The Norwegian New Testament scholar Karl Olav Sandnes has quite recently published a very interesting book for all of us who are interested in the background of the New Testament and of the Early Christians.
Karl Olav Sandnes,
The Challenge of Homer
School, Pagan Poets and Early Christianity
Library of New Testament Studies,
T & T Clark International. ISBN: 0567426645
336 Pages. $150.00
The volume starts out from the folowwing premise: “The first Christians faced two hermeneutical challenges of fundamental importnce: that of interpreting the Old Testament and how to cope with the Greek legacy embedded in Homer. The latter is not explicitly raised in the New Testament. But since the art of interpreting any text, presupposes reading skills, conveyed through liberal studies, the Homeric challenge must have been of outmost importance.”
Professor Sandnes deals with Philo of Alexandria on pp. 68-78.
A further description of this volume and a List of Contents can be found here.
Philonica et Neotestamentica 