Australian Biblical Review online..

Brian Incigneri informs me by mail that a new web site has recently been established for Australian Biblical Review — a peer-reviewed journal of biblical studies that has been serving biblical scholarship since 1951. The journal is published by The Fellowship for Biblical Studies Incorporated, formed in 1950, which is an association of biblical scholars based in Melbourne, Australia.
The site contains complete indexes of all articles and authors from the journal’s first issue in 1951 until the latest issue in 2003. It also contains the full text of all book reviews in the journal during the last two years. For future issues, as well as the text of book reviews, it is hoped that there will be abstracts of articles. The journal is published annually in November.
The webpage contains links to:
Table of Contents of Latest Issue
Index of Issues
Index of Authors
Index of Book Reviews.(2002-2003)

So far no articles are available online. The focus of the Journal is, as the title indicates, on Biblical studies. But several deals with aspects of the Graeco-Roman world. Skimming the index, I found only the following article directly relevant for studies of Philo and the Diaspora Judaism of his time:
Louis H. Feldman, 'Philo’s Interpretation of Jethro 37–46,' (51, 2003):37–46.

An ancient university of Alexandria?

Jim West notes on his Weblog that archaeologists have un-earthed the remains of the ancient university of Alexandria. He refers to an article in The Intelligencer; the same news is also presented in The Seattle Times. The story seems to come from The Associated Press.
I may have slept in the class, but I don't know much about the ancient University of Alexandria. The ancient Museum is 'well-known' from literary sources, but if these news are correct, they might well represent a tremendous new discovery about ancient Alexandria:"A Polish-Egyptian team has unearthed the site of the fabled University of Alexandria, home of Archimedes, Euclid and a host of other scholars from the era 2,300 years ago when the coastal Egyptian city dominated the Mediterranean.

The team has found 13 individual lecture halls, or auditoria, that could have accommodated as many as 5,000 students, according to archaeologist Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
The classrooms are on the eastern edge of a large public square in the Late Antique section of modern Alexandria and are adjacent to a previously discovered theater that is now believed to be part of the university complex, Hawass said.
The most conspicuous feature of the rooms, he said, is an elevated seat placed in the middle of the "U," most likely designed for the lecturer.

The discovery is "incredibly impressive," said Willeke Wendrich, an archaeologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We knew it existed and was an extremely famous center for learning, but we knew it only from textual accounts. ... We never knew the site."" (copied from The Seattle Times).
If anyone out there has some further information on this, please use the comments feature below, or email me.

.......update:
I had a vague memory of having read about this before, and now I see that it was on Jim Davila's PaleoJudaica May 9th. He also includes a comment from Ellen Birnbaum:Thanks for posting the item about the "University of Alexandria." How odd that the excavators would call it this--I've never heard of such a University. They must mean either the gymnasium or the Museum. I'll be interested in how they identify this newly discovered site with one that's mentioned explicitly in the ancient sources!"
Hence my question still is: Does anybody have some further information concerning this discovery? Do you have further information now, Ellen B?

Conference on Midrash

Ellen Birnbaum directs my attention to a conference to be held in Oxford, England, 12-14 July (also mentioned on Paleojudaica). It is the The British Association for Jewish Studies that has their Annual Conference at The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies . The theme of the conference is Midrash. The subject will be approached from a wide variety of perspectives: origins and definitions of Midrash and its relation to other literary genres, its purpose and method, the critical study of individual Midrashim and the use of Midrash in literature from antiquity to the modern period. Registration must be done at June 3.
In addition to the general interest of lectures presented at the conference, Tuesday morning should be especially interesting to Philonics:
Tuesday 13th July
9.30-10.00 Geza Vermes, Midrash in Qumran and the New Testament
10.00-10.30 Sarah Pearce, Philo's readings on Egypt
10.30-11.00 Rivka Kern Ulmer, Visions of historical Egypt and Homiletic Midrash

Collection of Roman Coins to Yale

The Yale University Art Gallery announces that they have aqcuired a large collection of Roman coins from a German numismatic. “This collection, formed over a lifetime by one of Europe’s most eminent numismatic scholars, will significantly enhance Yale’s holdings of ancient coins and medals, already one of the largest of any university collection in the country.” The collection was formed over a period of forty years by Peter R. Franke, formerly Professor of Ancient History and Numismatics and head of the Institute for Ancient History at the University of Saarbrücken, Germany. Franke was mentor to many of the numismatists on staff at various collections throughout Europe, and taught until recently at the Institut für Numismatik in Vienna. He is well-known as the author of a number of specialized monographs as well as introductory treatments of coinage. Although it covers the entire Mediterranean basin, the principal focus of the collection on Greek coins of the Roman period, which were produced at individual cities to meet local currency needs. “I am delighted that my collection has been acquired by Yale,” said Professor Franke, “since I know that there the coins will be employed for teaching as well as research, and my work will be continued.”

