The autorship of De Aeternitate Mundi

My co-blogger Kåre Fuglseth was a participant at a conference in Denmark a couple of years ago, and the papers from this conference have now been published in a nice volume:
David Brakke, Anders-Christian Jacobsen & Jörg Ulrich (eds.), Beyond Reception. Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism, and Early Christianity (Peter Lang, 2006),

Two of the papers, now articles, dealt explicitly with Philo, and are to be found in this volume as

Maren Niehoff, ‘Philo’s Contribution to Contemporary Alexandrian Metaphysics,’ pp. 35-56,

and

Kåre S. Fuglseth, ‘The Reception of Aristotelian Features in Philo and the Authorship Problem of Philo’s De Aeternitate Mundi,’ pp. 57-67.
The first of these two papers, the one by Maren Niehoff, is a critical examination of what appears to be an Aristotelian, non-Jewish feature in De Aeternitate Mundi, namely the indestructibility of the world. Niehoff here tries to locate Philo’s presentation in the philosophical traditions at the time, and thus deals with the influence of the Romans on Philo. The study of Niehoff lends support to the idea that Philo is a Platonist standing midway between Platonism and Neo-Platonism, perhaps a kind of Middle-Platonist.

Fuglseth’s paper is in fact a response to Niehoff’s contribution. Arguing that in the Philonic treatise here dealt with there are many statements that are clearly non-Philonic, Fuglseth wants to review the question of authorship. According to Fuglseth, “substantial divergences between De Aeternitate Mundi and other Philonic writings argue in favour of either a non-Philonic origin or that he is paraphrasing and/or quoting other authors.” In the rest of his article, he to a large extent presents some of the main problems of a Philonic authorship as set forth in a Norwegian phd dissertation, written in Norwegian, by Roald Skarsten.

This dissertation has been presented earlier on this blog both by me and Fuglseth, and Fuglseth has also a brief presentation of the main arguments on his own webpage; hence interested readers may read more on the links provided here.

Fuglseths own conclusion runs thus in this article : “If we accept the stylistic and substantial arguments of Skarsten, and I believe that we should; and conclude that the author of De Aeternitate Mundi and De Opificio Mundi cann be the same person, it is then necessary for us to find another way of reading the De Aeternitate Mundi. We must concede that it is not a Philonic compilation, but a work of an unknown editor who gathered the ancient arguments of antique metaphysics in order to support his own agenda. Then we can study the writing along the lines that Niehoff presents, as a very interesting theological blend, typical for the Hellenistic period and Middle Platonism, but not as a Philonic one.”

Biblical Studies Carnival - Best of 2006

Tyler Williams, Chair of the Religion & Theology Department and Assistant Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Taylor University College in Edmonton, Alberta, has gathered what he calls Biblical Studies Carnival - Best of 2006 over at his blog Codex. It's a subjective, but nevertheless a very interesting collection of what he considers to be the best blog postings in 2006. Have a look.
In addition, on the same page, you also have a listing of the monthly collections of the best postings on the various biblical blogs out there.

Exil und Diaspora

We start the the new year with a pointer to a review of a book highly related to the Diasporajudaism at the time of Philo, recently reviewed on www.Bookreviews.org: Jörn Kiefer,
Exil und Diaspora: Begrifflichkeit und Deutungen im antiken Judentum und in der hebraischen Bibel (Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte, 19; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005).Hardcover. €88.00. pp. 760 + CD-ROM. We snip from the introduction of the review by Klaus-Peter Adam:"The intention of Kiefer’s study is to develop an understanding of the terms and interpretations for exile and diaspora in the Hebrew Bible and in ancient Judaism, focusing on relevant biblical and early Jewish texts up to the second century C.E. Kiefer’s book provides a most readable and a stimulating companion to everyone working on exile and diaspora, indicating the shifts in interpretation of these historical facts and displaying the strong links of biblical to postbiblical texts and interpretations." You can read more of the review here. You can also find a list of the contents of the book here (Eisenbrauns, link updated Jan 3.)

