Philon of Alexandria

לכאורה, תורה שבכתב סגורה וחתומה ואין לשנות בה דבר. אך מאידך גיסא, שערי הפרשנות לא נסגרו מעולם. בכל דור ובכל תרבות קוראים את כתבי הקודש מחדש, וההבדלים בין הקריאות גדולים ועצומים. מאמר זה עוסק בהנחות היסוד של פרשנות כתבי הקודש ומדגים את הגיוון שהן מאפשרות, באמצעות הסיפור על יוסף בבית פוטיפר.

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

Reading Philo is an introductory guide to Philo's work and significance. The contributors — all well-known experts on Philo of Alexandria — discuss Philo in context, offer methodological considerations (how best to study Philo), and explore Philo's ongoing relevance and value (why reading him is important). This practical volume will be an indispensable resource for anyone delving into Philo and his world.

Aunque el estoicismo en todas sus vertientes y ramificaciones no ofrezca una teoría de la educación como tal, la que podríamos llamar una educación estoica es aquella que resulta de una voluntad sistemática preestablecida que aspira a rechazar cualquier tipo de mediación. Consecuentemente, no sin una fuerte dosis de individualismo, en la falta de mediación entre la voluntad y la representación del mundo, por usar los términos de Schopenhauer, una educación estoica no puede estar en condiciones de contemplar el desvío que implica el abatimiento como condición de posibilidad, sino que debe tratar de orientar el camino de nuestra existencia, organizando nuestra vida sabiamente, conforme al principio de rectitud, rectitud moral que equivale naturalmente a la claridad conceptual, es decir, a “la luz de los conceptos” en la medida en que somos conscientes, como enseña Filón que se enseñaba la escuela pitagórica, de que “la escuela no nos prescribe que cansemos nuestros pies”.

Paul approaches the OT using contemporary Jewish exegetical techniques and devices -- the same as used by the rabbis, Josephus, Philo or the Qumran exegetes. Sometimes he even quotes the same OT passages as they quote. Yet, the interpretive results are fundamentally different. It is so because Paul operates with different hermeneutical assumptions. The exegetical devices that Paul uses are not decisive for his interpretive decisions; his hermeneutical assumptions are.

In this paper, I attempt an approach to the ‘historical Pilate.’ I aim to present the sources referring to him as well as to point out their rhetorical tendencies. However, the approach is selective: whereas all references to Pilate in Philo and Josephus will be addressed, with respect to the New Testament, this study will be based only on the Gospel of John, because its text offers the longest narrative of the Roman trial of Jesus among the Gospels. At the end of each section, the main conclusions are presented. Finally, after discussed all the sources chosen for this work, I will try to depict a picture of the ‘historical Pilate.’

The Septuagint, the first official translation of the Old Testament into the Greek language, was created mainly to transfer the teaching of the Hebrew Bible into the Hellenistic world: oldtestamental ways of perceiving reality, Jewish religious concepts, Jewish spirituality, and other ideas contained in the teaching of Torah, Writings, and Prophets. The original receiver of the Septuagint was supposed to be Alexandrine Diaspora slowly losing its ties with Palestine and Palestinian Judaism. The Septuagint was supposed to guard the Judaistic orthodoxy of this Jewish community, it was to establish some marking points, borders for its religion and to help new generations of Alexandrine Jews to preserve the faith of the fathers. In the context of philosophies, religions, mysteries mixed together in Alexandria at the end of a past era, the Jewish community dramatically needed a certain guide through life. The Septuagint was supposed to be and actually was such kind of a guide. However, entering the world of Greek philosophies, the Septuagint did not manage to preserve herself from the influence of Greek thought, both concerning its form and content. The primary goal of one-sided translation of the Law, Writings, and Prophets into Greek, turned out to be impossible to fulfill a dream. Hellenistic thought, hidden in concepts,
attitudes, values, unconscious presuppositions both translators and readers, penetrated and modified teaching of the Hebrew Bible. So, the Alexandrine Diaspora did receive a text in which gently but firmly was felt the spirit of Hellada. It seems that it was price necessary to pay for the desire to translate faithfully Palestinian text but in such a way so that it was comprehensible and acceptable for the Jewish community. Some Hebrew concepts had to be modified and adjusted to demanding Greek mentality (e.g. God as a rock). Alexandrine translators, grown up in hellenized Jewish community, had their own presuppositions, which to a certain degree determined decisions taken by them in a process of translation (e.g. consequent leaving out anthropomorphisms). Greek language itself, which translators used, possessed a huge referential baggage, ”forcing” in a way Alexandrine readers to a new understanding of some biblical concepts and ideas (e.g. psyche, sarx, pneuma). Finally, there were some books added to the canon of the Septuagint, whose authors, representing Hellenistic Judaism of the 1st and 2nd cent. BC expressed their beliefs not always according to the teaching of Patriarchs (e.g. preexistence of soul in the Book of Wisdom). All of this caused that the Septuagint became not only a translation of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language but also a translation of Greek ideas into the language of the Old Testament.
Concerning these issues, it seems reasonable to define the Septuagint as a two-sided bridge between the world of Greek philosophies and Hebrew thought, between Athens and Jerusalem. The translation of the Septuagint started a long-term process of "philosophication" of the Hebrew Bible, taken up later by Philo of Alexandria, Clement, Origen, and others. And the language of Septuagint was, without doubt, a basic and fundamental tool in this process of transferring religious thought into the philosophical system, brought to the mature form in writings of later thinkers both Judaistic and Christian.

