Abstract
This article examines the possibility of a common reading of Gen. 2.7 (LXX) between Philo, Paul, and the Gospel of John. Although some streams in scholarship suggest such a shared reading, previous comparisons have tended to focus narrowly on citations or shared vocabulary. This study adopts a different approach by considering the role of Gen. 2.7 within the respective anthropologies of these authors, on the assumption that anthropological claims more broadly may reflect their construal of the verse. The article argues that Philo, Paul, and John present a common reading of Gen. 2.7 characterized by a dualistic understanding of the human being, the possibility of a loss of the divine inbreathing, and spiritualization as becoming like God. Following an analysis of each author, the concluding section summarizes the convergences and briefly considers how the common reading might be explained.
Introduction
What is a human being, and what would it mean for a human being to have ‘life’? For many early Jewish and Christian authors, Gen. 2.7 offered a dense vocabulary for answering these questions: dust, breath, and the becoming of a ‘living soul’. 1 This article argues that Philo, Paul, and the Gospel of John share a strikingly similar construal of Gen. 2.7 (LXX) in which (1) the human being is a composite of earthly and heavenly elements, (2) true life depends on the divine breath/spirit as an indwelling reality that may fail to remain, and (3) spiritualization, understood as becoming like God with cognitive and ethical dimensions, can therefore be described, in their terms, as ‘life’. A final section briefly considers how such convergences might be explained.
Before turning to the investigation of the evidence, some brief orientation to the history of scholarship is necessary. The broader question of the relationship of Philo to the New Testament has drawn a huge amount of attention over the years. Apposite to our aim in this paper, an older phase of scholarship entertained the notion that Paul and the author of the Gospel of John were directly acquainted with Philo and/or his writings and appropriated his thought in their theology (Keerl 1855: 301–15, 333–35). More cautious approaches instead described Paul, John, and Philo as reflecting shared interpretive patterns or broader intellectual currents, variously characterized as ‘common tradition’, though both the provenance and the content of such a tradition have been defined in different ways. 2
At the same time, a significant body of scholarship has remained sceptical of close connections between Philo and New Testament authors. A great many scholars do not view the attempts to describe the theology of New Testament sources as in close relationship to Philo to be persuasive. 3 While Paul’s discussion of resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 has widely been thought to presuppose a knowledge of the kind of reading of Gen. 2.7 that we know from Philo, others have argued that Paul can be explained without reference to Philo and argued that other interpretive trajectories of Gen. 2.7 are more relevant. 4
More broadly, the plausibility of positing a common reading has been complicated by developments in the study of the reception of Gen. 2.7 and Adam traditions. In response to weaker points of past arguments, John R. Levison (1988) and Grant Macaskill (2014) highlighted the diversity of portraits of Adam in early Judaism. Where similarities are apparent, these are attributable to other factors and need not reflect a shared pattern of reading. 5
Against this backdrop, the present study revisits the question from a different angle. Previous comparisons of Paul and Philo’s readings of Gen. 2.7 have typically proceeded by focusing on quotations or shared vocabulary, most often within a limited set of texts, and the question of the origin of Paul’s Adam-Christ dichotomy. Meanwhile, the Gospel of John has rarely been integrated into these discussions, and scholarship on John does not treat Paul and Philo as illuminating John’s use of Gen. 2.7. 6
The central Pauline texts for scholarly comparisons of Gen. 2.7 in Paul and Philo have been 1 Cor. 15 and Rom. 5. The most important text for the analysis of Gen. 2.7 in John has been Jn 20.22–23. In this article, I test the theory of a common tradition by considering the role of Gen. 2.7 in the respective anthropologies of these authors. Analyzing the function of Gen. 2.7 in the anthropology of these authors involves asking how Gen. 2.7 informed their responses to the questions posed at the beginning of this paper: What is a human being, and what would it mean for a human being to have ‘life’? The difference this makes is decisive. Exploring the questions posed here takes us beyond texts in which authors quote Gen. 2.7, use its language, or explicitly refer to the primeval pair. On this approach, anthropological claims more generally may provide insight into an author’s construal of Gen. 2.7.
Such a methodological move is not without precedent. Description of Philo’s understanding of Gen. 2.7 moves beyond investigation of texts in which Philo cites or uses the language of Gen. 2.7, and similar approaches have been applied to Paul, with certain scholars arguing for close parallels between their readings of the verse. 7 Admittedly, my contention related to John’s anthropology (that Gen. 2.7 stands behind the motif of ‘abiding’) is not representative of current Johannine scholarship, but in my view it offers a better explanation of John’s distinctive reference to the spirit remaining on Christ (1.32–33) and its relation to the inbreathing scene in Jn 20.22–23 than others in the current scholarly landscape.
