Warne, Graham J.

Hebrew Perspectives on the Human Person in the Hellenistic Era- Philo and Paul

1995 0-7734-2420-2
Philo of Alexandria represented a classic assimilation of the Greek dualist view (bi-partite body and soul), into the traditional Hebraic concept, and it was generally assumed that those who followed, particularly the writers of the New Testament, continued to uphold the assimilated view. Examining this view in the light of recent scholarship and the biblical texts, this volume concludes that, while the Apostle Paul must have been exposed to hellenistic concepts of the human as bi-partite, he resisted this interpretation, developing the fundamental Hebraic concept into a distinctively Christian anthropology. The interaction of the two views reached its climax in the Corinthian correspondence, where Paul clearly reversed the hellenized interpretation.