Philo of Alexandria Blog

This will probably be my last posting this year. As my fourth part of Recommended Readings i offer this briev note on the most relevant bibliographies of scholarly works on the writings of Philo.

Have a nice reading, and a Happy New year to all of you!

Bibliographica Philonica
Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough; Howard Lehman Goodhart
The politics of Philo Judaeus, practice and theory,
with a general bibliography of Philo by Howard L. Goodhart and Erwin R. Goodenough
New Haven, Yale University Press: London, H. Milford, Oxford University Press,pp. xii, 348 p. 1938

Feldman, L.H. ‘’Scholarship on Philo and Josephus,’’The Classical World 54 (1960/61): 281-291; 55 (1961/62): 36ff.

Hilgert, E. ‘’Bibliographia Philoniana, 1935-1981.’’ ANRW II. 21.1. pp. 47-97.

Radice, R. and Runia, D.T. Philo of Alexandria: An Annotated Bibliography 1937-1986. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 8 (E.J. Brill; Leiden, 1988).

Runia, David T.
Philo of Alexandria: an annotated bibliography 1987-1996.
Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000). 412 pp

For første gang i en norsk preken har jeg sett en fyldig og saksvarende referanse til Filon av Aleksandria. Avisa Vårt Land brakte denne prekenen (Det forløsende ordet) 25. desember, skrevet av Per Eriksen:Bruen.
For Johannes er det åpenbart at dette samsvarer med mye av det han ønsker å formidle om Kristus. Det er et grunnlag å bygge på.
«Ordet var hos Gud,
og Ordet var Gud,» skriver han.
Johannes tenker på en av de mest navngjetne jødene som levde samtidig med Mesteren; Filon fra Aleksandria. Filon hadde forsøkt å skape en enhet mellom sin jødiske bakgrunn og grekernes filosofi. Og i dette forsøket var Logos-begrepet viktig. For Filon hadde som grekerne vanskelig for å se hvordan Gud kunne være i kontakt med den materielle verden. Gud var jo ren eksistens. Kunne han skape verden direkte?
Filon tenkte at det måtte være en skapende kraft som utgår fra Gud og virker i skaperverket. Logos ble for ham en betegnelse for den universelle planen for alt som finnes i Guds tanke, og for hvordan denne planen blir gjort til virkelighet i verden. Logos blir bruen mellom Gud og verden.
Johannes finner igjen fram pennen:
«Han var i begynnelsen hos Gud.
Alt er blitt til ved ham, uten ham er ikke noe blitt til.»

As for the readers who don't understand Norwegian, this note is about the mentioning of Philo in a Christmas sermon, printed in the Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land Dec. 25.

If you have searched the archives, and read my first postings, you will have discovered that two days ago, on December the 20th, this blog passed its second anniversary.
Hm, I was sure that day was today,....but it wasn't.....

But now you know too, and may post your congratulations in the comment field below.

Anyway; I am taking some days of, celebrating Christmas with the house filled up with our three offsprings( can't call them children at their age...?), a daugter in law, and a grand child. After some days even a prospective son in law may turn up.

Hence, have a nice season all of you, wherever you are (cf. the frappr map), and whatever you celebrate..

This is another very interesting site, presenting inscriptions both in original texts and in translation. I just happened to stumble over it, and have not had time yet (just know what seson of the year it is....) to peruse it, but my first impression is 'Hm, interesting; I'll post a note on it.'

So, here it is:
Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity: The Late Roman and Byzantine Inscriptions, by Charlotte Roueché, King's College London.

"This is the electronic second edition, expanded and revised from the version published by the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies in 1989. The editions and commentary are by Charlotte Roueché, except for Text 1, by Joyce Reynolds. The electronic editorial conventions were developed by Tom Elliott (EpiDoc), and the website and the supporting materials are the work of Gabriel Bodard, Paul Spence, and colleagues at King's.

This site contains:
* Inscriptions
* Commentary
* Indices and reference materials
* Information about the project
* Credits"

Have a look!

SBL's BookReviews are offering some new reviews you might find interesting:Barmash, Pamela,
Homicide in the Biblical World
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005
pp. xvi + 253.Hardcover.

Britt, Brian,
Rewriting Moses: The Narrative Eclipse of the Text
London: T&T Clark, 2005. pp. x + 208. Paperback

Barclay, John M. G., editor,
Negotiating Diaspora: Jewish Strategies in the Roman Empire
London: T&T Clark, 2004. pp. vi + 161. Hardcover

Philip Harland's blog on Relgions of the Ancient Mediterranean has moved to this location: http://www.philipharland.com/Blog/. This blog contains a lot of interesting things relavant also for student of Philo and the Jewish Diasspora world and life.
Among his most recent posts I might point especially to
Fish in Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian mosaics,
His last posting is on
Regional rivalries and humour in the Greco-Roman world.

In hte last issue of the Society of Biblical Literature Forum, the SBL now announces the new and free access for members to all former and present issues of the Journal of Biblical Literature OnLine:The Society of Biblical Literature is pleased to announce a new member benefit: free online access to every issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature. Long recognized as the flagship journal of the field and soon to celebrate its 125th year of publication, JBL is scheduled for release into the JSTOR Arts and Sciences III collection in November 2005. By the end of January 2006, the SBL will provide every member with free access to the first 119 volumes of JBL within the JSTOR archive (recent issues will continue to be made available on the SBL website). In order to access JSTOR's collection of JBL, a member will merely need to log in to the SBL website using his or her SBL member number, then click on the link that will be provided to be rerouted to JSTOR's collection of JBL. This is a great benefit to all SBL members, probably another good reason to keep up one's membership.

One of the books I bought last November at the SBL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, was this:Anthony C. Thiselton, A Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion (Grand Rapids, Mi; Baker Academic, 2005), 344pp. The book as such is nothing more than an Introduction, but as such it will be helpful for many students in getting their first grasp on the many persons and issues within the field of philosophy of religion.

In such a book, the articles have to be brief and focused, and in the present setting I would like to point how much he nevertheless is able to say about Philo of Alexandria.

Philo is given an article of his own on pp. 226-227; in addition he is mentioned in several other articles. On pp. 226f he is described a a man who'combines loyalty to the Jewish scriptures with the aim of utilizing Hellenistic and ancient Greek philosophy for the expression of his ideas.' Some of the currents view of him is mentioned, and his works are briefly described. His work is described as 'largely philosophical apologetic for a Hellenistic or heterodox Judaism.'

On pp. 151-2 he is described within an article on Jewish philosophy: "In order to facilitate this task of establishing the rational credibility of Jewish thought about God and the world, Philo drew upon a variety of Greeek philosophical sources"......"This is not simply, as some have claimed, the undisciplined ransacking of sources by an eclectic polymath, but an attempt to draw on a variety of conceptual and logical tools to expound Hebrew-Jewish texts and traditions in the most rational and intelligible light."

On pp. 176-7 Maimodes is described in comparison to Philo; his work Guide of the Perplexed is described as "broadly in the tradition of Philo of Alexandria."
Writing on Jewish mysticism, Philo is described as "too 'rationalist' to merit the term 'mystic' (p.193); writing on Neoplatonism, Philo is mentioned 'en passant' as one who "anticipated Neoplatonic themes" (p. 198), and finally, writing on Religion, religious experiences, Philo is mentioned as one who gives a cosmic and universal significance to Moses, to Jerusalem, to the Temple and to the Sabbath. The law of Moses functions to underline the 'orderedness' of the universe, and exhibits the coherence of the divine principle of reason in the world. Moses is no meree particularist legislator or prophet of a specific nation, but a philosopher for the world, a mediator between God and humankind.... As the embodiment of all knowledge and wisdom, Moses mediates, in effect, a world-view of religious philosophy. Philo is a systembuilder." Thiselton knows that this view of Philo as a system builder is controversial (very much associated with the work on Philo by Wolfson), but he will not view Philo as an idiosyncratic borrower of ideas from a variety of sources.

Some of the viewpoints set forth by Thiselton may be questioned, but my point that in such a brief work as this is, he manages to give well informed insights into the works and ideas of Philo.

This might very well be a book very useful for the student on the border of being initiated into the mysteries of philosophy of religion.

You want to know where Kåre Fuglseth, Peder Borgen and I live? Have a look at the Philo Blogger map at http://www.frappr.com/philoofalexandriablog. Then add your self at the same map.

