What’s in a Name? An Early Jewish Etymological Glossary of Biblical Names from Alexandria

• In Event: Philo as a Biblical Exegete

Abstract

Biblical names held a special significance for many ancient Jews living in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Names in themselves could function as objects of reverence or sources of distinguished authority. Beginning in the Hellenistic period, considerable scholarly effort was dedicated to the etymological interpretation of the Septuagint by ancient Jews with high attainment in both Hebrew and Greek. The most important evidence comes from Philo of Alexandria, who regularly incorporates etymologies of Hebrew names in his biblical commentaries. In this paper I argue that it is highly probable that Philo drew many of his etymologies from a now lost scholarly resource: an alphabetical glossary with Septuagintal names in one column and etymologies in a second (thus similar in form to the glossary in P.Oxy 2745 and late-ancient Christian sources). Scholars have long hypothesized such a source for Philo’s etymologies (see esp. Wutz 1914 and Grabbe 1988). However, the theory has recently been challenged (esp. Bloch 2021 and Rajak 2014). Responding to these recent critiques, I provide a more cogent case for the existence of a pre-Philonic etymological glossary, analyzing what we can know about its production, form, and purpose, and how it drew upon the technologies of ancient Greek scholarship. I show that this glossographical work is a crucial piece of evidence for the development of Jewish scholarship in Alexandria.

Abstract bibliography:

Franz Wutz, Onomastica Sacra, 2 vols., TU 41 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1914).

Lester L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo, BJS 115 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

René Bloch, “How Much Hebrew in Jewish Alexandria?,” in Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World, ed. Benjamin Schliesser et al., WUNT 460 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 261–78.

Tessa Rajak, “Philo’s Knowledge of Hebrew: The Meaning of the Etymologies,” in The Jewish-Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, ed. James K. Aitken and James Carleton Paget (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 173–87.

Author

• Dexter Brown, Oberlin College