Das Wort logos bezeichnet allgemein das (gesprochene) Wort, wobei zu bedenken ist, dass damit nicht ein einzelnes Wort, sondern die Verbindung mehrerer Wörter gemeint ist. Konzis fasst ein antiker Lexikoneintrag-die 100. der pseudo-platonischen Begriffsbestimmungen-den logos als "in Zeichen gefasste Stimme, die jedes einzelne Seiende benennen kann" (Horoi). Das zu logos gehörende Zeitwort ist legein, es benennt ein Sprechen ebenso wie Auflesen oder Sammeln. Somit kann logos als auswählendes und sinnvoll zusammenstellendes Auflesen oder als Sammlung verstanden werden. Daraus wiederum wird ersichtlich, dass logos als Versammlung oder "Verknüpfung" (Platon) von Wörtern in großer Bedeutungsvielfalt ebenso auf eine Erzählung, einen Satz, eine Rede oder ein Argument wie auch auf eine Proportion oder ein Maß referieren kann. Im frühgriechischen Denken kann man bei Heraklit mit logos eine Instanz benannt sehen, welche die widerstrebenden Kräfte des Kosmos zusammenhält. In der platonisch-aristotelischen Philosophie ist, wie schon in der Sophistik, der Umgang mit verschiedensten logoi zu beobachten, denen Wahrheit und Falschheit zugeschrieben wird. In der Stoa wird der logos zum (materiell aufgefassten) Göttlichen, das alles in der Welt vollkommen rational bestimmt. In der antiken christlichen Literatur, die massiv vom Neuplatonismus beeinflusst ist, begegnet der logos schließlich im "Christusereignis" (Bultmann) als "das WORT", als der göttliche Anspruch, der sich den Menschen zu verstehen gibt. Die herausragende Bedeutung der verschiedenen logos-Konzeptionen in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte zeigt sich nicht zuletzt in der Kritik am Logozentrismus, wie sie vor allem im 20. Jahrhundert formuliert wurde.

Philon von Alexandria ist in seiner jüdischen Philosophie stets bestrebt, die in der Septuaginta beschriebene Gottesvorstellung als das schlechthin Absolute zu denken. Der jüdische Alexandriner will hierbei argumentativ begründen, warum Gott als das absolut Transzendente und das voraussetzungslose Ursprüngliche, dem die gesamte Wirklichkeit entstammt, zugleich auch als das Allgegenwärtige betrachtet werden muss. Allerdings wird der philonischen Gotteslehre viel zu häufig unterstellt, sie beruhe gerade nicht auf kohärenten Argumenten, sondern setze dogmatische Ansichten schlicht voraus. Erst der große deutsche Philosoph Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wusste Philon als systematischen Metaphysiker, der den jüdischen Gottesbegriff als „die absolute Fülle“ des Seienden konzipiert hatte (TWA Bd. 19, 423), einzuschätzen. Im vorliegenden Artikel werde ich diese von Hegel bevorzugte Betrachtungsweise untermauern, indem gezeigt wird, inwieweit Philon Gott anhand begreiflicher Beweise als die uneingeschränkte All-Einheit zu fundieren versucht. Hierbei wird der Aufsatz zwei Aspekte hinsichtlich Philons Grundlegung des Absoluten herausgreifen: (1) den erkenntnistheoretischen Status des aposteriorischen Beweises von Gottes absolutem Dasein im Vergleich zum höherstehenden apriorischen Beweis desselben; und (2) wie philosophischer Zweifel an der Validität einer vordergründig absoluten Vorstellung vom göttlichen Wesen in der menschlichen Denkseele entstehen und von ihr folglich überwunden werden kann.