I was contacted some time ago by the editors of the new Danish edition of the complete works (55 volumes!) of Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist, cf. The Kierkegaard Research Center. Kierkegaard claims in a note to cite Philo and the editors asked me if I could locate it.

The transcribed saying was "o atheos apator esti, o de polutheos esti ek pornes".

Interesting case of course. A little bit of a detective work and somewhat surprising that Kierkegaard knew or claimed that he knew Philo. It reflects what they were reading at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen where he had been studying, I guess.

There is no such exact sentence in the writings of Philo, so my best guess was Migr. 69. Philo’s original would be: "for the barren man (is) godless, and the son of a whore polytheist." He interprets Deut. 23:1f. Any other ideas?

The only thing that I have been able to publish on the blog seems to be information concerning the different digital editions of Philo writings based on our Norwegian Philo Concordance Project. Well, that is also the only thing I have been able to work with the last 6 months, so it is perhaps no wonder...

As an old Macintosh fan, I was very pleased the other day when receiving the CD from Accordance with the Philo texts in Greek and English. Very nice, it works just as I expected although I had to update from version 1.0 to 6.9 (sic!). My old version worked just fine for me :-) The Philo module costs 100$ (see the picture added on the blog).

The Accordance announcement can be found at http://www.accordancebible.com/modules/details.php?ID=368

Did I ever mention the version planned by BibleWorks? We have reached an agreement with the company and the edition should be coming next year.

Kåre

What does that mean?? frappr?
Frankly speaking; I don't know. But they offer a nice service of providing a map on which you can place a pin showing where you live.

Hence please do go to the http://www.frappr.com/philoofalexandriablog , and click at the link to the right (Add yourself) or just scroll down to just below the map, and add yourself. You may even send a greeting! (you know what season of the year it is now??).

Thanks!

James A. Arieti,
Philosophy in the Ancient World.
An Introduction
(Lanham; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005). 386pp.

In this volume James A. Arieti provides an intellectual history of the ancient world from the eighth century BCE to the fifth century CE, that is from Homer to Boethius. The author describes the various philosophers in their social world, emphasizing how it affected and in turn was affected by eachother.
The volume is intended as a companion to primary source reading, and it is written for undergraduate courses in ancient philosophy and the history of philosophy in the West.

Areti has also published other studies on Philo(1), and includes also a chapter on Philo in this volume (pp. 299-310). As in all the other chapters this too has a set of discussion questions, Notes and a Select Bibliography added at its end.

His chapter on Philo is, however, somewhat strange to me. There is not the briefest outline of his life, no mention of the range of books he wrote nor of what topics Philo mostly dealt with. What Arieti focus on, is to demonstrate that Philo was a Platonist. This is carried out by a quote from On the Creation 89-91 on Genesis 1:26, and by a brief exposition of Philo's description of the Sabbath, and of his attention to numbers. Hence Philo is described as bringing together the secular science of the Greeks with the revealed truth of the Bible. As to the purpose of this, Arieti wonders if Philo is to be considered a proselyte for philosophy to the Jews, or trying to render Jewish ideas acceptable to the pagan world. According to Arieti, he failed, however, in both these regards. This book of Arieti has many merits, but his chapter on Philo is somewhat disappointing. To me it fails to bring a helpful introduction to Philo in the context of ancient philosophy.

Note:
James A. Arieti,’Man and God in Philo: Philo’s Interpretation of genesis 1:26.’ Lyceum 4 (1991): 1-18.

David T. Runia, one of the two editors of Studia Philonica writes:

I am delighted to be able to announce that this year’s issue of The Studia Philonica Annual has been published by Brown Judaic Studies. Once again it is filled with articles and reviews on Philo, as well as bibliographical aids for those interested in Philonic studies. The Annual is well produced and moderately priced. It would be great if both libraries and individual scholars supported the work of the editorial team by purchasing the volume. More information can be found on the Annual’s website, www.nd.edu/~philojud.


Bibliographic details and contents

David T. Runia, Gregory E. Sterling (edd.), The Studia Philonica Annual 17 (2005), Brown Judaic Studies 344. Brown University, Providence. viii + 264 pages. ISBN 1-930675-24-0, ISSN 1052-4533. Price $39.95 Cloth.

Contents
Articles
Walter T. Wilson, Pious Soldiers, Gender Deviants, and the Ideology of Actium: Courage and Warfare in Philo’s De Fortitudine, 1–32;
Frank Shaw, The Emperor Gaius’ Employment of the Divine Name, 33–48;
Allen Kerkeslager, The Absence of Dionysios, Lampo, and Isidoros from the Violence in Alexandria in 38 ce, 49–94;
James R. Royse, Three More Spurious Fragments of Philo, 95–98; Maren R. Niehoff, Response to Daniel S. Schwartz, 99–101.

Special Section
Gregory E. Sterling, Introduction, 102;
Harold W. Attridge, Philo and John: Two Riffs on One Logos, 103–117;
Gregory E. Sterling, ‘Day One’: Platonizing Exegetical Traditions of Genesis 1:1–5 in John and Jewish Authors, 118–140.

Review Articles
David T. Runia, A Conference on Philo in Germany, 141–152;
Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Joining the Club: Tannaitic Legal Midrash and Ancient Jewish Hermeneutics, 153–160.

Bibliography Section
D. T. Runia, E. Birnbaum, K. A. Fox, A. C. Geljon, H. M. Keizer, J. P. Martín, R. Radice, J. Riaud, D. Satran, G. Schimanowski, T. Seland, Philo of Alexandria: an Annotated Bibliography 2002, 161–197; Supplement: Provisional Bibliography 2003–2005, 198–214.
Book reviews by Thomas H. Tobin, Adele Reinhartz, Silvia Castelli, Matt Jackson-McCabe, Leslie Baynes, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, David T. Runia, John J. Collins, Gregory E. Sterling, 215–251.

News and Notes, 252–253;
Notes on Contributors, 254–257;
Instructions to contributors, 258–264.

Someone may have missed that one can find some bibliographic information of the homepage of Studia Philonica:

Studia Philonica 1989-2000 volumes I-XII
Index of articles and bibliographies
arranged by author.

Index of Reviews, arranged by author:
Volumes I-XII, 1989-2000.

Every Issue of Studia Philonica contains now an extended annotated bibliography. These are then collected and published as a book every 10th year. In my next posting I will return to relevant bibliographies for the study of Philo.

By the way; have you located and marked your spot on the Philo of Alexandria Map? Go to http://www.frappr.com/philoofalexandriablog, then find and click on the link in the upper right corner, labelled Add Yourself. Thanks.

When you surf the Internet, you find something new, something old; this time I found something old, but nevertheless new to me!

It's a reference to an article of David T Runia I have missed to see before:Runia, David T. "The Idea and the Reality of the City in the Thought of Philo of Alexandria"
Journal of the History of Ideas - Volume 61, Number 3, July 2000, pp. 361-379
An excerpt of the article is given thus:

"The theme of my paper is the conception of the city as a social and cultural phenomenon held by the Jewish exegete and philosopher Philo of Alexandria (15 bc to 50 ad). There can be no doubt that the city occupied a central position in his own life. As an inhabitant of Alexandria he was thoroughly immersed in a highly urbanized form of life. From a more theoretical angle the city has an important place in his thought because of what it represents: of all physical products of human activity the city is the largest and most complex (here there is in fact little difference between Philo and us, although there is an obvious difference in scale). It is not my aim to examine Philo's political philosophy, i.e., his views on how the city should be governed, nor his views on the actual political administration of the Roman Empire in his time. These subjects have already been treated with sufficient competence by others. 1 I will argue that, though as an Alexandrian Philo was very much a homo urbanus, he nevertheless reveals a significant ambivalence towards the city. This attitude is related to his dual ideological background (Jewish and Greek), and anticipates developments in later antiquity."

Due to a brief note on the Logos Bible Software Blog I was made aware of the interesting service of Frappr!, a free service providing the possibilities of setting up a map, and invite all visitors to place themselves on the map.

You can find the Philo of Alexandria map here: http://www.frappr.com/philoofalexandriablog

Please consider entering it and locate yourself on the map: you can also post a brief message and /or photo of yourself (visitors: click on the symbol to see the message). It would be interesting for both me and all other visitors to see where in the world the various PhiloBlog visitors live.

