Philo of Alexandria: this is a slightly reworked essay, hopefully this time round with the Greek characters rendering correctly. For those who want to learn more about this fascinating character the best recent Philonic hubs are David Runia and Torrey Seland (and blog). Of course there are a few scholars from earlier generations (“pre-publish or perish days”) such as Bury, Dodd, and…
“Hellenism”, the noun for Greek idiom or spirit and “Hellenization”, the intransitive verb, are terms that are used so diversely in different contexts by different disciplines such that no substantive nor consistent meaning can be ascribed to the term’s content. Martin Hengel (1974, I:2) attributes the significance the term “Hellenism” now bears, to the work of…
This old review of Alan Mendelson’s Philo’s Jewish Identity validates the view that I’ve held since the mid-90s. That is, enabling us to see Philo as a proto-modern Jew. Jewish IdentityJudaismPhilosocial identitysocial ontology
I’ve just discovered that there is a Cambridge Companion to Philo that includes contributions from eminent Philonists such as David Runia and David Winston. Runia especially has done some much for Philonic scholarship. Glad to see some “new” names involved. My interest in Philo can be found here.
