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4 Baruch: Paraleipomena Jeremiou
This is the first full-scale, verse-by-verse commentary on 4 Baruch. The pseudepigraphon, written in the second century, is in large measure an attempt to address the situation following the destruction of the temple in 70 CE by recounting legends about the first destruction of the temple, the Babylonian captivity, and the return from exile. 4 Bruch is notable for its tale about Jeremiah's companion, Abimelech, who sleeps through the entire exilic period. This tale lies behind the famous Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and is part of the genealogy of Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle." Allison's commentary draws upon an exceptionally broad range of ancient sources in an attempt to clarify 4 Baruch's original setting, compositional history, and meaning.
647 pages, Hardcover
Published October 21, 2019
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January 1, 2020
It’s difficult to describe how valuable this commentary is. It’s both revelatory and complicated. It reveals consistent typologies of Israel’s history still in use up to and after AD70. It illustrates why many New Testament scholars imagine sacred writings of apostolic tradition to be vaticinium ex eventu, instead of authentic prophesies. It manifests the complexity of second temple “scriptures” and how they were perceived, by walking the reader through an ancient and widely unknown Judean/Christian compilation. It confirms many of my suspicions of how ancient Christian scribal traditions redacted portions of ancient Jewish novellas in order to emphasize the importance and legitimacy of future prophecies already being fulfilled (precisely because portions from this novelist are clearly ex eventu). This commentary by Allison is extremely unique, and worth every penny. It deserves five stars without question.
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