This posting has not much to do with Philo research as such, but with research on ancient slavery, a field that I am very interested in (cf. The Philemon letter in the New Testament), and it is thus relevant for New Testament research, and- also for the study of Diaspora Judaism. I just came over a review of R. Zelnick-Abramovitz,
Not Wholly Free: The Concept of Manumission and
the Status of Manumitted Slaves in the Ancient Greek World.
Mnemosyne Supplement 266. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp. viii, 392. ISBN
90-04-14585-0. $160.00.
Reviewed by Deborah Kamen, Stanford University (dkamen@stanford.edu). The review can be read on BrynMawr Classical Review.

What also struck me here as very interesting, is that the reviewer points to another project on slavery inscriptions by Elisabeth Meyer:"A New Interpretive Study of Slavery in Hellenistic and Roman Greece." The project is presented thus: "he overall long-term goal of this project is to create an electronic archive of all Greek manumission inscriptions that can be of use to epigraphists (scholars specializing in the study of ancient inscriptions) and historians (of antiquity, but also of slavery in other historical periods) alike. The project was initially conceived as a way of organizing one type of data on which my own study of slavery, manumission, freedman status, and inscribing habits in Greece during the Hellenstic and Roman periods would be based, but has rapidly become more technically oriented and more precise, since all work which uses inscriptions needs to reflect a high degree of care and accuracy. The project thus aims to satisfy the needs of Greek epigraphists, to the extent that they can be satisfied when they cannot work from the stones themselves, by providing high-quality color images (and details) of every inscription, complete physical descriptions, comprehensive references to previous readings of the texts, reliable information about where the stone can now be found, and Greek texts of my reading of the stones. But I would also like to make this material accessible to non-epigraphists, and indeed to non-classicists (e.g. students of slavery in other historical periods), and have therefore included English translations of all inscriptions in this archive, information about location and context when possible, and forms of tagging (e.g. to price) that will help non-specialists to gather information from this archive."

You can here browse the inscriptions (a search function, alas, did not work for me).
A tremendous help when investigating ancient slavery; internett at its best!

On Tuesday, the last day of the SBL Annual Meeting, I attended the second Philo session, and for me, it was the most rewarding one. And do you know what: two out of three used handouts!! (cf. my former posting below..)


Here you see the participants: Walter Wilson is presenting his paper, while Davit T. Runia (who presided at the session), then David Konstan, Gregory E. Sterling, and James R. Royse.

The theme was Interpreting Philo’s De Virtutibus.

First out was Walter Wilson, Emory University, who is writing the commentary on De Virtutibus in Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series (PACS). His paper was an interesting discussion of some aspects relating to work, and he in particular dealt with issues raised by Katell Bertholot, Philanthropia Judaica: le debat autour de la "misanthropie" des lois juives dans l'antiquite (JSJ 76; Leiden: E.J. Brill 2003, sorry for the missing accents in my printing of the title here..TS)), and then with Emilio Gabba, 'Studi su Dionigi da Alicarnasso: La costituzione di Romolo,' Athenaeum 38 (1960) 175-225,
Gregory E. Sterling, University of Notre Dame, was respondent to this paper

James R. Royse, (San Francisco State University) gave his paper on The Text of Philo’s De Virtutibus. He even handed out his whole manuscript. Great! This paper was also illuminating to me as I do not know very much about issues related to the text and various manuscripts of Philo's work.

Last presenter was David Konstan (Brown University), whos paper was on Philo’s De Virtutibus in the Perspective of Greco-Roman Philosophical Literature. I would have liked very much to have had some handouts of this too, as I found it very interesting; but here I'll probably have to wait for its publication.

After the session I was having lunch at Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant, with Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, Ellen Birnbaum and David M. Hay. A very very pleasant closing of this years SBL Annual Meeting.

This morning I attended the first session of two sessions on Philo:On the not too good picture above you can see Martinez lecturing, while Collins and Najman are attentive listeners.






Philo of Alexandria
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 103-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center
Theme: Linguistic Border Crossing: Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls
John Collins, Yale University, Presiding
Florentino Garcia Martinez, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Divine Sonship at Qumran and in Philo (30 min)
Hindy Najman, University of Toronto
Revelation in the Desert: The Case of the Therapeutae and the Essenes (30 min)
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, University of Durham
To What Extent Did Philo's Treatment of Enoch and the Giants Presuppose a Knowledge of the Enoch-related Sources Preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls (30 min)

It was certainly interesting to here and see F. Garzia Martinez, this expert on the Qumran Scrolls, and I do think he demonstrated his mastery of the sources in this lecture. The other two were also interesting, and I do hope all three papers will be printed in the next volume of Studia Philonica.

The English of Martinez was sometimes somewhat difficult to follow, and Najman, who is an excellent scholar, is also an impresssive fast speaker, adding explanatory parantheses along the way. I must admit, however, not having English as my mother tongue, that I would have been greatly helped if there had been some handouts, giving the main aspects of the arguments presented. This is not something experienced only in this session; by no way,- many presentations suffer in a similar way. But that is no excuse. Please; do start considering using handouts.
Hence I have to wait some time to have a fuller understanding and enjoyment of these important papers.

Those who have followed the biblioblogs for some times, will perhaps remember that similar comments of mine sparked a debate among bibliobloggers last year. The viwpoints offered then, can be reread here, and here and here..
Most of them are still valid.

Update Nov 25:
Mark Goodacre supports my plea for the use of handouts.

I attended the session S20-62 Hellenistic Judaism, at the SBL Annual Meeting today; the most interesting paper for my part was Erich S. Gruen, The Jews at Rome: Alienation, Toleration or integration? or None of the Above?

He said discussions were often marred by the issues of ghettoization or assimilation as the most relevant options, but he claimed that the Jews where able to live at both of these two ends at the same time. Their situations were complex, but our sources seem to support the hypothesis that they clung to their distinction as Jews, while at the same time enjoying participation in the life of Rome.

Are we often thinking too much in dichotomies?

Well, by now the biblioblogging session is over. I think the best part was the papers presented, but it was also interesting to meet the real persons behind the various names and pseudonyms so well known from their blog pages.
The discussion had its merits; it could perhaps, at least according to my opinion, have been a little more organised as people just 'took the word' and spoke without waiting in line, or giving a sign.
I had also hoped that someone (in addition to me.......:-) had focused a little more on the future; What do we expect blogosphere will look like in two years, and/or what do we want it to look like? I presume the wild flowers will continue to grow; but if we do not get more blogs who focus more strictly on specific fields, or groups of biblical writings, we will lose some interest in the scholarly world....
That's my prophecy for the day....

Here is
a list of those commenting on the Biblioblogging session.

Some readers of this blog may have discovered that there will be a special session at the SBL Annual Meeting devoted to Biblioblogging. If not, you can read more about it here.

This event is not supposed to be focusing on Philo of Alexandria, but he will surely be mentioned, as I am one of the bloggers to participate in the discussion panel. I don't know how much time each of us will get in the discussion, and as I am not one of those fast-speaking-native-firstlanguage-English speakers, but a slow speaking Norwegian, I'll post some of my ideas about the future of Bibioblogging here. You are welcome to add your comments in the comment field below.

I was first a little surprised by being counted among the bibliobloggers and invited to this panel. On second thoughts, however, My Philo of Alexandria blog certainly deals with matter closely related to the study of the Bible as Philo himself was an expositor of the Scriptures, and his works are interesting for just that same reason.

My own blog came into being in relation to my Resource Pages for Biblical studies. The PaleoJudaica blog had been on the web for some time, and so had the New Testament Gateway blog, and a few others. I planned my Philoblog to be a place where I could present and discuss issues relevant in the world of Philo studies, and to gather and present material on the web on Philo. My first aim has been only partially fulfilled; there has been little discussion. After some time it became more and more a blog of collecting and presenting relevant links and news from the ongoing Philo research, both printed matter and websites.

There are several reasons for this; the main reason however, being my lack of time for just these things. Hence I focused more and more on updating it as a channel for presenting news in the fields of philonic studies. I try not to post on my personal life; I have two other blogs dealing with that (you can find them on my homepage), and I certainly do not write about Zwingli, but I focus on Philo and related issues within New Testament research.

Furthermore, I will not try to define what is or who is a biblioblogger. I do think the name just is there, and it needs no clear-cut definition. What I would like to focus on is some of the issues related to keeping and managing such a blog, and what I would like to see in the future.

