Philo and Christianity

I have a chapter in my book, A Brief Guide to Philo, showing parallels between Philo and the New Testament. I continue to believe that my book is the best intro for the complete beginner, and it has been translated into Russian and Korean. With regard to early Christianity, David Runia has a much more detailed book called, Philo and Early Christian Literature.

The sections of the chapter in my book are:

• Philo the "Christian"
• Philo and Early Hellenistic Christianity
• Philo and Paul's Writings (The Corinthians, The Colossians)
• Philo and Hebrews (The Cumulative Effect of Parallels, Angels in Hebrews and Philo, The logos in Hebrews and Philo, The Tabernacle in Hebrews and Philo, Other Parallels)
• Philo and the Gospel of John 
• Philo and New Testament Hymns
• Beyond the New Testament

There is another life where I wrote a book called Philo and Early Christology. That's a world were I didn't teach as many overloads as I did my first fifteen years of teaching. :-)

Monday Philosophy: Philo and Christianity (8)

Today we reach the end of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland.

Introduction
Philo the Jew
Philo the Citizen
Philo the Interpreter of the Law and Educated Jew
Philo the Philosopher and how to study Philo
Philo and Society
Philo and Judaism

1. I want to go out of order in this final post on Seland's book. I want to start with the final chapter by David Runia, "Philo and the Patristic Tradition: A List of Direct References." Runia has written extensively on Philo and the early church, most notably in his important work, Philo in Early Christian Literature. He also contributed a chapter on the subject for Kamesar's Cambridge Companion to Philo.

So he only has seven pages of text before giving all the direct references to Philo in Christian literature up until the year 1000. That takes about 12 more pages. A very helpful resource for anyone wanting to do advanced study on Philo in relation to patristic literature.

2. In the text that Runia does provide, he first tells of the survival of Philo's works. Most of the Jewish literature in Alexandria, unfortunately, was destroyed in 115-117 when the Jews revolted against Roman rule in Egypt and lost big time. But Philo's works survived, perhaps because they were valued by Christians in the city.

So when Pantaenus started a Christian school in Alexandria, he quite possibly made sure a copy of Philo's writings were there. But Clement of Alexandria, the successor of Pantaenus in the late 100s, was the first known Christian to quote Philo. Origen, Clement's successor, then took a complete copy of Philo's writings to Caesarea, where eventually Eusebius would know them and write three chapters on them in his famed Ecclesiastical History.

This quote is telling: "Between Josephus in the first century and the Renaissance there is not a single explicit reference to Philo in a Jewish or a non-Christian Greek or Latin source" (270).

3. Runia sees the impact of Philo on the third century Christians largely in terms of his exegesis. Some early Christians found his interpretations of the Old Testament helpful. Also, those who accepted allegorical interpretation liked some of his techniques as well. However, once the church become Trinitarian, his logos approach was less helpful Christologically.

4. So we come to the chapter perhaps of most interest to me. Per Jarle Bekken's, "Philo's Relevance for the Study of the New Testament." There are, I think, some generative ideas tucked in this chapter. It is, by the way, the longest chapter in the book, 42 pages. It had a Borgen feel to it--a very detailed catalog of individual comparisons between rather formal features. So I was not surprised to find that Bekken studied with Borgen.

I would say that the chapter succeeds in two very significant respects. First, if the goal is to give MA or PhD students possible research topics, there are many possibilities to investigate here. There is a long series of possible parallels between Philo and the New Testament in the chapter, especially in John, Galatians, and Romans. Further, Bekken gives parallels that you do not find in my book or the chapter by Siegert in Kamesar's book. That is a strength for the field of Philo introductions.

As an introduction, however, I think you'll do much better to buy my book when it comes to this topic. Bekken's engagement with Hebrews is a case in point. If you were to ask most people where the most likely intersection of Philo and the New Testament is, as far as ideas, I think Hebrews has to be at or near the top of the list. Yet there is nothing of the sort in this chapter. The classic treatment by Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews, isn't even mentioned.

Hebrews is briefly mentioned, however. How? In relation to a possible common exegetical tradition between Hebrews on the idea of God swearing.

So there is a host of possible incidental parallels in the chapter. Philo believed that some proselytes to Judaism were more truly Jews than some who were born Jews. Paul believed that some Gentiles were more truly circumcised than some who were born Jews. Maybe there's common tradition here. Most of the chapter has that general flavor. Some of the parallels seem like possible areas for future research. Some seem rather superficial to me.

You will find nothing on the potential impact of Philo's categories on New Testament Christology. Indeed, even though Bekken focuses heavily on John, there is no discussion of the Logos. The Colossian hymn is not mentioned.

This is, again, a difference in personality. I like to see the big picture. I am interested in ideas. These sorts of almost random, detailed lists of possible but relatively superficial and formal parallels tend to annoy me. I mean no disrespect to Bekken. He obviously is very knowledgeable of Philo and the rabbinic literature--more than I am. And you could criticize my introduction for not dealing with these sorts of potential parallels.

5. In the end, however, I have to consider the book a great success as an introduction to Philo. If you are an undergrad religion major of some kind and are looking to do graduate studies that will intersect with Philo, this is your book. I think this will become the standard text in graduate seminars to come.

It had the desired effect on me. It got me thinking of publishing something on Philo again. Congratulations to Seland and his team for a great introduction to Philo!

7. Philo and Judaism

Only one chapter today of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland. Three more chapters by the end of the week to go.

Introduction
Philo the Jew
Philo the Citizen
Philo the Interpreter of the Law and Educated Jew
Philo the Philosopher and how to study Philo
Philo and Society

1. Our next chapter moves on to the insights Philo might shed on Judaism, both locally and in the wider Jewish world of his day. None other than Ellen Birnbaum is our next author, "Philo's Relevance for the Study of Jews and Judaism in Antiquity."

She begins with all the cautionary tales. Is Philo typical of the Judaism of his day? Can we even speak of a common Judaism? With what other sources should Philo be compared?

She then proceeds to look at Philo in terms of practices, beliefs and ideas, community institutions, biblical interpretation, Jewish identity, interaction with non-Jews, and historical events pertaining to Jews.

2. For example, with regard to Passover, it is interesting that Philo does not focus on the "passing over" of the Israelites while the Egyptian firstborn die. For Philo, celebration of the Passover has to do with crossing the Red Sea. It's a crossing feast. In this case, she does not consider the evidence great enough to generalize that all Alexandrians had this view. She only muses whether the Therapeutae, a group in Egypt Philo mentions, might have.