I turn then to analysis of the individual authors, beginning with Philo and followed by consideration of Paul and John. In light of these analyses, the concluding section reflects on the extent of the convergences and briefly considers how they might be explained.
Study of the Individual Authors
Philo
The text of Genesis is the basic source of Philo’s anthropology, and his teaching centres on Gen. 1.26–27 and Gen. 2.7 in the LXX version. 8 Accordingly, Philo’s reading of Gen. 2.7 comes up constantly in his biblical exegesis. Expansive treatment of his understanding of the text appears in On the Creation, Questions and Answers in Genesis, and Allegorical Interpretation, in Philo’s account of the dual creation of the intelligible and sensible worlds. 9 The earthly man, whose creation is recounted there, consists of earthly stuff, as the text of Genesis explicitly signals (καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς). Yet when God breathes the divine breath (πνοὴ ζωῆς), which Philo understands as the divine πνεῦμα, into the face of the earthly man, the earthly man becomes a composite of earthly and heavenly, mortal and immortal natures. This is the basic framework, a dualistic one, yet additional features of Philo’s anthropology based on Gen. 2.7 must also be considered.
Philo understands Gen. 2.7 in dualistic terms, yet he also finds an anthropological trichotomy in Gen. 2.7 (Pearson 1973: 11–14; van Kooten 2008: 269–97; Wyss 2016: 111). Philo distinguishes between a soul before the diving inbreathing, which, as his reading of Lev. 17.11 makes clear, he views as composed of blood (Heir 55–6). The existence of another type of soul appears for Philo to be suggested by the wording of Gen. 2.7 itself. By the divine inbreathing, the human being becomes a ‘living soul’ (ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν). The language suggests that there can be a soul without divine breath, though not a living one. 10 Yet with the addition of the divine breath, a living soul is the result, which means that the soul is now endowed with reasoning faculty—in Philo’s trichotomic thinking, the upper, reasoning part of the soul. Based on his reading of Gen. 2.7, Philo works with a trichotomy of σῶμα, ψυχή, and πνεῦμα, and Philo also uses the term ‘mind’ in coordination with these. 11
Philo reads Gen. 1.26–27 and Gen. 2.7 together and understands the godlikeness referred to in the former in relation to the latter, i.e., the human being becomes a divine image through the investment of the divine πνεῦμα. 12 Philo draws a distinction here. The divine inbreathing forms only the reasoning part of the soul into a divine image, not the other parts (e.g., Creation 69; Heir 230–31). That being the case, the forming of the reasoning faculty through the divine spirit has a positive effect on the lower soul and the body. 13
Philo applies further conceptual resources to this notion. An integral aspect is the motif of ascent and descent, which is implied in the heavenly/earthly distinction already named. The divine spirit has a lifting effect on the human being, causing the human being to stand upright, in the direction of heaven, that the person may look above and contemplate heavenly things. Conversely, the directional pull of the lower soul and the body is downward, towards the earth. 14 There is also the divine statue motif. This motif is based on the fact that in the ancient world ‘divine image’ carried a basic association with the realm of the cult, since divine images—e.g., statues, as well as other cultic representations of the gods—were housed in temples. 15 In line with his understanding of the human being as now invested with a divine image, Philo conceptualizes the Gen. 2.7-human being as a temple, since temples are the houses of divine images. 16 These two motifs, ascent/descent and divine statue, are interrelated in Philo’s thought and form the basis for his reading of the biblical purity laws. The purity regulations are concerned above all with the purification of the soul, a process consisting of the ascent of the higher part of the soul from the lower soul and body. 17
Philo’s notions of the degeneration and restoration of the human being proceed along these lines. The divine spirit pulls upwards while the earthly aspect pulls downwards; the composite nature of the human being means that one is disposed to both morally good and bad behaviour (Wyss 2016: 103). Philo thinks that in the inner conflict the earthly nature will usually win, and this victory of the earthly nature over the heavenly means a return to the status of pre-inbreathing, i.e., soul death. ‘Soul death’ is the reversal of Gen 2.7’s enlivening. The divine spirit is forced out of its residence due to impurity, and the upper soul, now divested of divine spirit, sinks back into the body. Philo comments on this in his handling of Gen. 6.3–4, which he understands as a straightforward affirmation of his position. 18 In Philo’s reading, the language ‘and after this’ of Gen. 6.4 refers to the departure of the divine spirit due to the influence of the fleshly nature:
[‘And after this’] is a reference back, bringing out more clearly something of what has already been stated. That something is his words about the divine spirit, that nothing is harder than that it should abide for ever in the soul with its manifold forms and division—the soul which has fastened on it the grievous burden of this fleshly coil. It is after that spirit [i.e., after the spirit has gone] that the angels or messengers go in.