The blogs now included among the 'biblioblogs' are very varied; the only common denominator seem to be that they in some ways deals with issues related to the Bible. Some are more academic than others, some are often rather personal diary-like. I will presume these aspects receive various responses from the readers. I made a little test among my colleagues in Stavanger at my present institution. I gave them a list of those blogs represented here in this panel, and asked them to have a look at, and – if possible - to tell me what they thought about the phenomenon of blogging, and what they would like to find. The answers I received varied from a confused professor asking: “What is a blog” to more informed responses. These latter focused on the scholarly content and thus usefulness of reading them, and explicitly said that postings of a more private nature would keep them away from visiting these sites. I am asking myself this: is our willingness and even interest in reading about personal experiences due to the fact that several of us have a feeling of knowing each other so much that it become natural to also read about personal issues and family events? If a blog is presented as scholarly, and not of the diary kind, I think we should be more restrictive here.

I do think some of the issues worthy of further discussion are closely related to something I brought up quite early on my blog concerning the keeping of comprehensive websites as, for instance, the New Testament Gateway and my own Resource Pages for Biblical Studies. At that time I called them megasites (see more on the discussion here). The fields of studies comprised by these sites, and the amount of studies published are so vast that it is becoming impossible for one person to be updated on all parts of, for instance in my case, Philonic and New Testament studies.
Hence I made two suggestions, and these, I think, are quite relevant also for the future of effective biblioblogging:
1. I would like to have more discussions of the prospects and problems of establishing a range of scholarly weblogs that deal seriously with various sections of the field of biblical studies and related fields.The focus of the megasites, or as here; the blogs, should be narrowed down from the comprehensive Biblical, Old - or New Testament to focus on individual Scriptures or group of scriptures. Good examples here are already the Evangelical Textual Criticism, Hypotyposeis, dealing with the Synoptic Gospels, the PastoralEpistles.com, dealing with the socalled Pastoral letters. But do we have any blogs dealing specifically with Old Testament groups of texts, or with the Pauline letters, the Johaninne writings, or the catholic epistles?(There might be some I don't know about yet; for those not mentioned here, please forgive me..)

It might be both possible and interesting – for the time being - to run and to read blogs that are biblical focused in such a wide way that they comprise not only biblical studies, but also biblical related movies, personal travels, and inputs from Zwingli. But not, I am afraid, in the long run. I would predict that those running such comprehensive blogs will sooner or later have to (re)consider narrowing their focus or splitting up their blogs into several. Some have already done that.

2. Secondly, I would like to see more blogs not only having a more narrow focus, but also to be run by several bloggers. I do have a co-blogger on my Philo blog; unfortunately he has not been able to be as active as we both wanted. And I would like to have others joining me. Some of the new blogs mentioned above, in fact, have several bloggers. And I do think that is something that will prove itself rewarding.

The blogs are here to stay. But if they shall continue to gather interest from the scholars around the world who do not know the bloggers, and don’t want to know too much about them personally, but of their research the blog should be more narrow, and be driven by several bloggers in companionship.

I hope I am not killing the interest in the varity of Bible related blogs as we have it today. Let the wild flowers blossom! But for the sake of the future; let us also consider if there could be some more co-ordination among some bloggers, and thus be more able to build up a handful of biblical blogs focusing strictly on the scholarly research of the Old and New Testaments and related fields. It is not a question of either- or. We need both.

I spent a lot of time at the book exhibition today, and spent some money. There are a tremendous lot of new books publishe, and several revised editions are presented. Among some of the revised editions of useful books are the new edition ofGeorge Nickelsburg,
Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, with CD-ROM
Fortress Press, 450 pages 6 x 9 inches This version also includes some additional material, including now a chapter on Philo of Alexandria, and Josephus. Good to see Philo included where he belongs.
The list of the contents of the book can be seen here.

As mentioned by my co-blogger Kåre Fuglseth some weeks ago the Gorgias Press is to publish a complete Philo Concordance as a KWIC (Key-word in context) concordance.

Now they are announcing it on their website: "This edition, The Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria: A Key-Word-In-Context Concordance, is the ultimate printed form for any concordance with every occurrence of all Greek words. Each lemma is alphabetically ordered and presented within its context and thus designed to aid with research on Philo of Alexandria."

Skarsten, Peder Borgen, Kåre Fuglseth, Roald . The Complete Works of Philo of Alexandria: A Key-Word-In-Context Concordance
Gorgias Press. 7556pp; $ 1480.

Gorgias is listed among the publishers present here at SBL; hence I will have to look them up, and see if they have some proof pages etc so one can get an impression of what the books will be like.

Arrived in Philly yesterday; after 18 hours of travel; and the jetlag is heavy.... But I have attended two sessions today: the first one on Biblical Exegetical Software in the Classroom, and then the first part of a Workshop on Bibleworks.

Some of the guys in the first session were quite clever; both in their presentations and in what they had accomplished. But most of them were presenting how to teach Greek or Hebrew with computer technology; I would have liked to have listened to someone coming up with something more related to historical (and exegetical)studies. And second; it looked like Bibleworks was quite popular here, so both sessions must have been very valuable for the Bibleworks company...

My institution has an older version of that program; maybe I should have a closer look at it. But so far I have been very satisfied with my version of its competitor, a name I perhaps should reveal here so it can get some PR in this posting too...

Tomorrow is one of those looong days; I only hope I do not wake up 3 o'clock in the morning,- as I did today...
Good night....

Update:
I did....

On Thursday morning (very early in the morning..) I am leaving Norway for a short week, heading for the SBL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. And just when I feel I have recovered from the jet-lag, I am no return back home, to take up another term of teaching.
The list of lectures and discussions to attend is written up, and so is the list of books wanted...

Acccording to the Program Book, it looks like Philo is popular at this Annual Meeting; in the 10 to 12 years I have been a participant I have never seen so many lectures and topics dealing with Philo, or at least including him in the material discussed. Early in the fall I listed the relevant sessions, but here is the relevant list of sessions I have on my schedule (including both Philo and non-philo related sessions):

S18-51Biblical Exegetical Software in the Classroom—Integration 101
11/18/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 112-A - Pennsylvania Convention Center

S19-23Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
11/19/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 409 - Marriott
especially: Celia Deutsch, Barnard College
Text Work and Religious Experience: Philo and Clement

S19-72Religion in Roman Egypt
11/19/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 106-A - Pennsylvania Convention Center
especially Steven Weitzman, Indiana University at Bloomington
Philo on How to Befriend an Emperor (25 min)

S19-123Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
11/19/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Room 409 - Marriott
(some of these will include Philo, according to the Abstracts)

S19-133Presidential Address
11/19/2005
7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Room: Salon G/H - Marriott

S20-12Computer Assisted Research
11/20/2005
9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Room: Room 411 & 412 - Marriott
(probably not much about Philo, but I am a participant in the panel)

S20-58Construction of Christian Identities
11/20/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Liberty Ballroom A - Marriott
Theme: Ephesus and Antioch: Plurality of Christian Groups and Christian Texts in the First Two Centuries.
or
S20-62Hellenistic Judaism
11/20/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Independence I - Marriott
Theme: Boundaries and Limits in Diaspora Judaism
here especially
Sarah Pearce, University of Southampton
Philo on Atheism, Judaism, and Egyptian Identity (20 min)
Abraham Terian, St. Nersess Armenian Seminary
Philo's Definitions of Israel in Relation to Historical Realities in the Greco-Roman World (20 min)

S20-119John's Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
11/20/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM

S21-29 Philo of Alexandria
11/21/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 103-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center
Theme: Linguistic Border Crossing: Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls

S21-68Hellenistic Judaism
11/21/2005
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room 404 - Marriott
Theme: The Cultural Context of Judaism in Alexandria

S21-127Social History of Formative Christianity and Judaism
11/21/2005
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Salon I (Level Five) - Marriott
Theme: Ethnicity, Identity, and Social Boundaries

S22-16Philo of Alexandria
11/22/2005
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Room 109-B - Pennsylvania Convention Center
Theme: Interpreting Philo’s De Virtutibus

Well, I will probably not be able to show up at all these sessions; by experience I know that the time spent in book exhibition area is eating up session-time every day. But where else do you get interesting (and sometimes expensive) books for 50 % discount? Long ago I discovered that people attend these annual meetings for three reasons; meeting people, buying books, and attend sessions. But not necessarily in this order....

By the way, did you ask for my book list? There is not one Philo-book on it! I did not find any in the advertisements texts in the printed Program book. Hopefully there might be some on the tables at the book exhibition.....

Great news for all Macintosh users: The Accordance Bible Software now announces their new release of Scholar’s Collection 6.9(CD-ROM is $10 with purchase of Accordance 6).
This new release upgrades most modules, and offer major new tagged Greek texts of broad interest to scholars. In this edition the works of Philo are also included and thus available for unlocking ($100,- All the extant Greek texts of Philo prepared, lemmatized, and initially tagged grammatically by The Norwegian Philo Concordance Project, extensively revised for Accordance.)
You can read more about it here.

For those of you who don't read the comment fields to the various posting, I would like to republish this info: In a comment to a posting of mine below Phil H(arland?) was so kind as to direct my attention to the following article:Adam Kamesar, "The Logos Endiathetos and the Logos Prophorikos in Allegorical Interpretation: Philo and the D-Scholia to the Iliad," Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 44 (2004) 163-181. It is freely available online at here.

According to a posting by Mark Goodacre on his blog New Testament Gateway Weblog, there is an article related to Philo in the recent Festschrift to Abraham Malherbethat I have been unaware of so far; Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, eds. John T. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Olbricht, L. Michael White (Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 740 pp. I don't know the page numbers but the article concerned is Everett Ferguson, "The Art of Praise: Philo and Philodemus on Music".According to the note by Mark, it looks like the book was published by SBL in 2005; according to the E.J. Brill webpage, it was published in 2003 in the well known series Novum Testamentum Supplements, 110. The book is large; 748 pages, and the price terrible: List price: EUR 192.- / US$ 275.-.

Update.
Since Mark G. (above) mentions the book as published by SBL, he might very well be correct. I know the SBL has an agreement with Brill in publishing some of their works, but so far I have not been able to find this book on the SBL's webpages.

Walter de Gruyter publishing announces a couple of new books to be releaseed soon that may be interesting for Philo scholars. Here is the main fact about the issues:
Early Christian Paraenesis in Context
Ed. by Engberg-Pedersen, Troels & James Starr
- An up-to-date discussion of early Christian paraenesis in its Graeco-Roman and Hellenistic Jewish contexts in the light of one hundred years of scholarship, issuing from a research project by Nordic and international scholars.
http://www.degruyter.de/rs/bookSingle.cfm?id=IS-3110181541-1&l=E&ad=nle

Another volume, perhaps not that close to Philo, but relevant for students of ancient diaspora Judaism is this new commentary:Wilson, Walter T.: The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides.
- This commentary on the Greek text of the Jewish-Hellenistic Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, a sapiential poem of the first century BCE or first century CE, offers a full treatment of its sources, structure, perspective, and purpose as well as a verse-by-verse translation and analysis. The Greek text is given as appendix. The cross-cultural nature of these moral teachings is emphasized through extensive interaction with Biblical, Hellenistic Jewish, and Greco-Roman comparative materials.
http://www.degruyter.de/rs/bookSingle.cfm?id=IS-3110182416-1&l=E&ad=nle

My Resource Page for the Study of Philo has been updated today, together with the rest of the pages belonging to my site Resource Pages for Biblical Studies. You can see a summary of the new items added here: News2005.

This is the third posting in a series of Recommended Reading Lists in Philo. The first postings can be read below, or by clicking here:

• Recommended Reading List I
• Recommended Reading List II.

Recommended Reading List III

As mentioned in the former posting on Recommended Readings, E.R. Goodenough provides some very useful suggestions of where to start and how to proceed when wanting to read the works of Philo himself; that is, he recommends which works to start with, and how to work one’s way through the writings of Philo. I recommend these suggestions of Goodenough, and present them below.

I have, however, deliberately refrained from commenting on the contents of each individual treaties. If the reader has read through the other introductory material mentioned in the two former postings on Recommended Readings, s/he will already have an impression of what to expect/what to look for.

In addition, here is the time to return to the introductory work of Schrenk, which provides brief characterizations of the individual treatises of Philo.

However, if one want a much more thorough presentation of the various writings of Philo, one should turn to the comprehensive introduction to Philo and his works written by Peder Borgen

Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria; An Exegete for his Time (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 86; Leiden, Brill, 1997).There is, for the time being, no real competitor out to this work for those who wants a more comprehensive introduction to Philo. It functions quite well as a companion when reading the works of Philo himself too.

1) The first work(s) to read, according to Goodenough, is
Against Flaccus, and
The Embassy to Gaius.
These are the more historical treatises of Philo. They are not his first writings, but they demonstrate how Philo considered the situation of the Jews in the Diaspora, but also the role of Israel.

2) Next comes On the Contemplative Life.
It is fragmentary, but was probably a part of an apology for the Jews, addressed to Gentiles. This work should be followed by the remains of what is now called
The Hypothetica,
a work that also should be categorized as apologetical, written for a Gentile audience.

3) According to Goodenough then, the student should next read Philo’s two books on
The Life of Moses De vita Mosis I-II.
As in the ancient time, Goodenough surmises, reading these books will probably make the reader eager to get to know more about the Jewish traditions. This can be obtained by reading further in Philo’s works, proceeding with

4) The Exposition of the Laws.
This is a not a label made by Philo, but is made by scholars in recent times, constituting a comprehensive category, comprising several treatises, representing Philo’s expositions of the Law; according to Goodenough,- written for the Gentiles.

On the Creation of the World (De Opificio Mundi)
On Abraham (De Abrahamo)
On Joseph (De Josepho)
On the Deacalogue (De Decalogue)
On The Special Laws I-IV (De Specialibus Legibus I-IV)
On Vitues (De virtutibus)
On Rewards and Punishments (De praemis et poenis)
Goodenough then says: “The reader who has followed Philo to this point has had a very good introduction to the man, and stands at the threshold of his deeper thought” (p. 45).


5) The next group of writings to be read, many scholars suggest are written for the more informed readers. It is as Philo here wants to lead his readers further into his intellectual world. These works are also much more allegorical; according to Goodenough they were written for the Jews. Not all scholars of today are in complete agreement with Goodenough in dividing the intended readers in Gentile and Jewish readers in this way, but most would probably agree that the treatises to be mentioned (and read) now, are for the more advanced readers. Anyway, a reader of today will probably be much better off if s/he read the Expositio before these.

The Allegory
Consists of 18 titles and 21 books; it starts out from specific biblical texts, but often digresses from in a way sometimes quite frustrating to the uninformed reader. Goodenough suggests that “Philo meant these works to be read by initiates who knew the main parts of his doctrines, and who would read them as books of devotion” p.47).

These books take their point of departures in some specific biblical texts. I will here list them according to the biblical texts they deal with:

Legum allegoriae I (Genesis 2:1-17)
Legum allegoriae II (Genesis 2:18-3:1a)
Legum allegoriae III Genesis 3:8b-19)
De Cherubim Genesis 3:24-4:1)
De sacrificcis Abelis et Caini Genesis 4:2-4)
Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat Genesis 4:8-15)
De posteritate Caini Genesis 4:16-25)
De gigantibus Genesis 6:1-4a)
Quod deus sit immutabilis Genesis 6:4b-12)
De agricultura Genesis 9:20-21)
De plantatione Genesis 9:20-21)
De ebrietate Genesis 9:20-21)
De confusione linguarum Genesis 11:1-9)
De migratione Abrahami Genesis 12:1-6)
Quis rerum divinarum heres Genesis 15:2-18)
De congressu quaerendae eruditionis gratia Genesis 16:1-6)
De fuga et inventione Genesis 16:6b-14)
De mutatione nominum Genesis 17:1-5, 16-22)
De Deo Genesis 18)
De somniis I Genesis 28:10-22 + 31:10-13)
De somniis II Genesis 37:8-11; 40:9-11, 16-17; 41:17-24)



Having read through The Allegory, there remain only a few works.

Questions and Answers ad Genesim
Questions and Answers ad Exodum
These are a kind of commentaries on two biblical books, but commentaries in form of questions and answers. They may very well originate in some setting of teaching of Philo, and are interesting as examples of how he could deal with particular texts.

The rest belong to the more philosophical works of Philo. Some of them demonstrate too that there are parts missing, or in some cases only one of a two volume work is preserved. Those who have managed to read through the abovementioned works of Philo will surely want to read these too; and in this way they will have a great impression of how variegated the authorship of Philo was and is:

On the Eternity of the World
Every Good Man is Free,
On Providence,
Alexander, or On the Question whether dumb animals have the power of reason.