She asks the same question of whether Alexandrians might have observed a kind of proto-Seder there. Did they offer their own sacrifices in Alexandria? Of course she mentions in this chapter the fact that Philo never mentions the temple at Leontopolis.

3. Next she treats how Philo might inform our understanding of Jewish beliefs and ideas at the time. For example, Philo's view of divine powers has enough similarity to later rabbinic views that we must surely think there is some common tradition here. For him, two names of God are "Lord" and "God," which represent his royal and creative powers respectively. The rabbis also correlated God's names with his merciful and punitive sides (but they flipped the names).

Covenant is not a major category for Philo. In this he is not alone among Jews of the time, which warns the E. P. Sanders' and N. T. Wright's of the world not to overgeneralize.

4. With regard to the temple, Philo shows that even a Diaspora Jew could be invested in its significance. He provides significant evidence for the ancient synagogue and house of prayer. We learn a bit about the gerousia at Alexandria, its Jewish ruling council.

Throughout the chapter, Ellen points out possibilities for further research, indeed one of the great strengths of this book.

5. Philo not only considered the Pentateuch inspired, but its Greek translation as well, like the Letter of Aristeas. She mentions some evidence that Philo at one point refers to the traditional Jewish division of Scripture into Torah, Prophets, and Writings (Contempl. 25). I have missed so far in the book Philo's reference to Jeremiah as also initiated in the mysteries (Cher. 48-49). I think the question of Philo's "canon" might have born more discussion.

 Philo's exegetical method has been deeply explored by scholars. It bears both similarities and differences with other interpreters. These aspects of Philo have of course been treated extensively already in the book in the chapters by Borgen (on the Jewish side) and Sterling (on the Hellenistic side).

6. Next we have a section on what insights Philo might bring to Jewish identity at the time. His mention of the Essenes and Therapeutae are here, as well as insights he might offer to our understanding of how one became a proselyte to Judaism. Ellen has some fun comments on "once-a-year" Jews in this section, Jews Philo bemoans as only observing their Judaism on the Day of Atonement. This sentence is worth quoting:

"Some have observed that Alexandria, with its remarkably varied range of Jews, calls to mind the similarly diverse Jewish population of a modern American city like New York, albeit twenty centuries later" (218).

7. Philo's views toward non-Jews is quite negative, especially in Alexandria. He despises Egyptians and most Alexandrians, although positive toward the Ptolemies of older days. Another area ripe for further research. Ellen mentions that he may have been educated in the gymnasium, harkening  back to the chapter by Koskenniemi.

The chapter ends with a hat tip to Philo's writings about historical events involving the Jews, the pogrom and attempt of Caligula to put a statue in the temple being the main suspects. She mentions that Philo does not mention the laographia or poll tax, one possible reason for tensions between Jews and the city at the time.

So there you have it, a taste of the kinds of issues involved in asking how Philo's writings might illuminate the Judaism of his day, common or otherwise.

6. Philo and Society

Only one chapter today of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland. Three more chapters by the end of the week to go.

Introduction
Philo the Jew
Philo the Citizen
Philo the Interpreter of the Law and Educated Jew
Philo the Philosopher and how to study Philo

1. This was another excellent surprise by Adele Reinhartz. The actual name of the chapter is, "Philo's Exposition of the Law and Social History." To me this chapter seemed an area of emerging Philo studies and clearly a general field that would be of great interest for upcoming researchers.

Reinhartz, a Canadian scholar, is thus developing a method for a new area of Philonic research. She is interested in using Philo to explore the "social history" of Judaism in Alexandria at the time of Christ. Social history is "the study of 'people's relationships with each other in families, kinship groupings, status groupings, villages, urban neighborhoods, regions and politics" (180).

Of course it is not that researchers in Philo have not touched on these matters in an ad hoc way. But Reinhartz develops a cogent method for studying such elements of Philo's writings and then suggests some key conclusions one might reach. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

2. One key methodological obstacle is the fact that Philo's topoi are largely generated from the texts he is interpreting. So can we infer from Philo's strong stance against homosexual practice that there was significant homosexual practice in the Jewish community/Alexandria, or is it simply that the issue is raised by the biblical text he is interpreting (Spec. 2.50; 3.37-42)?

She gives a couple examples of comments by Roman outsiders like Strabo that indicate that non-Jewish sources are generally unreliable in this area. Are we really to believe that Jews practiced female circumcision like the Egyptians apparently did?

3. In the end, there are two views of Philo among scholars. One is that he had no real interest or involvement in the life of the Jewish community and was just an ivory tower blogger who had little interest in the real world (e.g., Samuel Sandmel). Others, like Borgen, believe he was squarely involved in both the Jewish and Alexandrian communities.

[By the way, there is a serious error in a quote of Samuel Belkin on p. 185. The word "no" was omitted, making the sentence sound like it says the opposite of what it was meant to say. Belkin wrote, "The general view prevalent among scholars that Philo had no interest in communal affairs and was, as is sometimes said, an 'individualist' by nature is open to doubt" (185).]

Reinhartz clearly takes the latter view. We can infer realia about Jewish community life in Alexandria from Philo.

4. So she sets down a method. True, Philo sometimes is just interpreting the text in front of him rather than addressing contemporary issues. BUT, she plausibly suggests, we can see hints of his contemporary situation in a) his rationales for the laws, especially when the text doesn't give them, b) his extensions of the laws to areas they do not directly address, c) his reinterpretations of laws that no longer applied to his day, and d) when he gives specifics to general formulations.

In the rest of the chapter, she applies these criteria to Philo's texts. She concludes that some of the realities of Philo's day included things like a) a strong patriarchal culture. She actually argues that b) infanticide may have been an issue among some Jews.

One of the things I appreciated about the chapter is her critique of dreamy descriptions of ancient Jews as obviously untouched by non-Jewish practices such as this. But she is a model of objectivity. Beware when someone in a group is giving the story of that group. There becomes a strong motivation to give a sugar coated version.

She finds evidence of c) monogamy as standard Jewish practice by this time and d) the difficulty of daughters inheriting when a father has deceased.

In general, a fascinating and another outstanding chapter in the book. Great stuff!

5. Philo the philosopher and more

Two more chapters today here of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland. Four more chapters by Thursday to go.

Introduction
Philo the Jew
Philo the Citizen
Philo the Interpreter of the Law and Educated Jew

1. I have found Greg Sterling to be an imposing scholar. He was at Notre Dame for some twenty years before he recently went to be Dean of Yale Divinity School. How he has been able to produce the academic works he has while being Dean at Notre Dame and now Yale is incomprehensible to me.

