Tanach Thoughts

 "Pride Rock! So majestic, so mysterious, so...bizarrely named. Pumbaa, how can a rock be proud?" "Well, actually, I think it's a metaphor--" These words come to mind with the twin names Reuel and Deuel. Reuel is actually a name that belongs to multiple people in Tanach: There's of course Yitro, AKA Reuel, and then there's Esav's son Reuel, and Reuel ben Yevanyah of the Tribe of Binyamin, and of course, Reuel, father of Elyasaf, the Nasi of Gad in the desert. That's quite a quartet: Two Israelites, a Midianite and an Edomite. All descendants of Avraham, of course. Then there's Deuel, father of Elyasaf, the Nasi of Gad in the desert. Wait, what? Yup. Elyasaf's father is at time called Reuel and at time Deuel. What's going on? Well, people with double names aren't that rare in Tanach. In fact, I think that a great many mysteries in Tanach could be solved with properly identifying certain people with other people. But that's of c...

 ...is not something you'll find in this post. In recent months I've discovered a few commentators that I wasn't aware of or was aware of but not really familiar with, and I thought I'd write a little bit about my impressions of them here. This certainly does not do justice to their character or commentaries. Philo of Alexandria  - Everyone's probably heard of Philo. Though not everyone really knows who he was. Many of Philo's views on Judaism are still shrouded in mystery, but here's a short summary of what we know: He was a religious, observant, Jewish philosopher living in Alexandria in Egypt in the decades prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. His birth-name probably was Philon (Philo in Latin languages) which means "friend". Rabbi Azaryah de Rossi translated his name into the Hebrew "Yedidyah", but there were even tannaim at the time who had non-Jewish names, such as Antignos of Socho, so more likely that Philon really was h...