Philo at SBL Annual Meeting (I)

This year there will be three sessions in the Philo Seminar at the SBL Annual Meeting in San Antonio in November. A variety of papers will be offered by both younger and more seasoned scholars. The papers will be posted during the first half of November on this site: http://torreys.org/philo_seminar_papers/

 

---

S20-220 Philo of Alexandria
11/20/2016
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: 217C (2nd Level – West) – Convention Center (CC)

Theme: The Knowledge of God in Philo of Alexandria

Sean Adams, University of Glasgow, Presiding
Mark Hamilton, Abilene Christian University
Divine (Dis)embodiment as an aspect of Divine Otherness in Philo (30 min)
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, Catholic University+Angelicum +Oxford University
The Knowledge of God and the Dialectics of Apophatic Theology: Philo between Scripture and the Platonic Tradition (30 min)
Break (10 min)
Sharon Weisser, Tel Aviv University
Knowing God by Analogy: Philo of Alexandria’s Proofs for the Existence of God in the Context of the Debate around Stoic Theology in the Roman Period (30 min)
Tyler A. Stewart, Marquette University
Theological Suicide: Evil and the Imperception of God (30 min)
Discussion (20 min)

---

 

S20-345 Philo of Alexandria
11/20/2016 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: 304B (3rd Level) – Convention Center (CC)

Theme: Reincarnation and Afterlife in Philo and His World

Torrey Seland, Independent Scholar, Presiding
Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, University of Helsinki
Philo’s Position on Reincarnation (30 min)
David Runia, University of Melbourne
Does Philo Accept the Doctrine of Reincarnation? (30 min)
Break (10 min)
Rainer Hirsch-Luipold, Universität Bern – Université de Berne
Afterlife and Reincarnation in Plutarch (30 min)
Jeffrey Trumbower, Saint Michael’s College (Vermont)
Closing the Door on Reincarnation in Early Christianity: Limiting the Options (30 min)
Discussion (20 min)

---

 

S21-144b Philo of Alexandria
11/21/2016 9:00 AM to 11:45 AM
Room: 008A (River Level) – Convention Center (CC)

Theme: Philo’s de Mutatione Nominum

Scott Mackie, Independent Scholar, Presiding
Michael Cover, Marquette University
Philo’s De mutatione nominum: Sample Commentary, Exegetical Structure, and Its Place in the “Abrahamic Cycle” of the Allegorical Commentary (20 min)
Gregory Sterling, Yale Divinity School
What’s in a Name? The Place of De mutatione nominum in Philo’s Allegorical Commentary (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Break (10 min)
James Royse, Claremont, California
The Text of Philo’s De mutatione nominum (20 min)
Frederick Brenk, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome
A Name by Any Name? The Allegorizing Etymologies of Philo and Plutarch (20 min)
Michel Barnes, Marquette University
Divine Powers in De mutatione nominum and Patristic Reception (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Business Meeting (15 min)

 

Impressive new Dragon Professional

During the years, in several blog postings, (for the last one, see here), I have mentioned my experiences with a program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking which claims to be able to transfer my speech into text.
Now it’s company, Nuance, has produced a new version, named Dragon Professional  Individual,  version 15.

This is an impressive new and improved version. It is faster, and it understands my speaking much better than ever before. Even with my Norwegian accent, I am able to speak for much longer sections and using a much more elaborate terminology than ever before. In order to enhance the use of the program, I can make it read some of my papers, and it accepts and incorporates the  vocabulary I use in my papers. Most of these papers are about Philo of Alexandria, and in this way, the program incorporates the vocabulary relevant for such papers.

I am just impressed and I do think, with this new version, I will use this program much more than before just because it understands my pronunciation, it learns my way of speaking much better than ever before.

If you are a little bit interested, have a look at their web page. The program is quite new, and you might find some very interesting discount offers.

” With an all-new, next-generation speech engine leveraging Deep Learning technology, dictate and transcribe faster and more accurately than ever before, and spend less time on documentation and more time on activities that boost the bottom line.” (from Nuance’s web page.)

 

 

Great great news!!

The Loeb edition of the works of Philo (both Greek and English) is going to be available in Logos by the end of this month (sept 23.)!

Those of you who have not subscribed, have a look at Philo in Logos 7 here.

At the same time, the book I edited (and partly wrote); Reading Philo. A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria, will also be made available in Logos!

That made my day!  🙂