Sunday, September 06, 2009

JOSEPHUS AND PHILO are profiled in an article by Michael Hickey in the Marco Eagle. It's pretty much accurate, although I know of no evidence that Philo was a Pharisee and that seems quite unlikely to me, and his Logos theology influenced early Christianity, but not, almost certainly, Judaism in the same period.

UPDATE: Reader Carl Kinbar e-mails:
In your post today, you write that Philo's "Logos theology influenced early Christianity, but not, almost certainly, Judaism in the same period." In "Border Lines," Daniel Boyarin makes a case for similar Logos theologies in nascent Christianity and Judaism. Israel Efros (in "Ancient Jewish Philosophy") makes the same claim. IMO, there are similarities. I've found a sort of Logos theology as late as the fifth or sixth century CE in Shir Hashirim Rabbah and Vayikra Rabbah. Though I'm not sold on Boyarin's thesis that nascent Christianity and Judaism had a shared theology of the godhead, there are similarities. But Christianity certainly focused on it, while Judaism didn't.