19
Restoration is, conversely, a process of assimilation to God through re-spiritualization, which is exemplified in the stories of Abraham and Moses. Moses becomes a suitable divine residence, so that the divine spirit will forever abide in him. 20 Philo thus addresses his own soul, in On Dreams, with the Gen. 2-inspired injunction (1.149): ‘Do thou, my soul, hasten to become the abode of God, his holy temple, to become strong from having been most weak, powerful from having been powerless, wise from having been foolish, and very reasonable from having been doting and childless’.
Paul
The next author is Paul. In advance it is important to observe that a comparison of Paul and Philo (and, later, John) is immediately complicated by the differing nature of our evidence. A considerable portion of the Philonic corpus consists of straightforward commentary on the meaning of biblical sentences, phrases, and words. 21 Accordingly, Philo’s understanding of Gen. 2.7 is, relatively speaking, near to hand, since he tells us what he thinks about it, and indeed he does so at length in more than one writing. This is not the case with Paul, whose only surviving literary remains are a collection of occasional letters. The occasions that gave rise to these and Paul’s goal in writing them remains a matter of debate, but it is on all accounts agreed that their primary purpose was not to provide commentary on the meaning of the biblical text. Accounting for Paul’s understanding of Gen. 2.7, then, will consist of more theorizing, based on exegetical methods, of what Paul meant though he did not state it outright—i.e., exegetical spade work, unearthing implied conceptual substructures. The task is already by its nature a difficult one, and it is made more complicated by a highly variegated and difficult history of scholarship.
I have already participated in this effort in writing, and I position myself alongside certain others. 22 Along with them, I think that it is possible based on our exegetical methods to make considerable progress in accounting for Paul’s understanding of Gen. 2.7, and that this understanding stands in close relationship to what appears in Philo’s writings.
Paul states in 1 Cor. 15.45, citing Gen. 2.7: ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul’. His use of the verse in the context makes clear that he thinks it presents heavenly/earthly and immortal/mortal distinctions, and that the two map in turn onto a spirit/body distinction. The present body is an earthly thing, made of dust (15.49: τοῦ χοϊκοῦ) and mortal (15.50–54: φθαρτός, θνητός), while the spirit is heavenly and immortal. In view of evidence to be considered momentarily, I will assume that Paul follows the wording of Gen. 2.7 and understands the soul as only becoming a ‘living soul’ through divine inbreathing. I will assume, moreover, that Paul thinks this inbreathed thing is the divine πνεῦμα. In that case, Paul presents the same basic anthropological framework based on Gen. 2.7 found in Philo’s writings. According to Paul’s reading of Gen. 2.7, the human being is originally composite, composed of celestial and earthly natures.
Paul’s understanding of Gen. 2.7 is thus dualistic. Accordingly, a person, as a soul, can be out of the body (2 Cor. 5.8; 12.2–3). Yet Paul also presents a trichotomic understanding of the person: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thess. 5.23). 23 Like Philo, Paul can speak of the mind as the reasoning part of the soul realized by the indwelling divine spirit as well as mind without and in distinction to spirit (Rom. 1.28; 8.6–7; Col. 2.18, ‘the mind of the flesh’; cf. Philo’s ‘earthly mind’; Alleg. Interp. 1.31–33, 2.4–5).
Like Philo, Paul reads Gen. 1.26–27 and Gen. 2.7 together and understands the godlikeness referred to in the former in relation to the latter, i.e., man becomes a divine image through the investment of the divine πνεῦμα. Thus in 2 Cor. 3 the motif of life through the divine spirit, as in our theory of Paul’s understanding of Gen. 2.7, comes to expression alongside the motif of shaping into a divine image. Paul states in 2 Cor. 3.6 that ‘the spirit gives life’ (τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ), which is what the divine inbreathing in Gen. 2.7 does, giving life to the soul. Accordingly, in 3.17–18, shaping into a divine image is framed on both sides by references to the indwelling divine spirit that accomplishes this: ‘Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us … are being transformed into the same image …; and this comes from the Lord, the spirit’.
In 1 Cor. 2.6–16, Paul expresses the same idea, and the noetic aspect is especially clear. Those who do not have the divine spirit cannot understand the things of God. Paul distinguishes between the spirit of a human being and the spirit of God (2.11). He affirms that Christians have received the divine spirit (2.12, ‘We have received the spirit that is from God’, ἐλάβομεν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ). And thereby they are shaped in their mind into the divine image, as Paul says in 2.16, ‘We have the mind of the anointed (ἡμεῖς δὲ νοῦν Χριστοῦ ἔχομεν)’, i.e., mind shaped according to the divine image (2 Cor. 4.4).
