Maren R. Niehoff

Mother and Maiden, Sister and Spouse: Sarah in Philonic Midrash

In an age of feminist criticism, it is of considerable importance to understand how the archetypal matriarch of the Jews fared in the writings of Philo, the most prolific and influential of Alexandrian Jews. The story of Sarah raises key issues concerning the nature and status of women in the Bible. Sarah is the spouse of the founder of the Jewish nation, yet her marital status is twice threatened by the advances of foreign kings. She is the first of several mothers in the Hebrew Bible who, having waited a long time for offspring, takes an active role in bringing up her only son. Moreover, she enjoys a relatively close relationship with God, who directly intervenes in history on her behalf. Sarahs story thus invited anyone reading it in antiquity to clarify his or her own views on motherhood and on the relationship between women and God.

Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters

The present collection of articles brings together scholars from different fields and offers prioneering essays on the Alexandrian scholia, Philo, Platonic thinkers and the rabbis, which cross traditional boundaries and interpret Biblical and Homeric readers in light of each other.

Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen 17:1–14

There have always been male Jews who were not circumcised even though from Biblical times onwards circumcision was recognised by Jews and nonJews alike as a sign of the covenant and marker of Jewish identity.2 During the Second Temple Period, when this phenomenon appears to have increased as a result of acculturation to Hellenism, uncircumcised Jews provoked some discussion, but nevertheless remained a rather anomalous minority.3 The extant sources on the topic suggest

Creatio ex Nihilo Theology in Genesis Rabbah in Light of Christian Exegesis

“The Ways that Never Parted” is the title of a recently published collection of articles that reflects an increasing tendency in scholarship. A significant number of scholars no longer interpret the emergence of Christianity from Judaism as a clear separation between the two religions either at the end of the first or the beginning of the second century. Instead, they envision a prolonged process which, according to some, may even have lasted until the late fourth century. This process is thought to have been shaped by both segregation and rapprochement, creating ambiguity and “fuzziness” rather than clear boundaries. A central notion is the idea of sororal relations between Judaism and Christianity. These scholars no longer see Judaism as the mother figure giving birth to the daughter religion, while remaining unchanged herself, but rather as a sister developing and changing during the first centuries of the Christian era. This interpretation then sees Jews as an integral part of the Roman Empire, which eventually became Christian and (im)posed certain religious challenges.

The Phoenix in Rabbinic Literature

Contact between cultures is a complex phenomenon that often involves accepting foreign ideas until these become new ways of self-expression. The case of the phoenix is of special interest, in this respect, because in antiquity it was associated with the sun temple at Heliopolis and miraculous forms of rebirth. The phoenix motif also appears in a variety of early Jewish and Christian writings, thus allowing for a comparative appreciation of its rabbinic reception. In light of these other intercultural encounters, it becomes clear that the rabbis were familiar with the details of the Hellenistic phoenix myths, and not only adapted the story to their own values but even enhanced its mythological dimension. In this way, the rabbis continued the Hellenistic practice of reactivating an ancient Egyptian myth. In contrast to the symbolic approach of early Christianity, the rabbis characteristically chose to accommodate the phoenix on a literal level, interpreting it mythopoeically, that is, by creating myth. Their interpretation of the phoenix moreover illuminates important, yet hitherto unnoticed aspects of rabbinic mythology.

The Implied Audience of the Letter of James

The purpose and context of the Letter of James have always been subject to much debate. This chapter explores what the Letter can tell us about the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity; and the role of the author of a text in reflecting or shaping reality. It throws new light on these issues by focusing on the implied audience of the scriptural interpretations in the Letter. The approach is based on the recognition that a considerable part of the short Letter revolves around exegesis. Explaining biblical passages, is clearly an important concern. but have recently provoked a particularly significant controversy. This analysis of the scriptural references in the Letter of James has shown that the implied audience was Christian. It confirms the papyrological discoveries of Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra, who has shown that second-century Christian libraries held relatively few materials that can be identified as specifically Jewish. Keywords:Christianity; exegesis; implied audience; Judaism; Letter of James; papyrological discoveries

A Jewish Critique of Christianity from Second-Century Alexandria: Revisiting the Jew Mentioned in Contra Celsum

This article proposes to read all the fragments that Origen identified as belonging to the section of “Celsus’s Jew” in The True Doctrine as deriving from a written document composed by an Alexandrian Jew in the mid-second century. The author of these fragments emerges as an educated and highly scholarly writer with an Alexandrian background, who was alarmed by the situation of the Jewish community following a significant spread of Christianity, which was accompanied by separatist theology. The anonymous Jewish author thus produced the first literary critique of the Gospels, which is of significant value for our understanding of the “parting of the ways.” Moreover, I suggest that these fragments should be interpreted in light of both earlier forms of Alexandrian Judaism as well as the Letter of Barnabas.

Philo and Plutarch on Homer

Philo and Plutarch have much in common. Both spoke reverently of Plato as most sacred or divine and gave special attention to the Timaeus , defending its literal meaning against metaphorical interpretations. They are the first known authors in the Platonic tradition to reintegrate Homer into the philosophical discourse, thus anticipating the Neo-Platonists. The revival of Platonism in the Imperial Age, with its emphasis on Platos positive dogma, was intricately connected to the special intellectual climate of Alexandria. This chapter discusses that both Philo and Plutarch were able to overcome Platos criticism of Homer by virtue of their familiarity with Aristotelian literary criticism. Philo was able to make such an argument about the Homeric lines, because he had already thought about the Bible in relation to Platonic philosophy. Homer was of central importance for Plutarch. Keywords:Alexandria; Homer; Plato; platonists; Plutarch

Commentary Culture in the Land of Israel from an Alexandrian Perspective

Abstract This article investigates the development of commentary culture in the Land of Israel from an Alexandrian perspective. While both the rabbis and the exegetes at Qumran developed forms of systematic commentary, they differ in important respects. I argue that there are significant similarities between rabbinic exegesis and the commentary culture of Alexandria, both Homeric and biblical, while Qumranic exegesis can be characterized as prophetic. The Alexandrians and the rabbis explained their canonical text from within itself and appreciated it as a literary work. This implies that a human author with a distinct style is assumed and that problems of contradictions as well as verisimilitude are explicitly addressed. The particular form of rabbinic exegesis, which is novel in the Land of Israel, thus seems to have resulted from a lively engagement with Hellenistic culture. In Qumran, on the other hand, prophetic forms of commentary were prevalent. The exegete does not inquire into the biblical text from within itself, but assumes prophetic authority, which enables him to reveal the “secrets” of the text and gain direct access to God’s wisdom. Biblical lemmata are directly applied to contemporary events, while textual problems or literary questions are not explicitly addressed.

Questions and Answers in Philo and Genesis Rabbah

This article investigates whether Philo and the rabbis were intrigued by the same problems in the Biblical text and how they solved them. Three sets of questions and answers are studied, pertaining to the trees of Life and Knowledge as well as to Gods famous saying “let us make man” (Gen. 1:26). Each cluster is investigated in its historical context and in comparison to its parallel in the other corpus. Philo and Genesis Rabbah operated in radically different environments. While Philo was directly familiar with Homeric scholarship and applied certain of its methods to Scripture, Genesis Rabbah emerged in an environment where Christian exegetes rivaled their study of the same text. Questions and answers were now raised concerning the same verses and helped to define boundaries between the different groups.