Hej Jalmar,
Tak for dit svar. Med hensyn til Philo af Alexandria, må jeg indrømme at jeg ikke har studeret ham. Kun omtale og et bredt kendskab, men aldrig i dybden.
Jeg har læst Josephus (har en antik oversættelsen af hans (Flavius Josephus) bog Antiquities af the Jews ) oversat af William Whiston, som jeg har ”arvet” fra Alexander Duncan sign. 1 th. April 1854.
Men Philo af Alexandria kender jeg ikke så meget til. Der er imidlertid noget du skal tænke over når du springer ud og deklamere, at Philo ikke kender Jesus af Nazaret.
Som jeg forstår det havde Philo en mere akademisk tilgang til tiden han levede på og ved et hastigt overblik over hans filosofi kan jeg ses, at han havde en meget mere abstrakt ”forventning” eller forståelse både af Ordet, Logos og Jesus.
Han brugte andre navne og jeg vil derfor mene, at du ikke kan sige, at Philo ikke kendte Jesus, altså vores Jesus omtalt i Det Nye Testamente.
Så jeg vil mene, at man skal lede efter andre navneformer for Jesus og ha` et bredt kendskab til tidens Hebariske og søstersproget Aramaisk samt en dybere forståelse af Koine` græsk for overhovedet at kunne deltage i den diskussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua_(name)
In the Septuagint and other Greek-language Jewish texts, such as the writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, Ἰησοῦς Iēsoûs is the standard Koine Greek form used to translate both of the Hebrew names: Yehoshua and Yeshua. (It was also used for Joshua son of Nun in one verse where today's Hebrew text has the form without the yod.)
Citat slut.
Philo`s filosofi:
1) 4. Intermediate Potencies; the Logos.
Between God the Infinite and the finite, imperfect universe there is a wide gap which is, however, removed by being filled with divine potencies (dynameis), which are peculiar mediating beings or concepts, represented on the one hand as active powers, self-revelations, or attributes of God; on the other, as personal beings of a spiritual kind.
Incomprehensible in number they submit to classification; namely, into the well-doing and the primitive powers.
At the head of the former is the agathotes through whom God made the universe and at the head of the other is the arche, through whom be rules it. But higher than these two at the summit of the series of all mediate beings, constituting their principle of unity, appears the divine Logos.
He is their father and leader, the first-born. Are the others angels, he is the archangel. He stands in immanent relation with God and proceeds from him, whereas the others proceed from the Logos.
He is sometimes called second God or image of God; his administrator, tool, and mediator. As mediator, through him the world was made. In him subsisted at the beginning of creation heaven and earth; i.e., the body of ideals. He is the seat of ideals which by partition or separation he projects from himself.
Through him God imprints the intermediate potencies, which have their seat in the Logos, upon matter; hence his is called "seal of God." As the bond of unity, God holds together, supports, and directs all through him.
He is also represented as the high-priest and advocate for men with God. The synonym "word" (hrema; Gen. i. 3; Ps. xxxiii. 6; Deut. viii. 3) used sometimes by Philo indicates that the Logos was to him equivalent to the Biblical term of the Old Teatament instrument of creation and governance of the world.
2) 5. Man.
At the conclusion of the work of creation, God made first the heavenly man through the Logos; i.e., the preexistent ideal man, in his pretemporal, spiritual, unsexual eternal state, untainted by sin and truly in the divine image.
Subsequently, the earthly man, made not by the Logos alone but with the aid of the lower potencies, was deficient in the perfect image of God and was, in advance, subject to the possibility of sinning.
Indeed, his higher soul (nous) came from the creative, living breath of God, but in the creation of his lower soul (with its earthly reason, nous gein�s) as well as his body, several angelic potencies or demiurges cooperated.
After the earthly man had lived seven years in Paradise, or the realm of virtues, especially of piety and wisdom, he was sexually differentiated by the formation of woman from him and he entered the state of temptation and sin.
The results of the fall are partly physical and partly ethical, the latter being the increasing degeneration of Adam's descendants, impure from birth.
A partial image of God remains as freedom of will and rational perception; by these the fallen retain unbroken connection with God, particularly through the Logos through whom God reveals himself.
Many men fail to apprehend God because of their guilt; only the consecrated who know how to rise above the earthly may enter into closer relations with him.
In the special Scripture revelation, Moses is the earthly mediator of a revelation which shows Israel to be the chosen and the possessed of God, just as the Logos is the heavenly mediator.
Citat slut.
Kommentar:
På denne baggrund kan jeg godt forstå Jesus mission i det lys, altså Philo`s filosofi.
3) Philo's religious philosophy exerted a profound influence upon the early Christian theology and the development of Christianity.
It has been termed "an outline of the kernel of Christian history formed by the Jew Philo before it went into effect," and the Logos doctrine has been called "the Jewish prologue of Christianity."
But such generalizations can be supported only so far as the coincidences of individual concepts and expressions of Philo with those of the New Testament and some of the early Christian writers.
The teachings of Philo differ as much as possible from the fundamental doctrines of Christianity regarding the person and work of Christ.
In his treatment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament he either preoccupies himself with abstractly spiritualistic allegory or with a one-sided national hope, stopping short of a deeper ethical interpretation.
His Logos doctrine is one only in name with that of the New Testament; the former is a cosmic potency without true personal character, the latter is above all else a personal being of ethical godlike significance.
The former is unrelated to the theocratic national expectations of Israel; the latter is the incarnate Son of the Father, the Messiah.
However, this is not equally true of the influence of Philo upon the formal dogma and exegesis of the Fathers, which were both far-reaching and persistent.
As already upon Josephus and upon the later exegetes of the Targum and the Midrash, the Cabalists, and the religious philosophers of the Middle Ages; so the influence of Philo's phraseology and allegorical exegesis shows itself upon a considerable number of the early Christian writers, particularly of the Alexandrian school; and even in a certain sense upon New-Testament writers like Paul, John, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Of the Greek Fathers, especially Barnabas, Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, and, among the Latino, Ambrose and Jerome, show a similar influence.
Citat slut.
Kommentar:
Som du nok kan se, bevæger vi os over et ”hav” af filosofier og tanker der sådan set hver for sig biddrager til Kristendommens indhold og forståelsen af Gud, Ordet og mennesket.
Lad os endelig fastholde den Kristne filosofi samtidig med, at vi gerne lytter til eks. Philo af Alexandria. Jeg mener ikke Philo modsiger Kristendommen snarere tværtimod bidrager til en dybere forståelse af åndelige perspektiver.
Venlig hilsen
Blomberg.