The motifs of ascent and descent and divine statue likewise appear here. The divine spirit has a lifting effect on the human being, whereas the absence of the divine spirit results in descent. Moreover, Paul views the human being, insofar as this one bears a divine statue, as a temple. Importantly, Paul deploys the language of glory (δόξα) in connection with both motifs. 24 The vocabulary of glory communicates exaltation, ascent, in contrast to antonyms, e.g., ἀτιμάζω. Yet glory language is at the same time temple and purity language, i.e., of the glory of the Lord that indwelt and glorified the temple. Paul and Philo diverge on this linguistic point, since Philo did not appropriate the biblical motif of the language of glory in his motif of the Adamic temple. Though he does refer to the glory of the Lord in biblical tradition, Philo’s use of the language of glory conforms as a rule to general and philosophical-epistemological usage (i.e., δόξα as opinion). 25
Recognition of this is critical for understanding Paul’s account of the degeneration and restoration of the human being. Like Philo, Paul views the human condition in terms of inner strife caused by the composite nature of the human being. Adam delights in the law of God with his mind, but another principle, the body, is also present and threatens to enslave him. This is a process of both descent and defilement, in other words, de-glorification. 26 Thus, as Rom. 3.23 states, ‘All have sinned and lack the glory of God’. 27 Rom. 3.23 rhetorically looks back to and is a summary of Rom. 1.18–32. Drawing upon diverse influences, including elements of the story of Israel and Jewish polemic against Gentiles, Paul narrates that the human temple is defiled and thus the temple presence of God must depart, i.e., a return to pre-inbreathing. 28 The divine spirit of Gen. 2.7, the temple ‘glory of the father’ (6.4) is now gone; the people exchanged the ‘glory of the immortal God’ for diverse creaturely images (1.24). 29 Paul spells out the implications of this in terms of its effects on both the soul and the body. The mind is, defiled, now debased (1.28, παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν), and the body dishonoured (1.24, τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν). Both terms, ἀδόκιμος and ἀτιμάζω, stand in antithetical relationship to δόξα. This de-glorification is soul death, and with the descent of the soul the body, directed by its passions, falls into further vice.
If this is human degeneration, then human salvation will involve the restoration of the human self along these lines. Paul envisions the re-installment of the divine πνεῦμα through baptism. Through the restoration of the πνεῦμα, the noetic element of the human is being restored, as we saw in the two texts discussed above.
If it were simply a restoration to the in-breathed state of Gen. 2.7, however, the matter would not really be resolved. After all, according to the reading developed here, the divine spirit is already indwelling the human being at the beginning of Rom. 1. If restoration consists only of a restoration of the indwelling divine spirit, the narrative of Rom. 1 would simply repeat: The earthly element will again win, the human being will again choose idols over God, etc.
The solution Paul offers must be seen in relation to the motif of the desecration of the human temple we just surveyed. If the human temple is bound to become defiled, since the earthly element is constantly there leading into defilement, what is required is a perpetual source of purification, one that always provides the necessary cleansing so that the divine spirit can abide. Paul finds this in the divine plan: God sent Jesus as the biblical kapporet and hattat (Rom. 3.25; 8.3).
30
So, Paul writes in Rom. 3.21–26, referring to lacked glory of God, the kapporet, purifying blood, and redemption: There is no distinction, for all sinned and lack the glory of God (πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ). They are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in the anointed Jesus (διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ), whom God put forward as a kapporet through faith by his blood (ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεὸς ἱλαστήριον διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι).
31
There remains the question of the fate of the body. If the body is the cause of human descent, is the solution release from the body? There is evidence that some within the Corinthian community held this view. 32 Perhaps notions about the soul and the body more generally in the ancient world led them to it, but the question is implicit in Paul’s own teaching, and some in the community might have reasoned that Paul held it. 33 Paul responds by appealing to his Adam-Christ dichotomy. For Paul, Jesus’ nature is a particular kind of bodily existence. Adam’s form of existence is what Gen. 2.7 says it is, i.e., including an earthly body, a σῶμα ψυχικόν. In Jesus, the divine spirit is so dominant that even the body is spiritual. This form of life is the destiny of those in Christ to be realized at the parousia, which resolves the current tension between the (restored) mind and the body (2 Cor. 4.16–5.10; Rom. 8.1–30). In the meantime, the body remains the ‘body of our humiliation’ (Phil. 3.21). In the present, what is possible is to ‘submit’ the body (one’s ‘members’) to God, which Paul conceptualizes as temple service (Rom. 6.11–12; 12.1–3).
