Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

394 part two
should not be held as representative of Hellenistic Judaism but rather as ‘a
particular type of Jewish Holy Man in the Greco-Roman world’ (p. 129). (EB)
20657.P.J.Lindqvist,Sin at Sinai: Early Judaism Encounters Exodus
32 (diss. Åbo Akademi 2006).
The study focuses on the early Jewish history of reception of one of the
narrative climaxes of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the story of the worship
of the golden calf image described in Exod 32. Because of the controversial
nature of the story, it played an interesting role in religious debates in the early
centuries of our era, which can be followed in some detail. Several textual
corpora are studied, the most important of which are firstly the Hellenistic-
Jewish authors Philo and Josephus and the pseudepigraphic Pseudo-Philo, all
of them from the 1st century c.e., secondly the Aramaic translations of the
Pentateuch (targums) and thirdly the vast rabbinic corpus from Mishna until the
final redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, including the numerous midrashic
works. The study may thus be categorized as a contribution to the field of the
study of midrash, broadly speaking, and secondarily as a study in the religious
confrontation of the early centuries. (DTR; based on author’s abstract)
20658. P. Lindquist, ‘Sin at Sinai: Three First Century Versions,’
in J. Neusner, A. J. Avery Peck, A. Laato, R. Nurmela and K.-G.
Sandelin (edd.), Ancient Israel, Judaism, and Christianity in Contemporary
Perspective: Essays in Memory of Karl-Johan Illman (Lanham Md.
2006) 225–246.
Lindquist here discusses three different authors’ versions of the so-called
‘golden calf episode.’ The authors dealt with are Philo, Josephus and Ps.Philo
(LAB). According to Lindquist these authors represent two different perspectives:
Philo and Josephus deal with Judaism in contact and conflict with foreign
cults, culture and civilization; Pseudo-Philo represents a kind of introverted
Judaism, without traces of intercultural encounters. He then deals extensively
with the more literal exposition in Philo’s Mos. 2.159–173, but comments rather
briefly on the more allegorical treatments of Ebr. 66–70, 95–105, Post. 162–169,
Sacr. 128–130 and Fug. 90–102. He finds that Philo presents Moses in line with
the aretalogies of Hellenistic literature, and that his noble character, as well as
the exemplary victory of the Levites over the wrong, are the focal points of this
episode. (TS)
20659. P. Luisier, ‘De Philon d’Alexandrie à la Protennoia trimorphe:
variations sur un theme de grammaire grecque,’ in L. Painchaud and P.-
H. Poirier (edd.), Coptica—gnostica—manichaica (Quebec–Paris 2006)
535–555.
In his discussion of the Coptic treatise of Nag Hammadi, Prôtennoia trimorphê,
which is a translation of a Greek original, the author investigates a number