Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

268 part two
20391. M.R.Niehoff,‘CircumcisionasaMarkerofIdentity:Philo,
Origen and Genesis Rabbah on Gen. 17:1–14,’ Jewish Studies Quarterly
10 (2003) 89–123.
This article examines the nature of the considerable change in attitude among
Jews toward circumcision from the time of Philo to the composition of Genesis
Rabbah. Special attention is given to the questions whether and to what
extent Christianity played a role and whether rabbinic exegetes knew ecclesiastical
positions and responded to them. Tracing exegetical trajectories from
Philo through Paul, Justin Martyr and Origen, to the rabbis shows that the
parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity was rather more prolonged
and gradual. A detailed exegetical study of Philo’s interpretation of Abraham’s
circumcision shows how Philo divorced circumcision from covenant, and
yet did not disregard the practice altogether because the practice ultimately
restores man’s original virility and his Adamic likeness to the image of God.
(KAF)
20392. J. N. Novoa, ‘The Appropriation of Jewish Thought by Christianity.
The Cases of Philo of Alexandria and Leone Ebreo,’ Science et
Esprit 55 (2003) 285–296.
Philo and Leone Ebreo (ca. 1460–1530) are two examples of Jewish thinkers
whose works were embraced primarily by Christians rather than Jews. Although
both writers were committed Jews, they believed in ‘the concept of allegory and
the layered reading for sacred and profane texts’ (p. 285), and they drew upon
non-Jewish ways of thinking in order to make Judaism more intelligible to outsiders
and, in Philo’s case, to seek proselytes among them. Philo incorporated
Neoplatonic and Stoic ideas, while Ebreo used Patristic thought and the writings
of G. Boccaccio on pagan gods. Paradoxically, for this very reason, while
not officially banned by their co-religionists these Jewish writers were ‘consigned
to irrelevance’ by them (p. 288). Both writers were instead taken up by Christians
who were more sympathetic to the outside elements in these Jewish works
and who overlooked the original motivations behind these works. Philo was
embraced by early Church Fathers and Ebreo by ‘the courtly society of Renaissance
Europe’ (p. 285). It was centuries before Jews showed interest in either of
these thinkers. (EB)
20393.J.S.O’Leary,‘Logos and Koinônia in Philo’s De confusione linguarum,’
in L. Perrone (ed.), Origeniana Octava. Origen and the Alexandrian
Tradition, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
164 (Leuven 2003) 245–273.
The article starts with a discussion of the Logos philosophy existent in Philo’s
time and Philo’s ‘triple inflection’ of it: Philo gives the Logos (the intermediary
realm between God and his creatures) a personal quality; he inserts Logosthinking
in a context of grace; and he develops the social aspect of Logos, repre-