Buried in the writings of a first-century Jewish philosopher is a description of a community that most Christians have never heard of. A group of men and women living on the outskirts of Alexandria, Egypt who abandoned everything, their wealth, their status, their former lives, to pursue one thing: a vision of God’s light. They were called the Therapeutae. And the women among them, known as the Therapeutrides, were not silent observers. They were philosophers. They were mystics. They were equal participants in the spiritual life. For centuries, their story has been overlooked, misunderstood, and even claimed by early Christian writers as their own. Then Dr. Joan Taylor, one of the most respected scholars in the world, traveled to Egypt and found the place where they lived.
Dr. Joan Taylor is Professor Emerita of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London, a Fulbright scholar, former Visiting Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, and the author of what has been called the best commentary ever written on Philo’s account of this community. In this episode, she takes us inside the world of the Therapeutae, reveals the political firestorm in Alexandria that forced Philo to write about them, and exposes the powerful role of women that history tried to bury. This is one of those conversations that will change the way you read your Bible.
In this episode you will learn:
– What Jewish life looked like in first-century Alexandria, one of the most important and overlooked cities in the biblical world
– Who Philo of Alexandria was and why his testimony is so significant for understanding Judaism and early Christianity
– The brutal conflict between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria and how it shaped everything Philo wrote about the Therapeutae
– Who the Therapeutae actually were and what their radical daily life of contemplation, fasting, and Scripture study looked like
– Why the Therapeutae are completely distinct from the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls community
– The mystical spiritual practices that drove this community, including trance-like experiences of divine light
– The Therapeutrides: the women in this community who were educated philosophers and full participants in the spiritual life
– How the existence of these women should reshape the way we read New Testament passages about women in the early church
– Dr. Taylor’s trip to Egypt where she identified the actual location of this community near Lake Mareotis
– What happened when early Christianity collided with the Therapeutae in Alexandria
Check out Dr. Taylor’s books:
Women Remembered: Jesus’ Female Disciples – https://a.co/d/0bJltOiA
Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philo’s ‘Therapeutae’ Reconsidered – https://a.co/d/0hXKfwoS
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