Question: Philo or OT Pseudepigrapha?
I was thinking the other day that the OT Pseudepigrapha would be more significant to study as a backdrop to the NT times. I asked Hall Harris about it and he said Philo would be. Anybody else have an opinion on this?
posted by Eric Sowell @ 5:38 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I'm not so sure Philo will help illuminate "New Testament Times". His perspective is a bit idiosyncratic and seems intended to persuade highly secularized Greek speaking Jews of the diaspora that Judaism still holds some value. His interpretation of the Hebrew Bible is, to be charitable, quite unhistorical. Allegory may make for good bedtime story, but it is a poor interpretative tool. In short, when one reads Philo one reads fringe. And fringe is never a good perspective when one is trying to describe the average or the normal.
It depends on what you are looking for; Philo is an excellent source for how it was to live as Jewish minority groups in the Diaspora in the 1. century CE. He has much to say about the social world of his times, but of course, both his expositions of the Scriptures as well as his reflections of the social world are to be read as 'philonic'. On the other hand, the OT Pseudepigrapha are valuable too. I would not go for an either - or.
http://philoblogger.blogspot.com
Thanks for the input, fellas. Anyone else?
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