biblioteca Adamantius 2), Pazzini, Villa verucchio, 2005)This is a publication from a group called The Italian Research Group on Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition ( G.I.R.O.T.A.). This is a non- profit organization promoting the study of Origen within the Alexandrian, Hellenistic and Judeo- Christian Tradition. In addition, it is the objective of GIROTA to provide a point of reference for the Italian and foreign scholars interested to the same topic. The Group has been operating in Italy since 1994 and organizes meetings, congresses and seminars and publishes the journal “Adamantius”. The Group now comprises fifty-five members who are associated with universities and other Italian academic institutions.

The present volume contains 17 papers/articles, most of them directly concerned directly with Philo. All of them, except two, are written in Italian, the two other are in French. Many will appreciate the English summary of each article at pp. 315-326. The book is well indexed.
Contents:
Lucio Troiani, Natura e storia politica in Filone d'Alessandria (pp.1-8)
Clara Kraus Reggiani, La Presenza di Dio nella storia secundo Filone di Alessandria (pp. 9-13)
Roberto Radice, Considerazione sulle origini greche dell'allegoria filoniana (pp. 15-32)
Giuelia Sfameni Gasparro, Mose e Balaam, Propheteia e Mantike. Modalita e segni della rivelazione ned De Vita Mosis (pp. 33-73)
Angela Maria Mazzanti, Creazione dell'uomo e rivelazione in Filone de Alessandria (pp. 75-103)
Francesca Alesse, Il luogo del 'nous'; alcuni aspetti dell'antropologia di Filone alessandrino (pp. 105-122)
Pierluigi Pavone, To\ maqhto/n, materia preesistente o intero vranto? (pp.123-137)
Fransesca Calabi, Ordine delle città e ordine del Mondo nel De Decalogo di Filone alessandrino (pp. 139-158)
Christina Termini, Dal sinai alla creazione: il rapporto tra legge naturale e legge rivelata in Filone di Alessandria (pp. 159-191)
Paola Graffigna, Modelli di vita felice. Felicità e stabilità in Filone d'Alessandria (pp. 193-215)
Antonio Cacciari, Presenze filoniane nelle Omelie su Numeri di origene (pp. 217-230)
Lorenzo Perrone, )/Ixnoj e)nqousiasmou
: Origene, Platone e le Scritture ispirata (pp. 231-248)
Gabriella Uluhogian, Un testo medievale armeno su Filone (pp. 249-252)
Sara Mancini Lombardi, La versione armena del legum Allegoriae: oservazione su alcune particolarità lessicali (pp. 253-265)
Paola Pontani, Incontro di lingue e culture: la vicende di alcuni lessemi greci nelle traducione armene da Filone (pp. 267-287)
Gilles Dorival, Polusémie et contrarite de sens chez Philon d'Alexandria: le cas de kairos et de logos (pp. 289-293)
Carlos Levy, "Mais que faisait donc Philon en Égypte? A propos de l'identité diasporique de Philon (p. 295-312)

Life after Death

The Review of Biblical Literature has announced their weekly publication of new book reviews. Of special interest to philonists and scholars working on Judaism should be the great new book of Alan Segal: Segal, Alan F. Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion (New York: Doubleday, 2004). Pp. xii + 866. Hardcover. $37.50. ISBN 0385422997.There are in fact two reviews out now:
see
Review by Jon D. Levenson here

Review by Niels Peter Lemche here.

Did Philo write the De Aeternitate Mundi?

From time to time the authorship question of Aet. comes up in discussions and articles related to Philo's writings. There seems to be a kind of consensus among Philo scholars who have studied the writing that although ambivalent, the treatise is most probably Philonic. Particularly in the introduction (par. 1-20) and in between the arguments presented does the Philonic voice express itself. The arguments may be compiled by Philo and cannot themselves be taken as viewpoints of Philo since they often contradict our knowledge of him from other writings, particularly of course De opificio Mundi, where Philo follows Plato and his Timaeus (cf. Runia 1986). Most of the treatise would then not be Philonic in any case, only the arrangement and the introduction and even there several expression must be taken as written in quotation marks, for instance the very suspicious expression horatos theos "visible God" (Aet. 10 and 20).

In 1987 the Norwegian scolar Roald Skarsten wrote a dissertation in Norwegian contradicting the consensus at the time. He concludes that Aet. could not have beeen written by Philo. The dissertation was never translated to other languages and has for that reason remained unknown outside Scandinavia.

I have now written a summary of the results of the dissertation in English, a summary that has also been read and approved by Prof. Skarsten.

You can find the summary on our Norwegian Philo Concordance Project Site.

A Brief Guide to Philo

On the Westminster / John Knox Press webside there is an announcement that they will publish a book on Philo:Kenneth Schenck, A brief Guide to Philo. (Westminster/John Knox Press), Paperback Feb 2005 ISBN 066422735X Price: $24.95 But no further info is given; I know nothing more about the author, nor the forthcoming book.

The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity

The co-blogger has attended a conference January, 27-31, 2005,
organised by the Danish circle of scholars working on "Jøder, Kristne og Hedninger i Antikken – Kritik og Apologetik" (Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity, Criticism and Apologetics) at the University of Aarhus. The theme of the conference was: The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity. See this URL to find a complete program for the conference.

Of particular interest for Philo scholars was the lecture by Maren Niehoff on "Philo’s Contribution to Contemporary Alexandrian Metaphysics". She argued that the Aristotelian features in Philo's De Aeternitate Mundi was a well-grounded strategy by Philo not to say that he supported the Aristotelian doctrine that the cosmos was not created, but to say that Aristotle was right in supporting the literal reading of Plato at this point. She used the development of the ancient discussion among Platonians and Peripatetics to demonstrate the probability of this theory in a quite novel way. As a responder to the lecture the co-blogger argued that another possibility is that Philo did not write Aet. Dr. Niehoff supported the view of several leading Philo scholars, such as Leisegang and Runia.

Another interesting lecture from a Philonic point of view was Claudio Zamagni "The Reception of the Antique Question and Answer Genre in Judaism and Early Christian Literature, up to 500 A.D." where ho pointed out the main differences between Philo's use of the genre and the later use.

The lectures from the conference and some of responses will be published (in English)

The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides

A new commentary on The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides is about to be published. The Walter de Gruyter Publishing House announces that a new volume in the Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature is to be published March this year:Walter T.Wilson,The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature Walter de Gruyter. 2004. 23 x 15.5 cm. Approx. 280 pages. Cloth. Ca. Euro [D] 68,- / ca. sFr 109,- / für USA, Canada, Mexico ca. US$ 74,-.ISBN 3-11-018241-6. The volume should be interesting for those working on Jewish /Hellenistic/Diaspora literatur from the time of Philo. The note on their website describes the volume thus: Der Kommentar über das jüdisch-hellenistische weisheitliche Lehrgedicht des Pseudo-Phokylides aus dem 1. Jahrhundert vor oder nach Christus behandelt in einer ausführlichen Einleitung die Frage nach den Quellen, nach Aufbau und Gliederung, Hauptthemen und Zweck der Schrift und bietet in einer eingehenden Kommentierung eine neue Übersetzung mit fortlaufendem Kommentar. Der griechische Text wird als Anhang beigegeben. Der interkulturelle Charakter dieser Weisheitslehren wird durch ausführliche Heranziehung von biblischen, hellenistisch-jüdischen und griechisch-römischen Vergleichstexten herausgearbeitet.