Ellen Birnbaum and John M. Dillon, Philo of Alexandria: On the Life of Abraham. Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series, Vol. 6, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021, xxiv + 492p. ISBN 978-90-04-42364-0 (E-Book), ISBN 978-90-04-42363-3 (hardback)

The volume reviewed here is the sixth in the series entitled, “Philo of Alexandria: Commentary Series,” edited by Gregory E. Sterling, with the assistance of D.T. Runia. The volume opens with an introduction by Sterling (pp. ix–xv; identical remarks are found in the volumes already published). Following a short overview of Philo’s biography (a first-century Jew from a wealthy Judeo-Alexandrian family active in politics and trade in the eastern parts of the Roman empire), Sterling introduces Philo’s works. According to Sterling, Philo’s treatises can be divided into five groups, three are commentary series (the other two are his apologetic writings and his philosophical writings [p. x]). The first of these, Quaestiones et solutions in Genesim;Quaestiones et solutions in Exodumwhose target audience seems to be beginning students, discuses basic difficulties of the biblical texts. As its title indicates,it is formatted as questions and answers. The treatises that belong to the second series, the Allegorical Commentary, are intended for a more advanced audience. The format of questions and answers in a running commentary is found in them as well, however in an implicit way, as part of a “more complex form of exegesis”. The third series, of which the treatise De Abrahamo(=“The life of the sage who has attained perfection through teaching or [the first book] of the unwritten laws, that is, about Abraham” [henceforth: Abr.]) is part, is the Exposition of the Law (henceforth: the Exposition). This series is not a running commentary, and it rarely cites biblical text. Rather, summaries or paraphrases of the Pentateuch, related one way or the other to the biblical laws, are interwoven into Philo’s own thought and sermons (p. xii).