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The Spirit in First Century Judaism
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Conceptions of the divine spirit underwent complex metamorphoses in Jewish biblical interpretation during the Greco-Roman era. This monograph explores those permutations in the writings of Philo Judaeus, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum).
The first section, 'An Anomalous Prophet', unfolds surprisingly divergent transformations of the inspiration of Balaam. The second section, 'An Eclectic Era', unearths both faint and conspicuous traces of Greco-Roman conceptions in early Jewish interpretations. The third section, 'An Extraordinary Mind', undermines the view that the spirit was associated primarily with ecstasy rather than with intellectual insight.
By analyzing these interpretations in light of other contemporary Greco-Roman and Jewish writings, this volume offers original and essential data for further study of inspiration in Antiquity, including early Judaism, early Christianity, and the Greco-Roman world.
This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
The first section, 'An Anomalous Prophet', unfolds surprisingly divergent transformations of the inspiration of Balaam. The second section, 'An Eclectic Era', unearths both faint and conspicuous traces of Greco-Roman conceptions in early Jewish interpretations. The third section, 'An Extraordinary Mind', undermines the view that the spirit was associated primarily with ecstasy rather than with intellectual insight.
By analyzing these interpretations in light of other contemporary Greco-Roman and Jewish writings, this volume offers original and essential data for further study of inspiration in Antiquity, including early Judaism, early Christianity, and the Greco-Roman world.
This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
John R. Levison, Ph.D. (1985), is Associate Professor of the Practice of Biblical Interpretation at the Divinity School, Duke University. He has written Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism (Sheffield, 1988) and edited, with Louis H. Feldman Josephus' Contra Apionem: Studies in its Character and Context with a Latin Concordance to the Portion Missing in Greek (Brill, 1996).
'...an excellent book, to be recommended because of its methodology, clarity and, in part, new perspectives.'
Antonio Piìero, Journal for the Study of Judaism, 1999.
'...a volume that is notable for its painstaking analysis and clarity of exposition...required reading for anyone interested in the religious beliefs of these three [Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus] writers...'
Walter T. Wilson, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1999.
‘It is as valuable for New Testament specialists as it is for those who work in the Second Temple period.’
Gregory E. Sterling, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 2001.
Antonio Piìero, Journal for the Study of Judaism, 1999.
'...a volume that is notable for its painstaking analysis and clarity of exposition...required reading for anyone interested in the religious beliefs of these three [Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus] writers...'
Walter T. Wilson, The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1999.
‘It is as valuable for New Testament specialists as it is for those who work in the Second Temple period.’
Gregory E. Sterling, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 2001.
Scholars interested in early Judaism, Greco-Roman religions, the New Testament and early Christianity, as well as theologians interested in pneumatology.