In a comment to a posting of mine below Mike Bird asks if Could you guys blog on Philo's witness to Jewish missionary activity in the Diaspora? It is something that has interested me. In short, does Philo attest Jewish proselytizing activity amongst Gentiles. Several monographs have touched upon this (McKnight, Feldman, Goodman and recently John P. Dickson). On my part, this is problematic; on the one hand, I don't think there is much to go by in the work of Philo; on the other hand, as I am for the time being living away from my main library, I don't have the relevant books available (such as e.g., McKnights book). There is much about proselytism in the works of Philo, but I don't think one will find much about 'proselytizing activities', whatever these might be defined.

If any others readers, however, co-blogger Kåre or others, would like to throw in some pennies here, please use the comments field below. It might get something started.

SBL's BookReviews service now presents a review of Hindy Najman's book from 2002; both the boook and the review are relevant for philonists:Hindy Najman,Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Pp. xiv + 176. The volume is reviewed by Thomas Römer, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. Let we me give a couple of excerpts from the review:

"This book is a very important contribution to the understanding of Second Temple
Judaism. Najman investigates how Jewish “noncanonical” writings at the end of the Persian period down to the Roman era sought to legitimate themselves by reference to Mosaic discourse. In the first chapter, Najman investigates the connection between the Deuteronomistic concept of Torah and the figure of Moses. After preliminary considerations on Foucault’s theory of discourse, Najman opposes the common view that Deuteronomy would have been written in order to replace the older Covenant Code. In her view such an idea is purely anachronistic. First of all, she states that there is no evidence in the book of Deuteronomy that it was written as a replacement of a former code (24). One should think instead of co-existence of both law collections, which “served as a license to continue the creative hermeneutical endeavor in the future” (25). Since the book of Deuteronomy refers to itself as Torah and presents itself as a Mosaic discourse, it claims authority as a “re-presentation” of Sinai. This model of authoritative interpretation of tradition will play an important role in later Second Temple Judaism."

The third chapter of the book deals with Philo:
"Chapter 3 deals with the reference to Moses in the work of Philo of Alexandria. Philo’s main concern was to show that the laws of Moses were superior to the laws of all the other nations because they were copies of the laws of nature. But since in the Greek conception the law of nature could not be a written law, Philo had to claim that the universal law found a perfect particular copy in the law of Moses. The law of Moses (the Pentateuch) is not simply a code of precepts but contains also the account of the divine creation of nature as well as of the patriarchs, who conformed to the laws of nature. Finally, it contains also the life of Moses, which Philo presents following the conventions of Greek aretalogies (initiation into mysteries, foundation of a legislation, his almost divine character). In contrast to Jubilees and the Temple Scroll, Philo subordinated the law of Moses to the figure of Moses, since the Sinaitic law is presented as a copy of the law of nature."

Read the whole review for yourself by clicking here: Seconding Sinai.

This is the second posting in a series of Recommended Reading Lists in Philo. The first posting can be read below, or by clicking here.

Recommended Reading List II.

I would still recommend the reader to postpone a little more the reading of the works of Philo. Reading a couple of more introductory articles will greatly inform the readers of both what to look for and what has been discussed in more recent research.

Of course, there is here also the danger of being (too) influenced by former research instead of reading the works of Philo in a fresh way by oneself. Nevertheless, I still do think the works of Philo are so complex that if you want to read through the works of Philo to see what he says, and to understand what he is trying to say, the procedure of mine is preferable.

The introductory articles I want to recommend today are the following two, both written by Peder Borgen: Borgen, Peder. "Philo of Alexandria." In Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period. (Compendia Rerum ad Ioudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum), II,2, (Assen, 1985), pp. 233–82.

Borgen, Peder. "Philo of Alexandria A Critical and Synthetical Survey of Research Since World War II." In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II 21,1 : Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. 2, Principat. Religion: (Hellenistisches Judentum in römischer Zeit: Philon und Josephus), edited by Wolfgang Haase, (Berlin, 1984), pp. 98-154.There is another introductory volume that not has been mentioned so far. It is introductory, but perhaps it nevertheless should not be the first volume to be read by beginners; I am here thinking of

Erwin R. Goodenough,. An Introduction to Philo Judaeus (J. Neusner. Brown Classics in Judaica. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 1986; orig.publ.1940, sec. ed. 1962).
Goodenough had some specific ideas about the Judaism of Philo, and about the mystical nature of his religion. You will find an excurse on Goodenough in Sandmels work mentioned in the former posting of mine.

However, Goodeough provides some very useful suggestions of how to proceed when starting to read the works of Philo himself; that is, he recommends which works to start with, and how to work ones way through the writings of Philo. I recommend these suggestions of Goodenough, and shall present them in a more comprehensive way in my next posting concerning Recommended Readings.

In a former posting, I commented on the fact that the SBL has received the the right to publish paperback editions of ten Brill cloth titles each year. In a recent letter, Bob Buller informs me that the SBL will be soon be publishing paperback editions of several Brill titles of interest to Philo scholars.
The first volumes out will be
Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria, An Exegete for His Time, NovTSup, $35.95
Pieter Willem van der Horst, Philo's Flaccus: The First Pogrom, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series, $29.95
Both volumes will be available for purchase at the SBL Annual Meeting in Philadelphia at a 40 percent discount or for order at the same discount by members unable to attend. This is good news for those who didn't know these volumes, and even greater for those who didn't have the possibility of buying the first editions.
I don't know for sure, but I presume that the price mentioned above, is before the discount.

Some readers would perhaps expect that I would recommend reading the texts of Philo first of all; but no. I don't think that is a smart procedure. The danger is inherent that the reader will soon get lost in the many arguments, digressions and expositions of Philo, and get too frustrated. There are many trees in the wood of Philo. One need a map.

I would like to suggest it is better to first read some introductory material to Philo, and then turn to the texts, and then turn to some further introductory matters. Then one could proceed by studying some selected topics. I will return to these issues in later postings, and suggest where to start, and how to read through the works of Philo.

But first now some introductory reading. I might recommend that one should start with some rather brief introductions to Philo. Here is two informative articles, written by one of the Philo experts of our time:David T. Runia, 'How to read Philo,' Idem, Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandria (Variorum, Aldershot, 1990), pp. 185-198.

David T. Runia, "Philo, Alexandrian and Jew," Idem, Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandria (Variorum, Aldershot, 1990), pp. 1-18.
Then the reader should proceed with the most recent introduction to Philo, and work his/her way through these pages. It is a small, but very informative introduction:
Kenneth Schenck, A Brief Guide to Philo Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005, pp. xi + 172, Paperback.
This is an informative and practical introduction; I presume the reader will be tempted more than once to turn directly to the works of Philo, but be patient. Don't do it. There is more to come. Perhaps one might want, for the time being, to skip chapter 6 as this deals with the individuals writings of Philo. Hence it might be smart to save this section to when actual reading the works of Philo.I have a review of this work here: Review of Biblical Literature 07/2005
Then I strongly recommend reading one more introduction before turning to the texts of Philo (remember; patience is a virtue..)
Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria; An Introduction (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1979) This is a very good introduction too, written by a Jewish scholar. It is somewhat larger than the former by Schenck, and will lead the reader to the point of being further initiated into the world of Philo. How to proceed will be the topic of my next posting on "Recommended Readings."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.10.19, has a review presenting a book that, to some extent, at least, also deals with the works of Philo:
Kathy L. Gaca, The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xvii, 359. ISBN 0-520-23599-1. $60.00.
Reviewed by Amy Richlin, UCLA (richlin@humnet.ucla.edu)
The reviewer states in her introduction:"The Making of Fornication is among the dozen most important books on
the history of sexuality in the ancient Mediterranean. It presents the
most comprehensive and authoritative treatment of sexuality in Greek
philosophy; and makes a major statement of the relationship between the
views of Greek philosophy and early Christianity on sexual ethics; and
does much to clarify and distinguish among Christian views. I've been
reading in this field for a long time, and there is a great deal in
this book that I have never seen before. Tantum religio potuit suadere
malorum; I do not write here from a neutral position, and neither does
Gaca. Her book shows what happened in the 200s CE to put us in the bind we're in today."