This article intends to elucidate the aspect of “attraction” in the context of (religious) trade by investigating “Philo’s Attractive Ethics on the ‘Religious Market’ of Ancient Alexandria.” The article investigates the Jewish religious-ethical way of life as it is presented by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (ca. 15 b.c.e–45 c.e.) in a situation of religious destabilization in the Diaspora. Interaction between Judaism and Hellenism in the trade center of Alexandria was varied and included elements of assimilation, creative re-elaboration, and reaction. There was a strong element of reciprocity. Jews were attracted by the Hellenistic culture. It is also clear that non-Jews were attracted to Judaism and that its religious-ethical practice (which followed from Jewish teaching, e.g., on the Sabbath) played a key role in this process. Philo writes for Jews who may feel tempted to leave the Jewish faith and for non-Jews who may feel tempted to embrace the Jewish faith. In this context, he presents both the Jewish moral teaching and its practice as an attractor for “staying in” as well as “getting in.” This makes Philo an agent of religious formation and transformation, because he gives new emphasis to a number of “Jewish goods” in the context of the “market place” Alexandria. He puts weight on the law and on piety. Both of these are entities to which members of the Greco-Roman world could easily relate. Philo had precious “goods” to offer. A final comparison with the Apostle Paul shows that perhaps more people bought these goods on the religious “market places” of antiquity than is often assumed.

In his Homily on the Transfiguration, Andrew of Crete (ca. 660-740) employs a number of concepts, metaphors, and expressions from classical philosophy, including the dialogues of Plato, Aristotle's concept of the unmoved mover, and symbolic arithmology of the Neopythagoreans, known to Andrew by mediation of Philo of Alexandria.

The aim of this multi-author book is an in-depth study of the terminology used to speak of the “Exodus”, the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan, and the concepts conveyed by the various Greek terms and expressions.

In particular, the following issues are addressed:
1. Why is the Exodus of the Israelites leaving Egypt called “Exodus”?
2. Can the history of this noun in Greek language explain this choice?
3. To what degree did the choice of this noun influence the reception
of the idea of Exodus?

The book fills a gap in recent philological, historical and biblical studies. It contributes to a better understanding of a key term of the Bible that has found its way into modern languages and contemporary debates on flight, migration, and integration.

The nature of the Philonic texts analysed in this article enables us to outline the differences between the Hebrew and the Greek way of thinking about time. The philosophical thought of Philo conflates the notion of time as unlimited and eternal (the conception of Greek philosophy) and the doctrine of revelation (Hebrew thinking). He is indubitably in debt to Plato's Timaeus when he affirms that time was created in order for the world to be the mobile image of eternity, but also to the broad tradition about the 'hebdomad' referring to the Biblical six days of the creation of world.

The study of the usage of the word διάκονος in the texts of Greek-speaking Jewish authors from the period, Philo (25 BC-50 AD) and Josephus (about 37-100 AD) deepens our understanding of the meaning of the word. Their semantic and philological analysis illustrates how the concept deacon was understood. Philo and Josephus provide reference material from the period in which the New Testament was written that has not necessarily been influenced by Christian usage, at least, in their original form. This material may help us to understand the concept at the earliest stage of Christianity when the New Testament was written. In this article, I have searched only the word διάκονος, "deacon", and not the διακον stem, presenting all the instances in the texts of these authors. Philo uses the word 5 times whereas Josephus mentions it 14 times. In the texts studied here, the term διάκονος indicates a person, in reality or spoken figuratively, who acts as an intermediary, that is, a secondary agent, between the primary agent and a beneficiary, a third person or group of persons, yet again actually or figuratively. The power relationship between the deacon and the primary agent is usually presented as a deacon being sent, invited, used or ordered to perform the task desired. This performing usually takes place only temporarily, for a limited time. In Josephus, we encounter instances, open to interpretation, where the word seems to imply a more permanent position, sometimes being a synonym to other words meaning "servant." Deacon embodies for the language user and for his audience a positive term; it does not seem be associated with a low position or slavery-meanings that would bring negative connotations to the mind of the writer and his audience. Thus, it might evoke, in the minds of language users, a servant of higher standard. It is used of the angels, the prophets, the king's servants, of the reputable young men serving at the cultic meals etc. If it relates to something negative, it is not an inherent part of the semantic content of the deacon-term, rather it is something associated with the first agent (his motives, purposes, actions) and with the results of the task the deacon has performed. Finally, it may be concluded that the conceptualisation of the split agency presented in the introduction of this article (and pictured graphically) functions very well for the description of deacons' agency in the texts of Philo and Josephus. It must, however, be noted that the identity of the primary agent is not always brought out clearly, particularly in the figurative instances.

