What is it about?
This article asks: why did Paul use the Psalms so much in his Letter to the Romans, while hardly mentioning them in his earlier epistles? What was special about the Psalms in relation to the rest of the Bible? The key to understanding this riddle is provided by Philo of Alexandria, another Hellenistic Jew and direct contemporary of Paul. If we carefully compare their use of Psalms, we see that both begin to use them as a spiritual subtext to the Pentateuch, which brings out spiritual meanings. Paul, however, went one step further than Philo and suggested that the Psalms, rather than Moses' Scripture, constitute the central part of the Bible.
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Why is it important?
The close analysis of Psalms in Paul and Philo opens larger issues, which are of considerable importance: the emergence of a distinctly Christian notion of Scripture, the "Parting of the Ways" between Christianity and Judaism, the relationship between Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, as well as Mediterranean networks between individual authors
Perspectives
This article is the first in a series of investigations into Paul and Philo. My ultimate goal is to provide an overall interpretation of Paul as an exegete of his time, taking his cultural , religious and political context seriously into account. His novel achievements in his different letters emerge with special clarity when compared to Philo of Alexandria, the author closest to him in terms of his background, education and appeal to Roman audiences. My next article in this area focuses on Abraham's faith and will appear in the Studia Philonica Annual 2020.
Maren Niehoff
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Paul and Philo on the Psalms, Novum Testamentum, September 2020, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15685365-12341674.
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