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Class
Prep
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- "Ain't
Misbehavin'": A Jewish Philosopher Defends his God
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Our next apologist for the gods is Philo of Alexandria, an Egyptian
Jew who lived around the time of Jesus (20 BCE-50 CE). Philo
was a leading Jew in the city, well-educated in the Greek philosophical
systems of his day such as middle Platonism and Stoicism. The
Jewish middle Platonists in Alexandria did not have quite the
same view of their most authoritative text, the Torah, as the
Stoics did of Homer and Hesiod. They believed as their
Greek colleagues did that the Torah texts had multiple layers
of meaning, but they did not share the belief that their Torah
had subsequently become corrupted. In this sense, it
was superior to the Greek myths of Hesiod and the Homeric epics. In
addition, Jewish exegetes like Philo believed that the Torah had
been written by Moses c.1240 BCE, long before Hesiod (late
700s BCE) Homer (700s-600s BCE), or Plato (c.428-347 BCE). Thus,
the Jewish tradition could be presented as antecedent to and purer
than--and even the source of--the greatest philosophy of
the Greek tradition.
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- But
the Jewish scriptures had the same "problem" that Homer's
classic did, namely that despite their sacred status and allegedly
divine origin, they sometimes portrayed God in a manner that any
educated Greek or Jew would find incomprehensible.
Just think about some of the texts we've read:
In the second creation story, God is portrayed as if human, breathing
life into the earth creature, walking in the garden at the breezy
time of day, unaware how the humans came to discover their nakedness. And
all those duplicated stories that we attributed to the various
authors of Torah were seen in antiquity as confusing repetitions
and contradictions that had to be found coherent if they really
came from a divine author.
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- As you read the passages from
Philo, consider the following questions:
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- Based on your readings about Platonism and Philo in Tripolitis,
what Platonic emphases do you find in Philo's interpretation
of the Genesis story? Make a list of phrases, or mark a print-out
of the texts for easy reference in class.
- What a priori assumptions does Philo seem to be
making about the nature of God? In other words, what does
he assume about divine nature? What is his view of the Yahwist's
anthropomorphic God?
- How does Philo interpret the second creation story's account
of the helpers created for man? What do they represent?
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- In class, we will practice identifying and explaining Philo's
allegorical interpretations of the Genesis passages. For
further practice, see the reading exercise on Allegorical
Interpretation in Philo's Works.
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- Assigned Readings
- Primary: Philo, Excerpts from
various works
- Secondary: Tripolitis, pp. 77-84; online class prep
- Optional: Tripolitis, pp. 61-77, 84-90; Renfro,
"On the Difference
between the Interpretations by Plato and Philo of Ungodlike
Actions of the Gods" (student research paper)
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- Further Reading
- Attridge, Harold W. "The Philosophical Critique
of Religion under the Early Empire." Aufstieg
und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.16.1 (1978) 45-78.
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Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of
Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1953.
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- Daube, David. "Alexandrian Methods of Interpretation
and the Rabbis." In Essays in Greco-Roman and
Related Talmudic Literature (ed. Harry M. Orlinsky; The Library
of Biblical Studies; New York: KTAV, 1977) 165-82.
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- Dawson, David. Allegorical Readers and Cultural
Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1992.
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Dillon, John M. The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to
A.D. 220. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press, 1977.
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- Mack, Burton L. "Philo Judaeus and Exegetical
Traditions in Alexandria." Aufstieg und Niedergang
der Römischen Welt II.21.2 (1984) 227-71.
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Schneidau, Herbert N. Sacred Discontent: The Bible
and Western Tradition. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976.
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Tobin, Thomas H. The Creation of Man: Philo and
the History of Interpretation. Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1983.
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Whitman, Jon. Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient
and Medieval Technique. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1987.
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- Links
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- Sources
- Photograph: A. R. Bellinger, F. E. Brown, A. Perkins and C.
B. Welles, eds., The Excavations at Dura-Europos Conducted
by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and
Letters, Final Report VIII, Part 1 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1956) Plate LXXVI.
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