Philo of Alexandria Blog

I have recently been reading a book on the Acts of the Apostles as epideictic apologetic literature, a book that also contains some sections on Philo: Todd Penner, In Praise of Christian Origins. Stephen and the Hellenists in Lukan Apologetic Historiography (Emory Studies in Early Christianity; T & T Clark International, New York - London, 2004) 400 pp. This volume represents a revised version of a doctoral dissertation, submitted to Emory University in 2000, and is written by an author who is now establishing himself as a very competent scholar and student of the writings of both Luke-Acts and Greaco-Roman literature. In Chapter IV Jewish Apologetic Historiography. Cultural identity and rewriting the Past (pp. 223-261) you will also find some comments on both Philo and Josephus.

Penner subscribes to the view of Greg Sterling (Historiography and Self-definition; Brill 1992) of apologetic historiography as being one in which writers follow their own native traditions, but hellenize the material in order to establish a particular group’s identity in the larger context. Inherent in this understanding is that such apologetic is not only directed against ‘outsiders’, but also on those on the ‘inside’; that is, it is both defensive and edifying.

I find this view interesting and helpful; I have used a similar view on discussing the early conflicts between Jews and Christians (using the view of Social Conflicts as set forth by L. Coser).

Working with this thesis, Penner elaborates on his view of such apologetic historiography as being epideictic. On pp. 244-246, Penner deals more explicitly with Philo. Commenting on De Abrahamo,he summarizes his views thus: “Embedded herein is an ideological and cultural stance of Judaism in Alexandria and elsewhere, which on the one hand reveals an acceptance of cultural discursive modes of self-praise, but on the other hand also manifests a form of resistance, signalling the uniqueness of Judaism over and against the dominant cultural discourse. In any case, while the understanding of this Philonic argument has often been framed within the context of Abraham as the prototypical proselyte in Philo, it is more probable that Philo is offering a commendable account of Jewish origins” (p. 245).

Penner proceeds by situating the work of Josephus (i.e. Antiquitates) in a similar context, as it, according to Penner, “represents in extended prose form the most substantive epideictic composition on Judaism in antiquity”. Furthermore, as the Exodus narrative is probably the most pivotal story in the Jewish account of origins, Penner deals with the retellings of this story in several works. On pp. 249-252 he looks at Philo’s exposition of Moses in De vita Moses. Philo passes rather quickly of the 38 years in the desert, focusing more on the role of Moses in returning to the promised land. The double aim of his presentation of Moses as directed to both the ‘insiders’ and the ‘outsiders’, are demonstrated in Philo’s exposition of the Laws as not only for the constitution of Israel, but as a guide to the oikoumene, for the ‘world city’ (Mos 2.51-52). Philo’s praise of this Jewish hero is also exhibited in his descriptions of Moses as high priest, as the founder of the Jewish cultus (p. 252-252). In this ways Philo praises Moses through his paraphrasing and reorganizing of the biblical material in epideictic narratives that aim to be both defensive and edifying. I find Penner’s presentation of the Jewish historiography to be interesting and valuable for understanding the role and function of both Jewish and Christian apologetic works in this period.

This work of Penner has several merits, not at least with regard to presenting ancient Graeco-Roman historiography. When it comes to his application of this material to the Book of Acts, he manage to provide an exposition that contains much worthy of further consideration. When it comes to his rather agnostic attitude of using the Book of Acts as a source for what ‘really happened’ I might have my reservations. But that is another story.

I have withdrawn my note on the book of Erich Gruen that I found available online a few days ago. In the meantime, I have sent a mail to Harvard University Press, asking for their response to my question if this book, and several others on the same site, really were meant for free access. Some information on some of their other pages indicates that here is something wrong, and I don't want to break any rules of copyright.

Update Jan 28.
I mailed the HUP, and got an almost immediate reply; the files I detected are not for open access. Their IT people are working on how to fix the problem. In respect for their copyright, I am not to link to these files.

It raises, however, some questions; who would ultimately be responible if HUB would like to take action against someone who link to pages that are available to Google. The common practice has been so far, that if files are available, you can freely link to them. If not, the establishing of resource pages like my Resource Pages for Biblical studies, and NTGateway would be rather impossible, and at least too laborsome to carry on.

Yesterday, Jan 26th, Peder Borgen, the Norwegian grand old man of Philonic studies, passed his 77th birthday. Sorry to forget that; Congratulations post festum! :)

In May 28 last year, I had a posting about an announcement about some Polish scholars who claimed to have un-earthed the remains of an ancient university of Alexandria. I have been looking for some following up on that announcement, but in vain. Untill today I see Jim Davila (who beats me again...) has a posting that seems to bring some further news.

