New book on Philo

Every one who have read more than just a little in Philo, will probably have discovered his many sayings and invectives against the 'Egyptians'. Now there is a study to be published about Philo's view of the 'Egyptians':Sarah J.K. Pearce,
The Land of the Body. Studies in Philo's Representation of Egypt
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 208)
Mohr Siebeck,2007. XXVIII, 365 pages. ISBN 978-3-16-149250-1 cloth € 109.00
The publisher's description of the book runs thus:
"This book presents the first extended study of the representation of Egypt in the writings of Philo of Alexandria. Philo is a crucial witness, not only to the experiences of the Jews of Alexandria, but to the world of early Roman Egypt in general. As historians of Roman Alexandria and Egypt are well aware, we have access to very few voices from inside the country in this era; Philo is the best we have. As a commentator on Jewish Scripture, Philo is also one of the most valuable sources for the interpretation of Egypt in the Pentateuch. He not only writes very extensively on this subject, but he does so in ways that are remarkable for their originality when compared with the surviving literature of ancient Judaism. In this book, Sarah Pearce tries to understand Philo in relation to the wider context in which he lived and worked. Key areas for investigation include: defining the 'Egyptian' in Philo's world; Philo's treatment of the Egypt of the Pentateuch as a symbol of 'the land of the body'; Philo's emphasis on Egyptian inhospitableness; and his treatment of Egyptian religion, focusing on Nile veneration and animal worship."

The Eisenbrauns publishers bookstore also provide a Table of Contents of the book:


Sarah J.K. Pearce, born 1965; 1988 Bachelor of Divinity (University of London); 1995 DPhil (Oriental Studies, University of Oxford); Ian Karten Senior Lecturer in Jewish History, The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton.

This is a welcome addition to those studies who focus on how Philo conceptualized aspects and issues of his social worldpast and present. I hope to get hold of the book (hey, publisher, are you listening..... :-)

Some more lectures on Philo

Using some simple search procedures, I was able to detect the following sessions including one or more lectures on Philo at the upcoming SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego. If you know of some papers I have missed, please use the comments field (kommentarer) below.

Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
11/18/2007. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward A - GH

Theme: Literary and Historical Contexts of Early Christian Anthropology

Matthew Goff, Florida State University
"Spiritual" and "Fleshly" Types of Humankind in 4QInstruction, Philo and Paul (20 min) Discussion (10 min)

Abstract: 4QInstruction is a sapiential text in Hebrew that was written during the second century BCE and published in 1999. The emergence of this composition provides a new perspective for comparing Diaspora Jewish texts, and Hellenistic literature in general, to the Hebrew wisdom literature of the late Second Temple period. My paper will examine the anthropology of 4QInstruction and compare it to that of Philo's On the Creation of the World and 1 Corinthians. All three texts make a distinction between "fleshly" and "spiritual" kinds of people. Moreover, these three compositions ground their understanding of humankind in an interpretation of Gen 1-3. These and other works include variants of an early Jewish exegetical tradition attested in both Palestine and the wider Hellenistic world.

Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität
A Case of Psychological Dualism: Philo's Interpretation of the Instruction of the Two Spirits in QEx I 23 (20 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Abstract: The Instruction of the Two Spirits (1QS III,13-IV,26) is one of the best-known dualistic texts from Qumran, combining cosmic, ethical and psychological dualism. However, A. Lange and others have shown that it did not originate in the Qumran community, but represents a tradition taken up from outside. In his Quaestiones, Philo presents a wide variety of traditions, not all of which he agrees with. In QEx I 23, he takes up the tradition of the two spirits and interprets it in an emphatically psychological way. This paper argues that Philo is acquainted with the Instruction of the Two Spirits, but takes it up in a way that emphasizes the already existing psychological dualism and allows him to tone down the cosmic aspects which do not fit into his own view.

S18-18 Hellenistic Judaism
11/18/2007. 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward D - GH

Theme: Philosophy and Wisdom in Hellenistic Judaism

4^th and 5^th lecture:

Erin Roberts, Brown University
Philo, Wealth, and Stoic Ethics (20 min)

