Sabbath as day of Rest and Study of The Law: Philo and Josephus

Abstract

Philo and Josephus provide a wide range of literary evidence about the life of the Jewish communities they knew in Palestine, Italy, Egypt and elsewhere in the Diaspora in the first century CE.1 Both mixed socially with Jews and non-Jews at all levels of society and were adept in the use of appropriate and persuasive language. Their writings display the intellectual ground common to Jews and nonJews in the first century CE.2 As Philo lived in Alexandria, he was a Jew of the Diaspora, but because he wrote as an apologist, and since his writings have been preserved not in Jewish but in Christian collections, there is some hesitation in scholarly circles about regarding him as a typical Jew. What have been described as "'syncretistic" tendencies' have been noted in his work,3 and Philo has been described as the Jews'