Jewish Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: by Joan E. Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. xv + 417. $99.00 (hardcover). ISBN 0199259615. Not every book represents publication of a research process spanning three continents. This book does (among other places, Harvard, Copenhagen, and Waikato, New Zealand), and result is a learned, open-minded, messy hybrid that dares to say things about Philo, gender, and Alexandrian Jewish philosophy that may be deemed not true in one or other of these more local settings. The book is divided into two parts, of which first, Philo's 'Therapeutae' Reconsidered, deals with various aspects of literary construct, Therapeutae, and their possible historical counterpart. The second part, Women and Gender in De vita focuses, as title indicates, more narrowly on representation of women Therapeutae and gender issues in text. Chapter 1 focuses on method. Taylor briefly situates her work in some modern scholarly debates over rhetoric versus history, over possibility of recovering ancient women, and over theory of history in postmodern era. She refutes common argument that De vita contemplativa (which is also only surviving text from ancient world describing Therapeutae) shows so many traits of literary and rhetorical composition that Philo has probably just made it up. Taylor nuances such views by stating that if Philo merely wanted to construct an ideal community, he would not have situated it in neighborhood of his primary audience but rather on a far-off island. Concerning presence of women in this philosophical Taylor states that they rather seem to pose a rhetorical problem for him: they need to be explained. Had Philo had a choice, it would have been far easier for him to describe this ideal philosophical community as consisting of men only. In ch. 2 Taylor asks why Philo wrote De vita contemplativa. Taylor works from a historical empirical perspective by establishing as much evidence of a historical context for work as possible, from other works and from other sources. It is in this constructed context that she sees rationale behind rhetoric and target audiences that may have found it persuasive. In ch. 3 she discusses name Therapeutae, its rhetorical nature as well as identity of group behind name. Of particular importance is her insistence that this is a cultic term, which leads to her exploration of why, then, Philo used this word in context of contemplative philosophers (p. 62). Because of (wrong) sectarian connotations that have stuck with term in research, Taylor announces her redesignation as the Mareotic group, named after lake they lived near to. Chapter 4 then situates group geographically and socioeconomically within Alexandrian society and maps its internal hierarchical structure. Chapter 5 widens scope a bit and analyzes how Judaism was conceptualized as a philosophy in Greco-Roman world. Taylor points out how discourses of cult and philosophy were converging in Hellenistic-Roman periods. Judaism was widely seen as a philosophy in Alexandria and elsewhere. An appreciation of this is necessary in order to understand rhetorical construct and to trace group's perception of themselves. In ch. 6 Taylor discusses radical allegorical method that group applied in their reading of Scriptures and links between allegorical interpretation and degrees of asceticism. Chapter 7 continues by linking De vita contempkitiva and De migratione Abrahami and argues that extreme allegorizers in latter are strikingly similar to Therapeutae in former. Both groups share a solar calendar that dropped celebration of usual Jewish feasts and conformed all festivals to a regular pattern based on cosmic power of number 7, Taylor takes links between cult and philosophy, allegory, asceticism, and calendar as indications of wider cultural context in which Mareotic group took shape. …