Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 29:3 (Fall 2025)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

Book Reviews

The Wisdom of Sirach. Eerdmans Critical Commentary. By Walter T. Wilson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023, xvi + 620 pp., $85.99.

Walter T. Wilson is a professor of New Testament (NT) at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. As an accomplished scholar, he has published critical editions of the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (University of Michigan, 2005) and the Sentences of Sextus (SBL, 2012), as well as a commentary on Philo’s On Virtues (Brill, 2010) and the Eerdmans Critical Commentary (ECC) volume on the Gospel of Matthew (2022). The current volume is Wilson’s commentary for Eerdmans on the Deuterocanonical book Sirach. The series is geared toward an academic and serious general readership and offers their readers critical notes and commentary on the text’s literary, historical, cultural, and theological aspects. Wilson’s The Wisdom of Sirach accomplishes these goals by offering insightful commentary on the text and guidance on how the book’s sapiential thought relates to biblical and nonbiblical wisdom literature. The commentary examines Sirach from four interpretive contexts: the book’s historical and social context, the biblical (Old Testament [OT] and OT Apocrypha) scope of the text, the world of Second Temple Judaism, and the development of ancient wisdom literature (1).

Wilson begins by introducing the reader to critical issues of authorship, original text, and provenance (1–10). He affirms that the text’s author is a scribe and sage named Ben Sira (2). However, he is open to the possibility of pseudonymity and/or portions of the book being created or compiled by a sage other than Ben Sira (2–3). Appealing to internal evidence, Wilson argues that the original audience is likely comprised of young men training to become scribes themselves (6). Wilson briefly comments on the Hebrew and Greek versions of the text and how these versions diverge from each other (4–5). The introduction also includes an overview of the book’s major themes, including the fear of the Lord, the relationship between wisdom and Torah, theodicy, and a substantial survey of the content of Sirach’s practical wisdom (10–19). The introduction includes a measured discussion on how to understand Sirach’s dependence (or

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lack thereof) on biblical and nonbiblical wisdom traditions (20–22). Related to Wilson’s expertise, the commentary has a valuable discussion on various forms of expressions used to communicate the book’s content (23–28). He closes the introduction with an outline of the entire book of Sirach (28–35).

The rest of the commentary is organized around Wilson’s proposed structure. Consequently, following his commentary on the “Prologue” of Sirach, The Wisdom of Sirach is...