I'm off..

As some of you may know, we have 5 weeks of vacation in Norway. Those over 60 have 6. Most of us take one week off in the spring, one in the fall, and 3 in the summer. At least, that's what I'm doing. Tomorrow morning I am off for a 3 week vacation. Hence there will not be any blogging on this Philo WeBlog untill ca. July 19. However, if anyone has some information that should have gone into my RPBS pages, or into this blog, please e-mail it to me. You'll find my email url on my homepage if you click on my name in the heading of this page.
Have a nice summer all of you! Don't forget to take at least one Philo book with you on your vacation! :-) 

Philo’s Exposition of the Law and Social History

I am happy to announce that today I have posted a 'new' article on my Philo Resource page. Some time ago,- in fact a couple of years, I got a permission from Adele Reinhartz to post one of her articles on Philo on my site. The article was originally published as 'Philo’s Exposition of the Law and Social History:Methodological Considerations,' in Eugene H. Lowering Jr. (ed.), SBL Annual Meeting 1993 Seminar Papers (Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993), pp. 6-21. I have scanned the work, and it is now posted on my site in .pdf format.
You can access the article by clicking on Philo's Exposition of the Law and Social History.
Adele Reinhartz was then at McMasterUniversity, now she is at Wilfrid Laurier University.
I find the article very valuable as a discussion of some of the methodological difficulties we have to deal with when using the Exposition of Philo as a source for social aspects of Alexandria at his time. Thanks to prof. Reinhartz for the permission to include this article on my site. Tolle lege!

Some bibliographic notes..

The New Testament Abstracts is indeed a very valuable publication. As the publishers state on its homepage, "Founded in 1956, New Testament Abstracts has become an indispensable research and bibliographic aid for scholars, librarians, clergy, and students of the New Testament and its historical milieu. Every year NTA abstracts up to 2,150 articles chosen from more than 500 periodicals in numerous languages. Nearly 800 current books are also summarized annually." I can fully agree to that. There is also a CD version available; CD-ROM Release 1.0, contains all abstracts and book notices published in NTA from 1988 through 1998. I might just wonder, is there any plans about making the bibliographies available online?
As for my self, working in a College with a good, but nevertheless a minor library available, I find publications as NTA really indispensable. The last issue (vol. 48 (2004) no. 2) just arrived, and I gathered the following bibliographic information on relevant Philo literature:Articles:
C. Conway, "Gender and Divine Relativity in Philo of alexandria," JournStudJud 34 (4, '03) 471-491.
D.S. Dodson, "Philo's De Somniis in the Context of Ancient Dream Theories and Classifications," PerspRelStud 30 (3, '03) 299-312.
J.E. Ellis, "Philo's View of Homosexxual Activity," PerspRelStud 30 (3, '03) 313-323.
L.H. Feldman, Philo's Interpretation of Jethro," AusBibRev 51 ('03) 37-46.
L.H. feldman, "Questions about the Great Flood, as Viewed by Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus and the Rabbis," Zeit AltWiss 115 (3, '03) 401-422.
Books:
K. Berthelot, Philanthropia judaica. Le debat autour de la "misanthropie" des lois juives dans l'Antiquite, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 76 (Leiden-Boston; Brill, 2003).
F. Calabi (ed.), Italian Studies on Philo of alexandria, Studies in Philo of Alexandria and Mediterranean Antiquity 1 (Bosten-Leiden, Brill, 2003)
It looks like the Perspectives on Religious Studies had a volume dedicated to Philo studies in 2003, and a search on the WWW made the following information available. The journal has it own website: Perspectives on Religious Studies that contain lots on information about the journal and its published issues. (I should have known this, but I don't know evrything.....:-)).
It turns out that their Issue 03 - Fall 2003 in addition to the articles mentioned above, contained the following articles on Philo of Alexandria: Gregory E. Sterling, “Philo Has Not Been Used Half Enough”: The Significance of Philo of Alexandria for the Study of the New Testament: pp. 251-270
Michael Martin, Philo’s Use of Syncrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata: pp. 271-298
Andrew E. Arterbury, Abraham’s Hospitality among Jewish and Early Christian Writers: A Tradition History of Gen 18:1-16 and Its Relevance for the Study of the New Testament: pp. 359-376. The site also presents abstracts to each article, but with no search function. I read through some of the indexes, but did not find any other articles on Philo. But there might be, as I did not read through all.

Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum online

Due to a posting by Jim Davila on his PaleoJudaica,I was made aware of the website of Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum. Thanks :)
The self-presentation of the IJD runs thus: The Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum is successor to the Institut für Judenmission which was founded in Leipzig in 1884. It continues the work of the Old Testament scholar Franz Delitzsch, who provided a model of understanding between Christians and Jewish which was exemplary for its time. In 1948 the institute was re-founded in Münster as part of the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät . The academic study of Judaism, which had been destroyed by the National Socialists, was revived in this institute in the form of historical-critical studies, researched in cooperation with Jewish partners. The site have several pages, containing interesting info about Faculty and Staff, Publications, Events, report, Development. Of special interest to readers of this blog may be their current projects on Philo and on Josephus.On Philo: A research position was being set up at the Institutum Judaicum Delitschianum with the support of the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". The purpose will be to deliver the first German translation of the Quaestiones in Genesim and the Questiones in Exodum by Philo of Alexandria which are currently extent only in Armenian. The translation will be more directly from Armenian into German, but with reference to Greek idiomatics which are still traceable tin the text. A provisional translation of the first part (QG, Book 1) can be found online (see link on page).
On Josephus: A special team has been working in the institute since 1996 on an annotated Greek-German edition of the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus: Namely the Vita, Contra Apionem and later the Antiquitates Judaicae.
The first volume has been published: Flavius Josephus, Aus meinem Leben (Vita): Kritische Ausgabe, Übersetzung und Kommentar von F. Siegert, H. Schreckenberg, M. Vogel, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2001.
Currently the team is working on the translation and edition of Contra Apionem. A provisional translation can be viewed online(see link on page). It will be published at Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen in 2004. In addition, they are also working on a bibliography on "the complete relevant literature on Flavius Josephus (is) being systematically registered and bibliographically processed with the goal of providing an electronic bibliography. It shall include all monographs, anthologies, and periodical essays beginning in 1985 in order to continue the extensive bibliographies of Heinz Schreckenberg and Louis H. Feldman." A link is provided to the present version of the Josephus-Bibliography.

More resources for the study of the Septuagint (LXX)

Due to my work of updating my RPBS, I have collected some links of valuable resources for the study of the Septuagint. I hope readers of this blog may also find some of these interesting.

Texts/Translations
New Testament and the Septuagint
This site provides .pdf files of each books of the New testament and of the Septuagint.
The Septuagint LXX:
Greek and English by Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton Published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London, 1851.
The Septuagint in Greek and French: La Septante
The texts are presented in parallell columns, the Greek is given in beautiful letters, very readable.The french is obvious taken from several sources
New English Translation of the Septuagint.
NETS is a new translation of the Greek Jewish Scriptures, entitled A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (and abbreviated as NETS). This project is being carried out under the aegis of The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS).
La Bible Annotée
Malgré son titre sans prétention et son grand âge, la Bible Annotée, ou Bible de Neuchâtel, reste une œuvre inégalée. Elle se compose d'une traduction française originale de l'Ancien Testament, et d'un commentaire accompagnant chaque verset ou presque.
Septuaginata Deutsch
Dieser Projekt, das in den folgenden Verlautbarungen ausführlich beschrieben wird(check out the link..), verfolgt das Ziel, der Septuaginta in der deutschsprachigen Forschung die ihr gebührende Bedeutung zukommen zu lassen.

Resources

The United Bible Societies' Translation Information Clearinghouse
was set up in April 1987 with the aim of providing reference services to UBS translation personnel and others involved in Bible translation, and developing bibliographies on topics related to their research interests. These pages are primarily for their benefit, but it is hoped that others will profit from the information presented here, as well. You will find here the current issue of the clearinghouse newsletter TIC Talk, and links to sites related to the areas of biblical studies, linguistics, and translation.
The Septuagint Online. Electronic resources for the Study of the Septuagint and Old Greek Versions.
The International Organization for
Septuagint and Cognate Studies
The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) is a nonprofit, learned society formed to promote international research in and study of the Septuagint and related texts.
Bulletin of the International Organization for
Septuagint and Cognate Studies
The IOSCS produces an annual bulletin, the Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (BIOSCS). Each bulletin contains articles, news, and a record of work published or in progress.

