Wikipedia's first sentence called it “hellenistic jewish author of an epic poem in greek hexameters on the history of jerusalem”. Today it says “greek poet and writer”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2020 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2020
Philo was a Greek poet and writer. He was a Hellenistic Jewish author of an epic poem in Greek hexameters on the history of Jerusalem . He lived at an earlier date than Philo the philosopher . Alexander Polyhistor (c. 105-35 B.C.) quotes several passages of the poem, and is the source of the extracts in Eusebius ( Praeparatio evangelica , ix. 20, 24, 37). This is probably the Philo who is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus ( Strom , i. 21, 141) and by Josephus ( Contra Apionem , i. 23), who calls him "the elder".
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 819029304.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Philo is the Hellenistic Jewish author of an epic poem in Greek hexameters on the history of Jerusalem . He lived at an earlier date than Philo the philosopher . Alexander Polyhistor (c. 105-35 B.C.) quotes several passages of the poem, and is the source of the extracts in Eusebius ( Praeparatio evangelica , ix. 20, 24, 37). This is probably the Philo who is mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus ( Strom , i. 21, 141) and by Josephus ( Contra Apionem , i. 23), who calls him "the elder".
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 594657874.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “hellenistic jewish author of an epic poem in greek hexameters on the history of jerusalem”. Today it says “greek poet and writer”. Read the current article and compare.
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2015, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
hellenistic jewish author of an epic poem in greek hexameters on the history of jerusalem
Now
greek poet and writer
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