John
The basic structure of John’s dualism accords with what has already been observed. 34 John posits two planes of existence, heaven and earth, which map onto his terminology of ‘above’ and ‘below’, as Jn 3.31 states: ‘The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things’. These dualities map in turn onto the duality of spirit and flesh, and John evaluates these, respectively, positively and negatively (6.63): ‘The spirit gives life; the flesh is useless’ (Aune 2013a: 134).
The question of an original composite nature of the human being is a more challenging issue. A striking feature of John’s narrative is that before Jesus’ ‘hour’ only he has the spirit. 35 Those who do not believe are never explicitly associated with it, and believers have the spirit only after crucifixion and resurrection. 36 Importantly, in the latter instance, John uses Gen. 2.7. Jn 20.22–23 presents Jesus ‘breathing’ upon the disciples (ἐνεφύσησεν) and saying, ‘Receive the holy spirit’, and the use of ἐνεφύσησεν, the identical verb found in Gen. 2.7, together with the explicit reference to πνεῦμα, strongly signals a deliberate allusion. 37 Naturally such observations raise the question of whether John reads Gen. 2.7 as envisioning an original in-breathing or whether we must imagine a different framework, e.g., Gen. 2.7 is only eschatological and soteriological, not protological. I suggest not interpreting the data in this way. Instead, one can, in view of John’s use of Gen. 2.7 in Jn 20, theorize that he read Gen. 2.7 both protologically and eschatologically. Indeed, I want to suggest that John’s portrayal of the significance of Christ and salvation presupposes this, since John wants to show that Christ did what up to that point humanity at large up failed to do, namely keep the spirit within him.
The crucial evidence for this is provided by John’s motif of ‘abiding’ (µένω). In John’s version of the baptism story, diverging from the other gospels, the spirit not only descends but also ‘abides’ on Jesus (1.32–33). Of course, the idea of the abiding spirit implies the possibility of its opposite, i.e., the spirit not abiding. John, moreover, closely associates the spirit with the word. The word is mediated by the spirit as the spirit delivers the conceptual content of the word. 38 Just like the spirit, John envisions that the word could theoretically abide in a person (5.38), as it does in Jesus. However, John’s narrative clearly aims to show that, despite Jesus’ efforts, his hearers will not reach an understanding of his words. This is true of those who are opposed to him but also those who are open to him. In other words, his hearers encounter the spirit and the word, but it cannot abide in them; it cannot make a home in them (the opposite of 14.23; ‘keeping’ Jesus’ word). This is so, it appears, because of what they are, ‘from below’, earthly (3.3, 31; cf. 1.13).
The Gospel of John, then, presents not only an eschatological reading of Gen. 2.7 but also a protological one, and indeed this is presupposed by him to portray the significance of Jesus and human salvation. The fact that the spirit abides on Jesus, i.e., after the long succession of humanity, including those Jesus addresses, on whom it does not, reveals something crucial about this person, i.e., he is ‘sent from above’. And because of Jesus’ hour the spirit can now reside in those who believe in him, i.e., no longer in terms of occasional encounters with the pre-resurrection Jesus but as a perpetual dwelling. 39 John’s understanding of Gen. 2.7 is to this extent parallel to the authors already examined. For him, as with these other authors, the human being was indeed originally a composite of heavenly and earthly natures, yet because of the earthly dimension, the spirit likely would not remain. John and Paul make clear they think that the heavenly dimension did not remain, in the case of humanity in general, but Jesus makes it possible for this spirit to ‘abide’; in Paul’s terms, the indwelling Jesus, as a kapporet by blood, is a perpetual source of cleansing for them.
This indwelling by the spirit is for John the means of new life, which has both cognitive and ethical dimensions. 40 The indwelling of the spirit is the means of becoming like God, since it means taking on the form of life of Jesus (Burkhalter 2013: 86–89; Despotis 2022: 141–58). John’s narrative expresses the connection to divine indwelling and becoming like God clearly in the inbreathing scene (20.32–33): Through the inbreathing, the disciples have the capacity to judge and forgive sins, which according to Gospel tradition God alone does. 41
Convergences and Explanatory Reflections
As the foregoing analysis has shown, Gen. 2.7 plays a fundamental role in the anthropological reasoning of Philo, Paul, and the Gospel of John and shaped their accounts of what it means to be human and to possess ‘life’. This concluding section first summarizes these convergences and then briefly reflects on how they might be accounted for.
The convergences that emerged can be described under three headings: (1) a dualistic understanding of the human being, (2) the possibility of a loss of the divine inbreathing, and (3) spiritualization as becoming like God.
