Philo of Alexandria

20 Episodes

Philo of Alexandria was a first-century Jewish philosopher and interpreter of scripture who read Jewish traditions through the categories of Greek philosophy, especially Platonism and Stoicism. His writings are a major witness to Greco-Roman period Judaism, the Logos as a divine intermediary, and Jewish discourse about gods, angels, scripture, and embodied life before and alongside early Christianity.

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Why this topic matters

Philo interpreted scripture in a world where Jewish texts, Greek grammar, and Platonic categories could all belong to the same argument. His treatment of the Logos, divine intermediaries, and the difference between “the God” and beings called god helps explain why passages like John 1:1 can be about divine status without simply collapsing the Word into the God of Israel.

He also complicates tidy claims about ancient Jewish monotheism. Philo can affirm subordinate gods, cosmic rulers, and delegated divine agency while still centering the Father of all, which makes him valuable evidence against using later theological categories as if they were obvious descriptions of Second Temple Judaism.

Where to start

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Quotes from the Data

“For folks like Philo, the text was not the locus of the authority. And so the text was not inviolable. It was the ideas.”

Dan McClellan Episode 31

“He was incorporating a lot of Stoic and Middle Platonic philosophy into Judaism, basically trying to show that Judaism fits within a Greek philosophical worldview.”

Dan McClellan Episode 160

“This word is not, I think, in the Gospel of John's conception, the ultimate God of the universe. But this is a divine being, an entity, a being who has, I think, in John's conception, a subordinate participatory divinity.”

Hugo Méndez Episode 128

“At no time in Philo anywhere does he negate the gods' existence, their agency, their rule that's delegated to them under the God of all, their regular place in ordering the cosmic government of sorts.”

David Burnett Episode 59

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