This new information is taken from Al Ahram Weekly, and contain some pictures and an assessment by Jill Kamil.

The lecture Halls mentioned above now turns out to be late 6th to 7th century CE, and thus several decennies after the ancient Library and Philo of Alexandria. I snip below some of the more interesting sections of this article: The Polish mission at Kom Al-Dikka in Alexandria has made several exciting finds over the years, but their latest discovery hard on the heels of the establishment of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina has set tongues buzzing.
Grzegorz Majcherek, director of the Polish-Egyptian mission which has been excavating at Kom Al-Dikka for the past 40 or more years, insists that overzealous journalists have rather too hastily linked this latest discovery in Alexandria to the ancient library.
"In fact, the newly-excavated complex of lecture halls brings us no closer to determining the actual position of the famous library of antiquity," he says.
Majcherek admits that no physical traces of the renowned institution had yet come to light. "We are still unable to answer questions of key importance such as where it originally stood, and what was its ultimate fate," he says.


However, Majcherek hastened to add, the discovery Al- Dikka did throw new light on key issues such as the nature of academic life in the Alexandria of late antiquity. It also provided astonishing evidence that the intellectual vitality and tradition of Alexandrian science -- as symbolised by the library and mouseion -- continued well into the seventh century. "Alexandrian scholarship did not end with the murder of Hypatia, the famous female philosopher and mathematician," Majcherek says. "The lecture halls in fact bridged the gap between classical antiquity with the emerging Arab civilisation."

The Roman ruins at Kom Al-Dikka, which lie at the very heart of Alexandria not far from the intersection between Nabi Daniel and Hurriya streets, have yielded surprises ever since the Polish mission in Egypt was first asked to evaluate the antiquities that came to light when an artillery position built by Napoleon's troops was being cleared for development. It soon became clear that the site was far too important to be sacrificed to progress. Excavations commenced, and although the area constitutes the only fragment of the ancient urban layout, discoveries made there season after season have been accompanied by impressive reconstruction.

More recent excavations have revealed a vast complex of well-preserved lecture halls of late Roman (fifth to seventh century) date. Some of them had been explored in the 1880s, but their total number has now grown to 13 and Majcherek says that only now has their purpose become apparent. The auditoria have similar dimensions to, and stretch along, the theatre portico, which is also the eastern colonnade of a large public square in the centre of the city. In all the rooms rows of stepped benches run along the walls in a horseshoe shape, with an elevated seat for the lecturer at the rounded end. When new rows of seats appeared in place of the lateral parodoi (passageway separating the stage from the auditorium), the classical semicircular plan of the cavea (auditorium) was changed into a horseshoe-shaped arrangement that archaeologists immediately recognised as similar to that found in the auditoria or lecture halls. The discoveries have shed new light on the function of the theatre, which was excavated back in the 1960s.

This discovery has caused great excitement, since it has become clear that the Polish mission has actually put a finger on the very hub of intellectual life in late Roman Alexandria. The important issue now, according to Majcherek, is to understand what exactly this complex of auditoria represented. He claims that the entire evidence so far indicates that we are dealing with an academic institution that operated in late antique Alexandria. The central location of the complex in the ancient town, and the characteristic arrangement of particular halls, corroborates the conclusions drawn on their function."
I encourage you to read the whole of this article by yourself at Al-Ahram Weekly. The excavators emphasize that there are several unresolved questions inherent in their findings, but they are so interesting that they surely deserve some further investigations. I'm looking forward to further investioogations and assessments of this site.

The Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia also has an article on Philo of Alexandria. You can find it here.

Wikipedia is a a free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In the English version, started in 2001, there are currently working on 453273 articles. The encyclopedia has versions in several languages; each one are made separately. Hence an article in one edition does not automatically show up in the others. There is even a Norwegian edition, but with no article on Philo. What a shame......

I have my reservations of thought about such a free encyclopedia in which anyone can write; can it ever be trustful? However, having only skimmed the Philo article today, my impression is that it in general is well informed and hence informative.

Has anyone out there read it more thoroughly, and has an independent opinion about it? Please use the Comment field below and tell us about your impression.