His knowledge of the details of Hellenistic philosophy astounds me and thought of him when I read this sentence in the chapter: "Philo knew a good deal about Hellenistic philosophy, considerably more than all but a handful of scholars today" (147). Sterling is one among that handful, as are many of the scholars who make up the Philo guild.

I've never really liked the opinio communis that Philo was an exegete rather than a philosopher, despite Nikiprowetzky. I know what is being said, and it is true. Philo uses philosophy in the service of his exegesis. He is not a professional philosopher.

Yet it seems to me that this distinction may worry too much about modern categories and distinctions. Certainly many ancients thought of him as a philosopher, among other things. We may be preoccupied with the form of his writings, but that says more about us than Philo, I suspect.

2. Philo interpreted Moses by way of philosophy. Plato was his chief source, but he also draws on the Stoics, Pythagoreans, and even on Aristotle. He knows them all and draws on them in an eclectic fashion--"he drew on what he considered to be the best from each tradition and incorporated it into his own thought" (137). Sterling gives an impressive sweep of Philo's engagement with Greek philosophers.

3. Sterling also gives a very helpful overview of Jewish philosophical thinkers in Egypt prior to Philo--chiefly Aristobulus and pseudo-Aristeas. There were also the unnamed Jewish literalists and allegorists of Philo's world.

At the end of the chapter, we get an overview of the different types of work Philo wrote and how philosophy played in each. Interestingly, it is in the Allegorical Commentary that we get the most use of philosophy, namely, in Philo's allegorical interpretation.

Sterling is just an excellent writer. Clear, organized, comprehensive, insightful.

4. Now we arrive at the second half of the book, which has to do with how to study Philo, especially when you are coming to him from another discipline.

The next chapter, "Why Study Philo? How?" is another winner. This is really turning out to be the definitive bridge work for MA or PhD engagement with Philo, although an undergraduate course could easily work through the book as well. If you are just getting into Philo, I would recommend that you read this chapter first.

Seland does an excellent job in this chapter. Following in the tradition of Goodenough (and I might add my own book), Torrey suggests a good order in which to read through Philo's works. He gives David Runia's four recommendations for interpreting passages in Philo. He gives a definitive overview of the differing texts and translations of Philo in multiple languages. In a section that is indicative of our age, he even talks about Google Books, Google Scholar, and other electronic resources, such as his own well-known website.

The chapter is just a great catalog of resources on Philo, including my own book, about which he is kind. :-)

More tomorrow...

4. Philo, Educated Interpreter

Continuing my review of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland. My goal is to finish this fine book before the end of the week, which means two chapters a day.

Introduction
Philo the Jew
Philo the Citizen

1. The first chapter to review today is by Peder Borgen, "Philo - An Interpreter of the Laws of Moses." Borgen is of course a major Philo player. He wrote somewhat of an overview of Philo himself almost twenty years ago. But his greatest contribution to Philo studies, IMO, is his index to Philo, a computer generated concordance to Philo's works. He is much to be revered.

I will say, though, that I have always found him to be somewhat of an "in the weeds" writer. It is perhaps a difference in our personalities, since I am a big picture person, but I always feel like I could use a map to his writing. I often feel like I am joining him in the middle of a conversation and it takes me a little effort to figure out what we are talking about. That does not negate his brilliance!

2. But there is an outline to the chapter. Without warning, we hit the ground running in one type of writing Philo engaged in--"expository writings." He wrote other things, like historical and philosophical treatises. (Just one paragraph putting this chapter into perspective would have been lovely. But as I said, this book is not entirely for the complete beginner.) But the preponderance of his writings were expositions of Scripture.

Borgen divides them into two categories: exegetical commentaries and something called "rewritten Scripture." The category of "rewritten Scripture" is widely used. I have never found that title very helpful. It basically refers to retellings of biblical stories by a later author.

So he overviews these two types of expository writing in Philo. Then he addresses Philo's hermeneutical presuppositions as he interprets. He describes some of the key elements we find in Philo's interpretation. He briefly compares Philo to other interpreters in his context. He covers some of the literary forms Philo employs. He briefly mentions Philo's interpretation in relation to the conflict around 38CE and then ends with an epilogue giving a taste of the impact of Philo's exegesis on early Christian literature.

The way I would describe this chapter is a smorgasbord of tastes. It gives you a wealth of specific detail on ways that Philo went about extracting meaning from the biblical texts.

3. The second chapter for today is "Philo and Classical Education," by Erkki Koskenniemi (hereafter EK). This chapter was a great surprise and very well written. EK is clearly up to date on the state of research on education in antiquity and I find his fundamental thesis highly plausible.

It is that classical education cannot be reduced to a single pattern or template. It varied from place to place and from time to time. He is particularly concerned with debate over the role of the gymnasion in antiquity. Was it purely for athletic purposes or for educational purposes as well. Who was allowed to participate in it?

Here is his summary statement: "The gymnasion was thus a significant institution in the Greek world, but it was certainly not identical in every place and time. the duration of the training varied greatly, as did apparently the percentage of non-Greeks involved as well. What preceded the gymnasion also varied, and unfortunately we know only little of it. Apparently, education prior to the gymnasion was mostly private, and uniformity among schools belongs to later times. Some Greek education was provided in the gymnasion, some outside of it, and non-Greeks may have imitated the gymnasions if they were excluded from this institution" (109-110).

4. There was thus no fixed pattern or content, and the older source of H. I. Marrou (1948) systematized and universalized a pattern of ancient education based on scanty evidence. He must thus be used with great caution. At the same time, Teresa Morgan's revision may go too far in the opposite direction (1998).

Nevertheless, we can easily imagine that Homer featured large as a source, that the skills of reading and writing were taught. We can imagine that geometry, astronomy, music, and logic were also common topics.

5. EK next examines evidence for education in Alexandria in particular. Here we have good evidence that the city underwent a transition after Roman occupation, for which we have two key sources. The first is a petition to the emperor from a Jew named Helenos to be a citizen of the city. His father was a citizen, but apparently his mother was not. He was denied.

The second is the letter of Claudius after the pogrom of 38 and the embassy of Philo to the previous emperor Caligula. Claudius indicates that the Jews are not citizens of the city and they cannot participate in the life of the gymnasion.

So Philo's own lifetime seems to have seen this transition take place and solidify. Philo himself probably had access to the best education that the city could offer. But by the time his nephew came through the ranks, it became necessary to pick sides. Either you could be a Jew or you could be a Roman who fully participated in the education of the city.

6. In the end, EK does not conclude that Philo attended a gymnasion in Alexandria as an ephebe at fourteen. Philo mentions the gymnasion more or less in relation to physical training at this stage of life. Clearly Philo had access to the gymnasion for events before the pogrom of 38.