William E. Metcalf, who was appointed the first curator of coins and medals at the Yale Art Gallery in 2002 as well as adjunct professor of Classics, remarked, “Franke did not collect just to fill gaps in his holdings, every coin has a reason for being there. For the art historian, there are continuous streams of imperial portraits from various regions of the Roman Empire; for the historian there is evidence of local cults and magistrates, as well as representations of local buildings and such customs as games and religious festivals.”
Good for Yale! It is to be hoped that pictures of some of this can be made visible on the web, like the webpage Ancient Roman and Greek Coins by Warren Esty. See also his Some Educational Websites about Ancient Coins. Further info about ancient coins can be found at e.g. these pages: Ancient Greek & Roman Coins . (Im no expert on this, but there is a lot of pages made by and for collectors out there on the web!).
An interesting example of how ancient coins may illuminate our knowledge about a particular region is this page on Life in ancient Greece reflected in the coinage of Corinth.

Encyclopedia of the Orient

This posting may be somewhat 'off topic' for this Blog, but I found it so interesting when I stumbled over it today, that I would like to present it here.
This Norwegian Encyclopedia of the Orient is an impressive online encyclopedia comprising over 600 articles, and still growing. Well, it does not contain any article on Philo, but there is one on Alexandria, and on Paul; I checked both and found them informed and reliable.
The lexicon is presented thus by its author: The Encyclopaedia of the Orient is a one-stop online resource which covers all countries and cultures between Mauritania in the west and Iran in the east, Turkey in the north and Sudan in south. It is exactly what the name indicates, an encyclopaedia. And even better, you will never come to a page that suddenly tells you that you can't get any further unless you pay for a subscription. Everything is free. This time, and the next time you come back. The only change is that the next time you visit us, you will find more information. The Encyclopaedia of the Orient grows all the time.
The Encyclopaedia contains original material, what you read here is written for this publication, only. The content is updated on a weekly basis, and as long as the world does not change to quickly for our small staff, you will always find the freshest information here.
The Encyclopaedia of the Orient has articles which aim at both the high school- level and university- level student, who needs a good resource of reference material. It will therefore never be the most comprehensive on all subjects, but it will hopefully be able to help anyone to find just the right
It further turns out that the man behind the Encyclopedia; Tore Kjeilen is a Norwegian, who has some education in Religion, but who also have worked in the computer industry. Or as he presents himself: I'm 35 years old, and live in the centre of Oslo, the capital of Norway. I have an honors degree (somewhat longer study than a Master) in Science of Religion from the University of Bergen, with Arabic and History as supporting subjects. I specialized in modern Islam for my honors, where I wrote Tunis - Islam - 1994 - 1995. I have also studied architecture for 2,5 years.
Encyclopaedia of the Orient is the most visited web site of LexicOrient with more than 500,000 unique visitors every month. In fact this Encyclopedia is a part of an even more impresssive site, called LexicOrient. You may visit this mmain page here.

I find such private initiatives highly impressive, and as long as they are scholarly up to date, highly recommendable. I'll have to make the guy include an article on Philo! :-)

Danske Tidskrifter - Danish theological journals online

I don't presume that you all read Danish, but as I know some readers do, I would like to point out that several Danish theological journals are now going on-line. Forlaget ANIS announces that
Kritisk Forum for Praktisk Teologi,
Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, and
Bibliana
are available from this webpage:ANIS-Tidsskrifter

The first one deals primarily with Pastoral Theology, the third one is a popular one, written more for the general interested public.
But Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift (DTT) is the only serious well qualified Danish journal (Danmarks eneste fagteologiske tidsskrift med artikler af høj videnskabelig klasse), publishing articles of high quality.

The following articles from the most recent issues of DTT might be interesting to Philonic scholars: Henrik Tronier: Åbenbaring, himmelrejse og opstandelse hos Paulus (Revelation, heavenly journeys and resurrection in the works of Paul)(1/2000)

Per Bilde: Nye træk i Josefus-forskningen. Om nogle overvejelser over deres betydning for studiet af antik jødedom og kristendommens grundlæggelse (New issues Josephus research. Some considerations on their importance for the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity)(1/2000).

Niels Hyldahl: Troels Engberg-Pedersen: Paulus and the Stoics (Review article on T. Engberg-Pedersen's book: Paul and the Stoics)(4/2000).