David T. Runia has been so kind as to send me this information about the most recent edition of Studia Philonica:

Dear Philophiles,

The editors of The Studia Philonica Annual are very pleased to announce that volume 16 has been published by Brown Judaic Series in conjunction with SBL Publications and is now available for purchase. We are convinced that it is another informative volume that contains much material of interest to the Philonist and anyone working in the area of Hellenistic Judaism and its context in the ancient world.

Here are the details about the volumes
The Studia Philonica Annual. Studies in Hellenistic Judaism
Volume 16, 2004
David T. Runia and Gregory E. Sterling, editors
viii + 333 pages. ISBN 1-930675-18-6. Price $48.95 Cloth

The contents of the volume are:
Articles:
Cristina Termini; Taxonomy of Biblical Laws and philotechnia in Philo of Alexandria: a Comparison with Josephus and Cicero,
Sabrina Inowlocki; The Reception of Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium in Eusebius of Caesarea’s works,
James R. Royse; Jeremiah Markland’s Contribution to the Textual Criticism of Philo,
Daniel R. Schwartz; Did the Jews Practice Infant Exposure and Infanticide in Antiquity?,
Special Section: Etymology and Allegory
L. Michael White;Introduction,
David T. Runia; Etymology as an Allegorical Technique in Philo of Alexandria,
Annewies van den Hoek; Etymologizing in a Christian Context: the Techniques of Clement and Origen,
Philip S. Alexander; The Etymology of Proper Names as an Exegetical Device in Rabbinic Literature,
Review Articles:
Daniel Boyarin; By Way of Apology: Dawson, Edwards, Origen.
Elliot R. Wolfson, Text, Context, and Pretext: Review Essay of Yehuda Liebes’s Ars Poetica in Sefer Yetsira,
Instrumenta:
D. T. Runia; Quaestiones in Exodum 2.62–68. Supplement to The Philo Index,
Bibliography Section:
Philo of Alexandria: an Annotated Bibliography 2001, 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; Supplement: Provisional Bibliography 2002–2004;
Book reviews by Jean Riaud, Sandra Gambetti, David M. Hay, Azzan Yadin, Maren Niehoff, Charlotte E. Fonrobert, Matthias Henze, Adam Kamesar, Michael L. Satlow, Robert L. Wilken.
News and Notes
Notes on Contributors

For more detailed contents and order form see the Annual’s website www.nd.edu/~philojud. Or visit the SBL site, www.sbl-site.org

January has been a busy month so far, and my blogging activity has been low. In addition, I spent last week in England, due to an excursion trip together with 19 other administrative staff memebers and teachers from our college. Interesting trip to parts of England I have never been to before, like York, Goathland (Aidensfield!), Whitby, Robin Hoods Bay, Leeds, Halifax, and then London for the weekend. Nothing at all related to Philo of Alexandria, but to English language and culture.

But now I am back again in wet and windy western Norway, and the Philo Blog is moving on. :)

The Review of Biblical Literature has published their first reviews this year; among these there is also a volume on Philo: John W. Martens, One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law, Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval Texts and Contexts, Studies in Philo of Alexandria, 2(Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. xix + 215. This review is by René Bloch,University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, and you can access the review by clicking here.

Christmas celebrations are over, and NewYear festivities have faded into the background. To me personally it has been been a strange season of holidays, in many ways celebrated in a minor key...

In the last week before Christmas there was a a tragic car accident in which I lost three older friends; due to the icy road a car just slided off the road, turned around and fell into a small river, it got immediately filled with icecold water and the three old persons in the car drowned.

And then this terribly catastrophy in what we call the far East. 150.000-200.000 people are killed and/or missing, and millions have become empovered and homeless. I can't really imagine how it must be....

Sweeden and Norway (where I live) seem to be the European countries that have lost most people; 3500 are missing in Sweeden; Norway misses 1500. That is many to countries that comprise only 6 (Sweeden) to 4.5 million (Norway) people. A lot of parents have lost some of their children, and children have lost their parents. Yesterday we were told that over 60 orphaned children returned to Sweeden. Their parents were all missing......

When I recover, I will continue posting on this blog; due to a larger project, I will also occasionally present small texts about the early years of Philo, that is, about his social background. What do we in fact know about the life of Philo? I would appreciate comments on these issues.

In the second week of January, I will be on a study tour to York and London (England), so the postings will probably be few the first couple of weeks of 2005.
But stay tuned! :-)

Update Jan 3:

The Norwegian Police has now released the list of names of those declared missing in the disaster in the Far East, and after being checked and rechecked,the number has now shrunk to 275. The figures are also lesser than first announced in Sweeden. This is really good news. We are all very relieved, even though we know there are still that many missing.