Justice...
...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...