Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus,theAllegorical Commentary,

and theExposition of the Law.Modern scholarship generally recognizes

two other groups of treatises: the philosophical and the apologetic works.

Philo’s works have come down to us largely in Greek, although some

are preserved in a rather literal sixth-century Armenian translation, and

some material is extant only in Latin. The chart on pp. 256-57 assumes that

the work is extant in Greek unless otherwise specified. It is important to

note that the textual base of a number of treatises is problematic. There are

times when treatises have been separated into two distinct works (e.g.,

Alleg. Interp.2 = the currentAlleg. Interp.1 and 2;Giants= the currentGi-

antsandUnchangeable) and one case where short treatments have been

clustered (Virtues = Spec. Laws4.133-238;Virtues;and lostPiety). In other

cases, we have only part of a treatise: sometimes the majority of the treatise

(Plantingand possiblySobriety) and sometimes only fragments (God,

Hypothetica, Numbers). There are a significant number of lost treatises. We

know about them when either Philo or Eusebius mentioned them explic-

itly or when there is an obvious lacuna in a series of sequential treatises

(labeled “significant lacuna”). There were undoubtedly other treatises that

disappeared at an early date; for example, theQuestions and Answers on

Genesismay well have included a treatment of Genesis 1 and theQuestions

and Answers on Exodusprobably dealt with Exodus 1–5, but we have not in-

cluded any speculations about these.

We thus have thirty-six treatises fully or mainly extant in Greek, with

fragments of another; plus an additional thirteen treatises fully or mainly

extant in Armenian, with fragments of two others. This gives us a total of

forty-nine fully or mainly preserved treatises and fragments of three oth-

ers. We know or can reasonably speculate that Philo wrote another twenty-

three treatises. We thus have approximately two-thirds of his work.

Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus

TheQuestions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus(Greek title,Z 3 t 3 mata

kai lyseis eis t 3 n Genesin kai t 3 n Exodon;Latin title,Quaestiones et Solu-

tiones in Genesin et Exodum) is the least well-known of Philo’s great scrip-

tural commentaries. It is an exposition of the first two books of the Penta-

teuch but does not treat them in their entirety. It consists of lengthy series

of questions that stay close to the biblical text, the answers to which form a

kind of running commentary.

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sterling, runia, niehoff, and van den hoek

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:07 PM