Then she says:

"Rather than explaining why Christian sexual ethics caught on -- a great
mystery --, the book shows how it evolved. The book is divided into
three parts: first on Greek philosophy (Plato, the Stoics, and the
Pythagoreans and late Stoics); second on the Septuagint, Paul, and
Philo; third on Tatian, Clement, and Epiphanes. Parts one and two are
needed to see not only the forebears of the thinkers in part three but
also where they diverged radically from these forebears, just as Philo
and Paul each diverged from theirs."

It seems to be true. Gorgias Press is willing to print the whole (sic) Philo concordance a s a Key-word-in-context concordance. It is going to be expensive, but if you are a Philo-fan, what does it matter? ;-)

I have been working with this project the last couple of months, trying to find the best way to present Philo's words in context. I have been struggling with SuperCard scripts to include as many words as possible, thought not too many, while at the same time placing the text-form in the middle of the sentence.

I am still browsing through every page (ca. 8000) of this forthcoming concordance to see if everything is in order, but until now it seems fine.

Mohr - Siebeck announces in a recent posting a new volume on the Greco-Roman clubs and associations. It is interesting to see how this phenomena of the Greco-Roman social world has gained interest in the last 20 years or so. After a flourishing period at the begining of the twentieth century, it has received new attention, not at least in relation to the communities reflected in the New Testament. The present volume is an addition to these publications: Vereine, Synagogen und Gemeinden im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien.
Hrsg. v. Andreas Gutsfeld u. Dietrich-Alex Koch
(Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity 25).Ca. 200 Seiten.
ISBN 3-16-148620-X fadengeheftete Broschur € 44.00 2005.
Contents:
T. Schmeller: Zum exegetischen Interesse an antiken Vereinen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
A.J.B. Sirks: Die Vereine in der kaiserlichen Gesetzgebung
V. Hirschmann: Heidelberg Macht durch Integration? Aspekte einer gesellschaftlichen Wechselwirkung zwischen Verein und Stadt am Beispiel der Mysten und Techniten des Dionysos von Smyrna
D. Brabant: Persönliche Gotteserfahrung und religiöse Gruppe die Therapeutai des Asklepios in Pergamon
S. Sommer: Religion und Vereinigungsunruhen in der Kaiserzeit D. Schinkel: "Und sie wußten nicht, warum sie zusammengekommen waren" Gruppen und Gruppeninteressen in der Demetriosepisode (Apg 19, 2340)
J.M.G. Barclay: Money and Meetings: Group Formation among Diaspora Jews and Early Christians
D.-A. Koch/D. Schinkel: Die Frage nach den Vereinen in der Geistes- und Theologiegeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des zeitgenössischen Vereinswesens und der "Wende" in der protestantischen Theologie nach 1918
R.S. Ascough: Voluntary Associations and the Formation of Pauline Christian Communities: Overcoming the Objections

There will be no Top 10 or 25 list on this blog: I don't think it is a good idea, though I once considered the idea of presenting a review of those Philo scholars I have benefited most of by reading their works. But I'll skip that too.

But it is my intention to present some suggestions here called
'Recommended Reading List'
for those interesting in Philo. I will start with the very introductory works for novices who want to be initiated into the philonic world, and then proceed to more specialized topics. Time will tell how far this will go; it might also depend on suggestions from the readers.
But stay tuned; some Recommended Reading Lists are to come...... :-)

This posting may sound like an advertisement, but it is not. I am not affiliated with the company concerned, but I simply want to support a good case, the digitalization of the pseudepigrapha and its incorporation into a relevant 'bible' program.

The Logos Bible Sofware has announced their publication within their Scholars Library Programs the Old Testament Greek Pseudepigrapha with Morphology. But as usually they present a prepublication period to see if there is enough interest in the marked.

Now it turns out that the presubscriptions have been a little lower than expected: According to a recent posting on their blog, the subscription period is closing in, and it has still not reached the anticipated level.
Hence, if you had planned to buy this item, don't hesitate, but make an subscription!

Well, this probably got the form of an advertisement after all. The fact is, I have subscribed to the texts, adn I would really like to see that the project got realized. That's my interest in the whole thing.

The good thing about having these Greek texts available, is that the English translation by Charles is already available; hence they can be used together. Even though Charles' is an older translation, it is still useful. I must admit I have greater problems with the old Yonge's translation of Philo's works that is also available at the Logos (and can be used together with the Greek Philo texts just published by Logos.)

Well, well time will tell, if I ever get the Greek Pseudepigrapha.

While speaking of the Pseudepigrapha, I also discovered some links I have not yet incorporated on my Resource Pages for Biblical Study: The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha.
Online Gritical Pseudepigrapha News ( a blog)

A research position has been set up at the Institutum Judaicum Delitschianum with the support of the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft". The purpose will be to deliver the first German translation of the Quaestiones in Genesim and the Questiones in Exodum by Philo of Alexandria which are currently extent only in Armenian. The translation will be more directly from Armenian into German, but with reference to Greek idiomatics which are still traceable tin the text. A provisional translation of the first part (QG, Book 1) can be found here.

There has been some blogging out there on the possibilities of setting up a Top 25 list of the most interesting, biblical scholars in history. Michael Bird presented his list, and Sean de Toit has his list which is quite different.

I don't think we should set up a list of Philo scholars, but would be interested in the readers favorites of scholars that have dealt with the Greco-Roman Jewish diaspora in the last century. Any suggestions about who should be on such a list? Victor Tcherikover, Louis Feldman, S. Applebaum, W.C. van Unnik, G. Delling, E.R. Goodenough, and S. Sandmel immediately come to my mind; other suggestions are welcome!

Since I am a co-blogger and this is also about Philo, I guess I am entitled to advertise my book on John (with Qumran and Philo). I just arrived from Brill. Very exciting feeling, I must admit. It will take me several days to dare to open it (error phobia & mania).

Anyway: The title is Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective where Philo (and Qumran) is one of the alternative angles from which the Gospel of John is viewed (in addition to different modern sociological models as alternatives to «sect»). The Brill URL is http://www.brill.nl/m_catalogue_sub6_id23505.htm

The SBL Review of Biblical Literature posted most recently two reviews very relevant for Philo research. Have a look at these:Calvert-Koyzis, Nancy
Paul, Monotheism and the People of God: The Significance of Abraham Traditions for Early Judaism and Christianity
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4574
Reviewed by Chris Smith.
The thirs chapter of this book discusses Philo. Mark Nanos had another review of this book earlier this year, see Nanos' Review.

The other volume reviewed is this
Runia, David T. and Gregory E. Sterling, eds.
The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism: Volume XVI 2004
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4598
Reviewed by Michele Murray.

A couple of days ago I received my version of the Logos version of the Philo texts. They installed nice, and I enjoy using them. I'll be back with some more comments in a week or so.

In the meantime, I am leaving my office in Stavanger for a week, going back home to Volda. I am not yet as happy as Marc Goodacre to be able to move with the whole family, hence I am for the time being trying to survive away from my wife and home, living in a flat by myself in Stavanger.
It's a strange experience, not to be recommended.....

I have been searching the Internet for good and free pictures of "Philo" for the use in a forthcoming publication on Philo (8000 pages) with Gorgias Press. As far as I can see the Middle Age Philo (Crusader?) is free http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/philo.php. The same picture is used e.g. on http://www.philos-website.de/index_g.htm?autoren/philo_g.htm~main2

However, I am not sure about this one: http://thriceholy.net/library.html.

Goodenough "The Politics of Philo Judaeus" (Olm 1938/1967) has several nice illustrations. I guess a reproduction of the first printed text of Philo (Hain 1657) in Goodenough p. 187 is free since there are no images on this page. Tell me, if you know other free sources.

