Posted: Jan 31, 2012 12:51 pm
Rick wrote:Blood wrote:The silence of Philo (or any historian) is a weak argument. For one thing, it's not like the complete works of Philo (or any historian of antiquity) has survived until now. Philo, or some other unknown historian, could have written about him, but those documents didn't survive. Very, very little from the ancient world has. Just imagine how much more we would have to work with if the Library of Alexandria had survived intact.
Philo leaves us in fact a sizeable body of work, Blood - different sources claim 850 000 words and thirty manuscripts.
For a list see: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/philo.html
Yes, and have a look at the titles. Which of his books should have mentioned Jesus? "On Mating"? "On Dreams"? "On the life of Moses"? "On Drunkenness"?
If he had written a book called "On Messiah claimants", then we might expect Philo to have mentioned Jesus. But he didn't. So tell me which of those 30 manuscripts should we expect Philo to have mentioned Jesus? Perhaps give a list of the top three candidates.
Rick wrote:And I certainly don’t subscribe in the slightest to O’Neill’s convenient notion that Philo didn’t mention Jesus because he allegedly “didn't appear to be interested in such claimants.” Not only was Philo a staunch defender of the Jewish faith and its traditions but, as further underscored by a number of family connections to the priesthood and Herod, he was strongly committed to the existing status quo.
Did Philo write about any of the rebels threatening the status quo in Galilee or Judea? The nearest is his report on "a certain madman named Carabbas" in "On Flaccus", but that was about events in Alexandria applying to Flaccus, and Carabbas was no rebel or Messiah claimant.
Later Christians used Philo because his philosophical works and allegorical approach was useful; but the reverse doesn't appear to be true. Philo might have found the Gospel of John interesting, but that was written a good 50 years after Philo's death.