This doesn't make any sense. You wrote "Perhaps Pharisees and Sadducees were not that influential among Judeans resident in Egypt, particularly Alexandria, where Philo dwelt." If you mean Judaean Pharisees and Sadducees, I should think that, on the contrary, such foreign preachers would have been influential among the tiny number of fellow-immigrant Judaeans in the Cosmopolis of Alexandria. However, Philo does not mention Pharisees or Sadducees, as such. (The point is: there weren't many immigrant Judaeans in Egypt.) Among the rest of the long-settled "Jews" -- surely numerous -- it is exceedingly doubtful most were strictly loyal to Jerusalem or to anything resembling an orthodoxy either. Rather these were indigenous, mixed marriage Semites who had acclimated to a foreign land, even as imagined 'sojourners', for hundreds of years. By religion, we would probably see them more as heterodox 'quasi-Jews'.I said that Pharisees or Sadducees were likely not that influential in Alexandria. A settlement of Zadokite (old order) priests, in exile, at the Egyptian temple to YHWH, sure. I do beieve that some Zadokite priests related to Onias served an Egyptian pharaoh or two as generals.
There's fairly extensive evidence of 'Jews' in Egypt, but they apparently venerated foreign gods like Ascelpius/Eshmun (i.e. Egyptian Dionysios), Faunus-Liber, Herakles-Minos, Aphrodite Urania, etc. -- the Semitic/Phoenician pantheon is evidence at Elephantine, c.400 BC. Even in Palestine, Jews worshiped Helios. The whole point of Philo Judaeus as publishing/propaganda concern (known to Josephus, 50 years later) was to bring a plethora of outlier Diaspora synagogues 'back' to the Torah. That's why Philo's God is (sometimes) Chronos in Three Persons, as he peddles varying theologies to different synagogues ...
Philo says nothing of your Onias and Zadokite priests (perhaps, myth); I think they would not be 'Judaeans' c.25 AD or Philo should mention them. (More likely, they were one brief, late exile movement, remaining hostile to Jerusalem and then fading away.) The foundation walls at Tell el-Yahudiya dates to 1700 BC, a likely Hyksos camp, but the story claims Onias built upon a temple to Bubastis ... god of the Semitic Marean Pharoahs c.1200-600 BC. Meow, Jewish Kitty! Likewise, the OT is chock full of Eastern Delta cities, so the Siriad/Sethrum was very Judaic, if not strictly 'Jewish' nor really 'Judaean' at all.
Statistics: Posted by billd89 — Thu Jun 13, 2024 9:43 pm