Research projects
The Greek Bible in the Graeco-Roman World
The project has two related goals.
1. A systematic assessment of existing criteria for the contextualisation of the translation of individual books or groups of books. Emphasis will fall on those books of the Greek Bible, which, by virtue of their content matter, offer substantial sources for historical contextualisation.
2. A major investigation into the language of the translators. The project will focus on a comparative examination of the political, legal and administrative terminology of the books (examples for comparison include court titles, legal terminology and conceptions of the hellenistic monarch).
Commentary on the Septuagint
Though other scholarly work has been undertaken with a focus on the Septuagint at various stages of its reception history or on the original meaning of individual books, a sustained effort, for the whole of the Septuagint, to understand the text at its point of inception remains, we believe, a desideratum.
La Bible d'Alexandrie. Cette traduction a choisi de considérer le texte grec de la Bible non comme le décalque de l’hébreu, mais comme une création littéraire linguistiquement remarquable et historiquement féconde. Le texte est celui d’Alfred Rahlfs, «Septuaginta, id est Vetus Testamentum Graeca iuxta LXX interpretes», Stuttgart, 1935
Centre for Septuagint Studies
The Centre is involved in the comparative study of the Greek translations of the Old Testament – esp. the Septuagint – with the Hebrew text.

• Tools for Septuagint Studies A Bibliography.

The Septuagint in Greek and French

The following website presents the texts of the Septuagint according to the edition of Ralphs, and translations in French: http://ba.21.free.fr/septuaginta/cover.html
The texts are presented in parallell columns, the Greek is given in beautiful letters, very readable.The french is obvious taken from several sources. Have a look!

Jewish Law and Hellenistic legal practice

Just a brief posting to day on an article available on the web: JOSEPH MÉLÈZE MODRZEJEWSKI,
JEWISH LAW AND HELLENISTIC LEGAL PRACTICE IN THE LIGHT OF GREEK PAPYRI FROM EGYPT.
The author works at Université de Paris I ‑ Sorbonne, and the article is available at
http://www.juedisches-recht.de/Rechtsgeschichte-Hellenistic-Practice.htm
Mordzejewski deals primarily with the Ptolemaic period, and argues here in his footnoted article, inter alia, that a) voluntary immigration and not captivity was by far the principal source of the Jewish settlement in the Ptolemaic kingdom, as it was for other Greek‑speaking immigrants; b) The concept of Jewish politeumata as independent political units must be regarded as a 'historiographical legend' (Aristeas); c)To be a Ioudaios in Ptolemaic Egypt was not very different from being a Makedon. As distinguished from the native Egyptians, both were 'Hellenes'; d) the existence of Jewish tribunals in Alexandria is highly questionable. Philo's book De Specialibus Legibus reflects his own interpretation of the Biblical laws rather than the actual jurisprudence of Jewish courts.
Most of these issues are debated in recent research. The article also deals with several other aspecs of Law, especially family law. The main part of his conclusion runs thus: " From the viewpoint of legal history, there is no contradiction between the desire of the Egyptian Jews 'to follow old national and religious traditions' and their ambition 'to participate vigorously in all aspects of Hellenistic life'. The influence of Greek models in social life as well as in everyday legal practice is indisputable. But it did not inevitably lead to apostasy. Renegades like Dositheos son of Drymilos or Tiberius Julius Alexander were rather exceptional. Adherence to Greek culture was compatible with the maintenance of Jewish identity. To paraphrase the author of the Third Book of Maccabees, the great majority of Jews in Egypt 'remained faithful to the religion of their fathers'. Whatever the degree of the Jews' acculturation, including the use of Hellenistic law, there were never any signs of Judaeo‑pagan syncretism."

Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense 2004 — The Septuagint and Messianism

Strongly related to the ongoing project presented in the former posting below, this summer there will be arranged an interesting conference in Leuven, Belgium, July 27-29, on The septuagint and Messianism. The picture and following is snipped from the webpage mentioned above:Speakers:‘The Septuagint and Messianism’ forms the theme of the fifty-third Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense that will be held under the Presidency of Professor Michael Knibb (King’s College London) in Leuven from 27 to 29 July 2004. In addition to the Presidential address, main papers will be given by Professors A. Aejmelaeus (Göttingen/Helsinki), P. Bogaert (Leuven), J. J. Collins (Yale), H.-J. Fabry (Bonn),W. Horbury (Cambridge), J. Lust (Leuven), O. Munnich (Paris-Sorbonne), A. Pietersma (Toronto), and A. Schenker (Fribourg). During the Colloquium four seminars will also be held, and these will be led by E. Bons (Strasbourg), M. Menken (Utrecht), M. Roesel (Rostock), and R. Sollamo (Helsinki).
Theme
A number of scholars, including the late Professor J. Coppens (one of the co-founders of the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense), have claimed that, in comparison with the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint provides evidence of the gradual emergence of messianism and prepared the way for the messianic interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. This claim has recently again found expression in a number of publications, but has by no means won universal acceptance amongst scholars, and it has seemed therefore an appropriate moment to examine the whole question of whether the Septuagint does provide evidence for the gradual emergence of messianism.The Colloquium will end immediately after lunch on 29 July, and the IOSCS meeting begins on the following day in Leiden.