Dualistic Anthropology
Dualistic anthropologies distinguish two aspects or elements in the human being and attribute greater esteem to one over the other (Lanzillotta 2007: 420–24; Aune 2013b: 382–86). Philo, Paul, and the Gospel of John find this in Gen. 2.7. They each posit two spheres of existence, the heavenly and the earthly, and the protological human being as a composite of elements of each. A trichotomic understanding of the human being also adheres to this: Not only a bipartite entity, the human being is tripartite, consisting of body, soul, and an uppermost, rational element. I highlighted this trichotomic understanding in the anthropology of Philo and Paul. John may also present it, though I did not explore that here. 42 At the basis of this trichotomic understanding, however, stands the more fundamental dualistic anthropology, which coordinates with the two spheres of existence.
Return to Pre-inbreathing
Each author reads Gen. 2.7 as presenting the original inbreathing of the divine πνεῦμα in the human being. The earthly element is, however, opposed to the spirit, and it is likely that, because of the inner strife, the earthly element will win, and the divine spirit will depart, i.e., a return to pre-inbreathing. This is soul death, the reversal of the formulation of Gen. 2.7 (ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν). For Philo, this process occurs in the case of the majority. It happened to Adam (On the Virtues, 204–5). Still, Philo envisions the possibility that the spirit could abide in a person. The spirit finds in the person a suitable dwelling and, remaining there, spiritualizes the person. Paul envisions soul death in the case of humanity in general, and he even offers a narrative of this (Rom. 1.18–32). The Gospel of John holds that the spirit cannot abide in those who come from below. Adam must have lost the spirit, and it cannot remain in humanity in general, including even those who show an initial openness to God, but it can abide on Jesus, who is from above, and those who are born from above through faith.
Spiritualization as Becoming Like God
Accordingly, each author envisions the possibility of spiritualization, and they understand this as becoming like God. In the case of Philo and Paul, this is clearly linked to Gen. 1.26–27. Through divine inbreathing, the human being is shaped according to the image of God. Arguably this is present in John’s Gospel as well. On the one hand, John does not use the language of εἰκών. On the other hand, we should likely understand the Gospel as a whole as presenting Jesus as God’s visible image. 43 To become like this one, then, means becoming like God’s image.
This process of becoming like God is cognitive. Philo and Paul envision the ascent of the mind from its descended place by the inbreathed divine spirit. The Gospel of John, in parallel, presents the indwelling of the ‘spirit of truth’, the Paraclete, which guides the recipient in truth following their previous inability to understand. The process of becoming like God is ethical. For Philo and Paul, the mind now takes up its position over the rest of the soul and body, and the person acts justly. John envisions an ethical likeness to Jesus as presented in the Gospel (Despotis 2022: 146–52).
As already seen, for each author the earthly, bodily element poses a problem for the human being. Accordingly, each author deals with it in their account of spiritualization. Philo envisions an eventual transcendence of the bodily element: One becomes ‘pure mind’ (Life of Moses 2.288). Paul sees the current body as remaining opposed to the process of spiritualization, e.g., Gal. 5.16–26; Rom. 7–8. However, for him, the bodily element is not transcended. Instead, the human being becomes so dominated by the spirit that the body too becomes spiritual, and this happens at the parousia. In line with the others, when John portrays the earthly element, the flesh, in relation to humanity in general, the connotation is negative (1.13; 6.63). However, Jesus’ form of life is an enfleshed one (1.14). The Gospel suggests that a fleshly form of existence is redeemed through Jesus’ involvement with it. 44
Explanatory Reflections on the Convergences
The extent and coherence of the convergences identified above call for explanation. In light of the diversity of early Jewish and Christian interpretation, how are such patterned similarities to be understood? The following reflections do not seek to adjudicate between competing explanatory models but to clarify why these convergences are not easily dismissed and what kind of explanation they invite.
The need to account for the observed convergences becomes clearer when one considers that these authors could have read Gen. 2.7 differently. For example, they need not have read πνοή in the LXX version as the πνεῦμα. They need not have read the body and breath as conflicting principles and indicating a dualistic anthropology. Indeed, it is standard, within current scholarly discussion of the Hebrew version of Gen. 2.7, to insist that the passage does not present a body/breath conflict or a dualistic anthropology (Wolff 2010; Janowski 2023; Noort 2016: 1–15). Analysis of the translational principles of the LXX, moreover, suggests that the translators were not seeking to impose Greek philosophical and anthropological ideas into the texts of the Bible but instead aimed to provide a faithful rendering of the Hebrew text. 45
Even more significant however is the synchronic observation: Other early Jewish authors did not read Gen. 2.7 this way. Thus, the Two Spirits Treatise, in its reception of Gen. 2.7, refers to multiple spirits external to and directing the human being (Popović 2016: 58–98). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan envisions not multiple spirits but multiple kinds of dust, a holy and unconsecrated, and so it simultaneously evaluates the earthly both positively and negatively (Hayward 2016: 158–62). To be sure, the evidence suggests that many early Jewish authors found in Gen. 2.7 the idea of multiple elements in the single individual and an explanation for the human tendency to both moral and depraved behaviour (Hayward 2016: 156). But they understood these matters in different terms. Against this backdrop, the coherence of the convergences identified here becomes even more striking and demands explanation.
