Bibliography
| Title: The Spirit in First Century Judaism Secondary Title: AGJU 29 Type: Book Year: 1997 Abstract: Feldman, Louis Harry in: OZA 21.3 (1998), 551: "L. explores the ways in which divergent and creative first- Century interpretations, notably those of Philo, Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities, and Josephus, of the spirit were spun from the single formulaic and apparently innocuous biblical Strand of Num 24:2: "And the spirit of God came upon him [Balaam]". In particular, he concludes that Balaam's experience in Pseudo-Philo can be attributed, not to a temporary endowment with the spirit, but the lessening of the life-sustaining holy spirit, which would normally provide a reservoir of Speech. Next he uncovers the complex Impulses that propelled first-century Jewish authors both to assimilate and resist Greco-Roman perceptions of inspiration. It is Greco-Roman discussions of Delphic Inspiration that help explain the precise and detailed interpretations of the spirit's workings in Philo and Josephus. Pseudo-Philo reflects relatively popular Greco-Roman culture, while Josephus and Philo exhibit facility in their technical use of vocabulary of Greco-Roman philosophy. Finally, L. redresses a balance in scholarship, which has tended to emphasize the blessings of madness in Jewish antiquity, by detailing modes of inspiration which were believed to lead, not to ecstasy, but to intellectual keenness. Only when he is satisfied that biblical antecedents and early Jewish correspondences cannot satisfactorily explain the exegeses of Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus, does L. draw upon Graeco-Roman authors, notably Cicero's De Divinatione and Plutarch's essays pertaining to the oracle at Delphi". Keywords: Theology of Ancient Judaism and early Christianity |