gesis, addresses the question of why there are two creation stories that ap-
parently convey contradictory accounts of man’s creation. Philo solves this
problem by arguing that the two stories refer to two types of man (Leg.1.31;
Opif.34). Gen. 1:26 speaks of man’s creation in the image of God, thus im-
plying an ideal form of man who has nothing terrestrial about him, while
Gen. 2:7 mentions man’s creation out of the earth and thus speaks about a
material creature. The ideal man was created first, serving as a model for
his terrestrial equivalent. Philo thus adopts the Platonic notion of ideal
forms, which are perfect and absolutely transcendental, serving as models
for material creations. Although Plato himself did not yet speak about an
ideal form of man, his students systematized his thought. Arius Didymus,
an Alexandrian Platonist living a generation before Philo, is the first extant
writer to mention an ideal form of man (Eusebius,Praep. Evang.11.23).
When Philo dwells on the second account of creation, he gives special
attention to the notion of divine breath entering the dust from the ground
(Gen. 2:7). This gives him the opportunity to dwell on the relationship be-
tween mind and body. Philo assumes with Plato that the mind at first ex-
isted independently in a spiritual realm before it descended into the body,
thus being imprisoned in the material world. Biblical writers still con-
ceived of man in a holistic fashion and did not strongly distinguish his
“spiritual” faculties from his material characteristics. A Jewish contempo-
rary of Philo, however, as well as many rabbinic teachers, expressed similar
notions of a body-mind dichotomy (Wis. 8:19;Gen. Rab.34:10;b. Sanhe-
drin71).Other Treatises
Each of the treatises in Philo’sAllegorical Commentarytreats a particular
passage in Genesis, focusing each time on a central subject or problem.
Some even postulate an overall solution, such as the treatiseOn the
Unchangeableness of God,which argues that the biblical indication of
God’s regret about the creation of man must not be read in an anthropo-
morphic vein, but taken allegorically as an affirmation of God’s transcen-
dence. Similarly, the treatisesOn the Confusion of TonguesandOn the Gi-
antstreat biblical stories that appeared to many of Philo’s Jewish
contemporaries as mythological and parallel to stories in Greek literature.
Applying both literal and allegorical methods, Philo aimed at showing that
Scripture does not contain myth but only metaphysical truth.267PhiloEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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