4 Maccabees: Commentary
Overview
This commentary examines 4 Maccabees as a contribution to the ongoing reformulation of Jewish identity and practice in the Greek-speaking Diaspora. It analyzes the Jewish author’s interaction with, and facility in, Greek rhetorical conventions, ethical philosophy, and literary culture, giving attention also to his use and interpretation of texts and traditions from the Jewish Scriptures and other Hellenistic Jewish writings. The commentary exhibits the author’s skillful weaving together of all these resources to create a text that interprets the Torah-observant life as the fullest embodiment of the best Greek ethical ideals. A distinctive feature is the examination of how the experience of reading 4 Maccabees in Codex Sinaiticus differs from the experience of reading the eclectic text.
Top Highlights
“1 Tim 2:6; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet 1:19), as an offering that propitiates the Deity alienated by” (Page xxxii)
- Title: 4 Maccabees: Commentary
- Author: David A. deSilva
- Series: Septuagint Commentary Series
- Publisher: Brill
- Print Publication Date: 2006
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subject: Bible. O.T. 4 Maccabees › Commentaries
- ISBNs: 9004147764, 15723755, 9789004147768
- Resource ID: LLS:SCS574MACOM
- Resource Type: Bible Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-10-05T17:12:12Z
Dr. David A. deSilva, PhD, is the Trustees’ Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio, where he’s taught since 1995.
He’s written over 20 books in the areas of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism, including Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation's Warning (Hendrickson, 2013), The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude (Oxford, 2012),Seeing Things John’s Way: The Rhetoric of the Book of Revelation (WJKP, 2009), An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation (IVP, 2004), Introducing the Apocrypha (Baker Academic, 2002), and Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Eerdmans, 2000). He’s also interested in spiritual formation, having written Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation through the Book of Common Prayer (IVP, 2008) and Praying with John Wesley (Discipleship Resources, 2001).
He’s ordained in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, and serves as director of music and organist at Christ United Methodist Church in Ashland. He and his wife, Donna Jean, have three sons.
