Contemplating the Cosmos: Time and Reading in Philo of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Talk by Arjen Bakker, Assistant Professor of Second Temple Judaism, University of Cambridge.This lecture will consider ancient thinking about the formation of the cosmos at the intersection of Judaism and Hellenistic culture. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE–50 CE) integrates Hellenistic philosophy and science with an extensive tradition of commentary on the Laws of Moses, a tradition which is itself embedded in ritual and calendrical practices. The speaker will look at the ways in which Philo’s exegetical and philosophical explanations interact with performance, festivals, and early synagogal practice. The Dead Sea Scrolls shed new light on Jewish liturgy and interpretative traditions in the Second Temple period. This has implications for our understanding of Philo and his allegorical reading of the Mosaic scriptures. Despite obvious differences, Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls share an interest in looking beyond the literal meaning of the text which functions as a mirror for contemplating the cosmos.

Arjen Bakker is Assistant Professor of Second Temple Judaism at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. His research focuses on Jewish literature in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek from the Persian and Greco-Roman periods, early Jewish liturgy, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. His book, The Secret of Time: Reconfiguring Wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Brill 2023), examines how Jewish wisdom texts from the Hellenistic period integrate contemplation on history and cosmological secrets into liturgical practices through a study of the mystery of time.