A further consideration is the presence of conceptual tensions internal to the anthropological frameworks of these authors. The most obvious of these is the issue of the body, which poses a challenge to both Paul and John. Paul resolves it by positing two different kinds of bodily existence. It is less clear how John resolves it, but, as I suggested above, it appears that for him the incarnation redeems the fleshly element, perhaps because the flesh is now part of the divine form of life. In each case, the bodily dimension presents a problem that is not simply set aside but is worked through within the author’s respective frameworks.
The issue of departing divine spirit comprises another problem. For Philo, the divine spirit permeates everything and holds everything together. 46 The idea of a departure of divine spirit would thus seem to be metaphysically impossible: If in fact the divine spirit departed from one, that one would simply cease to exist. There are indications that Paul and John would agree with this. Yet all three posit the departure of divine spirit as a defining feature of human descent. Alternative accounts of decline, such as those attested in other ancient sources, were readily available to them. The retention of this motif across the three corpora suggests that the convergences identified here are not easily explained as incidental or purely ad hoc developments. 47
Taken together, these considerations indicate that the convergences observed above are neither accidental nor easily reducible to isolated acts of individual creativity. Explanations that appeal solely to independent engagement with the biblical text or to generic literary or theological conventions fail to account for both the selectivity and the coherence of the shared features identified. On the other hand, no evidence observed here points strongly in favour of direct literary dependence, and the state of our evidence cautions against making overly specific genetic claims.
Several ways of accounting for these convergences may be envisaged. One possibility is that one or more of these authors exerted influence on the others, whether directly or through intermediary tradents. A more concrete scenario would locate the point of origin in Philo, with his reading of Gen. 2.7 circulating within Diaspora Judaism and shaping subsequent Christian interpretation. Another possibility is that some tradition was already present and eventually influenced each author independently.
Chronological considerations complicate the former scenario, since Philo, Paul, and the author of the Gospel of John were broadly contemporaneous with one another. Still, depending on the dating of Philo’s writings and the influence they achieved, the eventual influence of Philo’s ideas on Paul and John is conceivable. 48 Theories positing a tradition standing behind each of these authors have been proposed in the past and include the theories of a basis in Alexandria and/or Wisdom tradition. 49 Yet the precise contours of such backgrounds remain difficult to specify.
One further way of accounting for the convergences is to situate them within the broader philosophical environment of the first century, particularly the influence of Middle Platonic anthropology, with elements of Stoic thought. Dualistic accounts of the human being, hierarchical partitioning of body and soul, and the motifs of ascent and assimilation were widely available conceptual resources in the period and would have rendered readings of Gen. 2.7 along these lines intelligible and persuasive. 50 Such frameworks need not be understood as determining exegetical outcomes, but they may help to explain why similar anthropological construals of the verse emerge across different corpora without requiring direct influence or discrete shared tradition. 51
Conclusion
This study has shown that Philo, Paul, and the Gospel of John present striking and coherent convergences in their construal of Gen. 2.7. By approaching their reception of the verse through the lens of their respective anthropologies rather than a narrow focus on citation or shared vocabulary, the analysis has brought to light patterns that were previously obscured and demonstrated the fundamental importance of Gen. 2.7 for their anthropological reflections. The convergences are not adequately explained by independent engagement with the biblical text or by appeal to generic literary or theological conventions. Several possible ways of explaining the convergences were outlined without attempting to adjudicate between them.
Footnotes
2.
For orientation, see Schaller 2004: 144–47; Sandelin 1976: 91–95; Runia 1993: 63–83. For an older account see 
: 280–406, discussing the features of ‘Alexandrian theosophy’ and its path to Palestine.
3.
4.
Wedderburn 1970; Hultgren 2003; Zeller 1987: 512–13; Fee 1987: 791; : 322–26.
5.
Macaskill 2014: 133–48: Adam is not a controlling motif; rather, Adam ‘is absorbed into more central themes of Jewish piety which themselves determine his representation’ (133, italics original). See the recent study of O’Connor 2019, which begins by criticizing earlier proposals of a shared reading between Philo and Paul (‘tenuous comparisons between … Paul and Philo abound’, p. 85) and sets as a methodological presupposition the conclusion of Francis Watson: ‘Paul and his fellow Jews read the same texts, yet read them differently’ (: xi, quoted in O’Connor 86; see corresponding conclusions on pp. 86–87, 101–2).
6.
See as emblematic of Johannine scholarship the recent discussions of Siliezar 2015: 153–73; .