Jesper Hyldahl: »Gnosticisme« eller »Gnosis«? Overvejelser over en vanskelig forskningsterminologi ('Gnosticsism' or 'Gnosis'; some reflections on a difficult terminology (2/2001)
So far only the issues of 2000 and 2001 are online, but it looks like more is to come.

EABS Annual Meeting 2004

The Annual Meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies will be held this year in Groningen July 25-28, in conjunction with the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting. The programme and abstracts are now available.
Skimming over the program, several topics are related to Judaism, but none deals explicitly with Diaspora Judaism, and no papers seem to deal directly with the works of Philo. Some of the topics are nevertheless relevant, as this one: Early Christianity between Hellenism and Judaism, focusing especially on Magic.

Review of Biblical Literature May 24th.

New Reviews in Review of Biblical Literature have been published. This time the following reviews should be of some interest to philonics and those interested in Diaspora Judaism in general: Whealey, Alice, Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late Antiquity to Modern Times (Studies in Biblical Literature, 36). New York: Lang, 2003. Reviewed by Dennis C. Stoutenburg.

King, Karen L. What is Gnosticism? Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Marvin Meyer

Back again....

Well, I'm back again after a week of absence; being busy doing some completely different things that I am used to; that is, doing some carpenter work at our leisure cabin in southern Norway. It is probably not my favorite work (resulting in a aching back..), but as I am a son of carpenter, and a brother of a carpenter, I'm doing my best too....

Getting back to my PC; the first thing I had to do was to clear out 700 junk mail from my private e-mail box. It turns out that my site provider does not have a spam filter, so I probably will have to change provider in a few days. That will probably, alas, result in some problems of acessesing my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies. But I can't live with a hundred spam-mails each day.

Another issue; I finally got to see The Passion of Christ! After having read a lot about it, I was well prepared... My personal conclusion is that I liked it, but do think the 'violence-scenes' were somewhat overloaded. The fleash-backs functioned wonderfully. I haven't seen any commenting on the waterdrop that fell from the sky (heaven?) in one of the last scenes. How should that be interpreted?

And I have changed the layout. The light house at the left corner is of course to remind you about the lighthouse at Alexandria! :)

OK, I'll be back soon with some Philo related stuff.

Blogger offline..

In the rest of this week, and to the end of the next I will be offline, with no opportunities for blogging.
Maybe Kåre will find something to blog about; if not,- see you later......:)

Writing in the Greco-Roman World

"The skills and techniques that are necessary to be able to write any number of genres are taught in every educational system. Education in the Greco-Roman world was no different, though perhaps it did so with a rigor and thoroughness that would surprise those who are familiar only with current methods of teaching writing. Writing was also central to Greco-Roman education, at least in the latter stages of the curricular sequence. Just when and how writing was taught will be the burden of the following discussion of Greco-Roman education." Read further in this brief, but interesting article by Ronald F. Hock. You can find the article on the SBL site.
For further reading on 'reading and writing in the Greaco-Roman world, I would suggest you might turn to H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (London, 1956); HarryJ. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church. A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven, 1995), and Alan Millard, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (Sheffield, 2001).

Remember Amalek!

Because of my own work with the traditions of 'zealotism' in ancient Israel and up to 1. century CE, I have notified a new book by Louis H. Feldman. I have not seen the book yet, as it is published quite recently. But I will have to look into it.Louis H. Feldman, “Remember Amalek!” Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus. Published by Hebrew Union College Press/Wayne State University Press, 2004. $34.95s cloth. 250 pages.
The Publishers own announcement runs thus: The divine commandment to exterminate all the Amalekites—men, women, children, even animals who have no free will—is what in contemporary terms has been called no less than genocide. Louis Feldman helps us to understand how three ancient Jewish commentators on the Bible—Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus—wrestled with the issues involved in this divine command, especially its provisions that an entire people must be punished for all time for the misdeeds of their ancestors.
Feldman broadens the issue by examining several biblical parallels both where God commands the destruction of whole groups of people, and where there was no specific divine commandment. Finally, he considers the issue of the justification of God's reward to Phineas for his zealotry in bypassing the law when he put to death a Jew and a non-Jew for their immorality. All of these biblical passages raise difficult questions, to which, Feldman demonstrates, there are no simple answers.

May update of RPBS

The May version of my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies are now online. The update consists mainly of some Bible translations, and several articles by Vernon K. Robbins. You can see the latest update here.

I now do think the time has come for me to seriously rethink if I have the time resources available needed to continue updating these pages. Most probably by the end of this year I will limit my update to the Philo pages;that is the Philo Resource pages, and perhaps, - this weblog. I need the summer to make my decision; untill autumn times arrive, I'll still do some updating.