But wherever Philo received his "soul" education, he received one fully as good as any formal Greek education. EK spends the last part of the chapter cataloging all the Greek literature with which Philo not only demonstrates awareness but facility. It is quite impressive.

3. Philo the Citizen

Continuing my review of Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, edited by Torrey Seland.

Introduction
Philo the Jew

1. Torrey himself is the writer of the third installment: "Philo the Citizen." Wow, what a great chapter. This book is shaping up to be my recommendation for anyone who is wanting a gateway to a master's or doctoral level study of Philo. It is also excellent for someone with a very basic knowledge of Judaism or the classical world.

I've been wrestling in my mind with what a complete beginner would think of the book. Would he or she understand it? It's not that there is anything very difficult to understand in the book. Thus far, it is extremely well written and understandable. What I haven't decided in my mind is whether someone who had never heard of Philo or the Roman world would have a good enough point of reference to follow it entirely.

Then again, the book seems to be written as a gateway to more advanced studies. In this endeavor, it is far superior so far to The Cambridge Companion to Philo. Each chapter makes a point to suggest possible avenues for further study in Philo research. In that sense it gives an undergraduate student some ideas of how one might move into this arena as a scholar.

On the other hand, it seems to me that it expects the reader to have some basic sense of ancient Judaism and the Roman world. It does not really introduce the reader to who Caligula was or what the Sabbath commandment was. I'm on page 75 and we have not yet had a catalog of Philo's works. These features lead me to believe that this is a "bridge work" to more advanced study for someone who has some background knowledge but only on an introductory level (such as a person might get, shameless plug, from my book).

2. So Seland gives us the requisite background on Philo's family. He gives the various debates over the state of Jews in Alexandria. He is judicious in giving the spectrum of opinions without giving in to temptation to come to conclusions. He gives the briefest sense of Philo's political theory. He presents the primary passages and treatises in Philo that you would want to study to go further on the subject. He addresses the main issues of debate surrounding the persecution of Jews that took place somewhere around 38CE.

In short, if you wanted to do research into Philo's political philosophy or the political situation of Alexandria around 40CE or the Greco-Roman political world vis-a-vis Philo, Seland's chapter would be a most excellent place to begin. You would know from there to go to De Josepho and De Somniis, as well as Legatio and the Ad Flaccum. You would know my favorite passage in Philo, the one that currently has me smiling.

3. One conspicuous aspect of the chapter is the way E. R. Goodenough dominates it. Goodenough is no doubt a central feature in the history of this discussion, but he is a very old source (1938) and some of his positions are seriously questioned (e.g., that Philo wrote some of his treatises for a Gentile audience).

Some very recent sources are mentioned at the end, although Seland does not engage them greatly. I don't know them myself, so perhaps Seland does not think they are on target. In any case, many sources are mentioned in the notes, and all the classic sources are referenced (Goodenough, Tracy, Tcherikover, Smallwood, Modrzejewski).

Excellent chapter!

Philosophy Monday: Seland's Reading Philo 2

A couple months ago I started reviewing Torrey Seland's edited text, Reading Philo. I need to finish reading it in the next couple weeks.

For today, I have read the chapter, "Philo the Jew," by Karl-Gustav Sandelin of Åbo Akademie University in Finland.

1. I was very impressed with much in this chapter, especially the section on "The Jewish Way of Life." This section treated Philo in relation to topics like circumcision, Sabbath observance, dietary laws, and sexuality. Sandelin leans toward Philo being a law-observant Jew and rightly emphasizes the fact that Philo unusually accepted the literal interpretation of passages in addition to the allegorical.

Sandelin interacts with a significant cross-section of Philonic scholarship, a field I have always liked because the body of literature is comparatively small and high quality. That is to say, it takes a certain caliber of scholar to engage Philo on an advanced level, so you don't get as much craziness. It is also a tight academic community and so everyone knows each other. While Philo himself is complicated, a student with a competent guide could easily master the body of literature, although it will require engagement with multiple languages.

2. Sandelin's little section at the end on Philo in relation to other Jewish groups was short but clear as as well. Philo was clearly not a Sadducee or a Pharisee or an Essene, although he deeply admired the Essenes and another similar group in Egypt, the Therapeutae.

Sandelin is pretty much spot on with his summary of Philo and Scripture. The Law was Scripture for Philo, and other parts of the Jewish canon were quite secondary, although Sandelin hints that Philo knew of a tripartite approach to the canon (Contempl. 25).

3. For much of this chapter, I found myself saying, "Seland's done it. This is a great introduction to Philo." I did have a more mixed review about Sandelin's treatment of Wisdom and the Logos. My alarm bells went off when he favorably started drawing on Burton Mack.

In particular, I have serious questions about this sentence: "The higher realm is that of Wisdom and the lower forms the dominion of the Logos or Word" (34). Sandelin is speaking of the difference between the intelligible and perceptible worlds here and aligning these two with them. While there is no doubt that Philo thinks in terms of these two worlds and considers the intelligible world superior to the perceptible one, I am scratching my head to remember an identification of wisdom with the one and Logos with the other.

I'll have to dot my i's, but I think Mack probably over-systematized Philo here. With Philo, you have to be very careful about mixing a set of allegories he uses in one place with those he uses in another. In general, I would just avoid anything by Burton Mack in general.

So I thought that the part of the chapter dealing with the Logos was weak. But it will no doubt be treated again by Greg Sterling later in the book, so there is more to come.

4. So to summarize chapter 1: mostly excellent, with some questions about one part.

Seland's Reading Philo 1

Fond fragments of memories past peek into my consciousness as I begin Torey Seland's Reading Philo: A Handbook of Alexandria. It has been a great privilege to be a Dean for several years. But I also have often thought of the experience something along the lines of what Philo says in On the Special Laws 3.1-3:

"There was once a time when I devoted my leisure to philosophy and to the contemplation of the world and the things in it. ... At that time I looked down from above, from the air, straining the eye of my mind as if I were looking down from a watch-tower. I surveyed the unspeakable contemplation of all the things on the earth... until I was dragged down and taken by force into the vast sea of the cares of" ... administration. :-)

So it is with great joy that my mind begins to soar once again to contemplate the universe as a professor. In the words of James Bond, "the world is not enough."

The Theologicum

Torey's book brings back memories of a 2004 sabbatical in Tübingen, Germany, on a Fulbright. I spent the better part of those three months drawing on the amazing resources of the Theologicum to write my own Brief Guide to Philo, which I hear remains a helpful jump start for grad students who need a quick entry point into Philo, a crucial source for the world in which Jesus and Paul lived.

