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Biblical Philosophy: A Hebraic Approach to the Old and New Testaments
In Biblical Philosophy, Dru Johnson examines how the texts of Christian Scripture argue philosophically with ancient and modern readers alike. He demonstrates how biblical literature bears the distinct markers of a philosophical style in its use of literary and philosophical strategies to reason about the nature of reality and our place within it. Johnson questions traditional definitions of philosophy and compares the Hebraic style of philosophy with the intellectual projects of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Hellenism. Identifying the genetic features of the Hebraic philosophical style, Johnson traces its development from its hybridization in Hellenistic Judaism to its retrieval by the New Testament authors. He also shows how the Gospels and letters of Paul exhibit the same genetic markers, modes of argument, particular argument forms, and philosophical convictions that define the Hebraic style, while they engaged with Hellenistic rhetoric. His volume offers a model for thinking about philosophical styles in comparative philosophical discussions.
325 pages, Hardcover
Published April 22, 2021
18 people are currently reading
151 people want to read
About the author
Dru Johnson
15 books45 followersDru Johnson (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is Templeton Senior Research Fellow and director of the Abrahamic Theistic Origins Project at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. He is also a visiting professor at Hope College, director of the Center for Hebraic Thought, editor of the Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Biblical Criticism series, and cohost of the OnScript podcast. His books include Biblical Philosophy and Human Rites: The Power of Rituals, Habits, and Sacraments. Johnson splits his time between Holland, Michigan, and Oxford, England.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 21, 2025
2025 reads: 16
Rating: 4.5 stars
A true manifesto inviting scholars across several fields to, at the very least, question the assumption of Hellenistic philosophy's hegemony on epistemology, linguistics, logic, and meaning. More than that, Johnson calls others to investigate the Hebrew scripture's own second-order thinking on its own terms. This volume has (for me) coincided nicely with Bahrani's similar (though more focused) work on representation in Mesopotamia. There's truly a wealth of insight to be retrieved here; a way of knowing and seeing the world that is embodied, analogical, and, possibly, more scriptural. The only weakness of this contribution from Johnson is the one-thousand items of discussion. I would maybe have liked two volumes, each being more focused. But this is a small qualm. Very stimulating overall!
Rating: 4.5 stars
A true manifesto inviting scholars across several fields to, at the very least, question the assumption of Hellenistic philosophy's hegemony on epistemology, linguistics, logic, and meaning. More than that, Johnson calls others to investigate the Hebrew scripture's own second-order thinking on its own terms. This volume has (for me) coincided nicely with Bahrani's similar (though more focused) work on representation in Mesopotamia. There's truly a wealth of insight to be retrieved here; a way of knowing and seeing the world that is embodied, analogical, and, possibly, more scriptural. The only weakness of this contribution from Johnson is the one-thousand items of discussion. I would maybe have liked two volumes, each being more focused. But this is a small qualm. Very stimulating overall!
May 8, 2025
This book gave me so much to think about in the way that I approach philosophy. The Hebraic style seems to permeate our very world, and yet, it seems we have instead said that our ancestors are those of Hellenism. The way science is carried out, for example, falls much more in line with the Hebraic approach than others to philosophy. Why abandon our roots?
August 22, 2025
This is a very well-written and very dense book. I mean this in a complementary fashion. It is easy to write a dense academic book, but it is challenging to write clearly on such a complex topic (establishing Biblical Philosophy as at least on par with classic Greek/Hellenistic philosophies that are commonly used in academia).
The middle part of the book is quite technical and will appeal to academic philosophers. However, the first and last thirds are more accessible and should be understandable to determined armchair philosophers.
In its main thesis (e.g. establishing biblical philosophy as academically credible), the book is highly persuasive.
The middle part of the book is quite technical and will appeal to academic philosophers. However, the first and last thirds are more accessible and should be understandable to determined armchair philosophers.
In its main thesis (e.g. establishing biblical philosophy as academically credible), the book is highly persuasive.
July 3, 2022
Dru Johnson is one of several recent scholars to advocate a philosophical criticism of the Bible in the sense of uncovering the philosophy IN or OF the Bible, rather than merely using OUR philosophy to talk about, affirm, or deny the Bible. Out of these, Johnson tends to be best, from what I've read (Hazony being a further second and Gericke coming in dead last by a rather large margin). Overall, I liked this book, though it had some distinct problems that afflicted this work more than the author's previous works (from what I can remember), hence the lower rating I've given to this book than to the others.
Let's begin with the positive: I have a lot agreement (or at the very least a lack of positive disagreement) with a lot of Johnson's epistemological material and with his attempt to show the continuity in thought between the Old and New Testaments. So far, so good.
