French Philo Presentation

As I do like to believe that I can read and speak French, I am always looking around (particularly on the Internet) for French sources on Philo. I found one the other night that the whole world might be familiar with already, but since it was new to me, I would like point out the publication of Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Professor at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, (well known for her Hebrew and Hellenistic studies) a new introduction to Philo:

Philon d'Alexandrie. Un penseur en diaspora (Philo of Alexandria. A thinker of the Diaspora). Fayard, 2003. I have just ordered it and may come back to it later. There is a description at parutions.com by Yann le Bohec, who particularly points to the actuality of Philo. He says:

Que ce livre soit agréable à lire ne fait qu’ajouter à l’immense intérêt de son contenu. Il rappelle que les influences réciproques et les synthèses de doctrines n’ont pas été étrangères à l’Antiquité, loin de là, et il montre comment ont pu se rencontrer le judaïsme, l’hellénisme et la romanité ou romanisation. En 2003/2004, le problème des contacts de cultures reste d’actualité.

A translation could be:
The fact that this book is easy to read, only adds to the fact that its subject is of enormous interest. It brings to our minds that mutual influence and synthesis of thoughts were not uncommon in Antiquity, by far so. It also demonstrates how Judaism, Hellenism and the Roman or Romanised world could meet. In 2003/2204 the problem related to how cultures meet is still an actual problem.

Review of Fuglseth, Johannine Sectarianism

The SBL Bookreview service has now issued a review of my co-blogger's dissertation:Fuglseth, Kare Sigvald,
Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical, and Comparative Analysis of the Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo, and Qumran (Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 119; Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. xiv + 448.The review is written by Mary Coloe, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia.

The reviewer considers the work of Fuglseth as "particularly helpful in that it offers sound definitions of terms and criteria for evaluating the category most appropriate for the Fourth Gospel. The study of other firstcentury Jewish communities of Philo and Qumran provides useful comparative material to situate John within a spectrum of social organizations with respect to Judaism, to mainstream Christianity, and to the Greco-Roman milieu." She is not quite convinced by his exegesis of the temple action by Jesus, but all in all the vook is considered "a very helpful contribution to Johannine studies and the complex relationship between this community and post-70 Judaism. The application of sociological models offers precision and clarity to his analysis, and he paves a way out of supersessionist interpretations of John." You can read the whole review here.

Congratulations to my co-blogger!

Philadelphia Seminar

A direct link is now given for the session on Philo at the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins', entitled “Ensouled Laws (Abraham and Moses): Sage as Text and Text as Sage in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria”. Click here to get to the webpage.

Kåre, Palm, Philo, and biblioblogs....

I have been eagerly waiting for a picture of Kare, sliding down the mountains at Fauske at Easter (see his post below), but he probably did not have a photographer available... Well, to be honest, this is just another way of stating that I am envious; he is having a Palm, I don't......I have wanted one for a long time, but other things have had to get a priority. Wish I had a rich uncle....

But it is also an opportunity to partly explain the silence of this blog in the last weeks; not only is the Norwegian Easter exceptionally long (over a week), but I have been sick for almost two weeks, and have not yet recovered..... And before that I was almost exhausted by all the packing and unpacking related to our moving. I'm getting old (hysj...)

These few comments above are also triggered by some postings by Jim West and Mark Goodacre on the dis-integration of biblioblogs. The observations of Jim are not surprising; the growth of blogs held by a wide range of people, from students to older scholars, focusing on topics wide and small, makes the blogdom a wide field to follow, not to say to interact with.

My dreams are still about some major biblioblogs, sponsored by major organizations, and authored and maintained by established schoolars, focusing on some quite specific biblical fields. Thus these could be peaks in the field of biblical scholarship on the Net. When everyone becomes a biblioblogger just because he or she focus on some topics relevant to the Bible, what has then become of biblical scholarship?

I have a uneasy feeling that the amount of biblioblogs, and the lack of some major ones, will in some time lead to the lack of interest in the phenomenon as such. And finally the death of biblioblogs to spend time on. Who wants to read through a lot of blogs that are so comprehensive in scope that you can not understand from its name what the purpose or focus is, and not knowing the scholarly status of the writer? For my own part, I know I do not have the time for such readings, even though I use Bloglines..

But for the time being, I'll still try to stick to my Philo.

Another Review

A new review of David T. Runia's commentary on De Opificio On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses: Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series, 1. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005 pp. xviii + 443. Paperback) has been published at the SBL's Review of Biblical Literature. It is written by Claudio Zamagni, and you can access it here as a .pdf file.

Philo now available on PalmBible+

Another happy day in the history of the the Norwegian Philo Concordance Project! As earlier announced, Jim Darlack, has been working on a project making the Philo text available on handheld computers. Today, Jim has published the good news that the Greek text (text only) of Philo may be downloaded for free and used on PalmBible+ . Jim is Reference Librarian at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Thanks, Jim.

Perhaps it is now time to buy a handheld?

