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| The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged, New Updated Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Of Alexandria Philo
Creator: Charles Duke Yonge
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $17.97 (42.30 RON)
Buy New: $12.22 (28.77 RON)
You Save: $5.75 (13.54 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 37557
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 944
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.6
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.8
ISBN: 0943575931
Dewey Decimal Number: 181.06
EAN: 9780943575933
ASIN: 0943575931
Publication Date: August 1, 1993
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Bible commentary and historical documents March 23, 2006
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
It's a lot to read, but you don't have to read it all cover to cover in one evening. Allegorical and philosophic Bible commentary. Fascinating reading and undoubtedly the foundation on which Augustine of Hippo built his "City of G-d". Also some of the documents included give the reader a real feel for what it was like to be Jewish during the early Roman imperial period.
 Philo in One Book! October 8, 2004
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
Philo's complete works, are very difficult to come by, yet this book makes his work accessible! This is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, as the Loeb edition is massive, and expensive. This is a must-have for all scholars, laymen, and those who enjoy extra-canonical literature, especially for insight to the Judaic background of the New Testament.
Surprizingly Readable, Insightful and Enjoyable August 24, 2002
51 out of 52 found this review helpful
As tantalized and delighted as I was by the Classics of Western Spirituality anthology of Philo selections, I avoided buying this Hendrickson edition of the C.D. Yonge translation of the complete works of Philo of Alexandria until I could stand it no longer. Because Yonge worked in the 19th century, I thought his work would be as stilted as Hendrickson's Josephus by Whiston. I was wrong. Yonge's translation has been updated here by David Scholer to accord with a text discovered after Yonge wrote, keyed to Loeb Library numbers, with passages unavailable to Yonge newly translated. The text occasionally creaks, but it generally very readable, and actually enjoyable (not something that can be said of most ancient philosophical/theological texts!). The more modern Winston selections from the texts and their superior notes in the CWS edition are still excellent to have, but you really need to read more complete treatises to get into Philo's remarkable, even amusing, mind.
A window in time. July 25, 2002
56 out of 60 found this review helpful
The writings of Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria, c20 BC - c50 AD) are important to the historical examination of late Second Temple Judaism, the religious 'world' into which Christ came. A prominent scholar and exegete, Philo's writings are considered the most thorough and most representative documents illuminating Hellenistic Judaism. Philo is interesting to Christians because, like Saul of Tarsus (Paul the Apostle), he was a Pharisee, a student and interpreter of Hebrew Scripture. (The Pharisees were a scholarly rabbinical sect particularly known for their studies of the Pentateuch. Their exegetic work was esteemed such that they were held by many to be the spiritual "rulers" of Judaism. The Torah commentators who wrote the Talmud were Pharisees. They are generally criticized by Christians but it should be noted that they shared some important beliefs with Christians, namely the priority of the immaterial to the material, the promise of the Messiah, the existence of angelic beings, and of the Divine gift of eternal existence for those who enter a right relationship with God. The Pharisees famously opposed Jesus, but it is also known that a number of them became Christians. Philo however, who spent most of his life in Alexandria, and died c.50 AD, likely had little or no contact with Jesus' followers.) Not only a Hebrew scholar but a noted scholar within Alexandrian academe, Philo is an interesting expositor of Greek philosophy and mathematics of the period, showing a great fondness for Euclidean geometry and number theory. However, the exegesis of the scriptural Creation account and of the special laws and the Decalogue is the author's central focus. This complete and unabridged volume is no trivial work, perhaps only approached by the most serious-minded student.
From Philo's examination of the Creation account we learn that [two millennia ago] leading scholarship did not hold Genesis 1 to be a literal (i.e., scientific) accounting. Philo expresses certainty that Genesis 1 can only be rightly understood as spiritual allegory. "Literal" interpretations of Moses' language [within Genesis 1] must produce a god with a localized body, nostrils, mouth, hands, etc., wholly incompatible with the incorporeal God revealed in scripture (and required by reason, what kind of matter could the Maker of matter be made of?). The Creation account is rather understood as describing the relationship of Creator and creation -- God's intimacy ("hovering", Gen 1:2) and God's ultimacy ("over" the abyss, Gen 1:2). Philo's rejection of literal interpretations is often strongly worded: "let us take care that we are never filled with such absurdity..." and "let not such fabulous nonsense ever enter our minds."
We note that the ideas contained in modern philology are often not the concepts which were understood in earlier ages. For example, "the heavens and the earth" was understood [at least by some] to mean three-dimensional space itself plus time -- as "the heavens", and the constituents of the matter contained within space and time -- as "the earth". Thus Genesis 1:1 speaks of creation ex nihilo, everything from nothing [interestingly, as does the inflationary big bang theory]. The creation of light, the "separation" of light and darkness; God's "breath", "image", "likeness", speech, sight -- all of these expressions are understood as spiritual revelations into the nature of God's relationship to his creation (and not as a science text). The modern fundamentalist "literal" interpretation of Genesis 1 tends to overlook significant theological and philological indicators and ignores ancient expositors like Philo, Origen, Augustine, and Aquinas, disingenuously [or ignorantly] claiming that interpretations other than the supposed "obvious" one are modern inventions. Philo examines several allegorical interpretations in depth. Of comparisons of man to God, Philo states: "Moses says that man was made in the image and likeness of God. And he says well; for nothing that is born on earth is more resembling God than man. And let no one think that he is able to judge of this likeness from the characters of the body: for neither is God a being with the form of a man, nor is the human body like the form of God; but the resemblance is spoken of with reference to the most important part of the soul, namely the mind: for the mind which exists in each individual has been created after the likeness of that one mind which is in the universe as its primitive model, being in some sort the god of that body which carries it about and bears its image within it."
"Hellenistic Monotheism at its Apogee" November 5, 2001
32 out of 34 found this review helpful
Philo of Alexandria was a contemporary of both Paul and Christ. Though he did not know them, it cannot be doubted that the Jewish philosopher made a significant impact on the early Christian world. He has been styled the first theologian on account of his hellenized Judaism, and for the fact that he espoused the concept of God's creating force - the Logos - as found in the Gospel of John, which was written nearly a half-century later. Philo's works may be divided into two groups: works that deal directly with the biblical texts, and those that do not. In the former works Philo links philosophy to the Pentateuch by the use of allegory, which uncovers how the Stoic concept of the Logos, and the Platonistic World of Forms are already present in the Old Testament; and in the later he describes the monastic order of the Therapeutae - mystics who claimed they saw the vision of God - the Essenes, and also defends the Jews against anti-Jewish acts by Gaius Caligula in an apologetic work "Embassy to Gaius." These works are a culmination of many divergent areas of thought; and to discover these works will be to discover the general milieu of Hellenistic ideas so pervasive in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century.
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