Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

critical studies 2005 373
Aphrahat, Ephrem the Syrian, Jerome, and Gregory of Nyssa. Philo does not
appear to be bothered by Moses’ marriage to a Gentile, but he does not refer
to Zipporah’s act of circumcision in any of his writings. This omission may
reflect Philo’s general tendency to avoid portraying women as taking initiative or
having the ability to influence Israel’s history. In Mos.2,PhilomentionsMoses’
marriage and children (from Exodus) without referring to Zipporah by name.
She is named, however, in Mut., Post., and Cher., in which she is allegorized, as
is Moses’ Ethiopian wife (from Num 12) in Leg. 2. Both wives represent qualities
that advance Moses’ character development. Philo is the first Jew we know of
to claim that Moses renounced sex in order to be prepared to hear God’s words
(Mos. 2.68–69). This claim appears to be influenced not by exegetical concerns,
as in some other sources, but by ‘Philo’s fundamental assumptions about the
incompatibility of the ‘female’ with the attainment to knowledge of the divine’
(p. 272). (EB)
20582.D.Winston,‘ACenturyofResearchontheBookofWisdom,’
in A. Passaro and G. Bellia (edd.), The Book of Wisdom in Modern
Research, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook (Berlin
2005) 1–18.
As the title promises, this article surveys scholarship on the Book of Wisdom
over the past century. A central, puzzling issue is the Book’s combination
of an apocalyptic outlook and philosophical sophistication. Winston discusses
examples of the conjoining of wisdom and apocalyptic in other literature and
mentions Philo in passing to illustrate the theme that unmediated understanding
given by God is superior to mediated learning acquired through a teacher.
In Wisdom, wisdom is understood as ‘immanent divine causality’ (p. 10), which
is not explicitly identified with Torah. Relevant in this context is Philo’s understanding
of natural law and of the patriarchs as its living embodiments. One
can also discern similar tensions between apocalyptic and philosophy in Philo,
whose ‘quasi-apocalyptic messianic vision’ (p. 14), restricted to only a few passages,
seems to conflict with his notion of divine providence. Winston suggests
that both sources were written during the period of severe persecution of the
Jews in Alexandria and that both authors were motivated ‘by the need to fuse
Jewish tradition with Greek philosophy in an attempt to defend its integrity both
in the face of persecution and the intellectual changes of pagan culture’ (pp. 15–
16). Biblical exegesis, therefore, is only secondary to this aim. For the Italian
version of this article published earlier see above 204141. (EB)
20583. J.Woyke,Götter, ‘Götzen,’ Götterbilder. Aspekte einer paulinischen
‘Theologie der Religionen,’ Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 132 (Berlin
2005).
Discussions on aspects of Philo’s theology occur at various points in this
Tübingen dissertation. On pp. 90–94 there is an extensive excursus on the