So for today I read Torey's Introduction. It is a well-written taste of Philo and overview of the book, which is a compilation of chapters by noted Philo scholars, including scholars from Seland's neck of the woods in Europe. The book is written for MA and PhD students who need to know Philo as part of their background study.

The well worn path is trodden. Philo lived somewhere from about 20BCE to 50CE, being a contemporary of both Jesus and Paul. He wrote more than 70 treatises, some 50 of which have survived. He came from a filthy rich family and was well connected. The opportunities he had as a rich Jewish child came in a window that closed by the time of his death. His nephew had to choose between Judaism and the Roman world, and he chose Rome.

The rest of the first chapter overviews the authors and their topics in the rest of the book. From the introduction, one suspects this is going to be a good read, probably both clearer and more helpful than Adam Kamesar's The Cambridge Companion to Philo.

However, no doubt my book, since I am a Philistine, remains the simple man (or woman's) best entry to the enigmatic Philo and his corpus. :-)

Jean Daniélou's Philo of Alexandria (new translation)

I was incredibly delighted to get a copy of James Colbert's new translation of Jean Daniélou's classic introduction to Philo, Philo of Alexandria. I don't remember if there has ever been an English translation before (it was originally French), but there certainly isn't one easily available. So Colbert, an emeritus philosophy professor, has done us a great service by translating it!

One of the reasons I wrote my own A Brief Guide to Philo back in 2005 was because there weren't any accessible, easily available introductions to Philo around. Daniélou's was in French and Goodenough's was then out of print. True, Peder Borgen had come out with something like an overview, but I thought it was a little out of reach for the beginner. Since then there is also the Cambridge Companion to Philo, probably more for the educated beginner than my book.

All that is to say that Daniélou's 1958 overview of Philo is now an excellent option for the person who wants a segway into the man. Check out the Table of Contents on Amazon.

Many thanks to Colbert for this tremendous service!

Das wandernde Studia Philonica Annual

David Runia has announced that the premier journal dedicated to the study of Philo, the Studia Philonica Annual, has entered into rest at Yale University, thanks to Greg Sterling.

Here is the site: Studia Philonica Annual.

The site is well done and has indices to all the editions of the journal in its latest resurrected form. It also has links to the current projects of the Philo of Alexandria group of SBL.

If you are wanting to dig into Philo more deeply, this is the nexus of the kosmos noētos.

How Hebrews and Philo connected Scriptures

My thanks to the Intertextuality and the New Testament unit at SBL for letting me present a paper yesterday. My goal was to catalog some of the similarities between the way Hebrews and Philo connected Scriptures together. Here was my outline:

1. Similar Quote Splicing
In addition to the fact that both functioned out of the Greek rather than Hebrew Bible, they both share some specific word splices. For example, Hebrews 13:5 combines Joshua 1:5, Deuteronomy 31:8 and arguably Genesis 28:15 in the same exact way as Philo. They are the only two in all extant literature of the time. This must surely be more than coincidence, although we lack enough evidence to say what the lines of dependence were.

2. Use of Secondary Texts
Philo used secondary texts to explicate primary ones. Hebrews also does so perhaps more than most have noticed. The obvious example is how Hebrews uses Genesis 2:2 to clarify Psalm 95. But I also argued that Hebrews uses Genesis 14 to explicate Psalm 110:4 and various passages on the wilderness tabernacle to clarify Jeremiah 31.

3. Use of Exempla
Hebrews 11 is the most famous example list, a collection of biblical characters strung together to reinforce a certain theme. There are closer examples than Philo but Philo does this as well. Almost all my Philonic examples for this paper were taken from Allegorical Interpretation book 3. Strikingly, this little swath of Philo had numerous superficial parallels.

In the case of exempla, Philo's characters all come from Genesis and a little in Exodus, like the majority of Hebrews' examples. They overlap a little--Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Jacob. Philo spends significant time on Melchizedek and Bezalel, the artificer who made the tabernacle. However, Philo uses allegory to string them together.

4. Use of Gezera Shawa
Both Hebrews and Philo use catchwords to link from a primary passage to a secondary one. So the Philonic example I used was based on the word "cursing." Hebrews does this too. The author connects from Psalm 95 to Genesis 2 on the concept of God resting. The disobedience will not enter into "God's rest." So what is God's rest? Well, "God rested" on the seventh day. So someone who enters God's rest stops working in some way.

5. Use of Allegory
Philo of course is replete with allegorical connections. Hebrews is more grounded to a literal reading of the text (remembering that by "literal," we do not mean the original meaning but a surface reading that does not think it is taking the words in a figural way. The original meaning was culturally embedded in a way the paradigm of the biblical interpreters did not understand--or most contemporary biblical interpreters, including many scholars).

But Hebrews does allegory too, and uses allegory in its Scriptural connections. So Psalm 110:4 is a primary text that tells us that the Messiah will be a "priest after the order of Melchizedek." What is such a priest? This leads the author to the secondary text of Genesis 14.

The author's interpretation of Genesis 14 involves allegorical interpretation. What is a priest like Melchizedek? Using almost exactly the same etymological argument as Philo, it is a "king of peace" and a "king of righteousness." In the Genesis text, Melchizedek has no father, mother, priestly genealogy, time of taking or leaving office. Therefore, allegorically, this must be what a priest after the order of Melchizedek is like. Ironically, the historical Melchizedek himself didn't qualify! The author is not arguing about the historical Melch. but the allegorical one!

P.S. I have published many of these individual interpretations elsewhere if you are writing something and would like a reference to cite.

I also discussed the allegory of the tabernacle in Hebrews 9, which the author mixes with his understanding of Jeremiah 31 to give us a two part tabernacle that corresponds to the two covenants.

6. Connecting Shadows
The "shadows" from the old covenant do not match to Christ in a one-to-one way. Comparisons were made between Hebrews, Colossians 2:17, and Philo on the literal interpretation being a shadow of the deeper meaning of the Scriptural text. As usual, I dissed the prevalent translation of hypodeigma in Hebrews 8:5 as "copy."

For the paper's purpose, the key element here is that Hebrews connects all the sacrificial types of the Jewish Bible and amalgamates them into one shadow over and against the one sacrifice of Christ.

7. Final Thoughts
I made a little fun of the category of typology in the paper, a category invented by Protestant scholars so that books like Hebrews could be said to do something different from allegory--and thus medieval Catholic exegesis. But there is allegory in the NT, plain and simple. Hebrews is far more "grounded" to the literal than Philo, but it still does allegory.

