Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

critical studies 2004 329
204112.D.R.Schwartz,‘DidtheJewsPracticeInfantExposureand
Infanticide in Antiquity?,’ The Studia Philonica Annual 16 (2004) 61–95.
This article takes as its starting point a critical examination on recent scholarship
on the question of whether infant exposure and infanticide were practiced
and approved among Jews in antiquity. Claims put forward by Adele Reinhartz
(RRS 9267) have been uncritically taken over by the scholars T. Ilan, C. Hezser,
and M. R. Niehoff (see above 20146). The author proceeds to review the literary
and archaeological sources. Concerning Philo, he shows that Niehoff ’s treatment
does not support the latter’s claim that Philo approved of child sacrifice or condoned
infant exposure. (KAF)
204113. A.F.Segal,Life after Death: a History of the Afterlife in
Western Religion (New York 2004), esp. 368–375.
The chapter entitled Sectarian life in New Testament times describes how the
two different views on the afterlife in Jewish society—resurrection of the body
and immortality of the soul—begin to be blended together. A section of this
chapter is devoted to Philo. In his beliefs on life after death Philo can perhaps
be considered representative of the new Jewish intellectual class, who are well
attuned to Greek philosophical traditions and able to understand the Bible and
Judaism in the light of Greek philosophy. Philo was strongly indebted to Platonic
ideas on the immortality of the soul. It is he in fact who crafted the notion of
the immortal soul which is so familiar in Western tradition, building on the
Platonic heritage. There are some passages in Philo which hint at the more native
Jewish tradition of bodily resurrection, but these are not developed and he avoids
the standard vocabulary for this view. Most often he regards death as the soul’s
liberation from the prison of the body. The discussion concludes (p. 375): ‘Philo
. . . was able to harmonize Judaism with Greek philosophy. For him, both said
the same, when each is seen in its finest light.’ (DTR)
204114. T.Seland,‘TheModerateLifeoftheChristianparoikoi:
a Philonic Reading of 1Pet 2:11,’ in R. Deines and K.-W. Niebuhr
(edd.), Philo und das Neue Testament: Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen. 1.
Internationales Symposium zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti
(Eisenach/Jena, Mai 2003), Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen
zum Neuen Testament 172 (Tübingen 2004) 241–264.
Postulating a Philonic reader well versed in the works of Philo, this study asks
howsuchareaderwouldpossiblyread1Pet2:11,andespeciallyitsanthropological
part (11b). Such a reader would have recognized several important terms as
common to Philo and the Petrine passage. Furthermore there is close to nothing
in 1Pet 2:11 that would problematize the understanding inherent in a reader’s
Philonic symbolic universe of thought. However, such a reader would certainly
find various interpretations in recent research on 1Pet 2:11 strange or strained.
(TS)