Philo and Jewish apologetics

I have earlier (cf. the arhcive) been writing on the Philo blog about the project at the University of Aarhus on "Jews, Christians as Pagens in Antiquity; Criticism and Apologetics".


I myself presented a paper on the subject Philo's relationship to the Temple in Jerusalem in an apologetic perspective at one of their seminars (Filons forhold til tempelet i Jerusalem i eit apologetisk perspektiv). This paper and several other interesting papers are now published in A. Klostergaard Petersen, J. Hyldal and K. Fuglseth (Eds.): Perspektiver på jødisk apologetik (Perspectives on Jewish Apologetics).

Parts of the books is printed in pdf-format.

The books have the following chapters (all in Danish, translated by me):
1. Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Jewish apologetics, the history of the scholarly debate and historical development
2. Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Apologetics in Aristeas
3. Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Artepanos - an early Jewish apologetic writer
4. Anders Klostergaard Petersen. The books of the Maccabeans in an apologetic perspective
5. Per Bilde: Philo as a polemic and apologetic writer
6. Jesper Hyldal: Between a new and an old culture
7. Henrik Tronier: Boundaries of apology
8. Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Philo as an apologetic writer, a reading of De migratione Abrahami
9. Kåre Fuglseth (op. cit.)
10. Per Bilde: Contra Apionem, a key to the authorship of Josephus?


In the same series you will also find (all in Danish):
René Falkenberg og Anders-Christian Jacobsen (Eds.): Perspektiver på Origenes’ Contra Celsum (Perspectives on Origenes' Contra Ceslum)
Aage Pilgaard (Eds.): Apologetik i Det Nye Testamente (Apologetics in the New Testament).
Jakob Engberg, Anders-Christian Jacobsen og Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): Til forsvar for kristendommen – Tidlige kristne apologeter. (Defending Christianity - early Christian Apogetics).

Kåre in Oslo

Just wanted to tell you all that I went to see Prof. em. Peder Borgen today while I am in Oslo in these days.

Peder is going to San Diego at the SBL-meeting this year to present a paper summing up all his Johannine research and commenting on those scholars who have been discussing with him the last 50 years or so. Really interesting article, and of course Philo plays an essential role.

There is a session at the SBL-conference where several senior scholars are going to present their Johannine studies in the previous century (!), and for each senior, there is a junior, or a younger professor to the comment on their paper. I have not yet decided for myself whether I am going to the meeting or not, but I might, because it seems like an interesting way of presenting their research and the scholarly debate connected to it.

Kåre

The art of reading

I do not, of course, expect any of my readers to have forgotten the art of reading a book, but if anyone knows someone who have problems with that kind of sophisticated art, let them have a look at this educating and funny video:

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2007/introducing-the-book-p1.php

It is supposed to be of great help...

Have a nice weekend!

Philo conference in Belgium in June

In June 26-28, there will be a great Philo conference in Brussels, Belgium. Its main focus is "Philon d'Alexandrie : un penseur à l'intersection des cultures gréco-romaine, orientale, et chrétienne."

The conference is organized and held at Intitut de Sociologie at the Université Libre de Bruxelles by its Centre interdisciplinaire d'étude des religions et de la laïcité - CIERL. In its presentation of the conference, it says -inter alia- Ni seulement grec, ni seulement juif, Philon appartenait à un monde éminemment multiculturel et, à ce titre, il est, plus que beaucoup d'autres, infiniment proche de la réalité que nous vivons. C'est pourquoi notre colloque international s'assigne pour tâche l'étude de l'œuvre de Philon dans la totalité de ses aspects, ce qu'exprime le thème que nous avons choisi: " Philon d'Alexandrie : un penseur à l'intersection des cultures gréco-romaine, orientale, juive, et chrétienne ". Il apparaît, en effet, aujourd'hui, après un siècle de recherche, que seule une approche plurielle de son œuvre permet de cerner de façon adéquate une pensée qui puisa aux sources des différentes traditions de l'Antiquité pour parfois les nourrir à son tour.

The conference consists of 24 papers, all focusing on Philo. It would have been nice to be there, but as 18 of the papers will be held in French - only 6 in English - my low ability of understanding spoken French woul be an impediment as a listener.

The conference also features many prominent Philo scholars. Here is a review of the various sessions:

Mardi 26 Juin
Entre Jérusalem et Rome

10h00 : Ouverture : Le Recteur et Jean-Philippe Schreiber

Introduction : Sabrina Inowlocki et Baudouin Decharneux

10h45 : Conférence inaugurale par David Runia sur le thème " Why Philo Is an Important Thinker ? "

Pause

11h30 : Michèle Broze, " L'Egypte de Philon d'Alexandrie: approche d'un discours ambigu ".

12h00: Martin Goodman, " Philo in Rome "

Pause déjeuner

14h30 : Mireille Hadas-Lebel, " Philon et l'apologétique juive ".

15h00 : Joanna Weinberg, " Philon et le judaïsme de la Renaissance "

Pause

15h45 : Thomas Gergely, " Philon et la Halakha".

16h15 : Katell Berthelot, " Grecs, Barbares et Juifs dans l'œuvre de Philon ".

