Neues Testament und antike Kultur

The German publisher, Neukirchener verlag, has a great series under production, called Neues Testament und Antike Kultur. It is planned to comprise four volumes, including an Index volume.
The first volume was released last year in its second edition, the others are suposed to follow in 2005.

This series should be of interest for students of Philo and the Jewish Diaspora, even if they do not have an additional interest in the New Testament writings; the first volume also has a chapter on Philo.
Kurt Erlemann / Karl Leo Noethlichs / Klaus Scherberich / Jürgen Zangenberg (Hg.)
Neues Testament und Antike Kultur
Band 1: Prolegomena - Quellen - Geschichte
Paperback - 276 Seiten
Reihe: Neues Testament und Antike Kultur. 2. Auflage 2004
ISBN: 3-7887-2036-0. Preis: 29,90 €[D](30,80 €[A] - 53,00 CHF)The publishers own presentation runs like this:"Neues Testament und Antike Kultur" (NTAK) erschließt die ganze Vielfalt der antiken Welt, in der das Neue Testament entstand. Über 80 international renommierte Autoren aus den Bereichen Theologie, Alte Geschichte, Altphilologie, Judaistik, Religionswissenschaft, Archäologie, Rechtsgeschichte, Philosophie und Medizingeschichte erläutern historische Zusammenhänge, das menschliche Leben in Familie, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft sowie Kragen von Weltanschauung und Kult. Weiterführende Literatur zu jedem Artikel sowie ein Register- und Tafelband machen das Werk zu einem unerlässlichen Begleiter für alle, die an den vielfältigen Wechselbeziehungen von Neuem Testament und Antiker Kultur interessiert sind.
Der erste der vier geplanten Bände begründet zunächst die methodische Zugangsweise des Werkes, erläutert die Begriffe "Kultur", "Religion" und "Gesellschaft" und fragt nach der Bedeutung von Werten und Ritualen. Eine Hinführung in die wichtigsten, nicht nur textlichen Quellen und deren sachgemäße Auswertung schließt sich an. Die Darstellung des historischen Umfelds der für das Neue Testament relevanten Regionen des Imperium Romanum (Palästina und Syrien, Kleinasien, Ägypten und die jüdische Diaspora) einschließlich der Verwaltung, des Finanzwesens und des Militärs sowie eine ausführliche Darstellung des römischen und jüdischen Rechts legen den Grund für die weiteren Bände."
I give an overview of the contents of the first volume most related to a study of the Diaspora (pp 60-ca 140; the volume comprises 276 pages): 1.3 Die Quellen und ihr Einfluss auf das NT 60
1.3.1 Grundsätzliches: Produktion, Rezeption und Interpretation antiker Texte 60
1.3.1.1 Intertextualität (Stefan Alkier) 60
1.3.1.2 Anonymität, Pseudonymität und Pseudepigraphie (Ruben Zimmermann) 65
1.3.1.3 Allegorese, Typologie, Midrasch (Gerhard Seilin) 68
1.3.2 Genuin jüdische Literatur 71
1.3.2.1 Die Septuaginta (LXX) als Übersetzungscorpus (Folker Siegert) 71
1.3.2.2 Weisheitsliteratur (Hermann von Lips) 76
1.3.2.3 Apokalyptik (Monica Herghelegiu) 80
1.3.2.4 Aktualisierende Auslegungen der biblischen Schriften Israels (Eckart Reinmuth) 84
1.3.2.5 Philo von Alexandria (Gerhard Seilin) 86
1.3.2.6 Flavius Josephus (Manuel Vogel) 90
1.3.2.7 Aristeasbrief, Pseudo-Phokylides, Joseph und Aseneth, 4. Makkabäerbuch (Dieter Sänger) 94
1.3.3 Nichtjüdische Literatur 99
1.3.3.1 Epos (Alfred Breitenbach) 99
1.3.3.2 Drama (Alfred Breitenbach) 102
1.3.3.3 Rhetorik (Ralph Brucker) 106
1.3.3.4 Geschichtsschreibung (Klaus Scherberich/Axel von Dobbeler) 108
1.3.3.5 Biographische Literatur (Dirk Frickenschmidt) 111
1.3.3.6 Briefliteratur (Ralph Brucker) 116
1.3.4 Nichtliterarische Quellen 119
1.3.4.1 Griechische Papyri und Ostraka (Joachim Hengstl) 119
1.3.4.2 Inschriften/Epigraphik (Thomas Corsten) 125
1.3.4.3 Münzen (Ruprecht Ziegler) 130
1.3.4.4 Materielle Kultur (Dieter Vieweger) 136
The next volumes are supposed to be published in 2005; The next one focusing on 'Familie - Gesellschaft - Wirtschaft,' the third one on 'Weltauffassung - Kult - Ethos,' and the fourth and final one will be 'Gesamtregister, Tafeln.'