Vacation time

For a short week or so, I'll be away on our vacation, celebrating Christmas in our Norwegian way. We will stay at our cabin, away from the Internet, and hopefully, enjoy some quiet and refreshing days.
To all readers; have a nice season all of you, wherever you are.
See you next year!

Feldman on Philo and Balaam

Having published an article on Philo; magic and Balaam earlier this year, it is interesting to come upon an an article by Louis H. Feldman on a similar topic; Philo's Version of Balaam, published in Henoch XXV (2003), pp. 301-319.
I was not aware of this article when I wrote mine, hence it is especially interesting to see that Feldman reaches mainly the same conclusions concerning Philo's use of the Balaam figure as I did.
Feldman too says that from the extraordinary amount of space given to Balaam in Philo's works, it is obvious that he was of great interest to Philo. There are several reasons for this interest; First, Philo is much concerned with the phenomenon of prophecy, second, Balaam had a great reputation. thirdly, Philo denigrates Balaam as a prophet because to Philo Moses is the greatest prophet. Furthermore, Moses was known as a magician in several circles, hence Philo wanted to contrast Balaam with Moses in order to emphasize the purity and greatness of Moses in contrast to the magician Balaam.Finally, Philo's editorial-like comments on the figure of Balaam suggests that Philo is here preaching to his contemporaries against the presence of magic in Jewish Alexandria.

Felman refers, inter alia, to an article by Harold Remus, "Moses and the thaumaturges: Philo's De Vita Mosis as a rescue Operation," in Laval Theologique et Philosophiique 52 (1996): 665-680. Alas, this article is not available in Norway. But according to the summary at the link above, Remus argues in a similar way, and reaches similar conclusions as Feldman and I. My article is, however, more focused on establishing Philo's attitude to magic, while Remus and Feldman focus more on the contrast to Philo's portrait of Moses.

The Roman Collegia

My review of J. S. Perry,
The Roman Collegia. The Modern Evolution of an Ancient Concept (Mnemosyne Supplementa cclxvii; Leiden: Brill, 2006),
was sent to BrynMawr Classical Review today. It should be out in a couple of months.

Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora:

Having a look over at Philip Harland's website, I discovered he has a new article out, and as usual I find his works interesting:Philip Harland, 'Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora:A Jewish Family and 'Pagan' Guilds at Hierapolis,' orig. printed in Journal of Jewish Studies 57 (2006) 222-244. I hope I get time in the nearby Christmas holidays to read it,- and several others...

Studies in Josephus and His Contra Apionem

Thursday 14. desember 2006 10.15am
there is a public disputatio at the MF Norwegian School of Theology where the PhD candidate will defend his dr. thesis

‘Beyond Philosophy:
Studies in Josephus and His Contra Apionem’

The dissertation “Beyond Philosophy: Studies in Josephus and His Contra Apionem” is a collection of essays. Four previously published essays appear in the dissertation in their original form. In addition, an introduction and two lengthy essays were composed during the final stages of the project. All the essays share a common focus: Josephus’ Roman context.

Abstracts of the thesis are given here in Norwegian and English

Opponents are prof dr. John M. G. Barclay, Durham (1) and prof dr. theol. Per Bilde, Aarhus (2). Prof dr. theol. Hans Kvalbein, Oslo-MF, was the third member of the evaluation committee.

This is the first dissertation on Josephus ever written by a Norwegian.
Congratulations to Gunnar Haaland!

His probevorlesungen/test lectures were given wednesday, and were as follows:

Given topic:
’ Luke-Acts and Josephus: How does the presentation of the Jesus movement in
Luke-Acts compare to Josephus' presentation of Judaism in Contra Apionem?’

Topic chosen by the candidate:
’Deconstructing Donkeys: Matthew 21:2-7 and Rabbinic Midrash’