As most Norwegians I spend next week (Easter) skiing in the mountains. I am going to stay in my mountain "mansion" in the Salten Alps at Fauske. I can imagine myself sliding down the hill with a handheld in my hands, reading Philo:

Ensouled Laws (Abraham and Moses)

For those able to attend, and even other Philonists, this may be of interest (thanks to A. Halbakken for the info): The meeting of April 27 of PSCO 43 will be held at the end of April:

27 April -- Professor Hindy Najman (University of Toronto):
"Ensouled Laws (Abraham and Moses): Sage as Text and Text as Sage in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria."

Here are some preliminary details and suggested readings.

Thursday, 27 April 2006, the Religious Studies and Jewish Studies programs at Penn join with PSCO to welcome Hindy Najman (University of Toronto -- http://www.nd.edu/~philojud/03a.htm).

There will be a cafeteria style kosher dinner in the Logan 2nd Floor Lounge at 5:30 pm sponsored by the Religious Studies and Jewish Studies programs.

Prior to that, Dr. Najman will be available at an informal "open forum" question and answer period from 3:30 - 5:00 pm, centering on her book Seconding Sinai and her current research interests, in the same location, coordinated by Bob Kraft. Come and make a full afternoon and evening of her visit.

From 7-9 pm, Hindy Najman will speak on the subject

"Ensouled Laws (Abraham and Moses): Sage as Text and Text as Sage in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria"

Abstract:Philo of Alexandria calls Moses and Abraham ensouled laws. These biblical figures achieve such an elevated status because they intuit Natural Law on their own. What does it mean, for Philo, to be "like Moses" or "like Abraham" and is this possible or even desirable? And how does this all relate to Philo's claim that the text of Mosaic Law is a living thing that can guide its adherents towards becoming "soul alone"?
This presentation explores the conception of sages and texts as exemplars in the first century works of Philo. It seeks to deepen Peter Brown's analysis of late ancient holy men in two ways

(1) First, it complicates Brown's distinction between "'the divine man', of late classical times . . . [who] continued to draw his powers from a bottomless sense of occult wisdom preserved for him in and by society . . . [and] the holy man [who] drew his powers from outside the human race: by going to live in the desert, in close identification with an animal kingdom that stood, in the imagination of contemporaries, for the opposite pole of all human society" ("The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," 131-2). In Philo's view, exemplary figures (or, in Brown's terms, "divine men") such as Abraham and Moses drew their powers directly from nature and God, not from socially transmitted wisdom, and life in the desert (as with Brown's "holy men") was an important way to effect the necessary separation from society.
(2) Second, this presentation examines how those who acknowledge the exemplar's authority understood or experienced the situation. Whereas for Brown the focus is on the holy man's accrual of power (paradoxically through "dissociation" from humanity or in "splendid isolation") -- and similarly for David Frankfurter in "Dynamics of Ritual Expertise in Antiquity and Beyond: Towards a New Taxonomy of 'Magicians'" -- for Philo the power realized by the exemplars exists only as others attribute to them a pursuit of something other than power.

Primary texts from Philo of Alexandria:
Life of Moses 2.1-16 and 288-292;
The Contemplative Life 77-78 and 83-90;
On Abraham 2-6 and 275-276.

For background reading,
see especially H. Najman, ch. 3 "Copying Nature, Copying Moses" in Seconding Sinai: The Development of Masaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77; Brill 2003), 70-107;
also "A Written Copy of the Law of Nature: An Unthinkable Paradox?" in The Studia Philonica Annual 15: Law Stamped with the Seal of Nature: Law and Naturein Hellenistic Philosophy and Philo of Alexandria(Brown Judaic Studies 337; Brown University, 2003) 54-63.

For additional reading:

Peter Brown, "The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity," pp. 3-14 in Saints and Virtues, ed. John Stratton Hawley (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society 2; Univ. of California Press, 1987).

Martin S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE (Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 7, "Torah in the Mouth in Galilean Discipleship Communities," 126-152, and ch. 8, "Epilogue," 153-156 (see also the endnotes on 201-209 that correspond to those chapters); Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? (Harvard University Press, 2002) 220-233 (see also the endnotes on 313-314).

According to its selfpresentation, PSCO is a colloquium on the origins and development of early Christianity. Its active membership includes teachers and research scholars in the study of early Judaism and early Christianity from a variety of institutions of higher learning in Philadelphia (USA) and the surrounding area.

Jewish appropriationism...?

Due to a flight cancellation (again... ) I had to spend 3 hours at the Oslo airport last night. Hence I went to the bookstore (what else can you do at an airport...) to have a look at the books. I found one I hadn't seen before by
David Biale, Cultures of the Jews. Vol. One: Mediterranean Origins (Schocken Books, New York). It contains, inter alia, an article by Erich S Gruen on Hellenistic Judaism (77-132), and one by Eric M. Meyers on Jewish Culture in Greco-Roman Palestine (pp. 135-179).

I read the article by Gruen, and especially noted the final words of that articlep. 124: “Jews thoroughly embraced the Diaspora communities in which they could lead full and rewarding lives - without compromising their allegiance to the symbol of their faith in Jerusalem. They successfully negotiated their own place within the world of Greco-Roman Society: they were appropriationists rather than assimilationists. And they shunned the melting pot.” Would not this also be a fitting description of Philo's attitudes to the Greco-Roman culture?