Strangers in the Light

No, there is no misprint in the heading of this post; it is not about Strangers in the Night, but about the title of my forthcoming book.

I just got the proofpages for my manuscript: Strangers in the Light: Philonic perspectives on Christian identity in 1 Peter. The book is scheduled to be published in August, by Brill . I am excited about the book, and look forward to its publication. It contain five studies of mine on 1 Peter; some of them have been published in journals in the last decade, some not. I use the works of Philo a lot in these studies, performing what I call a Philonic reading of 1 Peter. I'll be back later with more info, of course, :-) , but now I have to proofread the mss and prepare the indexes.

Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity

Sara Raup Johnson,
Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity
Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context
Hellenistic Culture and Society, XLIII
A Joan Palevsky Book in Classical Literature
271 pp, $49.95, £32.50

According to the publishers announcement, "In this thoughtful and penetrating study, Sara Raup Johnson investigates the creation of historical fictions in a wide range of Hellenistic Jewish texts. Surveying so-called Jewish novels, including the Letter of Aristeas, 2 Maccabees, Esther, Daniel, Judith, Tobit, Josephus's account of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem and of the Tobiads, Artapanus, and Joseph and Aseneth, she demonstrates that the use of historical fiction in these texts does not constitute a uniform genre. Instead it cuts across all boundaries of language, provenance, genre, and even purpose. Johnson argues that each author uses historical fiction to construct a particular model of Hellenistic Jewish identity through the reinvention of the past. The models of identity differ, but all seek to explore relations between Jews and the wider non-Jewish world.

The author goes on to present a focal in-depth analysis of one text, Third Maccabees. Maintaining that this is a late Hellenistic, not a Roman, work Johnson traces important themes in Third Maccabees within a broader literary context. She evaluates the evidence for the authorship, audience, and purpose of the work and analyzes the historicity of the persecution described in the narrative. Illustrating how the author reinvents history in order to construct his own model for life in the diaspora, Johnson weighs the attitudes and stances, from defiance to assimilation, of this crucial period."

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Historical and Historiographical Contexts
1. Political Subordination and Indirect Historiography
2. Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians: The Cultural Politics of Hellenism
Part II. Text and Narrative
3. Genos Politeion: Book 6, Rome, and Hellenism
4. Akme Politeion: Roman and Achaen Virtues
5. Metabole Politeion: Roman and Achaen Degeneration in the Fragmentary Books
Part III. Ideological and Political Contexts
6. Collective Representations and Ideological Contexts
7. Practical Contexts and Political Realities
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

see also the others books in this series, at http://www.ucpress.edu/books/HCS.ser.html

Grace and Agency in Philo and Paul

On the homepage of Simon Gathercole, now at The University of Aberdeen, there is a link to a conference called Divine and Human Agency in Paul and his Cultural Environment , August 18-21 (it must have been in 2004, though it doesn't say so). Following the link you will find further links to the lectures presented at this conference.

Among these there is also one on Philo by John M.G. Barclay, ‘By the Grace of God I am what I am’: Grace and Agency in Philo and Paul. "The Jewish philosopher Philo and the Jewish apostle Paul were contemporaries whose paths never crossed and whose minds moved within startlingly different frameworks. Both, however, were profoundly engaged in the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures, both reflected deeply on God, and both placed human action within the context of divine grace. A comparison which gives attention to the differences as well as the similarities between these two figures seems well justified, and has good precedent in recent scholarship.[1] Of course, comparative projects have well-known procedural pitfalls: in this case we have a huge volume of Philo’s philosophical exegesis, in three modes (allegory; exposition; questions and answers), to place alongside just seven highly contextualised letters from Paul; and neither author is famed for his systematic consistency. On our topic there are also strong undercurrents which can skew the balance of the comparison. Both Philo and Paul consider it the height of impiety to fail to acknowledge the prior gracious action of God, and they have bequeathed to us the presumption that a higher or truer expression of religion is one which places God more clearly and more radically at the root of the process of causation.[2] In its specific Christian expression – the priority of grace over works – this has spawned polemical assaults on Judaism, as well as internal polemics against ‘Pelagian’ or ‘Arminian’ tendencies. The issues at stake are huge: the place of Paul, or Christianity in general, in (or against) the history of religion. To allow this undertow to determine our comparison might cause us to exaggerate differences between Paul and Philo; to compensate overmuch in the opposite direction might lead us to homogenise two parallel but non-identical patterns of thought." You should read the rest of the article here.

Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis

A new review, relevant for students of the Jewish Diaspora, has appeared on the Bryn Mawr Classsical Review, on the following book:
David Noy, Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis. Vol. III: Syria and Cyprus. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 102.
Tu+bingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2004. Pp. xvi, 284. ISBN 3-16-148188-7. EUR 89.00.The review is written by Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra, Scholion Center, Hebrew University, Jerusalem: "This outstanding collection of the Jewish Inscriptions of Late Antiquity in Phoenicia, Syria, Osrhoene, Dura-Europos and Cyprus by David Noy and Hanswulf Bloedhorn concludes the updating of Frey's Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum (CIJ), indispensable for anyone working in the field of early Judaism, Christianity or religious studies in the
Late Antique Middle East."You can read the rest of the review here.

More books to read...

Yesterday,- at last, I got my copy of the latest Studia Philonica Annual Vol XVI 2004.

It has taken a long time to get at my desk; it was posted in the US Jan 5., and even had been investigated by Norwegian custom office. They don't use to do that with books.....
But now I have more interesting stuff to read; I think I will start with David R Runia's Etymology as an Allegorical Technique in Philo of Alexandria (pp. 101-121).

By the way,there is a very kind note about this blog on p. 322; thanks to the editor(s). :-)

At the same time, don't think I am out of work; today we are having a meeting, hiring a research fellow for my department. As a small college, we are not used to having many research fellows; but now we have about a total of 15. That's not that bad, compared to the size of our institution.
Furthermore, on Wednesday and the day thereafter, we are having a great 'seminar': 209 persons going away to a nice hotel, spending two days discusssing how we can rearrange the organizational structure of our college to better fit the needs of our time (and the expectations of our government....). It's a discussion imposed upon us and all other higher institutions of education by the state government (yes, we are run by the state...)

Hence, back to work....
Have a nice day, you too.

La Rivelazione in Filone

I have just received (thanks to Francesca Calabi) the volume containing the papers from an Italian conference, held in Bologna 29-30 sept. 2003. The volume is: La Rivelazione in Filone di Alessandria: Natura, legge, Storia.
Atti del VII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Recerca su Origine e la Tradizione Alessandrina.
A cura di Angela Maria Mazzanti & Francesca Calabi.
(Biblioteca Adamantius 2), Pazzini, Villa verucchio, 2005)This is a publication from a group called The Italian Research Group on Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition ( G.I.R.O.T.A.). This is a non- profit organization promoting the study of Origen within the Alexandrian, Hellenistic and Judeo- Christian Tradition. In addition, it is the objective of GIROTA to provide a point of reference for the Italian and foreign scholars interested to the same topic. The Group has been operating in Italy since 1994 and organizes meetings, congresses and seminars and publishes the journal “Adamantius”. The Group now comprises fifty-five members who are associated with universities and other Italian academic institutions.

The present volume contains 17 papers/articles, most of them directly concerned directly with Philo. All of them, except two, are written in Italian, the two other are in French. Many will appreciate the English summary of each article at pp. 315-326. The book is well indexed.
Contents:
Lucio Troiani, Natura e storia politica in Filone d'Alessandria (pp.1-8)
Clara Kraus Reggiani, La Presenza di Dio nella storia secundo Filone di Alessandria (pp. 9-13)
Roberto Radice, Considerazione sulle origini greche dell'allegoria filoniana (pp. 15-32)
Giuelia Sfameni Gasparro, Mose e Balaam, Propheteia e Mantike. Modalita e segni della rivelazione ned De Vita Mosis (pp. 33-73)
Angela Maria Mazzanti, Creazione dell'uomo e rivelazione in Filone de Alessandria (pp. 75-103)
Francesca Alesse, Il luogo del 'nous'; alcuni aspetti dell'antropologia di Filone alessandrino (pp. 105-122)
Pierluigi Pavone, To\ maqhto/n, materia preesistente o intero vranto? (pp.123-137)
Fransesca Calabi, Ordine delle città e ordine del Mondo nel De Decalogo di Filone alessandrino (pp. 139-158)
Christina Termini, Dal sinai alla creazione: il rapporto tra legge naturale e legge rivelata in Filone di Alessandria (pp. 159-191)
Paola Graffigna, Modelli di vita felice. Felicità e stabilità in Filone d'Alessandria (pp. 193-215)
Antonio Cacciari, Presenze filoniane nelle Omelie su Numeri di origene (pp. 217-230)
Lorenzo Perrone, )/Ixnoj e)nqousiasmou
: Origene, Platone e le Scritture ispirata (pp. 231-248)
Gabriella Uluhogian, Un testo medievale armeno su Filone (pp. 249-252)
Sara Mancini Lombardi, La versione armena del legum Allegoriae: oservazione su alcune particolarità lessicali (pp. 253-265)
Paola Pontani, Incontro di lingue e culture: la vicende di alcuni lessemi greci nelle traducione armene da Filone (pp. 267-287)
Gilles Dorival, Polusémie et contrarite de sens chez Philon d'Alexandria: le cas de kairos et de logos (pp. 289-293)
Carlos Levy, "Mais que faisait donc Philon en Égypte? A propos de l'identité diasporique de Philon (p. 295-312)

Life after Death

The Review of Biblical Literature has announced their weekly publication of new book reviews. Of special interest to philonists and scholars working on Judaism should be the great new book of Alan Segal: Segal, Alan F. Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion (New York: Doubleday, 2004). Pp. xii + 866. Hardcover. $37.50. ISBN 0385422997.There are in fact two reviews out now:
see
Review by Jon D. Levenson here

Review by Niels Peter Lemche here.