Once again, I am struck by the number of superficial parallels. They are very superficial, but they are significant. It would be like reading a book you really disagreed with, but then taking half of the elements and redoing them. Or it would be like someone who grew up in Alexandria, heard Philo speak in the Great Synagogue, or perhaps was forced to go through Questions and Answers on Genesis as a child, but then went on to believe something different. But some of the forms stuck...

Basically, Apollos wrote Hebrews. :-)

A Famine, a Martyr, and Justice (Acts 12)

1. The church at Antioch is vibrant.  Look at its prophets!  Agabas predicts a severe famine that will sweep the Roman Empire and, apparently as in the days of Joseph in Egypt, they get ready. Acts tells us that the word, "Christian," first sprang up in Antioch. Before that they seem to have been called followers of "the Way."

Look at the missional mindset of the Christians at Antioch! This famine seems to have happened around AD44, during the reign of Claudius. Paul and Barnabas carry some food relief down to Jerusalem from the church at Antioch.  Interestingly, Paul doesn't mention this trip to Jerusalem in Galatians 1.  So if Paul's lost years were from around AD36 to, say, AD43.

The leaders of the Jerusalem church were called "the elders." It's interesting to ask whether this group actually included the disciples who were still in town, since these leaders probably were actually older. While local assemblies probably were led in part by elders, the assemblies in Jerusalem seemed to have a group of elder-leaders who were not only over all the house churches in Jerusalem but may have thought of themselves as the ultimate leaders of the whole Jesus movement, a kind of Christian version of the Sanhedrin.

2. Acts 12 is a tale of persecution and justice. In the first half of the chapter, Herod Agrippa I persecutes the church. In the second half, his intestines explode. This is the Herod that was friends of the Emperor Caligula and who apparently interceded for the Jewish people when Caligula tried to set up a statue of himself in the temple around AD39.

It is also the Herod whose pomp when visiting Alexandria, Egypt, led to some riots against the Jews there around AD38. Philo ended up taking a delegation to Rome over that one, and it eventually led to a downgrading of the Jews' position in the city. The emperor Claudius tells them to be happy with who they are--which isn't Roman citizens.

This Herod puts James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, to death. My hunch is that this is the brother of John, the author of Revelation. Perhaps he was as apocalyptic as the book of Revelation. We don't know anything about the circumstances leading up to his arrest and death. He may have been quite zealous, but unfortunately is largely forgotten to time and history. He is the first of the apostles to die.

3. Herod goes for Peter next. This story is almost comical.  Peter thinks he's having a vision.  "Boy, this is nice.  I'm escaping in this dream.  I wonder what this means."  Of course it turns out not to be a dream.

He goes to Mark's house--the John Mark who will go with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey to Cyprus.  This is the Mark that tradition suggests wrote the Gospel of Mark (although Mark itself does not say so). His family must have had some wealth. They have a servant and a big enough house for lots of people to gather.  Theoretically, this might explain how Mark could know Greek and why he was none too pleased about backpacking through Asia Minor.

The servant Rhoda is so excited she doesn't let Peter in.  They're praying for him but apparently not with a lot of faith.  "Lord, help Peter not to suffer too much tomorrow when they kill him."

"He's at the door!"

"Go away Rhoda... We're praying for Peter."

She finally convinces them and they think, "They've already killed him.  It's his ghost/angel."  Interesting window into how Luke thought about the intermediate state. He apparently thinks a person becomes an angel of sorts at death (cf. Acts 23:8), maybe an intermediate embodied state before the final resurrection. It would be different than a spirit in that sense because it would involve a body.

4. Note that this time, when Peter is the actual target of persecution, he leaves town. This supports the idea that he was not the target when Paul was persecuting the Greek-speaking Christians of Jerusalem in Acts 8. Note also that James is not at the prayer meeting, possibly implying that he was part of another house church in Jerusalem.

5. The moral of Herod's story is, "If someone says you're like a god, deny, deny, deny!"  Josephus tells about his death as well.

Grudem 14c: Trinity in Summary

... continued from way back when
_______________________
B. Three Statements in Summary
Summary
Grudem captures the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (he calls it the biblical teaching on it) in three statements:
1. God is three persons.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.

1. God is three persons.
Scripture speaks of Jesus as a distinct person from God the Father. It speaks of the Holy Spirit as a distinct person from Jesus. It uses a masculine pronoun of the Holy Spirit in John, treating him as a person. Since the Spirit intercedes to God the Father, he must be distinct from him as well.  The three persons of the Trinity are thus distinct persons from each other.

2. Each is fully God.
God the Father is clearly God. Grudem draws on John 1:1-4 to show that Jesus was fully God.  He argues against the Jehovah's Witness' sense that John 1:1 should be translated that the word was a god on the basis of Greek grammar. Colwell's rule states that when a predicate nominative precedes the verb in Greek and the subject follows, the predicate nominative will lack the article (234, n. 12).

Other verses are adduced to support Jesus' full divinity. Thomas calls Jesus God in John 20:28. Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ is the "exact representation" of God's being. Hebrews 1:10, Titus 2:13, 1 Peter 1:1, Romans 9:5, Isaiah 9:6, Colossians 2:9 are all mentioned.

If God the Father and God the Son are God, then surely the Spirit is in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19. Lying to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:3-4 is lying to God. Fleeing the Spirit in Psalm 139:7-8 is fleeing the presence of God. So each distinct person is God.

3. There is one God.
Despite there being three distinct persons, each of which is fully God, the Bible seems to require that there only be one God.  This faith is the centerpiece of the Shema of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4 and it is also key to Isaiah 45:5-6, 21-22.

Grudem's next two points in this section are that 4) simplistic solutions all run aground on one of the previous three points and that 5) all analogies have shortcomings. In the next section, he will treat the various errors of those who have tried to oversimplify the Trinity, including those who have erred on the "one God" side and those who have erred on the "all three are fully God" side.

Meanwhile, all analogies fail on one or another of the three basic points: analogies of a three-leafed clover or a tree with three parts or a person who is a farmer, a mayor, and an elder in his church or one person who has intellect, emotions, and will.

Finally, 6) Grudem makes it clear that all three persons have eternally existed as the Trinity.

Evaluation
Grudem's treatment in this section is entirely orthodox. These are the historically shared beliefs of the vast majority of Christendom. He treats in his footnotes a couple outliers--Jehovah's Witnesses and oneness Pentecostals. The former deny that Jesus was God in the same way as God the Father and the latter are "modalists" who believe the three persons were really only manifestations of the same person.

