Hebrew Perspectives on the Human Person in the Hellenistic Era- Philo and Paul
| Author: | Warne, Graham | |
| Year: | 1995 | |
| Pages: | 308 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-2420-2 978-0-7734-2420-3 | |
| Price: | $219.95 + shipping | |
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Philo of Alexandria represented a classic assimilation of the Greek dualist view (bi-partite body and soul), into the traditional Hebraic concept, and it was generally assumed that those who followed, particularly the writers of the New Testament, continued to uphold the assimilated view. Examining this view in the light of recent scholarship and the biblical texts, this volume concludes that, while the Apostle Paul must have been exposed to hellenistic concepts of the human as bi-partite, he resisted this interpretation, developing the fundamental Hebraic concept into a distinctively Christian anthropology. The interaction of the two views reached its climax in the Corinthian correspondence, where Paul clearly reversed the hellenized interpretation.
Reviews
"The concise introductory and concluding chapters suggest that Warne has reflected on broad issues of human existence and the difference between ancient Greek and Hebrew cultural and religious traditions. . . .The author's primary concern seems clearly to provide a fuller understanding of Pauline thought and especially of 1 Corinthians, but the book offers extensive discussion of some of Philo's anthropological terms and ideas as well. . . .has has approached his questions and data with care and a quite open-minded appreciation of the perspectives of both Paul and Philo. His methodology stresses extended word studies, and the assumption of a sharp and rather easily defined dichotomy of 'Hebraic' and 'Greek' modes of thought runs through the book.. . . . the scholarly objective of explaining these two first-century writers in their own historical period is essential . . ." - The Studia Philonica Annual
". . . this narrowly defined study makes its mark most suitably in the way it highlights how the authors' purposes vis-à-vis their audiences controls their use of words: while Philo was attempting to graecize his Jewishness for his peers, Paul was trying introduce his Greek hearers to some Jewish ideas." - Expository Times
". . . this narrowly defined study makes its mark most suitably in the way it highlights how the authors' purposes vis-à-vis their audiences controls their use of words: while Philo was attempting to graecize his Jewishness for his peers, Paul was trying introduce his Greek hearers to some Jewish ideas." - Expository Times