Der Weltenbrand bei Philon, Josephus und Rabbi Abbahu. Jüdische Gedanken zu einer Stoischen Vorstellung

In this article, I place three Jewish biblical exegetes in the context of Stoic ideas of a cyclical conflagration of the world, which was already the sub ject of lively debate within the school and raised profound theological ques tions, especially concerning the role of the Demiurge in the doom of the world. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who sympathised with the Stoic school because of his Pharisaic identity, does not explicitly mention the Stoic idea of world conflagration, but treats the question itself in the context of relevant biblical stories, i. e. with an emphasis on divine providence. Philo played a special role in the ancient debates, as he came to Rome as an envoy and became so involved there as a philosopher that his work sheds light on the intellectual developments in the capital of the empire between Cicero and Seneca. In this case, Philon documents for the first time inner-stoic interpretations of the conflagration of the world that assume an improvement of the (subsequent) worlds. Rabbi Abbahu forms the end point of this investigation, showing how also rabbinic circles participated in Hellenistic debates. The Jewish perspec tives presented here draw attention to the complexity of ancient discourses and the amalgamation of philosophical and religious motifs.