Abstract: The question of whether Philo of Alexandria expresses a consistent ethical view of wealth has been a matter of dispute. Arguments against a consistent view proceed either by drawing attention to the discrepancy between Philo's own personal wealth and passages from his writings that portray wealth as something which should be avoided, or by highlighting the contradictory ways that Philo depicts wealth in his writings (sometimes disparaging it, other times praising it). Arguments for a consistent view maintain that what really matters to Philo is the will of the possessor of wealth or the measure of one's desire for riches; by turning the focus inward, these arguments ameliorate the two sorts of inconsistency mentioned above. The purpose of this paper is to reframe the discussion so that our evaluation of Philo's ethical consistency turns upon the question of whether Philo has a doctrine akin to that of the Stoic adiaphora, and, if so, whether he considers wealth to be contained therein. My argument aligns with those who claim that Philo's view of wealth is consistent, but I think that we have sufficient evidence to take the argument further. With attention to two Stoic paradoxes--"virtue is the only good" and "the sage alone is rich"--I explain how Philo portrays desire to be dangerous to virtue and consider how he proposes that one may overcome or control desire. I maintain that Philo views desire not so much as being dangerous to virtue as being indicative of the absence of virtue and that Philo supports the extirpation of passions from the human soul. Finally, I argue in favor of Philonic consistency because the literature points us toward the conclusion that Philo does have a doctrine of adiaphora which can be seen to underlie his views about economic wealth.

Philippa Townsend, Princeton University
Being Jewish Under Rome: Philo on Greeks and Egyptians (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)

Abstract: Most scholarship on Philo makes a sharp distinction between his attitudes towards Greeks and Egyptians. However, this paper argues that in Against Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius, Philo quite deliberately elides the distinction between Egyptians and Greeks in Alexandria, consistently referring to the Greek citizens of Alexandria as "Egyptians," with all the attendant connotations of extreme barbarism which that term consistently has in his work. While these texts have often been taken to show that the tension in Alexandria was between Jews and the native Egyptians, this reading suggests that Philo's complaint was actually with the Alexandrian Greeks. Further, this paper argues that the conflation of Greeks and Egyptians in these texts should be understood within a broader context in which Philo was concerned to undermine Greek cultural prestige in the eyes of the Romans. Drawing on evidence from On the Contemplative Life, among other texts, I will argue that in his depiction of Greeks, Philo plays on xenophobic anxieties within Roman society about the degenerative effect of Greek moral laxity, while at the same time attempting to bolster the status of Jews as moral exemplars within the Empire. This paper argues, then, that Philo's depiction of both Greeks and Egyptians can only be understood within the context of a conversation with Rome.

S18-66 Hellenistic Judaism
Joint Session With: Josephus, Hellenistic Judaism
11/18/2007. 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Point Loma - MM

Theme: Josephus

Tessa Rajak, University of Reading, Presiding
Fabian Eugene Udoh, University of Notre Dame
Joseph as a Prototype of the Enslaved: Philo (De Iosepho) and Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 2.39-90) (20 min)

Abstract: John Byron, in his 2003 study, Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity, entitles his section on the representation of Joseph in both Philo (De Iosepho) and Josephus (A.J. 2.39-90): “Joseph as a Paradigmatic Enslaved Figure.” He concludes his brief study by noting that “Joseph, as a paradigmatic enslaved figure, represents the pattern of Humiliation-Obedience-Examination.” While one will readily agree that, in both Philo and Josephus, Joseph is a prototype of the enslaved, Byron’s work as a whole betrays negligible contact with the ideology and practice of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. This contact is certainly lacking in his analysis of the figure of Joseph. Byron, consequently, fails to show how Josephus and Philo might be said to see in the slave-Joseph “a prototype of the enslaved.” In this paper, I will examine the notions of slavery that underlie the presentation of Joseph by both Philo and Josephus. I will draw from the extensive literature of slavery (though there is no “slave literature”) by Greco-Roman authors in order to explore the ways in which Philo and Josephus assimilated, and perhaps flouted, the various modes by which the free negotiated and legitimized the social structure of slavery and the meaning it generated. In so doing, I shall seek to uncover in what manner, and to what end, the slave-Joseph is an exemplary slave. This paper will further the on-going discussion of slavery in first-century Judaism and early Christianity, particularly in the New Testament.

Sessions on Philo at the SBL Annual Meeting

The preliminary Program Book of teh SBL Annual Meeting is now available on the sbl-site.org, and I am trying to get an overview of what sessions I would like to attend. The following is a presentation of the primary Philo sessions in the Philo group:

S18-128

Philo of Alexandria
11/18/2007. 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Emma C - GH

Theme: Philo in Context

Hindy Najman, University of Toronto, Presiding
Julia Annas, University of Arizona
Philo and Plato's Laws (35 min)

Abstract: Philo is familiar with Plato's Laws, and some of his language in his works on the Decalogue and the Special Laws reflects this. More importantly, his project in these works can reasonably be seen as similar to Plato's attempt, in the Laws, to show how a system of laws can be presented in a persuasive framework which brings out the ethical aims of the laws and the virtues encouraged in those who live according to them. Law is thus presented in a eudaimonistic framework.

Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania
Looking for Philo's Abraham in all the Wrong Places (35 min)

Abstract: Philo's information about Abraham is mostly built on the Genesis traditions, but occasionally also takes the reader outside that body of material. What other Abrahamic literature or traditions might have been extant in the mid first century, apart from what is also found in Josephus? This presentation is intended as part of the "new M.R.James" (Lost Apocrypha of the OT) project, and surveys the various possibilities that have been suggested over the years (with Philo as a focal point).

Allen Kerkeslager, Saint Joseph's University
Rome as an Alternative to Alexandria in the Early Transmission of Philo's Works and Philonism (35 min)

Abstract: The most popular reconstruction of the early history of Philo's works and ideas is that they were directly transmitted from Philo through Jewish communities in Alexandria to the earliest Christian communities in Alexandria. In this view these Christian communities survived the devastating revolt of 116-117 and transmitted various forms of Philonism during the second century, including forms associated with "Gnosticism." This reconstruction is assumed in extrapolations from second-century Christianity in Alexandria back to first-century Judaism and Christianity in Alexandria. Despite its tantalizing simplicity, this reconstruction has become increasingly untenable. First, recent research on the revolt in 116-117 has shown that its suppression was much more devastating than once supposed. Jewish and Christian communities in Egypt could not have survived to pass on Philo's works or ideas. Second, much of the purported evidence for Philonism in second-century Christian documents from Egypt can be better explained as a recent development in Egyptian Christianity. Extrapolation of first-century Jewish or Christian communities from these documents is anachronistic. Third, the use of Philo in Egypt in the late second century appears with a flood of Christian and Jewish literature imported into Egypt. Philo's works had circulated widely enough before the revolt in 116-117 that their appearance in Egypt after this point might also be due to transmission from another region. This paper will suggest that the survival of Philo's works and ideas up to the middle of the second century is due largely to their transmission in Rome, not Alexandria. Philo sent copies of his works to Herodians and other elites in Rome. Philo's works and ideas were transmitted from Rome in the second century by Gentile Christian travelers and missionaries, some of whom reintroduced them to Alexandria.

C. T. Robert Hayward, University of Durham
Philo, Jerome, and Jewish Exegesis of Genesis 49:14-15 (35 min)
Discussion (10 min)

Abstract: The paper will seek to identify ancient materials in the exegesis of the these verses as represnted by LXX, the Aramaic Targumim, and the Midrashim, comparing and contrasting them with the particular observations offered by Philo on the one hand, and with the remarks made by Jerome in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis and the translation he offered in his Vulgate.

S19-120

Philo of Alexandria
11/19/2007. 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Oxford - GH

Theme: Interpreting Philo’s De Abrahamo

Annewies van den Hoek, Harvard University, Presiding
John Dillon, Trinity College, Dublin
A Sample Commentary on Philo De Abrahamo 119–132 (25 min)

Abstract: A sample commentary of De Abrahamo 119-132 will be presented. In this section Philo enters upon an allegorization of the incident described in Genesis 18, where Abraham is approached by, and entertains, a trio of strangers, who are in fact the Lord, under an alternately monadic and triadic guise. This leads Philo to an exposition of the relation between God himself and his two chief Powers, the Creative and the Administrative (represented by theos and kyrios respectively) which is of great interest, both as to its possible sources and to its philosophical significance. The issue of three levels of approach to God, linked to the triad of manifestations of the divinity, is also of much interest, and requires discussion.

Erich Gruen, University of California-Berkeley, Respondent (15 min)
Ellen Birnbaum, Cambridge, MA, Respondent (15 min)

David T. Runia, University of Melbourne

The Place of De Abrahamo in Philo’s Oeuvre (25 min)

Abstract: Philo’s treatise De Abrahamo is called a bios and it describes the life of the first Patriarch. But at the same time it is part of a much larger work, known as the Exposition of the Law. The paper first explores the link between De opificio mundi (the opening treatise) and De Abrahamo (the next treatise). It then examines how the themes in the treatise reflect the larger agenda that Philo had before him when composing his lengthy Commentary on the Law.

James R. Royse, San Francisco State University
The Text of Philo’s De Abrahamo (25 min)

Abstract: The treatise De Abrahamo is well-attested within the manuscript tradition of Philo, and is also included within the ancient Armenian translation of Philo’s works, which often confirms the readings of the better Greek manuscripts. In this paper I examine the place of De Abrahamo within the Philonic corpus, looking at both the Greek manuscripts and the Armenian version. Special attention will be given to the several places where Cohn judges that the Armenian alone has preserved the authentic text.

