Philo of Alexandria Blog

Please do go to
Philonica et Neotestamentica,
a blog on both Philo of Alexandria and the New Testament,
and update your bookmarks too.

This decision is final!
This blog has come to its end in the present form.
But the focus of its postings will be continued over at
Philonica et Neotestamentica Blog. Please pay it a visit!

After a long time of messing around and thinking about what to do with my blogs, I hope I have finally settled down for an acceptable solution: Philonica et Neotestamentica blog represents a merging of my former Philo of Alexandria Blog as well as of my former Research Notes on 1 Peter blog, and its focus will be heavily on Philo of Alexandria, but also on New Testament issues.

It is also associated with my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, and as such serve as a place where I can announce updates and other info related to my Resource Pages.

Please subscribe to this blog, by using for instance Bloglines.com

Some people has asked me not to delete the present blog yet, as they may still want to search for and be in need of some information contained in it.

I have no intention of deleting it in the near future, but by the end of the year it will probably be gone.

I have finally made up my mind; this blog has come to its end. Visitors will have realized that postings have been rather few in the last months, in fact even in the last year, and now it's over.

I have simply come to realize that I don't have enough spare time to be a blogger on Philo anymore. I will continue to read and write about Philo, but no more blogging here.

Thanks to those of you have visited this blog, and maybe even subscribed to it via Bloglines.

Info related to the Resource Pages for Biblical studies will be posted on the RPBS Blog: please go to RPBS Blog.

I intend to update my Resource Pages for Biblical Studies, and as an info page for these pages, this infoblog is established: RPBS Blog

Last year I got a Palm, and soon was able to install both the New Testament in Greek, and Philo and Jospehus in both English and Greek. But Palm is getting outdated, I soon had to realize that...
Now I have been a fan of Iphone, and have found several Bibles available in English, and Greek NT and the Hebrew Bible seems to be coming.
But what about Philo? I would really hope that James Darlack woul be able to convert the works of Philo into Iphone as he did with Philo for Palm.

A New English Translation of the Septuagint
Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright
Oxford University Press,
ISBN 13: 9780195289756ISBN10: 0195289757 hardback,
Oct 2007, Price: $30.00

arrived on my desk a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned it for my OT colleague, and as the kind person I am,.... when he asked to borrow it for a few days, he were allowed to get it, and there it served on his desk for the next week. That should indicate he found it interesting.

This volume is the result of a working group of scholars who have done us a great service in providing this translation. You can read more about their work on the NETS website. There you will also find that the translation is, in fact, available for free in form of .pdf files, ready for downloading. But I would strongly recommend you rather buy this real book edition.

On the NETS website you will also find a presentations of the translation principles applied. I found the following very interesting and useful when using this volume: Article. 7. Since much of the Septuagint derives from the Hebrew Scriptures, it is important to reflect that dependence as consistently and comprehensively as possible for the English reader. For these reasons, NETS consciously attempts to employ the wording and approach of a standard modern English translation of the Hebrew Bible in situations in which the Greek understands the Hebrew text in the same way as the English. The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) has been chosen to provide this English base. Where the Greek does not correspond to the Hebrew as understood by the NRSV, translators will make every reasonable effort to represent the differences fully and accurately. In this way, even a reader not familiar with the Greek or Hebrew texts will be able to get a certain impression of the LXX may deviate from the Hebrew text (which is the vorlage for most Bibles).

I think this volume should be on the desk of every scholar studying Philo or the New Testament alongside studying the Greek text of the LXX themselves.

T & T Clark is launching a new book that should be useful and interesting to students of Judaism and early ChristianityMarkus Bockmuehl & James Carleton Paget (eds.), Redemption and Resistance. The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity (T & T Clark International, 2008). Suggested publication date: May 2008.
Description
Redemption and Resistance brings together an eminent cast of contributors to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of Messianism as a topic of political and religious commitment and controversy. By surveying this motif over nearly a thousand years with the help of a focused historical and political searchlight, this volume is sure to break fresh ground. It will serve as an attractive contribution to the history of ancient Judaism and Christianity, of the complex and often problematic relationship between them, and of the conflicting loyalties their hopes for redemption created vis-à-vis a public order that was at first pagan and later Christian. Although each chapter is designed to stand on its own as an introduction to the topic at hand, the overall argument unfolds a coherent history. The first two parts, on pre-Christian Jewish and primitive Christian Messianism, set the stage by identifying two entities that in Part III are then addressed in the development of their explicit relationship in a Graeco-Roman world marked by violent persecution of Jewish and Christian hopes and loyalties. The story is then explored beyond the Constantinian turn and its abortive reversal under Julian, to the Christian Empire up to the rise of Islam.

You can see its List of Contents here.

At the end of this week our congratulations go to
Professor emeritus, Dr.theol., Peder Johan Borgen, PhD.,
as he passes his 80th birthday on January 26. 2008.

It is great to see that he is still active both as a family man, as a member of his local Metodist church, and as an international scholar. Last November he attended the SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego, and even participated in a session on the Gospel of John. His latest publication -so far- is to be found in the volume published in connection with that event:P. Borgen, 'The Scriptures and the Words and Works of Jesus,' Tom Thatcher (ed.), What We Have Heard From the Beginning. The Past, Present and Future of Johannine Studies (Waco, Texas, Baylor University Press, 2007), pp. 39-58. It is a great pleasure and joy to have him as a friend and DoktorVater, and we want him to stay with us for many more years to come.
Happy Birthday, Peder!


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