336 passages in Hellenistic Jewish Writers
Individual passages from The Midrash of Philo, shown in source order. Page 7 of 7.
The familiar story centers on the Ark, but what happened after the flood? That Noah planted a vineyard and "drank of the wine, and was drunken" (Genesis 9:21). A simple statement. ...
The ancient sages grappled with this very idea. They saw two paths to wisdom, two types of people who approached the divine. And Philo, that brilliant Jewish philosopher from Alexa...
It offers a reading that's surprisingly insightful, telling us it’s actually a praise of the wise person. Yes, you read that right: praise! How can nakedness be praiseworthy? Philo...
God takes a rib from Adam and fashions it into Eve. Simple enough story. But what if there's so much more hidden beneath the surface? The Torah tells us in (Genesis 2:21-22) about ...
The Midrash of Philo turns to Why God Built Eve Instead of Forming Her. It’s from Genesis (2:22): "And the Lord God fashioned the rib which He had taken from the man into a woman…"...
In (Genesis 3:22), we read, "Behold, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil." One of us? Who is the "us" here? It's one of those little lines that can send you spirali...
The ones that make you stop and say, "Wait, what exactly does that mean?" I was pondering just such a detail the other day, specifically about Enoch. You know, the one who "walked ...
What does it really mean? We find ourselves asking, what are we to make of the devastating phrase, "And everything which was on the dry land died?" (Genesis 7:22). Philo, the 1st-c...
A verse that rolls off the tongue easily: "Sowing-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, shall not cease day nor night." Simple enough The first reading. But what's re...
It's like the biblical text is hinting at something more, inviting us to dig a little deeper. Consider the story of Noah and his sons after the flood. It's a well-known tale: Noah ...
It's one of those verses that’s sparked endless debate and contemplation throughout Jewish history. The Hebrew there is, of course, "Na'aseh adam b'tzalmeinu kidmuteinu". And that ...
Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher living in Roman Egypt, certainly thought so. He delved into the numerical symbolism of the Torah, seeking hidden meanings within the seemi...
The ancient stories of the flood, like the one starring Noah, resonate so deeply because they speak to that very human experience. The familiar story is this: God saw wickedness an...
We take them for granted, this endless cycle of planting and harvesting, warmth and cold. But what if it all stopped? What if spring never came, or winter just kept going and going...
The ancient sages did. They saw in the creation of Adam and Eve, not just the beginning of humanity, but the blueprint for a thriving, balanced life. Philo, a Jewish philosopher fr...
Why wasn't she just... there? Well, according to a fascinating interpretation found in the Midrash of Philo 22, it's not just a random detail. It speaks to something much deeper ab...
The tale of Noah and his sons after the flood certainly has that quality. It looks simple at first, but the sages have wrestled with its deeper meaning for centuries. What exactly ...
The ancient Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria grappled with this very question. Philo, living in the 1st century CE, sought to reconcile Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy...
The ancient rabbis, those masters of hidden meanings, saw layers upon layers in even the simplest verses. to just one little phrase from the story of creation and see what they unc...
The Midrash of Philo wrestles with the heavy inheritance of sin through the strange confession of Lamech, a descendant of Cain. Philo was a Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandr...
A reader can just chalk it up to ancient myths, but what if there's more to it? What if those numbers are telling us something deeper? That’s exactly what I was pondering when I st...
The Midrash of Philo turns to What It Destroyed Every Living Substance Really Means. It seems straightforward At first. The Flood wiped out everything. End of story. But Jewish tra...
Stunning, vibrant, utterly unlike anything you've ever encountered. What goes through your mind? The Midrash of Philo, a fascinating exploration of the early chapters of Genesis, w...
Philo explores the significance of numbers, particularly one, seven, ten, and seventy, connecting them to sin, punishment, and the very fabric of justice. He starts with a fundamen...
Day and night, up and down.. Does it ever feel like there's a deeper meaning to it all?Stick with me, it’s more profound than it sounds. The passage starts by pointing out the obvi...
Philo, a Jewish philosopher living in Alexandria in the first century CE, was a master of allegory, finding deeper meanings hidden within the simple words of the Torah. And in one ...
Our focus today is on a seemingly simple verse from (Genesis 5:24): “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.” But what does it really mean that Enoch "ple...
What’s the deeper, almost mystical, undercurrent? What does it really mean? This verse, seemingly straightforward, has been chewed over and interpreted for centuries. And one inter...
why? What was the point of this divine bouncer? That's the question the Midrash of Philo 24 wrestles with. Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), by the way, is a method of in...
The one who, according to (Genesis 5:24), simply "was not, for God took him." A verse so simple, yet so… strange. What does it even mean? That’s the question that sets the stage fo...
It's in these tiny seeming inconsistencies that some of the most fascinating interpretations are born. Take the story of Noah and his sons, for instance. The familiar story is this...
The Midrash of Philo, a collection of interpretations attributed to the ancient philosopher Philo of Alexandria, asks this very question. Why that particular detail? What’s the sig...
Our starting point here is a fascinating text referred to as "The Midrash of Philo." Now, when we say "Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)," It's not just about understandin...
Take the image of the cherubim, those powerful, enigmatic beings guarding the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were expelled. What do they really represent? Philo, a Jewish philos...
Death is often remembered as the end, a full stop. But what if it's just a… transition? Philo, that brilliant Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, wrestled with this very idea. He w...
Take this one little verse from Genesis, 2:25: "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." Simple enough. But wait a minute. Why does it even need to tell us ...
The ones you read and think, "Okay, that happened... but why is it there?" (Genesis 4:25) is one of those lines. "God has raised up for me another seed in the place of Abel whom Ca...
It wasn't just about the lush vegetation or the talking animals, although I’m sure those were According to this Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), Adam and Eve weren't ash...
The Torah tells us Adam and Eve then had another son, Seth, but it doesn't delve too deeply into his significance. But Jewish tradition, ever eager to fill in the gaps, certainly d...
It opens up a whole universe of questions. What was so special about Enos? What does it even MEAN to "call upon the name of the Lord?" We find this verse in The Midrash of Philo, a...
Philo, that brilliant Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, had thoughts on this. He saw the story of the "younger" son not just as a matter of birth order, but as a reflection of th...
Philo grapples with this very question: Why are the names "Lord" and "God" sometimes used together? His answer? It's all about God's attributes, specifically benevolence and kingly...
Take Noah’s blessing of his sons after the flood. It's a doozy. Specifically, Noah says, "God shall enlarge Japhet, and bid him to dwell in the house of Shem; and Canaan shall be t...
Blessings is often remembered as straightforward – good health, wealth, maybe a loving family. But what if there's a deeper layer to unpack? What if the blessings themselves aren’t...
Take the story of Noah and his sons after the flood, specifically Ham and his son Canaan. We read in (Genesis 9:27) that Canaan, not Ham, is cursed to be a servant. Why? What's goi...
The familiar version gives us Noah. The ark, the flood, the whole shebang. But have you ever paused to consider the moment of his birth? What was his father, Lamech, thinking? (Gen...
The ancient rabbis certainly did. They grappled with the nature of prophecy: who gets it, and why? Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher living in Egypt in the first century CE...
Midrash of Philo treats the names Shem, Ham, and Japhet as more than family labels. They become a map of spiritual character. We find this question posed directly in the Midrash of...