If there were to be a critique, it would be in the interpretations of the proof texts, although there is nothing idiosyncratic about the way Grudem uses them. It is at least possible that many of the passages that have been classically adduced were far more nuanced originally. That is to say, the classic statements of Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451) on the Trinity and dual nature of Christ probably reflect more developed understandings of these passages than their original meanings.

For example, it seems more likely that Old Testament passages like Isaiah 9:6 took their original meaning from the fact that kings of the Ancient Near East (ANE) could be conceptualized as God's divine representatives on earth. Such language seems fantastic to us used of a human being but, then again, we have not grown up in the ANE. The New Testament interestingly never uses this passage in relation to Jesus, but it is in keeping with the spirit of the New Testament for later Christians to see the divinity of Christ in it.

Some of the New Testament passages may find their original background in various Jewish traditions that used divine language of the logos (word) or of kings. The Jewish thinker Philo spoke of the logos, the divine word, as the one through whom God made the world (cf. Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:3). We also have evidence of divine language/imagery used of exalted figures like the Son of Man in 1 Enoch, Adam in The Life of Adam and Eve, or even Moses in Ezekiel the Tragedian.

The point is that the original meanings of these verses may have been more nuanced at first than they seem to us today. This explains why there was such long debate over the Trinity and how such differing positions could be taken. The point is not to deny the Trinity in any way but simply to say that God used the flexibility of language to bring Christian thinking on this subject to maturity, just as he did with the New Testament in its understanding of the Old Testament.

So the position that Grudem takes in this section is completely and historically orthodox. This position, however, may require us to put more faith in God's working in the early church than would make Grudem himself comfortable.

My Favorite Passage in Philo

... is one where he gives one of his most personal asides.  It is at the beginning of his third treatise exploring all the "specific laws" that expand on the commandments not to commit adultery and not to murder (Spec. Leg. 3).  Here is the quote from Yonge's translation:

"There was once a time when, devoting my leisure to philosophy and to the contemplation of the world and the things in it, I reaped the fruit of excellent and desirable and blessed intellectual feelings... I appeared to be raised and borne aloft by a certain inspiration of the soul, and to dwell in the regions of the sun and moon, and to associate with the whole heaven, and the whole universal world...

"Nevertheless, the most grievous of all evils was lying in wait for me... till envy had taken me and thrown me into the vast sea of the cares of public politics, in which I was and am still tossed about..."

This, I submit to you, is the experience of almost all philosophy majors after graduation, when they start looking for a job.
:-)

P.S. I like to think--can't prove it you know--that Philo was writing about the events around the year 38 when the Jews of Egypt got into quite a pickle, eventually leading Philo to head a delegation to the emperor Caligula.

Philo Cheat Sheet

I recently reviewed Adam Kamesar's (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Philo for the American Journal of Philology.  It occurred to me that I could create a (more or less) one page "cheat sheet" on Philo that really would go a very long way.  Here's my first draft:
_________

• Prominent Jew of Alexandria, Egypt, ca. 20BCE-50CE.  More Jews lived in 2 of the 5 quarters of Alexandria than in all of Jerusalem.
• Alexandria had a very significant synagogue and the city had a history of a mixture of philosophy with biblical interpretation that preceded Philo by centuries (e.g., Aristobulus, 2nd century BCE).  Eudorus of Alexandria (not Jewish) may be the fountainhead of "Middle Platonism," the transition from earlier Platonism/Stocisim to Neoplatonism.
• Very wealthy family, brother Alexander was chief customs official for Egypt (alabarch), nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander apostacized from Judaism and was procurator of Judea from 46-48.  Philo likely had a Greek gymnasium education.
• Philo himself protests that he did not like having to engage in politics, but perhaps he protests too much.  It was Philo that led a delegation to Rome for the Jews of Alexandria after the crisis of 38CE.  This trouble is sometimes called a "pogrom" in which some Jews were killed, their property was plundered, and they were quasi-ghettoized to escape the violence.  It seems precipitated by a trip from Herod Agrippa I to the city that created ethnic tensions.
• The outcome of the crisis was that Jews by and large were not considered citizens of the city, as attested by a copy of Claudius' decision.  They had at least liked to consider themselves such before.  The Romans added an extra top layer on the previous social stratification when they took over the city.  Previously Greeks had been upper class with Egyptians and Jews vying for second place.
• Philo did not know Hebrew.  The Hebrew knowledge he seems to have probably came from cheat sheets of the day.
• Philo valued the Jerusalem temple as a Jew and Jewish customs, although he considered their literal value far inferior to their allegorical significance.
• Philo had little place in his writings for a Jewish Messiah, although there are a couple potential allusions.
• Philo had no place for bodily resurrection in his thought.  Indeed, only the most virtuous had a meaningful destiny among the stars (heavenly beings).  Angels are also disembodied spirits.
• Philo dabbled in philosophy, but he is more than anything else an interpreter of the Jewish Scriptures, and he mixes together various philosophical threads depending on the passage he is interpreting.
• Only 48 of Philo's writings have survived.  We know of some that are missing.  They were largely preserved by Christians, ignored by Jews (perhaps because they were in Greek, in part; perhaps because Christians liked them, in part).  Origen took them to Caesarea around 200CE and they were preserved there.
• Philo wrote 3 great commentary series with increasing level of demand and expertise: The Exposition on the Law is most basic, Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus serve to teach a beginning Jewish audience, and The Allegorical Commentary is most esoteric and allegorically demanding.
• The rest are usually grouped into "apologetic/historical writings" and "philosophical writings."  The best books to start reading in Philo's corpus are his writings Against Flaccus, The Embassy to Gaius, and his two book Life of Moses.  To transition to his more advanced works, On the Creation of the World is interesting.  Students of the New Testament may find his surviving books On Dreams and Who is the Heir of All Things interesting.
• Philo's canon is largely limited to the Torah, perhaps an artifact of when Jews first moved to Egypt.  He has nice words to say about Jeremiah in a second category.
• Philo is somewhat unique in that he believed Scripture could have both a literal and an allegorical meaning (vs. Stoics).  As others, he often shifted to allegory when the literal seemed impossible to him ("defect of the letter").  The allegorical often related to the literal as the body to the shadow (cf. Col. 2:17; Heb. 8:5).
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were allegories for moral progress (prokopton).  Abraham is the person who learns virtue by being taught. Jacob learns virtue through practice.  Isaac does not need to learn because he is self-taught.
• Adam, Eve, and the serpent constitute an "allegory of the soul," where Adam represents the mind arbitrating between our senses (Eve) and pleasure (serpent).  Philo accepts on a practical level the Aristotelian goal of moderation of passion (metriopathea) but prefers the Stoic complete removal of them (apatheia).
• The logos for Philo is a mixture of Platonism and Stoicism.  When he speaks of it (Middle) Platonically, it is the copy of God as pattern (the "image of God"), while the world is the copy of the logos as pattern.  When he speaks of it Stoically, it is a fragment/seed of the divine in all of us.  
• The Adam of Genesis one is thus the ideal pattern of humanity (neither male nor female) while the man of Genesis 2 is the shadowy, physical copy.
• The logos is the instrument God used in creation, the collection of ideas God used in making the world.  It is the glue that holds all things together.  The parallels to John 1 and Colossians 1 are clear.
• The logos was a "second God."  It was created but not created like the rest of creation.  It is intermediary, a quasi-hypostasis.  Philo also interpreted the words Yahweh and Elohim as powers of God, namely, his royal and creative powers respectively.
• The goal of ethics for Philo is godliness, the progress of the soul (prokopton) embodied in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob taken allegorically.  He disagreed thus with the Stoics, who saw the goal as coming to grips with who you are (oikeiosis).
• Philo clearly had an impact on formative Christianity of the second through fifth centuries.  Whether his ideas had an impact on the New Testament, directly or indirectly, is debated.  Clearly there are a number of parallels, among which Hebrews is regularly mentioned.
• It is often suggested that Philo does know of some interpretive traditions in Palestine that would flow into the rabbinic tradition of the following centuries.  In general, however, the rabbis do not engage his thought much at all.