16h45 : Ellen Birnbaum, " Who celebrated on Pharos with the Jews? Conflicting Philonic currents and their implications".

17h15 : Discussion.

Mercredi 27 Juin
Entre Athènes et Alexandrie

9h30 : Lambros Couloubaritsis, " Le statut de l'allégorie chez Philon d'Alexandrie ".

10h00 : Olivier Munnich, " La fugacité de la vie humaine: étude d'un motif traditionnel (De Josepho, § 127-130)".

10h30 : Francesca Alesse, " Prohairesis in Philo of Alexandria ".

Pause

11h15 : Francesca Calabi, " God's Rest in Philo ".

11h45 : Maren Niehoff, " Recherche Homérique et l'Exégèse d'Ecriture en Alexandrie ".

12h15 : discussion.

Pause déjeuner.

14h00 : Carlos Lévy : " La notion de signe chez Philon d'Alexandrie ".

14h30 : José Zamora, " L'âme du sage chez Philon d'Alexandrie, De Cherubim, 98-112 ".

15h15 : Folker Siegert, "Philon et la philologie alexandrine. Aux origines du fondamentalisme chrétien." .

Pause.

15h45 : Lucia Saudelli, " Les fragments d'Héraclite et ses implications dans le corpus philonicum ".

16h15 : Sharon Weisser, " La figure du prokôpton chez Philon ou la proximité de la sagesse ".

16h45 : dicussion.

Jeudi 28 Juin
Le Temps des relectures

9h00 : Gilbert Van Belle, " Philon et le Nouveau Testament ".

9h30 : Monique Alexandre, " Philon et sa transmission chez les Pères ".

10h00 : Sabrina Inowlocki, " La réception chrétienne de Philon comme apologiste ".

Pause

11h15 : Fabien Nobilio, " L'Esprit et le temps. Comparaison entre Philon d'Alexandrie et l'évangile de Jean "

10h45 : Peter Tomson, " Le Temple céleste : pensée platonisante et orientation apocalyptique dans l'Épître aux Hébreux ".

11h45 : Albert Geljon, " Philo's Influence on Didymus the Blind "

12h45 : Discussion

13h00 : Conclusions

13h30 : Excursion

I have received a pamphlet presenting the conference and the various topics; there are some disagreements between the web page presentation and the brochure, hence I have here given the topics as stated in the latter.

For all of us who is not able to attend the conference, I hope the papers will be published as soon as possible.

My review of
Ware, James P.,The Mission of the Church in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Context of Ancient Judaism (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 120
Leiden: Brill, 2005)
have now been published on SBL's Review of Biblical Literature.

The author of this well researched and engaging volume presents here an extensive study of the role of Paul’s churches in his mission commitment, asking, What role did Paul envision his churches as having in the advancement of the gospel? This topic has received little attention in recent New Testament research, and while some recent studies argue that Paul expected individuals to be engaged in mission, the remaining question still is: did he expect his congregations themselves as such to be obligated to spread the gospel? It has been argued that Paul nowhere explicitly commands his congregations to spread the gospel, or exhorts his churches to engage in mission activity. Ware, on his part, however, suggests that in his letter to the Philippians, Paul reveals an unusual level of interest in the preaching and promotion of the gospel by his communities.
Concerning Philo, the author deals with Philo on pp. 131-142, focused as ‘Conversion of Gentiles.' According to my reading, "I wonder if his strong focus on conversion of gentiles and mission has sometimes led to a somewhat narrow selection and reading of texts: Considering his use of material from Philo, I do think there are some issues here he should have considered more thoroughly. ‘Messianic’ texts as Vita Mosis 1:289-290; Praem 91-97 and 163-172 receive only a brief reference in a footnote, and the important issues of particularism and universalism are hardly dealt with at all."

The rest of the reviwew is available here.

In Cameroon

As mentioned below, I was in Cameroon in week 10 and 11. In addition to mentoring my PhD student there, I had 14 lectures at the local Theological seminary in Meiganga; Institut lutheriene de theologie de meiganga. Here is the students of class gathered. If someone are in doubt, it is me standing to the left!!

Cameroon

No blogging the two following weeks (week 10-11) due to my travel to Cameroon. Visiting Africa for the first time!

Philo and the Conquest of Canaan

In the first 2007 issue of Journal for the Study of Judaism, there is an article on Philo and the conquest of Canaan: Katell Berthelot, 'Philo of Alexandria and the Conquest of Canaan, 'Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume 38, Number 1, 2007, pp. 39-56.

The abstracts tells us "According to the Torah, the Hebrews were commanded either to expel or to exterminate the Canaanites who were living in Canaan at the time of the conquest. Philo seems to feel rather ill-at-ease about the literal meaning of these biblical passages. Besides allegory, he uses four hermeneutical strategies: 1) to pass over the problematic texts in silence; 2) to play with the meaning of certain Greek words; 3) to justify the destruction of the Canaanites from a moral point of view; 4) to rewrite the biblical account."
I found this through the Ingenta search engine; a very fine facility available to us who do not have immediate and locale access to that many journals.