Did Philo write the De Aeternitate Mundi?

From time to time the authorship question of Aet. comes up in discussions and articles related to Philo's writings. There seems to be a kind of consensus among Philo scholars who have studied the writing that although ambivalent, the treatise is most probably Philonic. Particularly in the introduction (par. 1-20) and in between the arguments presented does the Philonic voice express itself. The arguments may be compiled by Philo and cannot themselves be taken as viewpoints of Philo since they often contradict our knowledge of him from other writings, particularly of course De opificio Mundi, where Philo follows Plato and his Timaeus (cf. Runia 1986). Most of the treatise would then not be Philonic in any case, only the arrangement and the introduction and even there several expression must be taken as written in quotation marks, for instance the very suspicious expression horatos theos "visible God" (Aet. 10 and 20).

In 1987 the Norwegian scolar Roald Skarsten wrote a dissertation in Norwegian contradicting the consensus at the time. He concludes that Aet. could not have beeen written by Philo. The dissertation was never translated to other languages and has for that reason remained unknown outside Scandinavia.

I have now written a summary of the results of the dissertation in English, a summary that has also been read and approved by Prof. Skarsten.

You can find the summary on our Norwegian Philo Concordance Project Site.

A Brief Guide to Philo

On the Westminster / John Knox Press webside there is an announcement that they will publish a book on Philo:Kenneth Schenck, A brief Guide to Philo. (Westminster/John Knox Press), Paperback Feb 2005 ISBN 066422735X Price: $24.95 But no further info is given; I know nothing more about the author, nor the forthcoming book.

The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity

The co-blogger has attended a conference January, 27-31, 2005,
organised by the Danish circle of scholars working on "Jøder, Kristne og Hedninger i Antikken – Kritik og Apologetik" (Jews, Christians and Pagans in Antiquity, Criticism and Apologetics) at the University of Aarhus. The theme of the conference was: The Reception of Antique Religion and Culture in Judaism and Christianity. See this URL to find a complete program for the conference.

Of particular interest for Philo scholars was the lecture by Maren Niehoff on "Philo’s Contribution to Contemporary Alexandrian Metaphysics". She argued that the Aristotelian features in Philo's De Aeternitate Mundi was a well-grounded strategy by Philo not to say that he supported the Aristotelian doctrine that the cosmos was not created, but to say that Aristotle was right in supporting the literal reading of Plato at this point. She used the development of the ancient discussion among Platonians and Peripatetics to demonstrate the probability of this theory in a quite novel way. As a responder to the lecture the co-blogger argued that another possibility is that Philo did not write Aet. Dr. Niehoff supported the view of several leading Philo scholars, such as Leisegang and Runia.

Another interesting lecture from a Philonic point of view was Claudio Zamagni "The Reception of the Antique Question and Answer Genre in Judaism and Early Christian Literature, up to 500 A.D." where ho pointed out the main differences between Philo's use of the genre and the later use.

The lectures from the conference and some of responses will be published (in English)

The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides

A new commentary on The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides is about to be published. The Walter de Gruyter Publishing House announces that a new volume in the Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature is to be published March this year:Walter T.Wilson,The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature Walter de Gruyter. 2004. 23 x 15.5 cm. Approx. 280 pages. Cloth. Ca. Euro [D] 68,- / ca. sFr 109,- / für USA, Canada, Mexico ca. US$ 74,-.ISBN 3-11-018241-6. The volume should be interesting for those working on Jewish /Hellenistic/Diaspora literatur from the time of Philo. The note on their website describes the volume thus: Der Kommentar über das jüdisch-hellenistische weisheitliche Lehrgedicht des Pseudo-Phokylides aus dem 1. Jahrhundert vor oder nach Christus behandelt in einer ausführlichen Einleitung die Frage nach den Quellen, nach Aufbau und Gliederung, Hauptthemen und Zweck der Schrift und bietet in einer eingehenden Kommentierung eine neue Übersetzung mit fortlaufendem Kommentar. Der griechische Text wird als Anhang beigegeben. Der interkulturelle Charakter dieser Weisheitslehren wird durch ausführliche Heranziehung von biblischen, hellenistisch-jüdischen und griechisch-römischen Vergleichstexten herausgearbeitet.