Dru Johnson | Cambridge University Press | 2021

Reviewed by Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern

In his Biblical Philosophy: A Hebraic Approach to the Old and New Testaments, Dr. Dru Johnson argues for the philosophical importance of the Bible. Johnson, an associate professor of biblical and theological studies at The King's College in New York City and director of the Center for Hebraic Thought, recounts once being asked at a conference, "Why are you at a philosophy conference making arguments from the Bible?" This volume serves as his response.

Johnson frames his book as a sequel of sorts to Yoram Hazony's The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (Biblical Philosophy is dedicated to Hazony). Agreeing with Hazony's general case, Johnson argues that "the idea of a Hebraic philosophical style" breaks many widely held notions about what counts as philosophy, the nature and purpose of biblical literature, and how societies have articulated notions of reality.

Johnson explains how, while some sectarian Jewish Second Temple texts "bent this Hebraic philosophical style to the point of breaking" due to Hellenistic influences, the New Testament modeled itself in line with the Hebrew Bible philosophically. Avoiding supersessionism, Johnson claims that "the Hebrew Bible's language and constructs seem to penetrate the thought world" of the Jewish New Testament authors.

The Hebraic constructs include a creation account that emphasizes God's relationship with the universe and its creatures, personal agency, rituals as means towards knowledge of God, and a community called upon to reflect on God's role in history. These themes are conveyed in biblical stories, stylized speeches, poetry, and law, many with "a rhetorical and persuasive force that makes them apt for philosophical engagement."

Egypt, contra the Hebraic model, held that the gods were assigned to and animated the natural world, saw only its citizens as fully human, maintained a formal distinction between justice and formal religion, and did not advocate a particular view of knowledge. Hellenistic modes of thinking contrasted with the Hebraic model in its lack of a defined canon and its linear arguments, autonomist ethos, and abstract convictions.

Some Jewish thinkers, like Philo, were deeply influenced by the Hellenistic framework, and the New Testament authors who followed in their wake were "surrounded by Hellenistic Judaism and the literary creations of that period" and "eschewed those works in favor of what they called 'the Scriptures.'"

Johnson's work is a learned study of the philosophical nuances of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and will appeal to both students of the Bible and those dedicated to philosophy generally. As he concludes, "For the sake of both biblical studies and philosophy/theology, more interdisciplinary work needs to include apprenticing with each other, collegial skybridges between the silos, and broader explorations into the material worlds of Scripture."

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