Now, the negative (with apologies that this will be a lot longer than the positive section, as it will take some time to explain my problems with the material - feel free to skim or skip, if you've bothered reading this far!): First of all, it's strange to think that philosophy is a matter of actually advocating for a certain method. Philosophy does generally involve USING particular methods, but it doesn't need to always be actively ADVOCATING for them (read a random sample of modern philosophy and you'll see this to be true).
Second, let's address the 7 binaries of philosophical style that Johnson uses to differentiate between Hebrew and Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, these binaries and how each member of a given binary is supposed to exactly differ from its "opposite" aren't always completely clear. It's also not clear what exactly these binaries are supposed to be describing - are they characteristics of an entire cultural canon of philosophy-dealing culture as a whole or are they qualities of some smaller unit, such as a paragraph within a particular work? In other words, given a small bit of text, what determines which of a set of binaries it falls under - the wider literature it is a part of or something smaller, like only what is specifically and explicitly stated only in the text itself? Both of these ambiguities - in the meaning of the binaries themselves and in the scope of their application - seem to lead to shifts back and forth from one meaning or end of the application scope to another, sometimes in the same section of a chapter, making the discussion suffer from unneeded inconsistencies and equivocations. This becomes particular apparent (and egregious) when we compare the treatment of the deuterocanonical works (which are part of the biblical canon for Roman Catholics but not for Protestants) with that of the books included in the Protestant canon. The scope of application tends to always be made wide enough in the latter case to ensure that the philosophical style counts as Hebraic whereas in the former case it is narrowed enough and the meanings of the binaries shifted enough to ensure that the philosophical style counts as at least partially Greek. While this fits with Johnson's desire to restrict Scripture to the Protestant canon, if the procedure was reversed, of course, we'd have a different set of results.
Thirdly, there is the odd or incorrect word usage that is peppered throughout the work. Things like continuously using "Torah obeisance" when "Torah observance" is clearly meant. Or using "ouija" incorrectly to refer to any kind of divinatory object (actually, it only refers to a kind of "spirit talking board" and lacks the folk etymology Johnson incorrectly claims for it). Or using "modus ponens" or "modus tollens" to refer to conditionals when in fact these are terms for specific argument forms, not conditionals (as someone with some familiarity with philosophy, Johnson should really know better here - this is pretty elementary level stuff). Those are just three examples that stood out to me.
As maybe you can see so far, precision and carefulness with what is said could be a lot better in this book and the lack thereof tends to hurt the case Johnson tries to make in various ways. One of the worst examples of this is on pages 214-215, especially with tables 9 and 10. I can only conclude that Johnson doesn't have much experience with formal logic or in formalizing ordinary language into formal logic, because most of this is nonsense. Not only is it questionable whether this single verse from Galatians represents an argument in the first place, if there is any argumentation here it certainly has little to do with the tables given. The logical forms of the statements given in these tables don't actually match the verse and the names given to the two (?!) arguments the verse is supposedly divided into don't even accurately describe these arguments. In table 10, none of the premises supposedly taken from the verse are even doing anything - the supposed unstated conclusion of the argument follows only from the premises that are likewise said to be unstated. In other words, in table 10, the only real argument presented is completely unstated and doesn't show up in the verse at all!
Then there's the material on truth and Reformed Epistemology. I don't want to write too much here, so I'll just focus on truth and summarize a lot of the problems here: All the biblical epistemology and "facts" about truth Johnson gives against the correspondence view of truth are in fact fully compatible with it and don't cause any problem for it at all. Johnson does a good job of summarizing a biblical account of how we KNOW whether something is true or not but goes way beyond this in suggesting that this is therefore a philosophical ANALYSIS of what truth IS. In general, how we know whether something is F isn't the same thing as what it is. Ironically, that's a kind of operationalist viewpoint that was at times advocated by precisely the logical positivists Johnson keeps (rightly) speaking up against. This confusion is at the bottom of most of Johnson's argumentation against a correspondence view (which he also confuses with a realist view of propositions - which is a view that correspondence theorists don't necessarily have). There are some other confusions as well - confusion of pragmatic concerns determining meaning or truth conditions or which model to make use of vs. pragmatic concerns determining the truth simpliciter. All his supposed "advantages" of his proposed pragmatic view of truth just end up being advantages only of his proposed epistemology, which, again, is perfectly compatible with a correspondence view (a correspondence theorist, for instance, could be perfectly happy with the Figure 4 given on page 273). There's a lot that could be unpacked here and all the various things that go wrong in these sections, but that's a little taste of the basic gist of it.
Let's begin with the positive: I have a lot agreement (or at the very least a lack of positive disagreement) with a lot of Johnson's epistemological material and with his attempt to show the continuity in thought between the Old and New Testaments. So far, so good.
Now, the negative (with apologies that this will be a lot longer than the positive section, as it will take some time to explain my problems with the material - feel free to skim or skip, if you've bothered reading this far!): First of all, it's strange to think that philosophy is a matter of actually advocating for a certain method. Philosophy does generally involve USING particular methods, but it doesn't need to always be actively ADVOCATING for them (read a random sample of modern philosophy and you'll see this to be true).