Discussion (15 min)
Other (30 min)

The Philo Index

The Philo Index: A Complete Greek Word Index to the Writings of Philo of Alexandria is still available. A recent check on the Amazon.co.uk shows that they now also have added the possibility of looking into the book, and even search it. They also have some used copies for sale; prices from 7 pounds....
And you haven't bought it yet???

RPBS- Resource pages - going into sleep?

My Resource Pages for Biblical Studies has been on the Internet for some years now; but over the last couple of years it has been harder and harder to be able to find time to keep them updated.

At the present time several issues tell me to - not really closing them down - but after a major update of the links to come, I will probably not be able to spend time on them any more. The work is simply too time-consuming, and the pages structures and coding are much too old-fashioned.

I have been involved in a little discussion - some time ago- on the role of what was then called megasites, and I then called for some sort of collaborations, and maybe even some sort of organizational associations. But at that time people liked to go on for themselves. Now it look like fellows as Mark Goodacre are feeling the burden of work too. One the one hand he is a much more competent person than myself to deal with modern webpages (mine are like fossils), but he also seems more open for some sort of collaboration with other interested and able scholars. His experimenting and ideas about how he will carry out his work are interesting, and I wish him every good wish.

For my own part, I will keep on doing some Philo-blogging on this blog; I am also considering establishing a similar blog on 1 Peter in January. But my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies will be rather static; that is - not being regularly updated.

Moses and the thaumaturges

I December 21 I blogged here about 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, and said, that "Alas, this article is not available in Norway."

Today I received it as a pdf file from Prof. Dr. G.H. van Kooten, Professor of New Testament & Early Christianity, Faculty of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Groningen, who had used the article himself for one of his own studies.

What a pleasant surprise! It made my day! Thank you very much. I appreciate very much such interest and helpful attitude. This is internet at its best!

Creation and Salvation

Congratulations to Ronald Cox who has his great study on Creation and Salvation published this summer:Ronald Cox,
By the Same Word. Creation and Salvation in Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity.
July 2007. 23 x 15.5 cm. Approx. X, 380 pages. Cloth. Euro [D] 98.00 / sFr 157.00 / for USA, Canada, Mexico US$ 132.30. ISBN 978-3-11-019342-8
The publishers description of the volume runs like this:

"Middle Platonism explained how a transcendent principle could relate to the material world by positing an intermediary, modeled after the Stoic active cause, that mediated the supreme principle’s influence to the world while preserving its transcendence. Having similar concerns as Middle Platonism, Hellenistic Jewish sapientialism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism appropriated this intermediary doctrine as a means for understanding their relationship to God and to the cosmos. However, these traditions vary in their adaptation of this teaching due to their distinctive understanding of creation and humanity’s place therein. The Jewish writings of Philo of Alexandria and Wisdom of Solomon espouse a holistic ontology, combining a Platonic appreciation for noetic reality with an ultimately positive view of creation and its place in human fulfillment. The early Christians texts of 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:15-20, Heb 1:2-3, and the prologue of John provide an eschatological twist to this ontology when the intermediary figure finds final expression in Jesus Christ. Contrarily, Poimandres (CH 1) and the Apocryphon of John, both associated with the traditional rubric “Gnosticism”, draw from Platonism to describe how creation is antithetical to human nature and its transcendent source."

If you are interested in this volume, you should consider its List of contents, available on the publishers webpage.

Philo on Moses

Walter de Gruyter announces a new book on Moses in Biblical and extra-Biblical traditions to be published these days: Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions
Ed. by Axel Graupner & Michael Wolter
(Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 372)
2007. 277 pages. Cloth. Euro [D] 88.00 / sFr 141.00 / for USA, Canada, Mexico US$ 123.00. ISBN 978-3-11-019460-9 The announcement says furthermore: "The papers in this volume revolve around the history of the influence exerted by the person of Moses and the traditions associated with him. They deal not only with the function of the figure of Moses in the Pentateuch, the salvation in the Red Sea and the final day of Moses’ life, but also with the way Moses was received in the Deuteronomic history, the Psalms, the Book of Jeremiah, the Septuagint, in Qumran, early Jewish extra-biblical literature, the New Testament and the Early Church."

It turns out that the volume also contain a couple of articles on Philo:

Pierluigi Lanfranchi, 'Reminiscences of Ezekiel's Exagoge in Philo's De Vita Mosis,' pp. 143-150;
and
Hywel Clifford, 'Moses as Philosopher-Sage in Philo.' pp. 151-168.

I have not seen the volume yet, just its announcement, so I have no further information than this bibliographic note.