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The first section of his work was a cosmogony – not an implausible genre in Phoenicia, given the precedent of Mochus. Its partly Semitic character shows through in the use of poetic parallelisms (not, however, a guarantee that the original was composed in a Semitic language: Baumgarten 1981: 129), but Greek affiliations are also evident in the demythologizing, godless approach.

This section was followed by what James Barr called a “technogony,” or account of the emergence of the arts of civilization, each ascribed to a particular human innovator. Both Semitic and Greek backgrounds can be found here, too. While Mesopotamian myths of origins ascribe cultural advance to divine patrons, Genesis 4: 17–24 – like Greek tradition – ascribes a series of developments to human primi inventores (Castellino 1957: 135); with his men who become gods, and possibly in previous tradition were gods (Baumgarten 1981: 140 et passim), Philo seems poised in between. Yet the distribution of cultural advance over a generational scheme, with family members – including several pairs of brothers – responsible for different advances, brings Philo in this respect, at least, closest to Genesis – hardly surprising, given the physical proximity of the Phoenician and Hebrew cultural spheres.⁵