There you have it, in 30 minutes ;-)

Quote from Adam Kamesar

Interesting quote from Adam Kamesar's chapter on "Biblical Interpretation in Philo." Here is dealing with that fairly unique characteristic of Philo, namely, that he accepted both literal and allegorical interpretations:

"As Augustine would put it later, one must recognize as figurative 'any passage in divine Scripture which cannot refer, in its literal sense, to ethical rectitude or to doctrinal truth' (Christian Doctrine 3.10.14). Philo does not make this criterion as explicit as Augustine does, but he seems to implicitly follow it... He also indicates... that if one follows the allegorical method, one will never find anything 'low or unworthy of the greatness' of the Scriptures. The assumptions that underlie these directives are well expressed in 2 Timothy 3:16, a passage which no doubt reflects Judeo-Hellenistic thinking: 'All Scripture is inspired by God and is beneficial (ophelimos) for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.' It is the notions expressed in this verse that explain the need to interpret allegorically passages that are acceptable in their literal sense" (80-81 in The Cambridge Companion to Philo).

In other words, some passages may need to be interpreted beyond the literal meaning in order for them to have instructive import.

Kamesar's Philo 2

I posted previously on Danny Schwartz's first chapter on Philo's life. Here let me give notice of chapter 2, by James Royse (apparently with some additions by Kamesar): "The Works of Philo."

This is an excellent chapter! If you want to get an overview of Philo's writings, this is the place. His works are generally divided into five groups:

1. His Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus
This is one of the three great series Philo wrote and is aimed at a fairly introductory level audience.

2. The Allegorical Commentary
Probably this is the work that Philo is best known for. Philo often accepts the literal meaning of biblical passages, but he especially values the allegorical meanings.

3. The Exposition of the Law
This is my favorite by far of the three series, not only including his biographies of Abraham and such but also his treatise "On the Creation of the World." Greg Sterling's review disagrees with the majority position of Philo scholars in that he places the two volume Life of Moses as the beginning of this series. I prefer Sterling's position.

I might note that the book form was not in use at the time of Christ, so we have to use clues in the texts themselves and in ancients who referred to them to decide which of Philo's books went with which series. This is the brilliance of Philo scholarship, the piecing together they have done (although admittedly it doesn't come close to the work done by Dead Sea Scroll scholars). Royse's lists and summaries of the books are excellent.

4. Philo's Apologetic and Historical Works
Philo's treatises on Caligula and the Roman governor Flaccus are great places to dive into his writings. Most put his Life of Moses here as well.

5. Philosophical Works
Some are perhaps his earliest, some are probably among his latest.

Great overview of his works!

Kamesar's Philo

I'm reading The Cambridge Companion to Philo, edited by Adam Kamesar of Hebrew Union, for a review. Finished the first chapter, "Philo, His Family, His Times," by Danny Schwartz, yesterday during some down time. If my book on Philo is a good handbook for the person who wants to use Philo, Kamesar's book is an excellent place to begin if you want to thoroughly know Philo. Kamesar and his compatriots bring that thorough knowledge not only of Philo's writings but of archaeology and up to the moment scholarship on Philo to bear on each issue.

Chapter 1 is a fine overview of Philo's life and what little we know of its details, with other interesting details. For example, I did not realize that the oldest synagogue inscriptions come from Egypt in the third century BC. Also interesting is Dr. Schwartz's theory of how Jews and Alexandrian Greeks came to be in such tension after the Romans squashed the social ladder with their take over and pushed Jews into the same category as native Egyptians.

Perhaps the one surprising thing to me is the emphasis Dr. Schwartz places at the end of the chapter on Philo's "inconsistency" in relation to Palestine. As a non-Jew and a Christian, Philo's Diaspora universalizations of God's relationship to the world seem quite natural. Indeed, they fit well with Paul for me. Schwartz, on the other hand, finds Philo's rare affirmations of the temple as lip service and his being troubled at Caligula's attempt to set up a statue in Jerusalem as inconsistent sentimentality.

Take this comment, "we often retain affinity for things with which we grew up even after our values have changed in ways that undermine their importance" (29). And he quotes with approval Sandmel's comment that "It cannot be over-emphasized that Philo has little or no concern for Palestine" (27). He thinks that to be consistent, Philo should have abandoned all concern for the temple. Indeed, he wonders if the temple's destruction might have been avoided if he had reacted in that way to Caligula's attempts and had led a deemphasis on the temple's importance.

So after the chapter I am surprisingly left with this question: Have I let Philo off the hook too much in the past or is it that Schwartz has a love-hate relationship with Philo? I left the chapter feeling a little like I had just listened to Philo getting a scolding by a fellow Jew. Hmmm. I'll have to reflect a little more on that one. Schwartz himself apparently emigrated from New York to the land of Israel. I find myself wondering if he looks down on Philo for not loving the land of Palestine as much as he does?

Most people have no idea what smart really is...

I attended the Philo Group this morning... most people have no idea how smart a human being can be (and, interestingly, are usually equally unaware of how correspondingly dumb they thus make God out to be). I regularly have people tell me they think I'm smart (interestingly again, I never get that from the people I actually live with ;-) ... but I'm not in any danger of actually believing it. Once a year I come to SBL and get to listen to some people who are really smart.

What a privilege!