Philo of Alexandria - Books and Journals

critical studies 1997 31
Origen’s provocative use of the Philonic interpretation of Pascha as διάασις,
‘spiritual crossing’, is examined in relation to other Christian exegesis and also
in the perspective of positive and negative invocations of Jewish interpretation.
(DTR; based on DAI-A 58/09, p. 3575)
9711. N.G.Cohen,‘EarliestEvidenceoftheHaftarah Cycle for the
Sabbaths between and in Philo,’ Journal of Jewish Studies
48 (1997) 225–249.
The author shows that the majority of Philo’s quotations from the Latter
Prophets occur in the Haftarah cycle, and especially in the Haftarah of ‘admonition,
consolation, and repentance’. Of the 13 quotations in Philo from the Latter
Prophets 10 contain verses found in this specific Haftarah cycle. This result is
all the more striking given the very few non-Pentateuchal references in Philo.
The author concludes that the traditional string of Haftaroth—admonition,
consolation, repentance—existed already in Philo’s time. The author’s thesis
has been more fully developed in her monograph Philo’s Scriptures: Citations
from the Prophets and Writings: Evidence for a Haftarah Cycle in Second Temple
Judaism, Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements 123 (Leiden 2007).
(ACG)
9712. N.G.Cohen,‘TheNamesoftheSeparateBooksofthePentateuch
in Philo’s Writings,’ in D. T. Runia and G. E. Sterling (edd.),
Wisdom and Logos: Studies in Jewish Thought in Honor of David Winston
[= The Studia Philonica Annual 9 (1997)], Brown Judaic Studies 312
(Atlanta 1997) 54–78.
A thorough survey of all the passages in which Philo appears to refer to
individual books of the Pentateuch. These are very infrequent when seen in
relation to the countless references Philo makes to scripture as a whole. For
the book Genesis there are at most four instances. Philo does not use the name
Εδς,butreplacesitwithΕαγωγή, the reason for this being, it is surmised,
that the other name was associated with the theatre. The name Leviticus is
used three times, Numbers not at all. The most complex case is Deuteronomy.
This name is used twice only. Scholars have often thought that Philo uses
alternative names to refer to this book, such as Πρτρεπτικς, Παραίνεσις and
Επίνμις. The author examines all these instances and determines that they are
not synonyms for the final book of the Pentateuch. By way of conclusion it is
argued that Philo always considered the Pentateuch as a whole as his point of
reference and as a conceptual unit. For this reason the references to individual
books are so infrequent. (DTR)
9713. T. M. Conley, ‘Philo of Alexandria,’ in S. E. Porter (ed.),
Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.–A.D. 400
(Leiden 1997) 695–713.