The purpose of this work, according to the editor's own statement, is to make Philo's ideas intelligible for a modern reading audience. The guiding idea behind this book thus seems to be that, by gathering all sayings of Philo concerning a particular passage in the Torah, one can create a kind of biblical commentary on these passages as taught by Philo from Alexandria. Hence the texts of Leviticus are given from Lev 1:1–27:33 in the text in bold type, followed by a compilation of Philo's sayings relevant for the particular verse from Leviticus. These sayings from Philo are taken from various Philonic books and are suggested to reveal something of what Philo considered the content of that verse to be. The present volume on Leviticus is the third in a projected series of probably five volumes. The volumes on Genesis and Exodus were published previously. 1 Since these volumes in many ways belong together, I will draw a little on the introductions of the two preceding volumes in presenting the author's view of Philo and his works and the method applied in setting up these commentaries.

Der Reigentanz der zwölf Tugenden in der Seele eines Demütigen. Eine Plotinreminiszenz bei dem koptischen Mönch Paulus von Tamma? Zum Problem der Traditionszuordnungen im frühen ägyptischen Mönchtum, in: D. Bumazhnov (Hg.), Akten des 2. Tübinger Symposiums zum Christlichen Orient „Ägypten in der spätantiken Zeit“, 7.–8. Dezember 2007, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 79, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013, 93–111

Although first century Christian and Jewish writings in the New Testament, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the pseudepigrapha are widely recognized for their descriptions of the ultimate destiny of individuals and the world, the views of another first century Jew, Philo of Alexandria, do not get the attention they deserve. In order to place the apocalyptic eschatologies of Jesus, the Qumran sectarians, and Enoch in their wider context, we must compare them to the eschatology of this contemporary Hellenistic Jew.
In this article, I show that Philo’s eschatology is shaped by two convictions: (1) that God is good and can do no evil, and (2) virtue must be developed within people in this life. These convictions entail that the purpose of punishment must be solely for correction, and that God provides unlimited opportunity for souls to improve. Philo held that reincarnation provides just such an ever-improving spiral in which souls finally become wise by honoring God and consequently the world becomes a peaceful, prosperous paradise.

This is a review of a stimulating monograph asserting that Philo of Alexandria accepted the doctrine of reincarnation (the author has responded to the review: https://www.academia.edu/30213827/A_Response_to_Justin_Rogers_review_of_Reincarnation_in_Philo_of_Alexandria_in_RBL_12_2016)

This book is dedicated to literary and normative debates on the 'civilizing process' of (former) barbarians in the provinces of the Imperium Romanum between the late Republic and the age of the Severan Emperors. Being my PhD dissertation, worked over for publication, it originally bore the title "Die Zivilisierung der Barbaren. Literarischer Topos und politisches Ethos von der späten Republik bis ins 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr." It appeared in print and as e-book on 4 December 2023 as vol. 156 of the series "Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte": https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783111331812/html
For further information, fell free to contact me!

Retomando la lectura de Hannah Arendt en "La condición humana" sobre la "vita activa" y, particularmente, sobre la “acción” como condición de posibilidad de la “vida política”, este trabajo busca poner en entredicho la relación entre “política”, “vida” y “acción”. Para ello, centraremos este análisis en el pensamiento de Filón de Alejandría; más especialmente, en una rara avis dentro de su corpus: "La vida contemplativa o de los suplicantes". El objetivo del artículo es reflexionar sobre el lugar donde se instala la reflexión filosófica y la reflexión teológica como formas políticas y qué implicaciones tiene esto: qué ocurre cuando el fundamento de la enseñanza no pasa por la "vita activa" arendtiana sino por una vida pasiva bajo la consagración a la tarea de la reflexión y el estudio, ¿podríamos plantear desde allí una forma comunitaria que constituya la política como in-acción?

Le colloque international Jeunes chercheurs « Le changement : conceptions et representations dans l’Antiquite greco-romaine », organise par les doctorants de l’association Antheia a Paris-Sorbonne (N. Assan, F. Cailleux, J. Desiderio, E. Fournel, M. Glenisson et V. Mussa), s’est deroule les 14 et 15 octobre 2016 a l’Universite Paris-Sorbonne. L’objectif de ces deux journees etait d'etudier la maniere dont les Anciens concevaient la notion de changement, en tant que transformation ponctuelle, ...

In his political treatise On Joseph, the first-century CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria elaborates the biblical episode of the Egyptian woman’s failed seduction of Joseph as told in Genesis 39. He uses the episode twice – first, to extol the resistance of a future vice-regent of Egypt to sexual seduction, and second, to portray the political leader of a democratic polis as a man of virtue and principles who cannot be bribed or corrupted. Ethical discourse, according to Philo, must be adapted to the specific institutional context in which it relates. – Bernhard Lang, “The Man of Politics Can’t Be Seduced: A Twice-Told Biblical Episode in Philo’s On Joseph Reveals the Author’s Political Theory,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 8 (2019), 61–71.