Department Colloquium: Maren Niehoff (Hebrew Univ., Jersualem) "Philo of Alexandria on Allegory and Metaphor"

Abstract: As a Jewish interpreter of the Bible in first century Alexandria, Philo is situated at a central juncture of symbolical discourses. The lecture analyzes Philo’s allegory in the context of his Bible commentary and examines how he innovatively derives allegorical meaning from a close, literary reading of the text. His metaphors, on the other hand, appear predominantly in his philosophical treatises and transform experienced reality into a moral narrative. The lecture asks how these two symbolical dimensions function in Philo’s oeuvre and to what extent they complement each other.