A Philo Review article

Reading the blog of Michael Bird, the Euangelion Blog, via Bloglines, I discover a review article written by Ellen Birnbaum, recently published in Currents in Biblical Research:

Ellen Birnbaum,
'Two Millennia Later: General Resources and Particular Perspectives on Philo the Jew,' Currents in Biblical Research 4 (2006):241-276.

I have not been able to get my hand on the article yet, but the journals own abstract runs like this:

Twenty centuries after he lived, Philo is regarded by scholars in many disciplines as an important and intriguing subject of study. Extensive print and electronic resources are available to facilitate and inform Philonic research. Fifty years ago, writers debated whether Philo—long neglected by mainstream Jewish tradition—was more fundamentally a Jew or a Greek. To illuminate this issue, these writers often focused on possible Jewish and/or Greek sources of Philo’s ideas and examined his ideas in relation to Jewish and/or Greek parallels. In recent works, however, scholars have probed the complexity of Philo’s Jewish identity from a wider range of perspectives. These include describing what constitutes Philo’s Judaism (‘the descriptive approach’); examining how he deals with Jewish and universal aspects of certain themes (‘the thematic approach’); comparing his ideas to Jewish and other traditions to see how he uses these traditions (‘the comparative approach’); studying how he presents Jews and Judaism to create a positive impression among his readers (‘the presentational approach’); and taking into account the socio-political context of first-century Alexandria to explore his attitudes about Jews and others, to find reflections of contemporary circumstances in his works or to explore the relationship between his exegetical and historical writings (‘the socio-political approach’). Generally considered by scholars today to have been a loyal and observant Jew, Philo is occasionally being integrated into broader studies of the Second Temple period and of Diaspora Jews during that time, and he has also been included in surveys of Jewish topics from the Bible to the present.

There is also another review article in the same volume, interesting for me, at least:
Mark Dubis
Research on 1 Peter: A Survey of Scholarly Literature Since 1985
Currents in Biblical Research 2006 4: 199-239.

Message to Nordic Readers

Jeg er nå i ferd med å skrive min del av de korte 'reviews' som inngår i den årlige Filon bibliografien som publiseres i Studia Philonica. Jeg har ansvar for bidrag fra skandinaviske forskere (uansett språk) for 2003.
Foreløpig har jeg ikke klart å finne fram til flere enn 5 bidrag. To av dem er skreven av Peder Borgen, to andre står i hans festskrift. Nedenfor lister jeg opp de som jeg kjenner til.

Dersom du vet om andre fra 2003, så gi meg beskjed så snart som mulig (torreys krøllalfa gmail.com).

2003:
P. Borgen, ‘Philo of Alexandria as Exegete’, in A. J. Hauser and D. F. Watson (edd.), A History of Biblical Interpretation, Vol 1: The Ancient Period, (Grand Rapids 2003) 114–143.

P. Borgen, ‘The Gospel of John and Philo of Alexandria’, in J. H. Charlesworth and M. A. Daise (edd.), Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Wisdom Traditions in Judaism and Early Christianity (Harrisburg, Pa 2003) 45–76.

T. Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Paraenesis Terminology in Philo’, in D. E. Aune, T. Seland and J. H. Ulrichsen (edd.), Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 106 (Leiden–Boston 2003) 371–392.

K. Fuglseth, ‘Common Words in the New Testament and Philo: Some Results from a Complete Vocabulary’, in D. E. Aune, T. Seland and J. H. Ulrichsen (edd.), Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 106 (Leiden–Boston 2003) 393–414.

T. Seland, ‘(Re)Presentations of Violence in Philo’, in SBL Seminar Papers vol. 42 (Atlanta 2003) 117–140.

Roman Law and Collegia

My interest for the collegia never fade away, hence the reference to this article:
Ilias N. ARNAOUTOGLOU, Roman Law and Collegia in Asia Minor, printed in Revue Internationale des droits de l’Antiquité XLIX (2002)(An earlier version of this article was presented at the 4th Annual Meeting of Legal Historians in Komotini, 20-21 October 2000 and was published in Greek as He
romaike nomothesia peri somateion kai he epharmoge tes sten Mikra Asia, Epeteris Kentrou Ereunes Historias Hellenikou Dikaiou 35 (2001) 317-332).
The focus of the aricle is given in the first paragraph:In the 1996 volume under the title Voluntary associations in the
Graeco-Roman world, Wendy Cotter devoted a chapter on the Roman
legislation on clubs and the control exercised by the Roman
administration.1 The author claims that the documentation on collegia
is poor, as far as the western and the eastern provinces are
concerned. She wonders whether associations in the eastern part
were dissolved or became part of Roman collegia or were altered to
avoid dissolution. Cotter seems to base her research on the material
collected by Waltzing (1895-1900) and his interpretation.2 Both
seem today out of date…

Paul's Allegory of Two Covenants (Gal. 4.21-31)

An article in the most recent issue of New Testament Studies deals with 'Paul's Allegory of Two Covenants (Gal. 4.21-31) in Light of First-Century Hellenistic Rhetoric and Jewish Hermeneutic,' (NTS 52 (2006):102-122). As should be expected when this passage is discussed, Philo is also drawn upon in this study. I cannot say much more at this moment as I have not read the article.
Update:
The article is written by Steven Di Mattei (Section des Sciences religieuses, École Pratique des Hautes Études, 45-47 rue des Écoles, 75005 Paris, France).

Recent review

The first review (as far as I know) of my book 'Strangers in the Light' has now appeared on SBL's Review of Biblical Literature, written by Fika Van Rensburg, North-West University. Potchefstroom, N.W., South Africa 2520.
I find it most convenient not to comment on reviews of my own work, though....

More on Philo and handheld computers

As far as I can see, the PalmBible+ is an fine product and good way to spread the good news from Philo (see earlier posting about this issue).

I first linked PalmBible+ to a commercial product, bit Jim Darlack has redirected me. The FREE program is PalmBible+ and the correct web address for PalmBible+ is http://palmbibleplus.sourceforge.net

Jim Darlack's own blog is also very informative http://palmsunday.oldinthenew.org

Here's a screenshot of the BHS and the LXX in parallel in PalmBible+ (image at the left side):
http://oldinthenew.org/images/bhs_lxx.jpg

One can display pointed Hebrew and accented Greek in a clear font. There is an good review of PalmBible+ and its capabilities with more screenshots: http://www.bsreview.org/bplus.htm

Conference in Aarhus, Denmark

In Denmark, Aarhus University, the Faculty of Theology, is organising a conference next year on «Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity - Critique and Apologetic». The conference is interdisciplinary, and also including Philo or Philo-related studies. The programme will be presented later. The conference takes place at Ebeltoft, January 22-26, 2007.

With this conference the faculty is concluding an impressing research programme on Jews, Christians and Pagans in antiquity (2003-2007), i.e. a project on early apologetics. Ideas and requests for participation should be addressed to Anders-Christian Lund Jacobsen, the Internet information says.

Kåre

Philo on Palm?

I've just received an e-mail from Jim Darlack asking for permission to distribute Philo's text on handheld computers with Palm OS. He is wondering if we could give permission to distribute the Greek text of Philo freely for public use with PalmBible+.

It would not include any grammatical parsing, only the Greek text.

Interesting case, of course, but I do not have enough information concerning PalmBible+ to judge what to do here. Is there anyone else knowing more about this than I do, I would be glad to hear from you. It would not harm to have such an access to the Greek text of Philo, but I wondered about the need.