Some times you might discover descriptions that are just marvelous in their comprehensiveness; in my opinion some German scholars are experts in heaping up such pregnant descriptions. Consider just this one about Philo:Neben Josephus der literarisch produktivste Jude der Antike, Glied einer der vornehmste und reichsten Familien der alexandrinischen Judenschaft, erzogen im griechischen Bildungsgang gemäss griechischen Paideia-Ideal, vertraut mit Sprache und Gedanken der Philosophenschulen und Mysterien, eingetaucht in den späthellenistischen philosophisch-religiösen Synkretismus, Ausleger der heiligen Schriften Israels, Verteidiger des Judentums in Wort und Tat, ohne aufweisbare Vorläufer, ohne eigene Schule, ohne deutliche Nachwirkung innerhalb seines Volkes: so steht Philo, "beredt in der Sprache und reich an Gedanken, hoch und erhaben in der Auslegung der göttlichen Bücher", vor uns - auf der einen Seite betrachtet als "bedeutenster Vortreter des Diaspora-Judentums", als "der hervoragendste unter all den Männern, welche judischen Glauben mit hellenistischer Bildung zu vermählen . . . sich bestrebten", als "ein Philosoph grossen Stils. . . , der Begrunder jeglicher grundlegenden Vorstellung, die fortan im Verlauf der ganzen Philosophiegeschichte diskutiert wurde", auf der anderen Seite eingestuft als "ein kleiner Geist", der "nicht zu den schaffenden Persönlichkeiten" gehort, ohne Originalität, unwittert von der "Tragik des Kompromisslers, der ohne eigene Schöpferkraft äusserlich zwischen zwei verschiedenen Weltanschauungen zu vermitteln sucht", und jedefalls erkannt als "die komplizierteste und den verschiedensten Einflussen ausgesetzte Personlichkeit des Altertums." Together with 20 extensive footnotes, this description comprises two book-pages! Only a German could do anything like that, greatly helped by the syntax possibilities of the German language,- just note how few final periods there are in this passage!

It's just marvelous,- but: Who wrote this passage? I know, of course, but just for fun: is there anybody out there who recognize this long quotation? Use the comments field below for suggestions. :-)

Update Oct 5:
The passage above is taken from
Andreas Nissen,
Gott und der Nächste im Antike Judentum. Untersuchungen zum Dobbeelgebot der Liebe
(Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 15)
Tubingen, J.C.B.Mohr, 1974, pp. 417-419.
This is one of the most densively packed and comprehensive description I have ever seen. I don't think I should even try to translate it into English.

A new book, hitherto unknown to me, are being reviewed in the BrynMawr Classical Review these days:Steven Weitzman, Surviving Sacrilege.
Cultural Persistence in Jewish Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. viii, 204. ISBN 0-674-01708-0. $39.95. Reviewed by Marcus Sigismund, Bergische Universitat Wuppertal.
The study explores the struggle for cultural survival of ancient Judaism, their efforts to preserve religious traditions and the tactics that early Jewish culture employed to sustain itself in the face of intractable, sometimes hostile realities. The study is limited to the period between the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. and that of the Second by the Romans in 70 C.E.

The book has 8 chapters, and the review writes this about chapter 3:In chapter 3 the author demonstrates that one of the factors which
allowed the Jews to sustain their traditions under Caligula's rule was
having friends in the right places. This chapter draws heavily on The
Embassy to Gaius by Philo, who thought that the most effective way of
keeping Jewish tradition alive was to cooperate with the Roman rule and
count on the emperor's justice. Weitzman shows how Philo argues that
supporting the Jewish tradition is part of the Roman mos maiorum. Philo
uses exempla from the emperor's own family to argue that a violation of
Jewish tradition would also be a violation of Roman tradition.
The review can be read online here

It's Monday morning here in Norway; getting back from my weekend, I found this letter from Stephen Gøranson, in my google mailbox:"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
"This quotation (or a variant) is often attributed either to Philo or Plato,though I've never seen a specific citation.

For what it's worth, here's the closest thing I found by searching JSTOR. In The Biblical World (retitled the next year as The Journal of Religion) v. 54 n. 6 (1920) page 606 Ozora S. Davis, in an article on preaching quoted II Peter 1:57 and then commented on each phrase, including:
"_brotherly kindness_--Everyone is fighting a hard battle"."
Thanks for this info, Stephen! This 'Philo Apocryphon' (as Jim Davila called it), is to be found on several webpages, always attributed to Philo, but with no further references given.

The whole story reminds me of something that happened several years ago, when I had just started on a three year scholarship period. A local pastor asked me what I was going to study, and I said 'Philo of Alexandria'.
"Oh, one of the church fathers, the pastor exclaimed.

...I didn't explain to her that she was wrong. After all, who is Philo! :-)

I was just trying out the Google Blog Search,mentioned today by Mark Goodacre, and up came this slogan that I have seen from time to time, always attributed to PhiloBe Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. The problem is, however, that I have never read this in any of Philo's works. I may have overlooked it, that's possible,- of course. But searches in both the Greek text and in Whiston's old translation have given no 'hits'.

Does any one out there know the background of this saying? How come it is attributed to Philo?

Review of Biblical Literature releases a new bookreview related to the studies of Philo and his world, written by Mark Mcentire;
William Loader,
The Septuagint, Sexuality, and the New Testament: Case Studies on the Impact of the LXX in Philo and the New TestamentGrand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004, pp. x + 163.Paperback. Another review of the same book was launched last July, written by Robert Hiebert.

August 15 Kåre Fuglseth, my co-blogger, announced the publication of a digital version of Philo's works on several platforms.
Here is the announcement made by Accordance, on the integration and publication of Philo's works in the Accordance, the well- known program for Biblical studies on Macintosh computers. Suggested publication date is november 2005; perhaps in time for the SBL Annual Meeting?
They further say: "All the extant Greek texts of Philo have been prepared, lemmatized, and initially tagged grammatically by The Norwegian Philo Concordance Project, under the leadership of Norwegian scholar Peder Borgen (University of Trondheim), along with Roald Skarsten (University of Bergen), and Kare Fuglseth (University of Trondheim). The grammatical tagging has been extensively revised and updated for Accordance by Rex A. Koivisto of Multnomah Bible College, Portland, Oregon."

As most of you will know, the Greek texts of Philo are available in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project. These texts are, however, as will also be known,...., in beta form, and need software programs to be used. I have used one particular program for some time, but a recent review in BrynMawr revealed to me the fact that there are now several recently updated programs available for using the TLG CD-disks and their texts.

The TLG webpage has a spesial page presenting the various programs available; their presentation is rather short and neutral; but then you can go to the webpages of the respective companies to read some more enthusiastic presentations. I might even try some of them, at least as far they are downloadble in demo format.

If you are using electronic access to BDAG, you will get some helpful suggestions by reading the recent blog on The Logos Bible Blog. You may also find this one useful: More on Looking Up Citations: Pseudepigrapha

The Society of Biblical Literature announces in a recent news letter that SBL and Brill expand their copublication agreement. According to this, the announcement says

"As is well known, Brill Academic Publishers has published a cloth edition of every SBL title since 2002, an arrangement that has both benefited SBL authors and expanded the SBL's publishing presence in the European market. In light of the great success of this partnership, Kent Harold Richards (SBL Executive Director) recently signed an agreement with Brill securing for the SBL the right to publish paperback editions of ten Brill cloth titles each year during the life of the contract. Bob Buller (Editorial Director) is overseeing this project. The first seven titles slated to appear include:
(1) The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew: A Text Edition of All Extant Hebrew Manuscripts and a Synopsis of All Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts, by Pancratius C. Beentjes;
(2) The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist, edited by Johannes C. de Moor;
(3) Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time, by Peder Borgen;
(4) Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, edited by John T. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Olbricht, and L. Michael White;
(5) Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography, by Gregory E. Sterling;
(6) Studies in Josephus' Rewritten Bible, by Louis H. Feldman; and
(7) The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation, by Albert I. Baumgarten."
This is to be welcomed, and as the list demonstrates, several volumes of interest for students of Philo and Diaspora Judaism are included.

Publications staff (bob.buller@sbl-site.org) welcome suggestions for future SBL paperback editions of Brill titles. By agreement, the SBL will not publish a paperback edition until two years after a title's original release, and Brill reserves the right to decline or postpone SBL publication of certain Brill titles.

For all of those of us who use the personal computer for something more than mere word processsing, the existence of various software that provides easy access to ancient texts in their original languages , and various lexica is a treasure. I have mentioned below that the Greek texts of Philo's works will soon be available; see also some other postings by my co-blogger Kåre Fuglseth.

Today I just want to point your attention to a review of Libronix Digital Library System's H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, and Wilhelm Pape, Electronic Edition of Griechisch-Deutsch: Handwørterbuch der griechischen Sprache that has been posted on BrynMawr Review webpage. The reviewer (Gerald Verbrugghe, Rutgers University, Camden)also makes some useful comparative comments on the The 1940 Liddell and Scott as available online from Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057)

Did you know, by the way, that there are som blogs out there that deals explicitly and primarily with discussions of computer programs related to not only the Biblical texts, but also other ancients texts. Have a look, for instance, at the Bible Software Review Blog of Ruben Gomez, and The Macintosh Biblioblog (yes, Kåre, that's for you....).