Second, let's address the 7 binaries of philosophical style that Johnson uses to differentiate between Hebrew and Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, these binaries and how each member of a given binary is supposed to exactly differ from its "opposite" aren't always completely clear. It's also not clear what exactly these binaries are supposed to be describing - are they characteristics of an entire cultural canon of philosophy-dealing culture as a whole or are they qualities of some smaller unit, such as a paragraph within a particular work? In other words, given a small bit of text, what determines which of a set of binaries it falls under - the wider literature it is a part of or something smaller, like only what is specifically and explicitly stated only in the text itself? Both of these ambiguities - in the meaning of the binaries themselves and in the scope of their application - seem to lead to shifts back and forth from one meaning or end of the application scope to another, sometimes in the same section of a chapter, making the discussion suffer from unneeded inconsistencies and equivocations. This becomes particular apparent (and egregious) when we compare the treatment of the deuterocanonical works (which are part of the biblical canon for Roman Catholics but not for Protestants) with that of the books included in the Protestant canon. The scope of application tends to always be made wide enough in the latter case to ensure that the philosophical style counts as Hebraic whereas in the former case it is narrowed enough and the meanings of the binaries shifted enough to ensure that the philosophical style counts as at least partially Greek. While this fits with Johnson's desire to restrict Scripture to the Protestant canon, if the procedure was reversed, of course, we'd have a different set of results.
Thirdly, there is the odd or incorrect word usage that is peppered throughout the work. Things like continuously using "Torah obeisance" when "Torah observance" is clearly meant. Or using "ouija" incorrectly to refer to any kind of divinatory object (actually, it only refers to a kind of "spirit talking board" and lacks the folk etymology Johnson incorrectly claims for it). Or using "modus ponens" or "modus tollens" to refer to conditionals when in fact these are terms for specific argument forms, not conditionals (as someone with some familiarity with philosophy, Johnson should really know better here - this is pretty elementary level stuff). Those are just three examples that stood out to me.
As maybe you can see so far, precision and carefulness with what is said could be a lot better in this book and the lack thereof tends to hurt the case Johnson tries to make in various ways. One of the worst examples of this is on pages 214-215, especially with tables 9 and 10. I can only conclude that Johnson doesn't have much experience with formal logic or in formalizing ordinary language into formal logic, because most of this is nonsense. Not only is it questionable whether this single verse from Galatians represents an argument in the first place, if there is any argumentation here it certainly has little to do with the tables given. The logical forms of the statements given in these tables don't actually match the verse and the names given to the two (?!) arguments the verse is supposedly divided into don't even accurately describe these arguments. In table 10, none of the premises supposedly taken from the verse are even doing anything - the supposed unstated conclusion of the argument follows only from the premises that are likewise said to be unstated. In other words, in table 10, the only real argument presented is completely unstated and doesn't show up in the verse at all!
Then there's the material on truth and Reformed Epistemology. I don't want to write too much here, so I'll just focus on truth and summarize a lot of the problems here: All the biblical epistemology and "facts" about truth Johnson gives against the correspondence view of truth are in fact fully compatible with it and don't cause any problem for it at all. Johnson does a good job of summarizing a biblical account of how we KNOW whether something is true or not but goes way beyond this in suggesting that this is therefore a philosophical ANALYSIS of what truth IS. In general, how we know whether something is F isn't the same thing as what it is. Ironically, that's a kind of operationalist viewpoint that was at times advocated by precisely the logical positivists Johnson keeps (rightly) speaking up against. This confusion is at the bottom of most of Johnson's argumentation against a correspondence view (which he also confuses with a realist view of propositions - which is a view that correspondence theorists don't necessarily have). There are some other confusions as well - confusion of pragmatic concerns determining meaning or truth conditions or which model to make use of vs. pragmatic concerns determining the truth simpliciter. All his supposed "advantages" of his proposed pragmatic view of truth just end up being advantages only of his proposed epistemology, which, again, is perfectly compatible with a correspondence view (a correspondence theorist, for instance, could be perfectly happy with the Figure 4 given on page 273). There's a lot that could be unpacked here and all the various things that go wrong in these sections, but that's a little taste of the basic gist of it.
February 18, 2023
This is one of those books that makes me wish I could give half stars. I rounded up to 4 because I’m a dabbler in philosophy, so I’m sure my struggles were my own issue and not the author’s. I’m familiar enough with his works to believe this is true. I have a pixelated understanding of my ignorance.
I found the first third and last third really good, but the middle third felt like I had to trudge through it. There are so many good avenues to pursue from this and the author is clear that this is just a beginning work. So if you’re looking for tight conclusions and finality, don’t look here. But if you’re looking to expand and to consider issues with western philosophy and some gaps the ANE fills, this is great.
