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Greek authors likened "philosophical discourse" in the Hellenistic and Roman eras to an orchard. Logic, physics, and ethics served as the orchard walls, the trees, and the fruit of this enterprise. In a similar manner, this collection of essays, written by an international group of scholars and devoted to Philo of Alexandria's fashioning of a new Jewish philosophical discourse, harvests the fruits of many disciplines - including the study of Ancient Judaism and History of Religions, Ancient Philosophy, and the Classics - and brings them to bear on one of the Roman period's most prolific and creative Jewish thinkers and public figures. Essays treat Philo's relationship to the varied schools of philosophy: Socratic thought, Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, Pythagoreism, Stoicism, and Middle Platonism all played a role in the seedbed of Philo's orchard. The volume also includes a new catalogue of Philo's library and a study of Philo's reception in Christian philosophical discourse.
About the author
Michael Cover is Associate Professor in the Theology Department of Marquette University in Milwaukee, USA.Lutz Doering is Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism and Director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the University of Münster.Michael Cover is Associate Professor in the Theology Department of Marquette University in Milwaukee, USA.Lutz Doering is Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism and Director of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the University of Münster.
Summary
Greek authors likened “philosophical discourse” in the Hellenistic and Roman eras to an orchard. Logic, physics, and ethics served as the orchard walls, the trees, and the fruit of this enterprise. In a similar manner, this collection of essays, written by an international group of scholars and devoted to Philo of Alexandria’s fashioning of a new Jewish philosophical discourse, harvests the fruits of many disciplines – including the study of Ancient Judaism and History of Religions, Ancient Philosophy, and the Classics – and brings them to bear on one of the Roman period’s most prolific and creative Jewish thinkers and public figures. Essays treat Philo’s relationship to the varied schools of philosophy: Socratic thought, Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism, Pythagoreism, Stoicism, and Middle Platonism all played a role in the seedbed of Philo’s orchard. The volume also includes a new catalogue of Philo’s library and a study of Philo’s reception in Christian philosophical discourse.
Foreword
Philo of Alexandria: “Mosaist”, Socratic, Middle-Platonist, Stoic, Pythagorean, Pyrrhonian Sceptic? These are some of the options considered in the essays who examine Philo’s participation in the philosophical debate of his time and his fashioning of a new, Jewish discourse.