7.
See esp. van Kooten 2008; ; Jackson (forthcoming). The detailed lines of argumentation presented in these studies are presupposed in the account of Rom. 1 and 3 below.
8.
Pearson 1984: 337; : 372–73.
9.
See lists in Tobin 1983: 23–24, 31; : 99–100.
11.
Pearson 1973: 11–14; : 279–80.
12.
13.
Dreams 1.177; Moses 2.69–70; Virtues, 217 (concerning Abraham): ‘For the divine spirit which was breathed upon him from on high made its lodging in his soul, and invested his body with singular beauty’.
14.
Agriculture 89; Alleg. Interp. 1.32, 37–38 (the earthly mind is ‘mind mixing with, but not yet blended with, the body’, i.e., moving downward until the divine inbreathing).
15.
16.
Winston 1984: 372–73; : 112–18, 201–6.
18.
Gen. 6.3 (LXX): Οὐ μὴ καταμείνῃ τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τούτοις εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς σάρκας.
19.
Unchangeable 1–2.
20.
Giants 54–55: ‘Having established his mind so that it should not move … and having entered into the darkness … remains there, performing the most sacred mysteries … therefore the divine spirit is always standing by him’.
22.
See Jackson (forthcoming); Pearson 1973: 11–14; .
23.
Pearson 1973: 11–14; : 279–80, 298–312.
24.
See Jackson (forthcoming).
25.
So also Spicq 1994; : 170.
28.
On the combination of influences and an inclusive referent, see Bell 1988: 24–26; .
29.
30.
In Lev. 16, the kapporet or ἱλαστήριον is the implement in the sanctuary upon which the blood of the hattat (Greek: περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας) is applied for atonement. For discussion of their meaning in Romans, see Newton 1985; Wolter 2014: 478–79; Jackson, 2018: 157–63, 183–86; .
31.
32.
33.
For those positing a non-polemical occasion to 1 Cor. 15, see Asher 2000: 48: ‘What we find are not opponents or enemies of Paul but misinformed ‘students’ who need more detailed instruction … The search for the identity of the opponents and their alternative doctrine to the resurrection of the dead is ultimately a mistaken approach because there are no opponents’ (emphasis original); : 181–82: The evidence of 1 Corinthians suggests a mixed socio-economic group of Christians with ‘multiple types of Greco-Roman afterlife belief … [who] have not sufficiently integrated their afterlife beliefs with the gospel he proclaimed to them’.
35.
Engberg-Pedersen 2017: 225; Clark-Soles 2006: 35–37. On Jesus’ ‘hour’, see : 215–21.
36.
Jn 7.37–39: ‘As yet there was no spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified’.
37.
See also 3 Kgs 17.21. For two recent and detailed arguments that Jn 20.22–23 alludes to Gen. 2.7, see Siliezar 2015: 153–61; : 329–34.
38.
Jn 6.63. Porsch 1974: 203: ‘Wirksamkeit des Wortes ist Wirksamkeit des Pneuma durch das Wort’. : 204–12, 205: ‘One cannot separate the Spirit from Jesus’ words because the effectiveness of Jesus’ words is the effectiveness of the Spirit through Jesus’ words’.
39.
Cf. : 200, ‘Jesus may be said to offer the pneuma throughout the Gospel in two stages: in himself in the present (as something to which potential believers may react) and eventually in his followers (as something initial believers may then later come to possess in themselves)’. We are suggesting this be seen in relation to John’s anthropology and motif of abiding.
41.
Mk 2.1–12 and pars.; cf. Mt. 16.19. Brown 1970: 1039–45; : 166–69.
42.
44.
45.
So : 36–57, on the Greek translation of Gen. 2.7. E.g., on χοῦς: ‘Read in its own right, the Greek rendering χοῦς makes perfect sense as a contextual adaptation of the Hebrew source text’ (54; italics original). The translators ‘wanted to render their source text to the best of their abilities in a language that was understandable for the same people that wrote and read the papyri’ (56–57).
47.
Reading : 40–42, on 7.23–24 and 9.10), one would think that Wisdom of Solomon reckoned with this problem and assumed a solution to it that parallels Stoic, Neo-Platonic, and Rabbinic sources: ‘From the human point of view, the Divine Wisdom enters man and departs; from the eternal perspective of God, however, it is ever present to man, although its consummation in any particular case is conditioned by the fitness of the recipient’ (41–42).
48.
49.
See Gfrörer 1831; Sandelin 1976; .
50.
51.
Consideration of the recent work of is relevant at this point. Niehoff’s argument for identifiable shifts in Philo’s philosophical orientation suggest that aspects of his anthropology may reflect different stages of his intellectual development, which may help contextualize the convergences observed here.