I found the first third and last third really good, but the middle third felt like I had to trudge through it. There are so many good avenues to pursue from this and the author is clear that this is just a beginning work. So if you’re looking for tight conclusions and finality, don’t look here. But if you’re looking to expand and to consider issues with western philosophy and some gaps the ANE fills, this is great.
December 31, 2023
An outstanding book that proposes a really important thesis. Readers should know that there's quite a bit of page-count devoted to methodology and definitions of terms, as well as comparisons between the proposed 'hebraic' model of philosophy versus others like Greco-Roman, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, etc.....so there's not as much exploration of philosophical themes in the scriptures themselves as one might expect (there are a few sections, one in particular that traces the theme of "hearing" as a philosophical motif in one of the gospels, which is a superb section). That all said, it's a fantastic, fantastic and unique book on the biblical canon that is a must-read for anyone interested in the deeper thought-structure of the biblical literature.
October 27, 2025
Johnson provides an interesting paradigm that should cause us to stop and think about whether we've imposed a foreign grid on the Scriptures or allowed the Scriptures to speak for themselves. Still, I'm not sure I have enough baseline knowledge to evaluate the sum of his assertions. This may be one of those books I return to later since so much of the content went above my head (both contextually and intellectually).
November 1, 2023
Johnson, an erudite expert in epistemology, opens our eyes to the Bible writers’ rich practice of philosophy. He illuminates the six markers of biblical philosophy. As a college philosophy teacher, I am now challenged to incorporate his insights into my teaching.
December 31, 2024
Love philosophy
Love reflecting on philooshy in the life of the Scriptures and its ancient readers and writers.
The simple fact that a lot of what we find was in direct conversation with ancient philosophy should move us to understand more about those philosophers, particularly if we want to be good readers of scripture. This book is a great place to start
Love reflecting on philooshy in the life of the Scriptures and its ancient readers and writers.
The simple fact that a lot of what we find was in direct conversation with ancient philosophy should move us to understand more about those philosophers, particularly if we want to be good readers of scripture. This book is a great place to start
August 29, 2021
This book claims to be like a companion volume to Yoram Hazony’s book, the Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. I wrote a lengthy review of Hazony’s book (https://www.academia.edu/41535009/And...), so I was hoping to offer a lengthy review of the same for this volume.
It turned out that this book wasn’t nearly as interesting. It’s actually quite boring. That’s mainly because of its analytical approach. However, the greatest takeaway for me was his attempt to show that New Testament scriptures share a resemblance and tweaking of the philosophical style offered about the Hebrew Bible. He interacts with ancient middle eastern and Hellenistic styles also.
What makes this book shockingly uncompelling are Johnson’s own expositions of these “styles”. In the heart of the book, he makes a case, defends it, and moves on. He then repeats this process over and over again, leaving the reader to either imbibe it and continue moving on with great anticipation of what comes next, or to just follow the monotony, because such “styles” aren’t terribly intriguing or illuminating to begin with. Sure, he makes his case, defends it, and moves on. It’s still boring.
If I could summarize the book’s usefulness, it would be this way: It ultimately amounts to a synthesis of allegedly philosophical styles shared and crafted by Hebraic authors—styles of which are dissected, analyzed, and categorized to convince the reader that Hebrew people thought philosophically. This book is not so much about the actual philosophy of Hebraic scriptures (as the title clearly suggests), as it is about there being a certain set of styles of Hebraic philosophy contained therein and why an awareness of that is mostly important for modern philosophers to acknowledge.
It turned out that this book wasn’t nearly as interesting. It’s actually quite boring. That’s mainly because of its analytical approach. However, the greatest takeaway for me was his attempt to show that New Testament scriptures share a resemblance and tweaking of the philosophical style offered about the Hebrew Bible. He interacts with ancient middle eastern and Hellenistic styles also.
What makes this book shockingly uncompelling are Johnson’s own expositions of these “styles”. In the heart of the book, he makes a case, defends it, and moves on. He then repeats this process over and over again, leaving the reader to either imbibe it and continue moving on with great anticipation of what comes next, or to just follow the monotony, because such “styles” aren’t terribly intriguing or illuminating to begin with. Sure, he makes his case, defends it, and moves on. It’s still boring.
If I could summarize the book’s usefulness, it would be this way: It ultimately amounts to a synthesis of allegedly philosophical styles shared and crafted by Hebraic authors—styles of which are dissected, analyzed, and categorized to convince the reader that Hebrew people thought philosophically. This book is not so much about the actual philosophy of Hebraic scriptures (as the title clearly suggests), as it is about there being a certain set of styles of Hebraic philosophy contained therein and why an awareness of that is mostly important for modern philosophers to acknowledge.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews