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This superb collection of 21 essays is the result of a conference entitled ‘Women in the Religious and Intellectual Activity of the Ancient Mediterranean World: An Interdisciplinary and International Conference in Honor of Adela Yarbro Collins’, held in 2009 at Ohio State University. The collection's principle is that ‘ancient Mediterranean religions must be studied in the same way as they were often practiced: in concert with one another’ (p. v). The present volume explores, discusses and furthers research by bringing together insights from ancient Judaism, Classicism and New Testament studies. The essays are organized around three themes: ‘narrative’, ‘ritual’ and ‘logos’. The first section is the longest and touches on a variety of topics reflecting issues of women and gender in narratives: L. Alexander, ‘The Virgin and the Goddess: Women and Religion in the Greek Romance’; P.D. Ahearne-Kroll, ‘The Portrayal of Aseneth in Joseph and Aseneth: Women's Religious Experience in Antiquity and the Limitations of Ancient Narratives’; M.R. D'Angelo, ‘Roman Family Values and the Gospel of Mark: The Divorce Sayings (Mark 10:2–12)’; J.A. Kelhoffer, ‘A Tale of Two Markan Characterizations: The Exemplary Woman Who Anointed Jesus’ Body for Burial (14:3–9) and the Silent Trio Who Fled the Empty Tomb (16:1–8)'; T.K. Seim, ‘Motherhood and the Making of Fathers in Antiquity: Contextualizing Genetics in the Gospel of John’; C.K. Rothschild, ‘Embryology, Plant Biology, and Divine Generation in the Fourth Gospel’; J.W. van Henten, ‘Blaming the Women: Women at Herod's Court in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities 15.23–231'; R. Doran, ‘To Bear or Not to Bear: The Argument for Abstinence in the Greek Gospel of the Egyptians’; C.R. Moss, ‘Blood Ties: Martyrdom, Motherhood, and Family in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas’; and J.F. Hultin, ‘A New Web for Arachne and a New Veil for the Temple: Women and Weaving from Athena to the Virgin Mary’. Section II comprises four essays on magic and one on a Roman festival: F. Graf, ‘Victimology: Or, How to Blame Someone for an Untimely Death’; R.G. Edmonds III, ‘Blaming the Witch: Some Reflections upon Unexpected Death’; S.J. Davis, ‘Forget Me Not: Memory and the Female Subject in Ancient Binding Spells’; M. Jackson-McCabe, ‘Women and Eros in Ancient Greek Magic and the Acts of Paul and Thecla’; and C.M.C. Green, ‘Holding the Line: Women, Ritual, and the Protection of Rome’. Part III hosts the remaining six essays: P.A. Holloway, ‘Gender and Grief: Seneca's Ad Marciam and Ad Helviam matrem’; C.N. Mount, ‘Religious Experience, the Religion of Paul, and Women in Pauline Churches’; O. Lehtipuu, ‘The Example of Thecla and the Example(s) of Paul: Disputing Women's Roles in Early Christianity’; A.B. Huizenga, ‘Sophrosyne for Women in Pythagorean Texts’; J.L. Kovacs, ‘Becoming the Perfect Man: Clement of Alexandria on the Philosophical Life of Women’; and S.E. Myers, ‘The Spirit as Mother in Early Syriac-Speaking Christianity’. The volume, while acknowledging the methodological problems associated with studying women's religious experiences in the ancient world, is a valuable addition to this growing literature.
A. J
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This Festschrift for Professor Graham Davies on the occasion of his retirement from Cambridge University acknowledges the extent of his influence with 36 fascinating articles. Professor Davies's wide range of interests are categorized under three headings—Archaeology, Biblical Texts, and Language and Literacy—and this provides a fitting tribute to his breadth of scholarship, his judicious contributions to OT studies and his generosity of time and learning to generations of colleagues and students. The articles are: J. Atwell, ‘Treasures of Merneptah in the Karnak Temple at Luxor: The Record of the Walls of the Cour de la Cachette’; J.W. Hilber, ‘Prophetic Speech in the Egyptian Royal Cult’; A.D.H. Mayes, ‘The Palestinian Campaign of Pharaoh Shishak’; B.A. Mastin, ‘Who Built and Who Used the Buildings at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud?’; K.J. Cathcart, ‘The Phoenician Inscriptions from Arslan Tash and Some Old Testament Texts (Exodus 12; Micah 5.4–5[5–6]; Psalm 91)’; K.A.D. Smelik, ‘A Literary Analysis of the Shiloah (Siloam) Tunnel Inscription’; A. Millard, ‘Incense—the Ancient Room Freshener: The Exegesis of Daniel 2.46’; G.J. Brooke, ‘Between Scroll and Codex? Reconsidering the Qumran Opisthographs’; W. Horbury, ‘Liberty in the Coin Legends of the Jewish Revolts’; J. Schaper, ‘“… wie es eigentlich gewesen”: Historical “Facts” and the Reconstruction of the History of “Ancient Israelx”’; J.R. Bartlett, ‘The “Way of the Wilderness” on Sixteenth-Century Maps’; R.P. Gordon, ‘“Couch” or “Crouch”? Genesis 4.7 and the Temptation of Cain’; J. Day, ‘The Flood and the Ten Antediluvian Figures in Berossus and in the Priestly Source in Genesis’; W. Johnstone, ‘“P” as Editor: The Case of Exodus 4.18–26’; P. Jenson, ‘“Kingdom of Priests”: What Is Priestly in Exodus 19.6?’; D.L. Baker, ‘The Fifth Commandment in Context’; E. Nicholson, ‘Deuteronomy and the Babylonian Diaspora’; A. Lange, ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Date of the Final Stage of the Pentateuch’; G. Auld, ‘Reading Joshua after Samuel’; P. Noble, ‘Why Did Jael Kill Sisera? A Canonical Perspective’; W. Moberly, ‘By Stone and Sling: 1 Samuel 17.50 and the Problem of Misreading David's Victory over Goliath’; J. Blenkinsopp, ‘Why Does the Deuteronomistic History Make No Mention of the Prophets to Whom Books Are Attributed?’; H.G.M. Williamson, ‘The Practicalities of Prophetic Writing in Isaiah 8:1’; J.K. Wilson, ‘“And He Shall Hear a Rumour…” (Isaiah 37.7; 2 Kings 19.7)’; J. Goldingay, ‘About Third Isaiah…’; M.J. Boda, ‘Penitential Innovations within the Twelve’; K.J. Dell, ‘Hosea, Creation, and Wisdom: An Alternative Tradition’; R.B. Salters, ‘Acrostics and Lamentations’; P.J. Williams, ‘“Slaves” in Biblical Narrative and in Translation’; A. Gelston, ‘The Repentance of God’; S. Weeks, ‘Literacy, Orality, and Literature in Israel’; A.A. Macintosh, ‘Light on ץיל’; J. Joosten, ‘The Operation of a Syntactic Rule in Classical Biblical Hebrew and in Hebrew Inscriptions of the Monarchic Period’; J.K. Aitken, ‘The Significance of Rhetoric in the Greek Pentateuch’; A. Salvesen, ‘Midrash in Greek? An Exploration of the Versions of Aquila and Symmachus in Exodus’; A. van der Kooij, ‘LXX Exodus 23 and the Figure of the High Priest’; R.E. Clements, ‘Robert Hatch Kennett (1864–1932): The Old Testament in a Time of Transition’.
E.A. H
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This collection of papers is dedicated to H. Blocher, though slightly unusually a paper is included from the honoree. ‘Theological Interpretation’ is a growing area in hermeneutics, and several commentary series have adopted it, but there remain uncertainties as to what it is. Here, it largely means reading the Bible within the Christian faith, moving between historical exegesis and ways in which the text might be significant in Christian theology. After a brief introductory essay by the editor, five essays explore OT texts (R.S. Peterson on Genesis 1, R.M. Allen on Exodus 3, K.M. Kapic on Psalm 22, D.J. Treier on Proverbs 8 and K.J. Vanhoozer on Ezekiel 14), before four more consider NT texts (S. Swain on Mark 12, H. Blocher on John 1, M. Horton on Ephesians 4, and A. McGowan on Colossians 3). The OT essays predominantly use Christology as their point of reference, though Vanhoozer offers a sophisticated reading of Ezekiel 14. The NT essays are predominantly concerned with ecclesiology, though the theological moves involved are more straightforward. Two concluding essays by W. Moberly (‘On Theological Commentary: An Old Testament Perspective’) and D.A. Carson (‘Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Yes, But …’) offer closing reflections, though curiously neither had seen the other essays before writing, and one suspects that Carson's rather critical paper might have been quite different had he done so. Unfortunately, the book is marred by production errors, with both Hebrew and Greek poorly set and a number of typos, detracting from the value of an otherwise interesting collection.
D.G. F
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This excellent collection of studies explores the differences between peshat, the literal reading of Tanak, and derash, its non-literal interpretation as derived from the text by the rabbis, often for the purpose of religious instruction. The challenge of maintaining the balance between these two ways of reading Scripture is as old as Bible interpretation itself. Traditionally, both (Talmudic) peshat and (mediaeval) derash have equal claim to legitimacy; while there is a multiplicity of meaning within Tanak, the literal sense can never be denied. The problem is at once very simple and highly complex, giving rise to a vast range of commentaries: ‘one person's peshat is another's derash’. It is this ‘space’ that A. explores, gravitating towards the mediaeval commentaries but also hearing contemporary interpreters whose painstaking yet inspired scholarship links scholarly tradition with religious experience. He presents us with 20 wide-ranging essays that illustrate the dilemma in which commentators find themselves and cover such topics as, among others, Abarbanel and his teachings of Torah regarding the monarchy, the ethical challenge of ‘the Chosen People’, Hur and Pharaoh's daughter, Moses' sin at Meribah, Joshua's success, the war against Canaan, Samuel's relationship to Saul, the sins of David and Solomon, and the composite nature of Haggadah. A.'s essays are highly lucid and easy to read, and it is not only students of the rabbinic literature who will find this book of interest, given that the problem of literal versus inspired interpretation of biblical texts is by no means confined to the Jewish tradition.
H. K
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This relatively slim volume of essays was collected as a tribute to Ernest-Marie Laperrousaz as he reached his 85th year. An introduction by the editors gives a brief account of his career, highlighting his particular associations with Qumran and Jerusalem, and notes that because he had himself edited a volume to mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was decided that this collection should focus on Jerusalem. Then Hélène Puiseux (‘Escalier E, 1er étage à gauche ou Ernest-Marie Laperrousaz et la section des Sciences religieuses’) reflects on Laperrousaz's role in the ‘sciences religieuses’ section of the École Pratique des Hautes Études. There then follow 13 contributions, whose topics are arranged in approximately chronological order from MBA to the Islamic period, as follows: Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron, ‘The Middle Bronze Age II Water System in Jerusalem’; Nadav Na'aman, ‘Jerusalem in the Amarna Period’; André Lemaire, ‘Le “Dieu de Jérusalem” à la lumière de l'épigraphie’; Daniel Bodi, ‘Les différents noms de Jérusalem dans le livre d'Ézéchiel et les différents noms de Babylone’; Hélène Nutkowitz, ‘D'Éléphantine à Jérusalem: liens religieux et politiques’; Étienne Nodet, ‘L'Akra de Jérusalem ou les avatars d'une colline’; Dan Bahat, ‘The Baris in Jerusalem’; Francis Schmidt, ‘Note sur l'oracle du Temple carré (Flavius Josèphe, Guerre VI, 311)’; Simon C. Mimouni, ‘La tradition de la migration de la communauté chrétienne d'origine juive: de Jérusalem à Pella’; Marie-Jeanne Roche, ‘Jérusalem et Pétra, entre histoire et archéologie: les monuments funéraires’; Fawzi Zayadine, ‘Les dieux guérisseurs, du monde phénicien à Jérusalem’; Caroline Arnould-Béhar, ‘La place du Mont du temple dans la cité d'Aelia Capitolina’; and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, ‘The Dome of the Chain’. Finally Caroline Arnould-Béhar contributes a bibliography of the dedicatee's publications. There is much of archaeological, historical, textual and religious interest in this impressively varied collection.
A.H.W. C
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As the subtitle implies, this volume contains 15 articles initially presented at a conference designed to facilitate communication and interaction among scholars of Egypt and the southern Levant; a further nine papers from the conference were not included in the volume. The contributions cover a wide range of subjects using a variety of methodological techniques; the majority will be of interest to scholars in biblical studies, primarily those working on the early centuries of Israelite and Judahite history. The volume includes a redating of Shishak's campaign to the Levant in ‘Shishak's Karnak Relief—More than Just Name Rings’, by Shirly Ben-Dor Evian; a discussion of ‘Egyptian-Canaanite Relations in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages as Reflected by Scarabs’, by Daphna Ben-Tor; an examination of the Egyptian background for part of the Joseph story in ‘Joseph's Rewarding and Investiture (Genesis 41:41–43) and the Gold of Honour in New Kingdom Egypt’, by Susanne Binder; an argument in favour of the reliability of Egyptian scribes' use of determinatives in ‘The Battle of Kadesh: Identifying New Kingdom Polities, Places, and Peoples in Canaan and Syria’, by Michael G. Hasel; a rejection of a seventh-century background for Goliath's military gear in ‘David's Triumph over Goliath: 1 Samuel 17:54 and Ancient Near Eastern Analogues’, by James K. Hoffmeier; a discussion of 2 Samuel 22 and the Merneptah stele in ‘Two Hymns as Praise Poems, Royal Ideology, and History in Ancient Israel and Ancient Egypt: A Comparative Reflection’, by Susan Tower Hollis; a nuancing of the history of international relations in ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: The Relations between Amenhotep III, King of Egypt and Tushratta, King of Mitanni’, by Dan'el Kahn; a synopsis of excavations at ‘The Egyptian Garrison Town at Beth-Shean’, by Amihai Mazar; an argument for ‘Levantine Thinking in Egypt’, by Kerry Muhlestein; a theoretical examination of imperial strategy in ‘A View to a Kill: Egypt's Grand Strategy in her Northern Empire’, by Marcus Müller; a contribution to the arguments in favour of an Egyptian background to the titles used in Isa. 9.5 in ‘Hatshepsut's Appointment as Crown Prince and the Egyptian Background to Isaiah 9:5’, by Boyo Ockinga; the proposal of a fully fledged Egyptian vassal system, including Josiah's Judah, in the southern Levant in the late seventh century in ‘Egyptian Imperialism after the New Kingdom: The 26th Dynasty and the Southern Levant’, by Bernd U. Schipper; a study of the sometimes ambiguous role of Egypt's officials in ‘What's in a Title? Military and Civil Officials in the Egyptian 18th Dynasty Military Sphere’, by J.J. Shirley; ‘This Far and Not a Step Further! The Ideological Concept of Ancient Egyptian Boundary Stelae’, by Carola Vogel; and an examination of the geographical and ideological significance of ‘The Arunah Pass’, by Adam Zertal.
C.L. C
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This volume in The Cambridge Guide series is, in the words of the publisher's blurb, ‘a comprehensive and engaging overview of Jewish life, from its origins in the ancient Near East to its impact on contemporary popular culture’. This reader did indeed find the work to be both ‘comprehensive’ and ‘engaging’. The editors have drawn together an impressive team of scholars to produce a wide-ranging work comprising an Introduction by the editors, followed by 21 chapters: ‘The Hebrew Bible and the Early History of Israel’ (Marc Zvi Brettler); ‘The Second Temple Period’ (Alan F. Segal); ‘The Rabbinic Movement’ (Hayim Lapin); ‘The Jewish Experience in the Muslim World’ (Norman A. Stillman); ‘Jewish Life in Western Christendom’ (Robert Chazan); ‘Jews and Judaism in Early Modern Europe’ (Adam Shear); ‘European Jewry: 1800–1933’ (Marsha L. Rozenblit); ‘Jews and Judaism in the United States’ (Pamela S. Nadell); ‘The Shoah and its Legacies’ (Peter Hayes); ‘The Founding of Modern Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict’ (Bernard Reich); ‘Judaism as a Religious System’ (Harvey E. Goldberg); ‘The Centrality of Talmud’ (Michael S. Berger); ‘Jewish Worship and Liturgy’ (Ruth Langer); ‘Jewish Private Life: Gender, Marriage, and the Lives of Women’ (Judith R. Baskin); ‘Jewish Philosophy’ (Kenneth Seeskin); ‘Jewish Mysticism’ (Hava Tirosh-Samuelson); ‘Modern Jewish Thought’ (Leora Batnitzky); ‘Contemporary Forms of Judaism’ (Dana Evan Kaplan); ‘Jewish Popular Culture’ (Jeffrey Shandler); ‘Aspects of Israeli Society’ (Judith R. Baskin); ‘The Future of World Jewish Communities’ (Calvin Goldscheider). There are maps and illustrations, a glossary, a timeline and an index; there is also a bibliography for each chapter. Thus for the wide ranges of this study, both in historical aspects and also in tracing developments and adaptations in Jewish religion and culture, there is help offered to a wide readership—for those who come to these matters out of general interest and those who seek guidance for more academic studies. This is a work to be warmly welcomed and recommended.
M.E.W. T
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Old Testament Abstracts continues to be a marvellous resource for all researchers in our field, whether they be scholars or graduate students, all of whom should consult it regularly. The three-fascicled 2009, 2010 and 2011 volumes contain helpful summaries by a large team of abstractors of 2230, 2306 and 2241 works respectively in the area of OT studies, much more than had previously been the case. The works abstracted are primarily articles, whether in journals or collected volumes, but books are by no means ignored, thereby complementing the B.L., which focuses on books rather than articles, though unlike the B.L. no attempt is made at evaluation. As I have pointed out more than once before in reviews of Old Testament Abstracts, the heading ‘Periodical Abstracts’, which is still used for one of the section headers in the 2009 volume, is misleading, since it includes chapters from books as well as periodicals, but this has been corrected at last in the 2010 and 2011 volumes. Presumably someone has been reading my reviews! As usual the work is extremely well indexed. Even at the increased price of $36 (since 2010) it is great value for money.
J. D
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This volume arises out of a pair of workshops convened by the universities of Munich and Alberta and offers a pleasingly coherent set of essays addressing the variety of conceptions of exile in the Hebrew Bible. The volume as a whole is eminently readable, despite the number of non-native English speakers contributing. After an introduction by Levin, Jan Christian Gertz examines Israelite knowledge of neo-Assyrian deportation practices as the background to deportation as a historical concept in early parts of Amos, before examining the theological development of the concept into ‘exile’ in later additions (‘Military Threat and the Concept of Exile in the Book of Amos’); Martti Nissinen discusses the theological and political implications of Sennacherib's deportation of the Babylonian gods (‘The Exiled Gods of Babylon in Neo-Assyrian Prophecy’); Kirsi Valkama interprets sixth-century Judah as a post-collapse society in ‘What Do Archaeological Remains Reveal of the Settlements in Judah during the Mid-Sixth Century
C.L. C
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These 26 studies were assembled by the editors, so they tell us, as a counterbalance to the recent scholarly interest in war and violence in biblical texts. The collection, mostly in French but including English, German and Italian articles as well, is dedicated to the Franciscan Claude Coulot, sometime Professor of New Testament at the University of Strasbourg. Most of the essays relate to New Testament or later literature, though there are a handful of OT contributions at the beginning of the collection. The contents are Michel Deneken, ‘L'exégète disciple’; Françoise Laurent, ‘Alentour de l'Exode: Jéthro ou la paix pour Israël’; Eberhard Bons, ‘“Recherchez le šālom pour la ville où je vous ai déportés”: quelques réflexions sur l'interprétation de Jr 29,5–7’; Bernard Renaud, ‘La paix est un combat: l'éclairage du livret de Mi 4–5’; Jean-Sébastien Rey, ‘“Leur corps a été retiré dans la paix et leur nom vit de génération en génération” (Si 44,14): paix, souvenir et vie du nom dans le livre du Siracide’; Gérard Claudel, ‘Violence, douceur et paix dans le premier évangile’; Gerd Häfner, ‘“Selig sind die Friedensstifter” (Mt 5,9): Feindesliebe und Vergebung als Aspekte matthäischer Friedensethik’; Joseph Verheyden, ‘A Puzzling Hapax Legomenon—the Peacemakers of Matt 5,9’; Denis Fricker, ‘“Je ne suis pas venu jeter la paix, mais le glaive”: Mt 10,34 par. Lc 12,51 (Q 12,51)’; Odette Mainville, ‘La paix messianique dans la perspective lucanienne: quand et pour qui?’; Lorenz Oberlinner, ‘“Frieden auf Erden” (Lk 2,14): der politische Hintergrund der Christusverkündigung im Lukas-evangelium’; Thomas P. Osborne, ‘L'offre de paix entre Lc 2,14 et 19,38’; Michèle Morgen, ‘La paix dans l'évangile de Jean’; Jean Zumstein, ‘La paix dans le quatrième évangile’; Odile Flichy, ‘Paix et édification de l'Église (Ac 9,31): Luc et la tradition paulinienne’; Nathalie Siffer, ‘La bonne nouvelle de la paix par Jésus Christ selon Ac 10.36’; Alfio Marcello Buscemi, ‘“Giustificati per la fede manteniamo la pace con Dio”: Studio di Rm 5,1–2 tra retorica ed esegesi’; Daniel Gerber, ‘“Car Dieu n'est pas un Dieu de désordre, mais un Dieu de paix” (1 Co 14,33a)’; Camille Focant, ‘La paix de Dieu elle qui surpasse toute intelligence (Ph 4,7)’; Jacques Schlosser, ‘La “philadelphie” selon Pierre et Paul’; Thierry Legrand, ‘La paix des justes dans le “Livre d'Hénoch” (1 Hénoch 1–5)’; Claude Tassin, ‘Autour du targoum Pseudo-Jonathan de la bénédiction sacerdotale (Nb 6,22–27)’; Raymond Kuntzmann, ‘La paix à Nag Hammadi: de la paix absente aux vœux de paix’; Frédéric Manns, ‘Textes rabbiniques sur la paix’; Marcel Metzger, ‘La Paix confiée aux églises du
D.W. R
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All the essays are in French, except for one in German. Under the heading ‘Monotheism in Debate’ are an introduction by the editors; remarks on the debate about monotheism; the theories of the Egyptologist Jan Assmann (in German, with French résumé). Under ‘Old Testament and Israelite Society’ are essays on Deut. 4.1–40; Deut. 32.8–9 and the start of Israelite religion; on whether pagans can participate in the cult of Yhwh, according to Jonah; God and the gods in the Septuagint Psalter. Under ‘New Testament’ are monotheism and messianism in Matthew; monotheism in Mark; Mk 10.18; discourse upon God in the Fourth Gospel; the title kyrios in Acts; the critique of polytheism in the missionary voyages of Acts; the confession of ‘one God’ in 1 Cor. 8.1–11.1. In ‘Qumran and Non-canonical Literature’ are the image of God in the fifth of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice; whether divine names show an evolution of Jewish monotheism at the dawn of the Christian era; conversion to monotheism in the Apocalypse of Abraham. Under ‘Rabbinic Literature’ are God in the targumic tradition; talmudic monotheism. Under ‘Greco-Roman Society and Christianity of the First Centuries’ are the coming of philosophical monotheism to Rome, from Varro to Seneca; Seneca the theologian; the divine image in the Second Sophistic; the uniqueness and transcendence of God in the second century. This collection is rather thin on the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel but will appeal to those who want a wider perspective on the question.
L.L. G
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This collection of essays is the result of an international research project undertaken by scholars with a shared interest in the study of social and cultural memory as it relates to biblical narratives and texts influenced by the Bible, from Jewish and Christian perspectives. The ‘Introduction’ by Brenner and Burke O. Long contains outlines of contributions to the volume and a concise overview of social memory theories. Part I of the volume includes seven essays dealing with construction of memory in Hebrew Bible narratives. Yairah Amit analyses two versions of the story of Araunah's threshing-floor; Toni Craven discusses how past is remembered in the Psalms; Philip R. Davies examines Benjamin's collective identity in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament; Frank H. Polak indicates how different and at times conflicting cultural memories are preserved in Samuel; Meira Polliack applies trauma theory in her reading of Joseph's story; Teresa Stanek discusses the Exodus and Covenant traditions as myth about origins; Talia Sutskover analyses the role of the lexical field of sight in Genesis 25–36. Part II is dedicated to ‘Post-Biblical Jewish-Traditional Perspectives’ discussed by Avraham Melamed (history of interpretation of Qoh. 12.12) and Shulamit Valler (the memory of Eretz Israel narrative in Babylonian Talmud). In Part III, entitled ‘Remembrance of Memories’, cultural texts directly or indirectly influenced by the Bible are analysed. Jonneke Bekkenkamp looks at the importance of personal memory and individual life story in two films, Simon and Wit; Athalya Brenner describes how the biblical Rizpah (2 Sam. 21) is remembered in a variety of sources; Ingeborg Löwisch analyses themes of gender, memory and identity in 1 Chronicles 1–9 and in a documentary film Mein Leben Teil 2; Burke O. Long offers a multidisciplinary critique of the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, Florida; Caroline Vander Stichele deals with Kristeva's reading of the biblical narrative about the death of John the Baptist. The volume closes with Frank H. Polak's ‘Afterword’, in which some of the methodological difficulties emerging from this research project are addressed. The interest in cultural memory in biblical studies has been growing steadily. The present collection is an important contribution to this field.
E. L
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This work is made up of 17 lectures/addresses, all but two having been presented to seminarians, clergy or as church lectures, including one at a festival of homiletics. The remaining two, clearly intended for the same clientele, are previously unpublished. The various pieces are arranged into four parts—Torah, Prophets, Writings, Canon and Imagination—each of these parts being preceded by a short introductory essay by the editor. The whole work has an Introduction also contributed by the editor, while B. himself completes the book with a Retrospect. There are indexes of biblical references and of authors cited in the text. This is not a work that will appeal to all scholars of the Hebrew Bible, but those who have the responsibility of interpreting these Scriptures for congregations week by week, and on occasions of encouraging and enabling fellow preachers, will find here much challenge and food for thought. B. above all calls us in this work to wide and deep vistas of the biblical material and to similarly wide and deep challenges in our preaching. For the emphasis here is not so much on detailed exposition of one or more verses of a text, but rather on the setting forth of great themes such as exodus, prophetic judgments, prophetic expressions of hope. This is vintage B.: here is emphasis on the lament theme, the true dialogue of the believer with God, and much else. This reader was again both encouraged and challenged as to his own proclamation of ‘Disruptive Grace’.
M.E.W. T
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This meditation on the theme of empire is born out of and very much addressed to the US context. B. explores the Israelite encounter with the Babylonian and Persian empires and the complex responses to that encounter attested in the biblical literature, and uses the patterns that emerge to comment on the role of the US church in its encounter with US ‘democratic capitalism’. As B. admits, the metaphor is complicated by the fact that much US ideology sees itself as the chosen nation rather than as the empire; thus, he argues for the events of 9/11 and the responses of both denial and grief evoked thereby as the US equivalent of the destruction of Jerusalem. Elsewhere, though, B. configures the ‘empire-subject’ relationship differently, making the church the displaced chosen people and the prevailing US culture the Babylonian Empire. Under these conditions the empire-subject relationship is ambiguous, offering benefits as well as being negative, although if the church is faithful to Jesus its relationship with empire should always be subtly negative. B. sees this as an ‘exile/restoration’ configuration of empire, as expressed by the biblical poets of exile, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, who contrary to the imperial ideology voice hope in Yahweh and claim that there is life beyond the empire. However, alongside this model of ‘exile/restoration’ B. also considers the ‘accommodation/resistance’ model that reflects life under the Persian Empire; exemplified in Ezra-Nehemiah, Daniel, Joseph and Esther, this is a less shrill, more shrewd mode of operation that may be more appropriate on a long-term basis, and is about knowing when and what to resist. B.'s meditation, as already noted, primarily addresses a US audience. However, the imperial ideology is so pervasive in modern culture that those elsewhere will also find plenty to think about in its pages.
D.W. R
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Building on his numerous studies in this area, C. outlines a methodology for reconstructing textual prehistory that is both controlled and capable of yielding repeatable results, which he then applies to offer a fascinating, important new reconstruction of the growth and development of the biblical tradition. Starting in reverse chronological order from our earliest documented stage in the formation of the Hebrew Bible, he surveys the Hasmonaean, Hellenistic and Persian periods, Babylonian exile and neo-Assyrian period, before turning to the much harder to reconstruct early pre-exilic period, where he finds evidence of early monarchal literature preserved in such texts as Proverbs, Psalms (particularly royal psalms), Song of Songs and possibly even Qohelet (works relegated to the marginal ‘Writings’ not because of the lateness of composition but rather the increased focus on the Hexateuch/Pentateuch and the prophets in Judaism). C.'s methodological approach involves recognizing the role of memory in the transmission of written texts and identifying indicators of memory variation (e.g. word-order shifts and substitutions, minor shifts in grammar, rearrangements of lines), examining what happens in documented cases of transmission history/textual revision in ancient texts (e.g. expansion, conflation, harmonization), and developing profiles based on identifying texts that can be dated to the various broad historical periods and moving outward to identify other texts that might also fit that period. Archaeological, epigraphic and biblical evidence are all brought to bear to create a fuller picture. In many places C. departs from consensus to propose alternative theories of textual development. He is both careful in attention to detail and cautious about what can be achieved. He calls for scholars to recognize that textual pre-history cannot be reconstructed in detail, as is so often the aim in redaction criticism, but only in broad terms, and he demonstrates the gains to be had by what he calls a more methodologically modest approach to reconstruction of the development of Hebrew Bible texts. This book is essential reading for scholars and serious students of the Hebrew Bible, whatever their area of specialization.
J.C. E
C
Most of the essays in this volume originated in a colloquium on the theme of ‘The Gospel and the Land’ in Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2009. There is an ‘Introduction’ by P. Walker, which raises some key questions that the volume seeks to address. This is followed by four essays focusing on the NT: M. Strom, ‘From Promised Land to Reconciled Cosmos: Paul's Translation of “Worldview,” “World-story,” and “Worldperson”’; M. Keown, ‘Paul's Answer to the Threats of Jerusalem and Rome (Phil 3)’; P. Church, ‘“Here We Have No Lasting City” (Heb 13:14): The Promised Land in the Letter to the Hebrews’; and A. Donaldson, ‘The Kingdom of God and the Land: The New Testament Fulfillment of an Old Testament Theme’. The one essay specifically on the OT, although the OT is by no means absent from some others, is that by T. Bulkeley: ‘“Exile Away from his Land”: Is Landlessness the Ultimate Punishment in Amos?’. The remainder develop a number of biblical and related themes: B. Robinson, ‘A “Fifth Gospel” Less Torn and More Legible? On Recent Attempts to Retrieve Herodian Galilee’; G. Stewart, ‘The Old Testament: Friend or Foe of Palestinian Christians? Exploring the Insights of Palestinian Theologian Naim Ateek’; S. Tollestrup, ‘Evangelical Social Conscience and the Challenge of Christian Zionism’; S. Taylor, ‘When Land Is Layered: Jacob in Conversation with Colonizer (James Cook) and Colonized (Te Horeta Te Taniwha)’; P. Church, ‘“God Has by No Means Rejected his People” (Rom 11:1): A Response to the Accusation of “Replacement Theology”’. The final piece (T. Meadowcroft, ‘The Gospel and the Land of Promise: A Response’) revisits the previous essays in the light of four themes: the land and pilgrimage, the land and politics, the land and her people, and the land and her Scriptures. A recurring feature of the essays, sometimes implicit but often explicit, is a critique of Christian Zionism and an attempt to confront, and offer an alternative to, what is perceived as its growing influence in evangelical Christian circles. It is not necessary to agree with all the answers to acknowledge that some important questions are being raised here.
A.H.W. C
C
A fitting Festschrift for the recently retired Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield and recent President of SOTS who has contributed so much to the fields of literary and feminist criticism of the Bible, this volume contains the following essays: Y. Amit, ‘Hidden Polemics in the Story of Judah and Tamar’; A.G. Auld, ‘Contexts for Tamar: Samuel and the Song of Songs’; A. Bach, ‘“If There Are Such Things as Miracles, Israel Has to Be One!”: Narratives from the Hollywood Vault’; H.M. Barstad, ‘Maurice Halbwachs, Memory, and the Hebrew Bible’; F.C. Black, ‘The Shulammite's Burning Bush: Passion, Im/Possibility and the Existence of God in Song 8.6 and Exodus 3’; A. Brenner, ‘Ruth: The Art of Memorizing Territory and Religion’; C.V. Camp, ‘Illustrations of the Sotah in Popular Printed Works in the 17th–19th Centuries’; D.J.A. Clines, ‘Reading the Song of Songs as a Classic’; A. Davies, ‘Tears in Jerusalem: David's Response to the Death of Absalom in 2 Samuel and Tomkins's “When David Heard”’; M.V. Fox, ‘Reading the Tale of Job’; E.M. Good, ‘The Comic Plots of the Bibles’ (i.e. the Hebrew Bible on the one hand and the Christian Bible on the other); N. Gottwald, ‘On the Alleged Wisdom of Kings: An Application of Adorno's Immanent Criticism to Qohelet’; E.L. Greenstein, ‘“Difficulty” in the Poetry of Job’; D.M. Gunn, ‘Samson Improved for Youth in an Age of Empire: Mr Atherton, Gentleman and Genial Giant, in G.A. Henty's Maori and Settler (1891), as a Case of Biblical Reception’; S. Japhet, ‘The “Description Poems” in Ancient Jewish Sources and in the Jewish Exegesis of the Song of Songs’; F. Landy, ‘The Book that Cannot Be Read’ (a close reading of Isaiah 29.1–14); B.O. Long, ‘Flesh of my Flesh’ (not an essay, but a short story set in nineteenth-century India!); M. Nissinen, ‘Is God Mentioned in the Song of Songs? Flame of Yahweh, Love, and Death in Song of Songs 8.6–7a’; M. O'Kane, ‘The Bible in Orientalist Art’; H.S. Pyper, ‘Other Mothers: Maternity and Masculinity in the Book of Ruth’; J.M. Sasson, ‘“A Breeder or Two for Each Leader”: On Mothers in Judges 4 and 5’; J.F.A. Sawyer, ‘Interpreting Hebrew Writing in Christian Art’; H.G.M. Williamson, ‘God and Cyrus in Isaiah 41.2–3’; E. van Wolde, ‘The Bow in the Clouds in Genesis 9.12–17: When Cognitive Linguistics Meets Visual Criticism’; and Y. Zakovitch, ‘“A Woman of Valor, 'eshet hayil” (Proverbs 31.10–31): A Conservative Response to the Song of Songs’. The volume also includes a preface paying tribute to the honorand's work, a list of her publications, and an index of persons referred to in this volume, but (curiously) no index of biblical references.
J. J
C
This reference tool has been several years in the making, and its appearance is greatly to be welcomed. The jacket blurb proclaims it as ‘comprehensive and authoritative … the first reference work devoted exclusively to Second Temple Judaism’, a claim that is entirely credible. It begins with 13 survey essays on a range of topics in Second Temple Judaism, followed by more than 500 dictionary entries which range in length from paragraphs to pages, but all of which are substantial, with very few being less than a double-column page in length. The survey essays are John J. Collins, ‘Early Judaism in Modern Scholarship’; Chris Seeman and Adam Kolman Marshak, ‘Jewish History from Alexander to Hadrian’; James C. VanderKam, ‘Judaism in the Land of Israel’; Erich S. Gruen, ‘Judaism in the Diaspora’; Eugene Ulrich, ‘The Jewish Scriptures: Texts, Versions, Canons’; James L. Kugel, ‘Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation’; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, ‘Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha’; Eibert Tigchelaar, ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’; Katell Berthelot, ‘Early Jewish Literature Written in Greek’; Jürgen K. Zangenberg, ‘Archaeology, Papyri, and Inscriptions’; Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, ‘Jews among Greeks and Romans’; Daniel C. Harlow, ‘Early Judaism and Early Christianity’; and Lawrence H. Schiffman, ‘Early Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism’. The headings for the topical list of entries give a sense of the scope of the Dictionary part. The literary topoi covered are ‘Primary Languages of Jews in the Second Temple Period’; ‘Secondary Languages in which Early Jewish Literature Is Preserved’; ‘Literary Genres’; ‘Biblical Texts, Version, and Canons’; ‘Hebrew Bible’; ‘Apocrypha’; ‘Pseudepigrapha and Hellenistic Jewish Texts’; ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’; ‘Philo of Alexandria’; ‘Josephus’; ‘Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism’; ‘New Testament’; and ‘Rabbinic Literature’. The ‘Nonliterature’ (sic) topical headings are ‘Groups and Dynasties’; ‘Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Life’; ‘Biblical Figures in Early Jewish Interpretation’; ‘Historical Figures’; ‘Mythological and Primordial Figures, Places, and Events’; ‘Religious Beliefs and Influences’; ‘Practices’; ‘Religious Institutions’; ‘Jewish Revolts’; ‘Cities, Countries, and Regions: Jews and Judaisms in’ (followed by 37 place-names around the ancient Mediterranean and Near East); ‘Archaeology: Specific Sites in or near the Land of Israel’; ‘Archaeology: Structures, Artifacts, Written Remains’; and ‘Modern Interpreters of Early Judaism’. Altogether an impressive achievement, with contributions from a notable array of international experts, this volume should prove its worth very quickly.
D.W. R
C
This is the second edition of A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in its Context (2008; see B.L. 2010, p. 16). C. has expanded the earlier edition at the request of colleagues and as a result of comments by students and other readers. He has added and rearranged material to some extent and has included further illustrations. As before, the book is further supported by an Instructor's Manual and pedagogical aids at www.oup.com/us/coogan. The book is highly recommended as a teaching tool.
R.B. S
C
This aesthetically pleasing two-volume encyclopaedia set addresses itself to the educated layperson and the beginning student. Each of the books of the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha as well as a number of other ancient texts (apostolic fathers, rabbinic literature, collections) receive an entry, along with a small number of general topics (canon and canon formation for relevant collections, translation and versions, textual criticism and interpretation). Entries for specific books typically begin with a discussion of the book's name, followed by canonical and versional matters, issues of authorship, dating, literary history, structure and contents (with an outline thereof) and a brief section on modern interpretative concerns not already addressed, concluding with a section on the book's reception, usually including (in the case of Hebrew Bible books) reference to Qumran, rabbinic, New Testament, patristic and some more recent interpretation. All entries include a bibliography, some of which are annotated. A Topical Outline of Contents at the end of the second volume (preceding the subject index) provides a usefully rapid means of determining whether a particular topical issue merited a separate entry; one might have liked to have seen this in the front matter of volume one, in addition to or in lieu of the alphabetical List of Articles. Overall, however, the set is a good collection of introductory articles by which novice biblical scholars may acquaint themselves with a given text and its particular issues.
C.L. C
D
‘Why has it taken the Baptist tradition so long to produce something like this volume?’ asks William John Lyons in the final section of the book (p. 294). Comprising extended versions of papers presented and discussed at a three-day gathering of Baptist theologians, this book aspires to be a springboard for further discussion of a hitherto neglected topic—Baptist hermeneutics—hoping ideally for contributions in the future from a wider diversity of cultures. It contains the following essays: Mikeal C. Parsons, ‘(Early) Baptist Identity and the Acts of the Apostles: Hermeneutical Insights from the Baptists’ Bible Project'; R. Alan Culpepper, ‘A Sample of Baptist Contributions to Johannine Scholarship (1940–2010)’; Paul S. Fiddes, ‘Prophecy, Corporate Personality and Suffering: Some Themes and Methods in Baptist Old Testament Scholarship’; Rex Mason, ‘Response to Paul Fiddes’; Christopher J. Ellis, ‘Gathering around the Word: Baptists, Scripture, and Worship’; Simon Perry, ‘The Bible in the Flesh: Pragmatism and Community in Lewis Misselbrook's Bible Study Notes’; Rex Mason, ‘Hermeneutics: The Interface between Critical Scholarship and the Faith Community’; Ian Birch, ‘Baptists and Biblical Interpretation: Reading the Bible with Christ’; Parush R. Parushev, ‘Baptist Convictional Hermeneutics’; John E. Colwell, ‘The Word of his Grace: What's So Distinctive about Scripture?’; Simon Woodman, ‘The Dissenting Voice: Journeying Together toward a Baptist Hermeneutic’; Helen Dare, ‘“In the Fray”: Reading the Bible in Relationship’; Sean Winter, ‘Persuading Friends: Friendship and Testimony in Baptist Interpretative Communities’; Brian Brock, ‘The Grammar of Baptist Assent’; and William John Lyons, ‘In Appreciation of “Reluctant” Prophets’. The papers do not present a uniform view but they are consistent in their emphasis on local congregations as the hermeneutical context, and on the centrality of the Spirit and the living Christ in the search for meaning. Clearly of major significance to Baptists, this exploration of Baptist approaches to the Bible will also be of interest to anyone at all engaged in the hermeneutical process and to those involved in education for ministry, especially within ecumenical partnerships.
K.S. W
D
The Schweich Lectures have become an institution, and this volume both makes a contribution to the institution and charts its establishment and history. D. was invited to give the lecture to mark the centenary (in 2008) of the first series by S.R. Driver. An amplified version of that lecture forms ch. 3 of this book, now prefaced by chapters on the Schweich family and on the lectures themselves. The lectures were named after Leopold Schweich, funded by a bequest of £10,000 given by his daughter Constance. Among the interesting facts which are presented is that the Deed required the Council to consider as lecturers ‘women equally with men’, but the current ratio is 1:66-the one being Kathleen Kenyon. (This reader was surprised to note how many of the lectures were never published.) D.'s centenary lecture was entitled ‘Archaeology and the Bible: a broken link?’ He surveys issues relating to the past and present relationship (using examples from Schweich lectures), with some thoughts about future directions. He notes that the approach taken by most of the lecturers was ‘from outside to in’ (p. 46), with relatively few taking as their starting point a biblical issue and seeking for external evidence to clarify it. The answer to the question posed by his title is that the link is weakened rather than broken, and indeed that the subject is in ‘reasonable health’ (p. 63). D. is to be thanked for providing a fascinating window on to a fascinating subject, and for his balanced and perceptive comments.
A.H.W. C
E
This collection of essays in honour of Professor Mettinger reflects on his many years of work in biblical studies. It begins with Terje Stordalen, ‘The God of the Eden Narrative’; Bob Becking, ‘Signs from the Garden: Some Remarks on the Relationship between Eve and Adam in Genesis 2–3’; Kåre Berge, ‘National Identity and Popular Sentiment in Genesis and Exodus’; and Rainer Albertz, ‘Moses as Mediator of Divine Salvation: The Late Exilic Book of Exodus (Exodus 1–34)’. Then Karl William Weyde, ‘The Narrative of King Solomon and the Law of the King: On the Relationship between 1 Kings 3–11 and Deuteronomy 17:14–20’, and Göran Eidevall, ‘Horeb Revisited: Reflections on the Theophany in 1 Kings 19’, focus on the historical books of the Bible. In ‘Yahweh Sabaoth and his Land in the Book of Amos’, Antti Laato draws inspiration from Professor Mettinger's 1982 study The Dethronement of Sabaoth to examine the two main theologies of land in the book of Amos. Other essays are Blaženka Scheuer, ‘The Days of Immanuel: Good Tidings or Bad News?’; Marjo Korpel, ‘The Messianic King: Isaiah 10:33–11:10’; Michael B. Dick, ‘Royal Dynasticism as Divine Legitimization’; Johannes C. de Moor, ‘The Holy Ones’; Mark S. Smith, ‘The Blessing God and Goddess: A Longitudinal View from Ugarit to “Yahweh and … his Asherah” at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud’; Ola Wikander, ‘God's Plan in Job and the “Wise Things” of Marduk’; and Kirsten Nielsen, ‘The Holy Spirit as Dove and as Tongues of Fire: Reworking Biblical Metaphors in a Modern Danish Hymn’. Unlike many Festschrifts, this is a well-ordered and coherent collection, which throws light on Mettinger's work.
P.K. A
F
This readable, illustrated companion (two-thirds dedicated to OT and one-third to NT) should be invaluable to lay people as well as students, although, despite its assertions (pp. xiii, 5) I doubt that it is suitable for those completely new to the Bible. For example, p. 6 gives a number of bracketed proper nouns (names of gods, characters and biblical books), but a newcomer would not know which are which. It is even questionable how many such readers would feel comfortable with the words ‘protagonist’, ‘antagonist’, ‘deuteragonist’, ‘foil’, ‘denouement’ and ‘consummation’ occurring within two sentences on the opening page (p. 3). However, my main criticism concerns the structure, namely the order of the sections, particularly the first, for the Companion opens with maps, lands of the Bible, sacraments and icons, transmission history, translation, archaeology, plants, animals, weights, measures, money and measuring time. From p. 73, the reading (and level) becomes easier, with a section-by-section commentary (a summary plus interpretative comments) for each of the biblical books, not including the Apocrypha. The authors have done well in trying to cater to an audience of wide-ranging knowledge levels, but the result is that the content levels also vary. Nevertheless, arguably, the most valuable parts to all are the numerous short articles and sidebars inset into the chapters, for example, a list of Israel's and Judah's kings (p. 228), an overview of the parallel histories in Joshua-Kings and Chronicles (pp. 227–30), and an introduction to the Temple (p. 231).
J.I. W
F
F. offers an engaging, at times almost journalistic, account of a ‘biography of the Bible’, by which she means a cultural history of the Bible as a material object. It is the English Bible which is in view, after a brief opening chapter, and this is in part because F.'s book has a somewhat unusual provenance, of which the reader should be aware. The genesis of the project lay in F.'s curating an exhibition of Christian Bibles held by the Huntington Library in California. And while the book is copiously (and fascinatingly) illustrated, it is worth noting that all but 5 of the 55 reproduced plates are from the Huntington collection. As a result, while the narrative of the history of the Bible as a book is circumscribed in manageable ways, and F. makes excellent use of her intimate acquaintance with the physical artefacts she discusses, one is left wondering if this criterion for inclusion is altogether a useful one. In so far as there is a particular thesis in view (and it is only intermittently in view, most clearly in a chapter entitled ‘On Not Understanding the Bible’), it is that the Bible remains a puzzling text in spite of its massive dissemination, and that this quality of obscurity is part of what sustains in turn its continued adaptation. The book is well written, packed with interesting examples, and offers a good readable account of certain aspects of the history of UK and US Bibles, despite the caveat noted above about its self-imposed constraints.
R.S. B
F
This is the English edition of a German volume that was reviewed in B.L. 2010, pp. 18–19. It was noted there that this is the first of a projected 22 volumes dealing with the reception history of the Bible with a particular emphasis on themes relating to women. The series will also be published in Spanish and Italian as well as in German and English, thereby maximizing the availability and accessibility of this important international collaborative interdisciplinary project.
D.W. R
F
This volume includes papers delivered at a session on ‘mixed marriages’ at the SBL International Meeting in Rome in 2009, with some supplementary essays added to broaden the discussion. As might be expected, many of the papers focus on the issue as presented in Ezra-Nehemiah. The contribution of C. Frevel and B.J. Conczorowski considers whether a literary development of the rejection of exogamy can be traced within the biblical tradition. K. Southwood argues that Ezra's intermarriage crisis provides insights into possible power structures within postexilic Judah. R. Rothenbusch contrasts the negative stance against mixed marriages in texts from the Diaspora with the more open, inclusive position taken in texts from the motherland. J. Pakkala focuses on the development of intermarriage and group identity in the Ezra tradition, while B.J. Conczorowski considers the conceptual differences between the texts on intermarriage in Genesis, Deuteronomy and Ezra. J. Clauss examines three perspectives in the Ezra-Nehemiah composition, namely, Temple, holy city and mixed marriages. K.S. Winslow has two contributions in the volume: one focuses on mixed marriages in the Pentateuchal traditions, while the other examines Moses' Cushite marriage as presented in the Pentateuch, in Artapanus and in Josephus. Y. Dor contrasts the marriage of Moses and Zipporah the Midianite (Exod. 2.16–22) with the story of Baal-Peor in Numbers 25 and 31. G.N. Knoppers warns that the perspective on mixed marriages found in Ezra-Nehemiah should not necessarily be taken as representative of the perspective adopted in the late Persian and early Hellenistic age. S. Grätz examines the extra-biblical evidence for mixed marriages in Persian and Hellenistic times. A. Lange considers mixed marriages in the context of Hellenistic religious reforms, while C. Frevel (who is also responsible for a valuable introduction to the volume) discusses intermarriage in the book of Jubilees. H. Harrington looks at intermarriage in the Qumran texts, and the volume concludes with a consideration by C.V. Camp of the biblical ideology of intermarriage from a feminist and gender-critical perspective. This is a wide-ranging volume and is an invaluable addition to the literature on the subject of mixed marriages in the Old Testament.
E.W. D
F
Those readers who look for a book which bridges the gap between critical scholarship and contemporary social issues will welcome this work. The book delivers exactly what it promises, and comprises five chapters: on homosexuality, abortion, women's status, capital punishment and environmental issues. The authors emphasize that they do not take any preconceived stance on the above issues. Their sole responsibility is to present what the Hebrew Bible, understood against the backdrop of its original milieu, teaches about the topics which are high on the agenda at the present moment. They are right in observing that Scripture continues to influence the social practices of Christians and Jews alike, and even those of other religions or no religion at all. This is why they see their role as correcting misinterpretation and abuse of biblical texts. Friedman and Dolansky fulfil their task with skill and clarity, and their own contribution can most clearly be seen in the longest of the five chapters—that on the status of women in biblical society. It has to be said that Friedman and Dolansky sometimes present arguments from silence, such as the assumption that rich Israelite men ‘had opportunities for group sex and for voyeurism of female homosexuality’ (p. 13), but their overall argument is usually well structured, balanced and objective. The book was written with the general educated reader in mind. Scholars may welcome it as a springboard for their own detailed analyses or as a useful tool for teaching students.
K. S
G
Ten papers previously published by the author between 1977 and 1997 are here presented practically unchanged. They reflect the author's well-known interest in historical and philological issues, and his equally well-known willingness to propose new and sometimes highly original solutions to old problems. In the first of the ten, G. argues for a dominant Egyptian and Phoenician rather than Mesopotamian influence on Genesis 1. There follows a study from 1978 of the Song of Deborah which brings its date down from the twelfth to the tenth or early ninth century. Sisera, usually thought to be Canaanite, is in reality of Aegean origin, and his slaying by Jael simulated a human sacrifice. From the following year we have a paper on the so-called Succession History which the author reads as a decidedly anti-monarchic text which could not possibly have served to legitimate Solomon's claim to the throne. It probably originated in northern prophetic circles contemporary with Elijah and Elisha. This would be an example of the author's biblical counter-narrative of prophetic origin contrapuntal with the dominant authoritarian narrative, the subject of the next essay. The Writings, which G. understands to be in part a reaction to the inroads of Greek philosophy, are represented by a paper on Proverbs, two on Job, dealing respectively with his wealth and his meteorological knowledge, and one on the Canticle read in the context of love poetry from the ancient Near East. The collection is rounded out with a brief study of the Genesis Apocryphon and reflections on the point of closure of ancient Hebrew literature which G. pegs at 135
J. B
G
For a review of this volume, see Section 11 below.
G
Despite the implication of the title that this is a newly conceived treatise on biblical interpretation, this volume is in fact a re-publication (and in some cases, a reworking, excerpting and/or recombination) of G.'s essays and articles spanning the period from 1972 to 2008. The freshly minted collection is divided into four parts and provides answers to a total of 23 ‘questions’, as follows. Part 1, ‘Concerning Scripture as a Whole’, consists of ‘What Is Involved in Understanding a Passage from the Bible?’; ‘What Difference Does it Make if You Are Premodern, Modern, or Postmodern?’; ‘Can We Learn from the Past? Luther and the Bible’; ‘Can We Learn from the Hermeneutics of Liberation Theology?’; ‘What Questions Does Evangelical Biblical Interpretation Need to Consider?’; ‘How Does Scripture Impact our Life with God?’; ‘How Should We Read Scripture in Church? Canon and Lection’; ‘How Might Preaching Be Scriptural?’; and ‘How Does the Bible Do Theological Reflection?’ Part 2, ‘Concerning Narrative’, contains ‘How Does Biblical Narrative Relate to Systematic Theology?’; ‘How Does Biblical Story Shape our Story?’; ‘How Do We Preach on Narrative?’; and ‘Does Biblical Narrative Need to Be Historical?’ Part 3, ‘Concerning the First Testament as a Whole’, has ‘How Does Christian Faith Relate to the First Testament?’; ‘In What Sense Is it Appropriate to Read the First Testament Christologically?’; ‘What Defines Evangelical Study of the First Testament?’; and ‘In What Way Does Evangelical Study of the First Testament Relate to the Canon?’ Part 4, ‘Concerning the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings’, asks, ‘How May We Interpret the Pentateuch?’; ‘Can We Read Prophecy in Light of the Newspaper?’; ‘Is There Prophecy Today?’; ‘How Does Poststructuralist Interpretation Work? Isaiah 40–55 as a Test Case’; ‘Is There Masculist Interpretation?’; and ‘How May We Interpret Wisdom, Poetry, and Writings?’. It will be obvious from this that the focus is on hermeneutical rather than exegetical principles, although textual examples are sometimes employed in the course of the essays. G.'s standpoint is that of an evangelical Christian, and his answers are clearly intended for this same audience as a means of commending an academic approach that is compatible with evangelical Christian belief. For this reason, his answers may prove unsatisfying to those who do not share this perspective, but he writes clearly and readably without arrogance, showing humour and wisdom, and the book will no doubt serve its target constituency well.
D.W. R
G
For a review of this volume, see Section 7 below.
G
The volume contains 13 essays originally delivered as lectures during a 2007 conference at Tel Aviv University. The aim of the conference was to investigate and explore issues and events of the period between 400 and 200
A.C. H
G
This Festschrift contains, in addition to the usual list of the honorand's publications, a brief tribute focusing especially on McConville's teaching career, and 12 essays by colleagues, friends and former students, divided by subject matter into three parts. As the title suggests, the contributions are generally theological in orientation. Part I, ‘Pentateuch and History’, opens with a thought-provoking study by Karl Möller of the ‘Images of God and Creation in Genesis 1–2’, employing a kind of mediated canonical approach, and continues with a rebuttal by Peter T. Vogt of Bernard M. Levinson's theory (in Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation) of the nature and relationship of the Passover laws in the Pentateuch (‘The Passover in Exodus and Deuteronomy’). The section also contains ‘The Understanding of the Nazirite Vow’ by Christine Hahn and a presentation of the ‘Rhetorical, Theological and Chronological Features of Ezra-Nehemiah’ by Herbert H. Klement. In Part II, ‘Prophets’, H.G.M. Williamson focuses on Micah and Isaiah to argue that the name Israel is used of Judah already in the eighth century (‘Judah as Israel in Eighth-Century Prophecy’); Hetty Lalleman examines ‘Paul's Self-Understanding in the Light of Jeremiah’; Christopher J.H. Wright considers Jeremiah through the lens of missiology (‘“Prophet to the Nations”’); Alison Lo discusses the ‘Remnant Motif in Amos, Micah and Zephaniah’; and Michael R. Stead deploys Jer. 25.36 to argue that the three shepherds of Zechariah 11 represent the nation's leadership in the form of king, priest and prophet (‘The Three Shepherds’). The volume concludes with Part III, ‘Poetry’, with two contributions on psalmody (‘The Golden Calf in the Psalms’, by Gordon J. Wenham, and ‘The Herm–eneutics of Humanity’, by Jamie A. Grant) and one on Lamentations (‘“I will Hope in Him”’, by Heath Thomas).
C.L. C
H
The study investigates and describes how German-Jewish scholars and intellectuals responded to the rise of biblical criticism in German universities during the nineteenth century. After an introduction setting the scene the book falls into three parts. Part I describes the role of biblical criticism and the foundation of the Society for Jewish Culture and Science, an association that can rightly be credited as being the birthplace of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Here the reader also finds a detailed treatment of I.M. Zunz (1793–1860), who ‘was the first modern Jew to write a comprehensive Jewish history’ (p. 50). Part II deals with the period before Wellhausen and with the separation of Jewish studies from biblical criticism. This period is illustrated by the debate of S.L. Steinheim (1789–1866) with W. Vatke. The last part is, of course, devoted to the various responses to J. Wellhausen and his followers. This time H. chooses the Reform activist S. Maybaum (1844–1919) who ‘depicts Judaism as a synthesis of the priesthood and the prophecy’ (p. 212). Since this period also sees a flourishing in Jewish thinking and exegesis H. supplements his portrait of Maybaum with discussions of the scholarship of H. Graetz, A. Geiger, L. Zunz and others. In the course of the work it becomes clear that biblical criticism was not a central occupation of Jewish studies in nineteenth-century Germany and that ‘the Jewish reception of biblical criticism was largely reactive in nature’ (p. 219). The book is a very welcome addition to the history of nineteenth-century biblical scholarship.
A.C. H
H
This close examination of the varying usage of the words denoting exile as the condition of the survivors of the final collapse of the kingdom of Judah in 587
R.E. C
H
This substantial volume is a Festschrift in honour of John J. Collins on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The book is divided into five sections, each one reflecting an area of Collins's immense scholarship. A select bibliography of Collins's published work starts off the volume, followed by an opening chapter written by D.C. Harlow, ‘“Showing the Wisdom of What He Has Learned”: The Scholarly Contribution of John J. Collins’, which is a fitting introduction to the book. The theme is rooted in recent debates about identity and the construction of the ‘other’, and is creatively explored through a variety of approaches by a range of scholars, former students and colleagues. ‘Part One: The Hebrew Bible and its Reception’ comprises eight papers: J.S. Kaminsky, ‘Israel's Election and the Other in Biblical, Second Temple and Rabbinic Thought’; C.A. Newsom, ‘God's Other: The Intractable Problem of the Gentile King in Judean and Early Jewish Literature’; K. Berthelot, ‘The Original Sins of the Canaanites’; S. Niditch, ‘Defining and Controlling Others Within: Hair, Identity, and the Nazirite Vow in the Second Temple Context’; S. Ackerman, ‘Otherworldly Music and the Other Sex’; T.H. Lim, ‘How Good Was Ruth's Hebrew? Ethnic and Linguistic Otherness in the Book of Ruth’; A. Finitsis, ‘The Other in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8’; N.S. Jacobs, ‘When the King Is the Other: Nebuchadnezzar's Hibernian Cousin’. ‘Part Two: Wisdom’ consists of K.M. Hogan, ‘Elusive Wisdom and the Other Nations in Baruch’; S.B. Pinette, ‘The Lady Vanishes: Wisdom in Ben Sira and Daniel’; M. Goff, ‘“The Foolish Nation that Dwells in Shechem”: Ben Sira on Shechem and the Other Peoples in Palestine’; S.L. Adams, ‘Poverty and Otherness in Second Temple Instructions’; D.J. Harrington, ‘Transcending Death: The Reasoning of “Others” and Afterlife Hopes in Wisdom 1–6’. ‘Part Three: Apocalypticism’ contains L. DiTommaso, ‘The Apocalyptic Other’; S. Freyne, ‘Apocalypticism as the Rejected Other: Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Early Christianity’; G.W.E. Nickelsburg, ‘The We and the Other in the Worldview of 1 Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Other Early Jewish Texts’; R. Raphael, ‘Monsters and the Crippled Cosmos: Construction of the Other in Fourth Ezra’; D.C. Harlow, ‘Idolatry and Alterity: Israel and the Nations in the Apocalypse of Abraham’. ‘Part Four: The Dead Sea Scrolls’ has S. Berg, ‘Religious Epistemology and the History of the Dead Sea Scrolls Community’; J.C. VanderKam, ‘The Wicked Priest Revisited’; E.D. Reymond, ‘Poetry of the Heavenly Other: Angelic Praise in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice’; E. Chazon with Y. Miller, ‘“At the Crossroads”: Anti-Samaritan Polemic in a Qumran Text about Joseph’. ‘Part Five: Jews among Greeks and Romans’, consists of M. Goodman, ‘Romans, Jews, and Christians on the Names of the Jews’; E.S. Gruen, ‘Jews and Greeks as Philosophers: A Challenge to Otherness’; R. Doran, ‘The Persecution of Judeans by Antiochus IV: The Significance of “Ancestral Laws”’; P.D. Ahearne-Kroll, ‘Constructing Jewish Identity in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Case of Artapanus’; R.A. Kugler, ‘Dispelling an Illusion of Otherness? Judicial Practice in the Heracleopolis Papyri’. This is an unmissable collection of papers for both students and scholars of the Second Temple period.
A. J
H
For a review of this volume, see Section 5.II below.
H
For a review of this volume, see Section 5.I below.
H
This volume of 20 essays was posthumously presented in honour and memory of Gerald T. Sheppard. Part 1 consists of W. Brueggemann, ‘Priests for the Kingdom: Two Priesthoods for Two Regimes’; E. Zenger, ‘“If You Listen to my Voice …” (Exodus 19:5): The Mystery of Revelation’; R. Heskett, ‘Deuteronomy 29–34 and the Formation of the Torah’; J.E. Harvey, ‘Jehoiachin and Joseph: Hope at the Close of the Deuteronomistic History’; P.D. Wegner, ‘Seams in the Book of Isaiah: Looking for Answers’; R.R. Wilson, ‘Scribal Culture and the Composition of the Book of Isaiah’; S.L. Cook, ‘An Interpretation of the Death of Isaiah's Servant’; D. Nogalski, ‘Micah 7:8–20: Re-evaluating the Identity of the Enemy’; N.K. Gottwald, ‘Social Drama in the Psalms of Individual Lament’; W.D. Suderman, ‘Are Individual Complaint Psalms Really Prayers? Recognizing Social Address as Characteristic of Individual Complaints’; D.J.C. Zub, ‘God as the Object of Anger in the Psalms’; P. Enns, ‘The Contribution of Ecclesiastes to Biblical Theology’; P. Zamora, ‘The Daniel and Qohelet Epilogues: A Similar Editorial Activity? (Qohelet 12:8–14 and Daniel 12:1–13)’; F.D. Macchia, ‘Justification by Faith: A Case of Hearing the One Gospel through Historically Dissimilar Traditions’; and M.T. Dempsey, ‘Divine Action and Biblical Interpretation: How the Ordinary Words of Men and Women Become the Living Word of God in Scripture’. Part 2 contains M.A. Taylor, ‘“Cold Dead Hands upon our Threshold”: Josephine Butler's Reading of the Story of the Levite's Concubine, Judges 19–21’; M.A. Sweeney, ‘The Portrayal of Assyria in the Books of Kings’; J. Pfenniger, ‘Speaking or Smouldering Lips in Song of Songs 7:10 (Eng. 9)?’; D.G. Meade, ‘Ancient Near Eastern Apocalypticism and the Origins of the New Testament Canon of Scripture’; and R.C. Fennell, ‘In the Bosom of the Beloved Disciple: The Fourth Gospel's Narrative Openness to Readers’. At the end is a list of the published works of Sheppard. Appropriately, several of these essays reflect the contribution of Sheppard to both the Old and New Testaments. This volume, with its variety of essays, helps its readers understand what it means to read the biblical text as Scripture. The connection made in Dempsey's essay between Sheppard's work on the aspect of hearing the Word of God and an interpretation of Karl Barth's theology of Scripture (pp. 235–56) explains perhaps the best way to engage in the theological interpretation of Scripture so that the biblical text may ‘once again speak with a power and authority that God alone can provide’ (p. 236).
P. S
H
A contribution to the growing literature on queer biblical interpretation, this collection features both exegetical and methodological essays that all in some way challenge or interrogate the heteronormative configurations of sex, gender and kinship (and race and class) that are employed in biblical interpretation. The net result of these readings is definitely to produce ‘Bible Trouble’, and to undermine the apparently assuredly gendered results of much prior biblical interpretation. Thus, Jael can appear as a lesbian icon, Rahab as a trickster who both maintains and deconstructs boundaries of race and gender, the Song of Songs as a celebration of musicosexual pleasures, and women prophets in Corinth as a model for those who live out transsexual identities. While by no means to everyone's taste, or indeed, to everyone's approval, as evidenced by one of the contributor's experiences in trying to present his hermeneutical perspective to a group of priests (p. 213), these readings raise important and unsettling questions about the use of biblical interpretation to reinforce a dominant perspective that is oppressive to significant numbers of people. The contributions are Hornsby and Stone, ‘Already Queer: A Preface’; Ellen T. Armour, ‘Queer Bible, Queer Scriptures? An Introductory Response’; Deryn Guest, ‘From Gender Reversal to Genderfuck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens’; Erin Runions, ‘From Disgust to Humor: Rahab's Queer Affect’; Ken Stone, ‘Queer Reading between the Bible and Film: Paris is Burning and the “Legendary Houses” of David and Saul’; Heidi Epstein, ‘Penderecki's Iron Maiden: Intimacy and Other Anomalies in the Canticum canticorum Salomonis’; S. Tamar Kamionkowski, ‘Queer Theory and Historical-Critical Exegesis: Queering Biblicists—A Response’; Teresa J. Hornsby, ‘Capitalism, Masochism, and Biblical Interpretation’; Jione Havea, ‘Lazarus Troubles’; Sean D. Burke, ‘Queering Early Christian Discourse: The Ethiopian Eunuch’; Manuel Villalobos, ‘Bodies Del Otro Lado Finding Life and Hope in the Borderland: Gloria Anzaldúa, the Ethiopian Eunuch of Acts 8:26–40, y Yo’; Joseph A. Marchal, ‘The Corinthian Women Prophets and Trans Activism: Rethinking Canonical Gender Claims’; Gillian Townsley, ‘The Straight Mind in Corinth: Problematizing Categories and Ideologies of Gender in 1 Corinthians 11:2–6’; Jay Twomey, ‘The Pastor and his Fops: Gender Indeterminacy in the Pastor and his Readers’; Lynn R. Huber, ‘Gazing at the Whore: Reading Revelation Queerly’; Jeremy Punt, ‘Queer Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Biblical Interpretation: A Preliminary Exploration of Some Intersections’; and Michael Brown, ‘What Happens When Closets Open Up? A Response’.
D.W. R
H
According to H.-B., the (Christian) Bible is a book of two religions—a ‘religion of creation’ to be embraced, and a ‘religion of empire’ to be rejected. The account proceeds in four major movements. An extended reading of the book of Genesis in Part I elaborates these two religious trajectories in their starkest form. Part II takes the narrative ‘from Exodus to Exile’, as Solomon's imperial rule sets up the compromised nationhood that resulted in exile. ‘Exodus’ (following Michael Oblath), composed as the northern ‘counter-story to the imperial saga that legitimated Solomon’ (p. 139), is part of this story. Similarly, Mosaic law is treated as an element of the postexilic ‘Persian project’ of rebuilding, treated in Part III, ‘From Exile to Easter’. Part IV carries the case for the ‘creation v. empire’ dichotomy through the New Testament writings whose authors are seen consistently to side with ‘the religion of the Creator God’ against ‘empire’. H.-B. has produced a wide-ranging tour de force, fitting as the result of more than two decades' reflection on the biblical and historical roots of violence and domination. But this undeniably stimulating volume is not without its frustrations. What may strike some as creative insight will strike others as tendentious, especially the insistence on seeing ‘agriculture’ (thus ‘creation’) lurking in unexpected places. H.-B. writes with clarity, but the basic introductions, reader helps, tables and so on, suggest an audience (American, judging by the modern analogies invoked) unfamiliar with the Bible and biblical scholarship, and ill-equipped to gauge the success of H.-B.'s claims and readings.
D.J. R
J
The late Sarah Kamin (1938–1989) contributed significantly to the study of the peshaṭ method in Jewish biblical interpretation, and a related seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem marked the twentieth anniversary of her death. Most of this volume originated in that seminar, and the classical mediaeval commentaries stand at its centre. Rashi's commentary on Exodus 6.1–9 is reconsidered by Baruch J. Schwartz, and his understanding of narrative exposition is tackled by Aharon Mondschein. David Qimḥi is also the subject of two articles, the first by Yitzhak Berger on his Genesis commentary and how it compares with his exegesis of the prophetic and hagiographical books, and the second by Naomi Grunhaus on the ‘polarized construct’ in his treatment of peshaṭ and talmudic-midrashic comment. Uriel Simon applies his expertise to Ibn Ezra's peshaṭ exegesis within the broader context of his literary works in Christian Europe while Itamar Kislev describes Rashbam's use of rabbinic sources in his pentateuchal commentary. In addition, Simcha Kogut provides numerous examples of how these exegetes dealt with the phenomenon of apparently redundant words and letters in the biblical text. The respective approaches of Sa'adya Gaon and his Karaite theological adversaries to the notion of the Torah ‘speaking in human language’ are studied by Haggai Ben-Shammai. On the philological front, Ronela Merdler analyses how Jewish grammatical commentaries on the Bible developed in the Babylonian, Sefaradi and Ashkenazi worlds, and an appendix by Uri Melamed provides a scientific edition of Solomon Ibn Melekh's introduction to his Mikhlal Yofi. Sara Japhet provides an introduction to, and a critical edition of, an anonymous commentary on Song of Songs extant in a twelfth-century northern French unicum now in Prague. Modern themes receive the attention of Mordechai Z. Cohen who discusses recent research, including that of Kamin, on peshaṭ, and of Eran Viezel who writes about David Kahana (1838–1915) and how his exegesis relates to the ideas of the eastern European enlightenment. The editors' introduction summarizes the articles, as well as the significance of the subject being treated, and reminds the reader of the significance of Kamin's work. There are indexes of sources and names but no English summaries of the articles.
S.C. R
J
The 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible has resulted in a rash of celebratory publications examining various aspects of the production and influence of this iconic translation. The present volume is one such publication, a collection of essays from specialists in their field, addressing a range of issues relating mostly to the reception history of the KJB. Following an introduction by Jeffrey, the essays are Alister E. McGrath, ‘The “Opening of Windows”: The King James Bible and Late Tudor Translation Theories’; Laura L. Knoppers, ‘Translating Majesty: The King James Bible, John Milton, and the English Revolution’; David W. Bebbington, ‘The King James Bible in Britain from the Late Eighteenth Century’; Mark Noll, ‘The King James Version at 300 in America: “The Most Democratic Book in the World”’; Lamin Sanneh, ‘The King James Bible, Mission, and the Vernacular Impetus’; Philip Jenkins, ‘Regions Luther Never Knew: Ancient Books in a New World’; Robert Alter, ‘The Question of Eloquence in the King James Version’; and Beth Allison Barr, ‘The Word that Endureth Forever: A Century of Scholarship on the King James Version’. A timely and stimulating collection that opens windows on the translation that itself was intended to open a window onto Scripture for those who read it.
D.W. R
J
Six of the papers in this collection were offered at SBL in Auckland, with four added responses. Together they explore aspects of the Deuteronomic History, Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah in relation to questions of identity in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The original six are J.L. Berquist, ‘Identities and Empire: Historiographic Questions for the Deuteronomic History in the Persian Period’; K. Spronk, ‘The Book of Judges as a Late Construct’; M.G. Brett, ‘National Identity as Commentary and as Metacommentary’ (focusing on Ezra-Nehemiah); M. Leuchter, ‘Coming to Terms with Ezra's Many Identities in Ezra-Nehemiah’; L. Jonker, ‘David's Officials According to the Chronicler (1 Chronicles 23–27): A Reflection of Second Temple Self-Categorization’; and C. Mitchell, ‘Otherness and Historiography in Chronicles’. Part 2 of the book gives the four responses: R.F. Person Jr, ‘Identity (Re)formation as the Historical Circumstances Required’; A. Siedlecki, ‘Persian Period Studies Have Come of Age’; G. Shyman, ‘Identity, Power, and the World of Ancient (Biblical) Text Production’; and finally, J.L. Wright offers many polite but critical comments about points of detail, recommending the wider use of this format of papers plus responses for ‘continuing these worthwhile conversations’ (p. 167). Summing up, this is a very helpful, coherent and insightful set of papers and responses which advances our insights into the developing field of the processes of biblical text production in the Persian period. For this reviewer, the use of critical theory (Jonker, Mitchell and Shyman) is especially welcome.
S.F. B
J
This volume contains the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference at Stellenbosch in 2010 on identity negotiation, especially as it relates to postexilic historiography. An opening piece on Ricoeur suggests that South African Reformed theological discourse has not been well served for ‘hermeneutical sensitivity’ with regard to such key matters as awareness of context. The papers that follow (with six of the ten contributors holding posts in South Africa) then seek to model such an awareness, whether of the complex social contexts of production of the texts, or (in the final two pieces) in the contexts of reading them today. Among the texts considered it is mainly Chronicles which is in view. Identity negotiation is indeed surely one category among many which will serve the careful reader well, and there is much here of interest to those wanting to refine the sociological (and to some extent postcolonial) categories to hand. The essays and contributors are as follows: ‘Introduction: Reflecting on Historiography and Identity Negotiation’ (Louis Jonker); ‘The Writing of History as Remedy or Poison? Some Remarks on Paul Ricoeur's Reflections on Memory, Identity and “The Historiographical Operation”’ (Robert Vosloo); ‘Exile, Return, and Diaspora: Expatriates and Repatriates in Late Biblical Literature’ (Gary Knoppers); ‘Engaging with Different Contexts: A Survey of the Various Levels of Identity Negotiation in Chronicles’ (Louis Jonker); ‘On Social Memory and Identity Formation in Late Persian Yehud: A Historian's Viewpoint with a Focus on Prophetic Literature, Chronicles and the Deuteronomistic Historical Collection’ (Ehud Ben Zvi); ‘Contextuality in Wisdom Literature: The Provenance of LXX Proverbs and Job as Case Studies’ (Johann Cook); ‘Achaemenid Rule and its Impact on Yehud’ (Josef Wieshöfer); ‘Persian Period Judah: A New Perspective’ (Oded Lipschits); ‘“A Tale of Two Cities”: The Visual Symbol Systems of Yehud and Samaria and Identity/Self-understanding in Persian-period Palestine’ (Izak Cornelius); ‘Why Asa Was Not Deemed Good Enough: A Decolonial Reading of 2 Chronicles 14–16’ (Gerrie Snyman); and ‘Imbokodo Explorations of the Prevalence of Historical Memory and Identity Contestations in the Expulsion of the Nāšim Nokriyyōt in Ezra 9–10’ (Makoshi Nzimande).
R.S. B
J
This collection of essays sets out to examine the consequences, particularly for women, of the unequal relationship between the sexes in various religious and cultural contexts. Its contributors are from a range of social and national backgrounds, and bring their experiences of those contexts to bear in their essays. Several of the contributions examine biblically related topics, while the remainder consider theological, historical, pastoral and philosophical issues. Following Jost and Raschzok's ‘Gender—Religion—Kultur. Eine Einleitung’, in which the volume's philosophy is set forth and the papers are summarized, the contributions are Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Gender, Sprache und Herr-schaft. Feministische The∗logie als Kyriarch-atsforschung’; Jost, ‘Von altorientalischen Göttinnen zu Marienvorstellung. Eine feministisch-evangelische Perspektive’; Wanda Deifelt, ‘Hermeneutics of the Body: A Feminist Liberation Approach’; Asnath Niwar Natar, ‘Koloniale und postkoloniale Bibelauslegung in Indonesien’; Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, ‘Bathsheba Reconsidered: Sexual Violation and After’; Akiko Yanashita, ‘Bibelauslegung und Patriarchat am Beispiel Japans’; Ruth Lapide, ‘Von Liebe, Leid und Lust in der Bibel. Warum schuf Gott die Welt?’; Susanne Schenk, ‘Königin Mathilde—Theologin des englischen Investiturstreites’; Susannah Heschel, ‘Merkwürdige Affinitäten. Bibelwissenschaft und der Aufstieg des Rassismus’; Fulbert Steffensky, ‘Untergegangene Welten. Die Erinnerung an eine religiöse Kindheit’; Andrea Fröchtling, ‘Curriculum (vitae)—positiv leben lernen. Überlegungen zu einer HIV/AIDS-bezogenen Pastoraltheologie/-pädagogik’; Dagmar Konrad, ‘Für Gott und Ehemann?—Auf den Spuren schwäbischer Missionsbräute des 19. Jahrhunderts’; Klaus Schäfer, ‘“Ite missa est”. Das Bild der Mission in brasilianischer Erzählliteratur. Eine kultur- und missionswissenschaftliche Lektüre von Darcy Ribeiro's Roman “Maíra”’; Peter L. Oesterreich, ‘Ironie, Liebe und Religion. Zur Tropologie sexueller Selbsterfindung bei F. Schlegel’. This is a thought-provoking collection that by its avowed subjectivity—its contributors openly acknowledge their agendas—offers many challenges to what might be termed more traditional modes of discourse.
D.W. R
K
For a review of this volume, see Section 9 below.
K
This is K.'s third book, after Secrets of the Jewish Exile (2005) and The Exilic Code (2009; B.L. 2010, p. 22), and he addresses an important question: who actually wrote the books of the Hebrew Bible? He applies decoding techniques to the texts—some established such as Athbash, others new and employing sophisticated methods that would not have been possible before computers. Cryptography was certainly widely practised in the ancient world, and the Hebrew Scriptures are an ongoing challenge. Even those not persuaded by the detail of the arguments will find themselves pondering some of the results: the Benediction in Numbers 6 as a lament for Jehoiachin, for example, or the encoded information about Josadak shedding light on Judah during the Exile.
M. B
K
This substantial volume—entirely in English—is the product of two conferences initiated, it seems, by two postgraduates of the Hebrew Bible programme in Göttingen, B. Corzilius and T. Pilger, who also provide an introduction to this collection. Interdisciplinary concerns remained at the forefront of the symposia, engaging biblical studies and archaeology in fruitful conversation. The essays are arranged under four headings. Part I is devoted to ‘The Great Monarchy’ of David and Solomon: essays by I. Finkelstein and A. Mazar cover the scholarly context and recent archaeological developments from distinctive but intersecting perspectives; E. Blum attends to text and method for the reign of Solomon; the essays by A. Rofé and M. Witte examine biblical and postbiblical aspects respectively of 1 Kings 12. Part II explores the theme of cult centralization under Hezekiah and Josiah: R. Kratz evaluates the impact of ANE analogies in the study of this theme in the Hebrew Bible; H. Schaudig's companion piece attends to the ANE materials themselves; Z. Herzog examines the evidence provided by Arad and Beer-sheba; J. Pakkala attempts to demonstrate ‘why the cult reforms in Judah probably did not happen’. Three essays in Part III by A. Mazar, G. Mazor and K. Heyden focus on various aspects of Beth-Shean, bringing archaeological and cultural history to the fore across a wide chronological span. Part IV, ‘The One and the Only’, addresses concepts of the divine from a variety of perspectives: H. Spieckermann illuminates the nexus of deity and king via ANE parallels; M. Köckert contrasts the cult of YHWH in ‘North’ and ‘South’; E. Stern surveys the archaeological evidence brought to bear on poly- and monotheism; M. Segal investigates ‘monotheism and angelology’ in Daniel; and C. Auffarth carries forward exploration of ‘emerging monotheism’ using the theme of ‘justice’. Even these pithy summaries demonstrate both the variety of essays and their internal resonances. While it might be lamented that the contributions of younger scholars did not make it to print, one can imagine how stimulating the original conferences must have been by the high quality of the volume that emerged from them.
D.J. R
K
K. argues that much biblical interpretation has underestimated the affective aspect of biblical texts, and aims to persuade readers and teachers to be more aware of it. His premise is that ‘affective appeal in various forms is the means by which narratives, including biblical narratives, compel us to enter their storied world and try out the version of reality they present’ (p. 63). He adopts, therefore, a form of ‘affective-rhetorical analysis’, alongside exegetical analysis, drawing on Aristotelian ‘pathos’ as the function of discourse that aims to engage the emotions of the reader in pursuit of its persuasive objectives (p. 6). He rehearses arguments in cognitive philosophy about the relationship between emotion and intellectual judgment, and, accepting that some emotions have non-cognitive origins, he proposes nonetheless that many emotions derive from conscious appraisals related to our values (p. 23); that they are therefore a gauge of what matters most to us; that they are to some extent culturally conditioned; and that, for the most part, they are universal, as our reading of great literature testifies (p. 24). K. offers close studies from the Lukan infancy narratives, but cites examples from the Old Testament en passant, for example the Genesis Joseph narrative. His incidental comments on possible affective responses intentionally elicited by texts are less illuminating than his close studies, for example, on Josh. 11.16–20, ‘Give ‘em hell, Joshua, servant of Yahweh, Warrior God’ (p. 144). This suggests that ‘affective analysis’ always needs the careful support from exegesis that he gives to his close studies of Luke.
J.G. M
L
The Book List does not normally review periodicals, and as a collection of abstracts the IRBS defies any easy summary. This volume, however, is the last: with no other institution willing to take it on, and following the retirement from Paderborn of L., who has edited it so thoroughly and energetically for more than a quarter of a century, this invaluable review has been forced to close after sixty years of publication. The 507 pages of familiar, carefully arranged abstracts of books and articles in this final volume are preceded, therefore, by a brief account by the editor of the review's history, from its origins in Tübingen under Fridolin Stier through to the present day, which also includes a personal overview of changes in the field. They are followed by an appendix listing L.'s own publications, many of which will be well known to all in the field. Since he has spent several days each week on abstracting for so many years, the quality and length of this list would appear to prove decisively that L. neither eats nor sleeps. Scholars of both the Hebrew Bible and its Christian appendix are greatly in his debt, and at a time when the need for it seems ever greater, the IRBS will be sorely missed.
S.D.E. W
L
This volume is a collection of ten articles from authors who represent a range of views within the Korean feminist Christian movement. What the essays have in common is engagement with the Bible as a resource for modern Korean women who struggle with diverse issues in their contemporary society. Two writers draw on the book of Ruth. One demonstrates how a naive reading has been used to support traditional Korean ideology about class and patriarchy, before offering a critical reading that encourages women to challenge these ideas (K.S. Lee, ‘Neo-Confucian Ideology in the Interpretation of the Book of Ruth: Toward a Cross-checking Hermeneutics’). The other discusses Ruth in relation to the plight of migrant women in Korea (K.Y. Han, ‘Migrant Woman and Intermarriage in Korea: Looking at Human Rights with Help from the Book of Ruth’). Biblical women are used as examples in a discussion about leadership in the Korean church (Y. Yoo, ‘Woman's Leadership Fragmented: Examples from the Bible and the Korean Church’); and the concept of mohar (Exod. 22.16) is related to the Korean practice of ‘marriage by purchase’ in another essay (E.A. Lee, ‘Marriage by Purchase? Mohar in the Hebrew Bible and Korean Society’). Most of the essays engage with Hebrew Bible texts but there are two readings of Gospel passages, one of which explores the fate of women scarred by sexual slavery under the Japanese during World War II alongside Mark 5, the story of the healing of the woman with a haemorrhage (M.K. Yang, ‘Lessons about Healing: Korean Comfort Women and the Hemorrhaging Woman of Mark 5’; K.M. Park, ‘Reading Matthew 20.1–16 from a Non-Developmentalist Perspective’). A postcolonial reading of the Lord's Prayer is also offered (S.H. Kim, ‘Our [Neither] Mother and [Nor] Father in Heaven: A Postcolonial Reading of the Lord's Prayer’). The remaining contributions are Y.M. Lee, ‘Motherhood as a Theological Model for Redemption in the Hebrew Bible’; H.J. Bae, ‘Embracing Life and the Bible: Toward a Hermeneutics of Compassion in Detachment’; and S.Y. Kim, ‘Personal Reflections on Feminist Ministry as a Transforming Power’. The contributions provide a good insight into Korean society and the issues faced by its women in the twenty-first century. The distinctive nature of the feminist biblical scholarship that is emerging from the Korean Church is revealed in this volume, and Western readers will learn much from it.
J.E. T
L
This is not a book relating directly to the Bible or its study, though Jacob (fig. 74) and Paul (pl. 29) each get a brief look-in. But its concern with the Neolithic of Çatalhöyük—theories concerning which are expounded and then tested against the Atlantic Neolithic sites of Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey and Dowth and Newgrange in Ireland—is of importance for our understanding of the growth of ancient religion and the genesis of many of the great symbolic nexuses of ANE (including Israelite) religious life. The introduction into ritual life of the aurochs (the forebear of modern domestic cattle) by its corralling for sacrificial purposes contributed to the importance of bovid symbolism in particular, which is echoed, though the authors do not note this, in Num. 23.22 and 24.8, which envisage El the aurochs-god as the saviour of Israel from Egypt. The book's analysis of the types of consciousness influenced by architectural forms as well as the use of mind-altering substances by early shamanic religion also has a bearing on our understanding of the roots of Near Eastern prophecy. These ideas, dealing in psychological universals, may be regarded as a challenge to some of the particularities of OT study, but are important for their contextualization in human experience and prehistory. To readers whose instinctive reaction is ‘how can this possibly be of any relevance to biblical scholarship?’, the answer is that if the Bible claims (or is claimed by its devotees) to deal in human universals, then here are some useful ones to begin with.
N. W
L
Any lingering doubts about the credentials of reception history as a scholarly discipline must now be put away with the appearance of this Oxford Handbook, a sure gauge of a discipline's scholarly acceptability and of the interest that it generates. Contributors to this volume are by no means all primarily biblical scholars, but there are many well-known names from the biblical guild among the essayists, as well as those from within and without the biblical fold who have already earned their reception history credentials by writing for the Blackwell Bible Commentary series. The first part of the volume consists of 12 survey essays on different biblical books, giving an overview of scholarly ideas about each book: Rachel Havrelock, ‘Genesis’; John F.A. Sawyer, ‘Job’; Katharine J. Dell, ‘Psalms’; John F.A. Sawyer, ‘Isaiah’; Paul M. Joyce, ‘Ezekiel’; John J. Collins, ‘Daniel’; David M. Gunn, ‘Judges’; Catrin H. Williams, ‘The Gospel of John’; Guy J. Williams, ‘Romans’; Judith L. Kovacs, ‘1 Corinthians’; John Riches, ‘Galatians’; and Christopher Rowland, ‘Revelation’. The second part then consists of a further 32 essays, in which the contributors examine particular themes and texts in relation to a wide range of specific circumstances of reception. Some of these essays address what might be termed expected topics, such as Exodus and liberation theology, or Genesis and Darwinism, or Handel's Messiah; others are more unusual, such as Ezekiel 1 and the American-based Black Nationalist movement the Nation of Islam, or depictions of Bible stories in the folk art of the American South. The complete list is Albert C. Labriola, ‘The Bible and Iconography’; David J. Clark, ‘Linguistic and Cultural Influences on Interpretation in Translations of the Bible’; Mary Carruthers, ‘Memory, Imagination, and the Interpretation of Scripture in the Middle Ages’; Peter Clarke, ‘The Origins, Scope, and Spread of the Millenarian Idea’; Richard Harries, ‘Non-retaliation and Military Force: Their Basis in the Bible’; Tobias Nicklas, ‘The Bible and Anti-Semitism’; Piero Boitani, ‘Dante and the Bible: A Sketch’; John Butt, ‘George Friedric Handel and The Messiah’; Ann Loades, ‘Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible’; Atsuhiro Asano, ‘Uchimura and the Bible in Japan’; Carol Crown, ‘One Bible, Two Preachers: Patchwork Sermons and Sacred Art in the American South’; Michael J. Gilmour, ‘Bob Dylan's Bible’; Robin Griffith-Jones, ‘From John's Gospel to Dan Brown: The Magdalene Code’; Ismo Dunderberg, ‘Gnostic Interpretations of Genesis’; John Hedley Brooke, ‘Samuel Wilberforce, Thomas Huxley, and Genesis’; Jay Emerson Johnson, ‘Sodomy and Gendered Love: Reading Genesis 19 in the Anglican Communion’; Scott M. Langston, ‘Exodus in Early Twentieth-Century America: Charles Reynolds Brown and Lawrence Langner’; Paulo Nogueira, ‘Exodus in Latin America’; Emma Mason, ‘Elihu's Spiritual Sensation: William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job’; Michael Lieb, ‘Ezekiel 1 and the Nation of Islam’; Isabel Wollaston, ‘Post-Holocaust Jewish Interpretations of Job’; Kenneth G.C. Newport, ‘Seventh-day Adventists, Daniel, and Revelation’; Jo Carruthers, ‘Esther and Hitler: A Second Triumphant Purim’; George Pattison, ‘Kierkegaard on the Lilies and the Birds: Matthew 6’; Jeremy Holtom, ‘Gandhi's Interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount’; Brad Braxton, ‘Preaching, Politics, and Paul in Contemporary African-American Christianity’; Zoë Bennett, ‘Ruskin, the Bible, and the Death of Rose La Touche: A “Torn Manuscript of the Human Soul”’; Tim Gorringe, ‘Karl Barth on Romans’; Mark Edwards, ‘Augustine and Pelagius on the Epistle to the Romans’; Peter Matheson, ‘Luther on Galatians’; Gordon Allan, ‘Joanna Southcott: Enacting the Woman Clothed with the Sun’; and Valentine Cunningham, ‘Bible Reading and/after Theory’. This is a fascinating collection that demonstrates just how influential the Bible has been, and continues to be, across a wide range of cultures and time-periods. If one is looking for faults, it could be said that the collection is largely Western-focused, with only two of the essays in the second part (Asano and Holtom) dealing with non-Western topics, and nothing at all about the reception of the Bible in Africa. On the other hand, it could be argued that such an approach is justified on the grounds that the Bible is the Western cultural icon par excellence, and so it will have had its greatest effect in Western and Western-related cultural settings. With the proviso, then, that this collection is but a sample of the riches available to those who choose to investigate biblical reception history, it is certainly to be recommended.
D.W. R
L
Following the logic of the chronological order of the series of volumes on Judah and the Judaeans (due to their size the volumes are sometimes known as ‘the bricks’) the present volume focuses on the Achaemenid period. It contains studies on the identity of Judaeans during the Persian period, and like its predecessor volumes it collects essays that show the state of the art in the subject and should find their way into any serious library on the Persian Period. The individual essays are: K. Schmid, ‘Judean Identity and Ecumenicity: The Political Theology of the Priestly Document’; J. Schaper, ‘Torah and Identity in the Persian Period’; A.C. Hagedorn, ‘The Absent Presence: Cultural Responses to Persian Presence in the Eastern Mediterranean’; C. Nihan, ‘Ethnicity and Identity in Isaiah 56–66’; J. Middlemas, ‘Trito-Isaiah's Intra- and Internationalization: Identity Markers in the Second Temple Period’; D. Rom-Shiloni, ‘From Ezekiel to Ezra-Nehemiah: Shifts of Group Identities within Babylonian Exilic Ideology’; J. Wöhrle, ‘Israel's Identity and the Threat of the Nations in the Persian Period’; Y. Dor, ‘The Rite of Separation of the Foreign Wives in Ezra-Nehemiah’; K. Southwood, ‘The Holy Seed: The Significance of Endogamous Boundaries and their Transgression in Ezra 9–10’; D.N. Fulton, ‘What Do Priests and Kings Have in Common? Priestly and Royal Succession Narratives in the Achaemenid Era’; P.-A. Beaulieu, ‘Yahwistic Names in Light of Late Babylonian Onomastics’; L.E. Pearce, ‘“Judean”: A Special Status in Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Babylonia?’; D. Redford, ‘Some Observations on the Traditions Surrounding “Israel in Egypt”’; A. Lemaire, ‘Judean Identity in Elephantine: Everyday Life According to the Ostraca’; J.F. Quack, ‘The Interaction of Egyptian and Aramaic Literature’; B. Becking, ‘Yehudite Identity in Elephantine’; R.G. Kratz, ‘Judean Ambassadors and the Making of Jewish Identity: The Case of Hananiah, Ezra, and Nehemiah’; O. Tal, ‘Negotiating Identity in an International Context under Achaemenid Rule: The Indigenous Coinages of Persian-Period Palestine as an Allegory’; R. Albertz, ‘Judeans, Jews, Children of Abraham’; J. Blenkinsopp, ‘The Controversy about Judean versus Israelite Identity and the Persian Government: A New Interpretation of the Bagoses Story (Jewish Antiquities XI.297–301)’; J.L. Wright, ‘Surviving in an Imperial Context: Foreign Military Service and Judean Identity’; D.S. Vanderhooft, ‘'el-medina umedina kiktabah: Scribes and Scripts in Yehud and in Achaemenid Transeuphratene’; M. Oeming, ‘Jewish Identity in the Eastern Diaspora in Light of the Book of Tobit’; and A. Kloner, ‘The Identity of the Idumeans Based on the Archaeological Evidence from Maresha’. The usual indexes help make the volume more reader-friendly.
J. S
L
This collection of short yet excellent studies by his colleagues, friends and former students pays worthy tribute to Gilles Dorival, a scholar who has made a huge contribution to the textual and contextual study of the Septuagint and to the study of the use of Scripture among the Greek Fathers, especially Origen. The topics covered reflect Dorival's own interests. Section 1 deals with the Septuagint, covering matters of language, translation techniques, relation to the Hebrew text, and its place in patristic writings (Part 1), as well as studies dealing directly with the Hebrew text and some Aramaic (including Syriac) versions (Part 2). Section 2 contains papers on diverse topics relating to translations, the transmission of legends, and the interpretation of Scripture in the early Christian period. The contributions are of the highest standards and reflect a sensitivity to the importance of understanding a text's transmission prior to examining its contents, a feature so characteristic of Dorival's own work. The volume contains the following papers. Section 1, ‘Les Textes Bibliques’, Part 1, ‘La Septante’: C. Amphoux and A. Sérandour, ‘La date de la forme courte de Jérémie’; I. Assan-Dhote and J. Moatti-Fine, ‘“Moi, je serai comme une de tes esclaves!” (Rt 2, 13) Paidískē dans la Bible grecque: esclave et concubine, esclave et mère porteuse’; M. Aussedat, ‘Versions et traduction du texte biblique dans les chaines exégétiques grecques du livre de Jérémie’; F. Bouet-de Quatrebarbes, ‘La variante λóγς-νóμoς (logos-nomos) dans les Psaumes de la Septante’; M. Casevitz, ‘Sur les comparaisons dans les Odes de la Septante’; N. de Lange, ‘From Eros to Pneuma: On the Greek Translation of the Song of Songs’; C. Dogniez, ‘Les habits de la vengeance divine dans la Septante’; M. Harl, ‘Le statut incertain du Chant de la vigne (Isaïe 5, 1–7) chez Origène et dans les listes anciennes de cantiques bibliques’; K. Hauspie, ‘Les verbes de “crainte” et leurs compléments dans la Septante d'Ézéchiel’; J. Joosten, ‘Le dieu Iao et le tréfonds araméen des Septante’; and D. Mangin, ‘L'envers d'une traduction. Note à propos de Job 27, 2a et 23, 13’. Part 2, ‘Bibles orientales’: B. Barc, ‘De la pierre à la brique ou la métamorphose de l'Écriture’; M. Bauks, ‘Coq, ibis, autruche. De la sagesse (manquante) de l'ětre humain et de l'animal dans le livre de Job (Job 39, 13–18 et Job 38, 36)’; C. Jullien, ‘Dans le royaume de Nemrod. Autour d'interprétations de Gn 10, 10–12’; and E. Tov, ‘The Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin Translations of Hebrew Scripture vis-à-vis the Masoretic Text’. Section 2, ‘Les Traditions parallèles à la Bible’, Part 1, ‘Histoire et historiographie’: M.F. Baslez, ‘Écrire l'histoire dans le judaïsme hellénisé et le premier christianisme: les galeries de figures ancestrales’; K. Berthelot, ‘Les Cananéens dans les Antiquités Juives de Flavius Josèphe’; D. Briquel, ‘Un reflet inattendu de la Septante: le récit de création étrusque de la Souda’; C.G. Conticello, ‘Le projet d'un répertoire des traductions de textes chrétiens du latin au grec (IIIe–XVe s.): quelques exemples’; S.C. Mimouni, ‘Les traditions sur la famille de Jésus’; O. Munnich, ‘Le regard de Justin sur l'hellénisme: Apologie I, 18’; and G.G. Stroumsa, ‘Barbares ou hérétiques? Juifs et Arabes dans la conscience byzantine (IVe–VIIIe s.)’. Part 2, ‘Exégèses patristiques et juives’: J.-M. Auwers, ‘Le thiase des chrétiens ou la revanche de Dionysos?’; J. Paramelle and G. Bady, ‘Le début inédit du Prologue de la Synopse attribuée à Jean Chrysostome’; F. Prometea Barone, ‘La Synopse de la Sainte Écriture du Pseudo Chrysostome transmise par le Barberinianus gr. 317’; M.O. Boulnois, ‘Le Christ mange-t-il comme les anges? Traces d'exégèse juive dans la christologie docète’; R. Brändle, ‘Franz Overbeck und Oscar Cullmann zu Christentum und Kultur’; J.M. Chouraqui, ‘Amour du prochain et sainteté: lectures juives de Lévitique 19’; É. Junod, ‘Les mots d'Eusèbe de Césarée pour désigner les livres du Nouveau Testament et ceux qui n'en font pas partie’; A. Le Boulluec, ‘Regards antiques sur Adam au Golgotha’; L. Perrone, ‘Approximations origéniennes: notes pour une enquěte lexicale’; B. Pouderon, ‘Le salut en dehors de l'Église chez Justin’; and A. Schenker, ‘L'apport durable des Hexaples d'Origène. Bilan de la Lettre à Africanus, bilan aujourd'hui’. The editors provide a preface and bibliography of Dorival.
H.M. P
M
This rich two-volume Festschrift for James VanderKam includes the following: An Introduction, lists of publications by the honoree and dissertations he directed, followed by Part I (The Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East): ‘Configuring the Text in Biblical Studies’ (H. Najman), ‘The Relevance of Textual Theories for the Praxis of Textual Criticism’ (E. Tov), ‘Sea, Storm, Tragedy, and Ethnogenesis: Living the Blues and (Re) Building Community in Post-Katrina America and Early Israel’ (H.R. Page), ‘Cain's Legacy: The City and Justice in the Book of Genesis’ (S. Park), ‘The Biblical Manumission Laws: Has the Literary Dependence of H on D Been Demonstrated?’ (J.S. Bergsma), ‘The History of Pentecontad Time Units (I)’ (J. Ben-Dov), ‘The Egyptian Goddess Ma'at and Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9: Reassessing their Relationship’ (S.J. Schweitzer), ‘From Name to Book: Another Look at the Composition of the Book of Isaiah with Special Reference to Isaiah 56–66’ (J.T. Hibbard), ‘LXX Isaiah or its Vorlage: Primary “Misreadings” and Secondary Modifications’ (D.W. Parry), ‘Isaiah and the King of As/Syria in Daniel's Final Vision: On the Rhetoric of Inner-Scriptural Allusions and the Hermeneutics of “Mantological Exegesis”’ (A. Teeter), ‘The Parallel Editions of the Old Greek and Masoretic Text of Daniel 5’ (E. Ulrich), ‘Daniel and the Narrative Integrity of his Prayer in Chapter 9’ (K.P. DeLong); Part II (Qumran and Dead Sea Scrolls): ‘Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and Buildings’ (S.W. Crawford), ‘Digital Qumran: Virtual Reality or Virtual Fantasy?’ (J. Magness), ‘Seven Rules for Restoring Lacunae’ (J.H. Charlesworth), ‘Collecting Psalms in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ (A. Lange), ‘L'épilogue de 4QMMT revisité’ (É. Puech), ‘Identifying Reuse of Scripture in the Temple Scroll: Some Methodological Reflections’ (M.M. Zahn), ‘Biblical Antecedents of the Kinship Terms in 1QSa’ (R.J. Bautch), ‘Leviticus Outside the Legal Genre’ (S. Metso), ‘The Interpretation of Scriptural Isaiah in the Qumran Scrolls: Quotations, Citations, Allusions, and the Form of the Scriptural Source Text’ (P.W. Flint), ‘The Status and Interpretation of Jubilees in 4Q390’ (T.R. Hanneken), ‘Runner, Staff, and Star: Interpreting the Teacher of Righteousness through Scripture’ (K.S. O'Brien), ‘Who Is the Teacher of the Teacher Hymns? Re-Examining the Teacher Hymns Hypothesis Fifty Years Later’ (A.K. Harkins), ‘Re-Placing Priestly Space: The Wilderness as Heterotopia in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ (A. Schofield); Part III (Early Judaism): ‘Tobit as Righteous Sufferer’ (G.A. Anderson), ‘The Growth of Belief in the Sanctity of Mount Gerizim’ (H. Eshel ל״ן), ‘Peton Contests Paying Double Rent on Farmland (P. Heid. Inv. G 5100): A Slice of Judean Experience in the Second Century B.C.E. Herakleopolite Nome’ (R. Kugler), ‘Ascents to Heaven in Antiquity: Toward a Typology’ (A.Y. Collins), ‘Eternal Writing and Immortal Writers: On the Non-Death of the Scribe in Early Judaism’ (S.I. Thomas), ‘The Rabbis’ Written Torah and the Heavenly Tablets' (T. Novick), ‘Demons of Change: The Transformational Role of the Antagonist in the Apocalypse of Abraham’ (A.A. Orlov), ‘Sefer Zerubbabel and Popular Religion’ (M. Himmelfarb); Part IV (Enoch and Jubilees): ‘Emmeduranki and Gilgamesh: Mesopotamian Figures in Aramaic Enoch Traditions’ (Ida Fröhlich), ‘The Parables of Enoch and the Manuscripts from Qumran’ (G.W.E. Nickelsburg), ‘The Social Setting of the Parables of Enoch’ (L.W. Walck), ‘1 Enoch 73:4–8 and the Aramaic Astronomical Book’ (H. Drawnel), ‘Reflections on Sources behind the Epistle of Enoch and the Significance of 1 Enoch 104:9–13 for the Reception of Enochic Tradition’ (L.T. Stuckenbruck), ‘On the Importance of Being Abram: Genesis Apocryphon 18, Jubilees 10:1–13:4, and Further Thoughts on a Literary Relationship’ (D.A. Machiela), ‘The Genre of the Book of Jubilees’ (J.J. Collins), ‘A Note on Divine Names and Epithets in the Book of Jubilees’ (J. Kugel), ‘Revisiting the Rebekah of the Book of Jubilees’ (J.C. Endres), ‘Judah and Tamar in Jubilees 41’ (D. Dimant), ‘Enoch and Jubilees in the Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church’ (L. Baynes); Part V (New Testament and Early Church): ‘Aspects of Matthew's Use of Scripture in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ (G.J. Brooke), ‘Surprises from Law and Love: In Tribute to Dr. James C. VanderKam’ (J.P. Meier), ‘The Meaning of Eύαγγέλιoν in the Inscriptiones of the Canonical Gospels’ (D.E. Aune), ‘One Ethiopian Eunuch Is Not the End of the World: The Narrative Function of Acts 8:26–40’ (C. Niccum), ‘“Sit at my Right Hand”: Enthronement and the Heavenly Sanctuary in Hebrews’ (E.F. Mason), ‘Christians and the Public Archive’ (W. Adler), and ‘Three Apocryphal Fragments from Armenian Manuscripts’ (M.E. Stone). This outstanding collection is a fitting tribute to a most learned, industrious, and generous scholar and colleague.
C. H
M
This book deals with important questions related to the emergence of the biblical canon and the criteria for the inclusion or exclusion of certain ancient texts from the canon. Following an introductory chapter with preliminary observations, the remaining chapters are ‘An Overview of the Story’, ‘The Emergence of an Old Testament Canon’, ‘The Completion of the Old Testament Canon’, ‘The Emergence of Christian Scriptures’, ‘The Influence of “Heresy” and “Orthodoxy” on Canon Formation’, ‘Fixing the New Testament Canon’, and a ‘Final Comment’. In these chapters, different aspects of the processes of ‘canonization’ are discussed. M. clarifies that his book is prepared for lay persons who are active in their churches (p. 20), and says that ‘it is appropriate to make this information available to a wider audience than the academic community’ (p. 4). But M. also notes that the question of how OT and NT Scriptures came together to form the Bible ‘is more complex, less obvious, and often an untold story’ (pp. 1, 234); and he accepts that there is some ambiguity in the processes of establishing the biblical canon, although he suggests that ‘none of those ambiguities challenge the most essential areas of Christian faith’ (p. 238). However, it can be imagined that readers in some constituencies would find M.'s presentation more confusing and challenging than he acknowledges.
P. S
M
M. offers at least two books in one. The first is a postcolonial reading of the ‘enemy’ in certain biblical narratives, mainly Judges, which sees the narrator's view as at best one opinion among many, and more likely a distortion of ethnic insecurities projected on to the ‘other’ in an unfair and derogatory manner. This requires quite some reading against the grain of the text, whereby Israel is frequently construed as the aggressor (indeed as the colonizer), while the ‘other’ is construed with a conspicuous interpretative sympathy (e.g. Esau's apparently strategic bartering of his birthright in Gen. 25). The second book, running in parallel, is an exercise in the dark side of typology, where the Israel M. has reconstructed is paired with nineteenth-century American constructions of likewise marginalized or despised peoples in the USA's troubled internal history. Four case studies focus on Judges 1 (Edomites and Native Americans both as ‘savages’); Judges 3 (Moabites and Mexicans both as ‘stupid’); the Jephthah cycle in Judges 10–11 (Ammonites and Chinese as ‘deceitful opportunists’); and the Samaritans in 1 Kings 11–14 read as proponents of civil disobedience, alongside a typological reading of African-Americans as violent or rebellious. All readers will learn much about the downside(s) of American history, while ch. 1 offers an exemplary primer on ‘postcolonialism and the politics of re-representation’ which one may recommend to all those bemused by the subject. There is much to ponder in this deeply engaging book, even if readers of the biblical text may at times struggle to recognize the constructions of identity which M. discerns therein.
R.S. B
M
In this highly readable and mercifully slender volume, M. comes surprisingly close to his intended aim of replacing Nielsen's 1954 book with ‘a comprehensive study of “oral tradition” in the narrative books of the Old Testament’, and occasional but glaring editorial glitches are sure to be ironed out in future print runs. Justly criticizing the Parry-Lord-Goody-Ong school and those biblical scholars who continue to depend on them, M. draws instead on Finnegan and Foley's better informed cross-cultural comparison of orality, while perhaps still betraying an influence from Lord's classic Singer of Tales by his own immersion in Icelandic sagas. Eddic oral poetry, M. believes not unreasonably, can provide some of the closest ethnographic analogies to ancient Israelite orality, though perhaps this is based in part on undefended assumptions about comparability regarding its origins in pre-Christian paganism. His eminently plausible primary argument, backed up with balanced and knowledgeable discussion of pre-exilic Israelite literacy, is that ‘Israel was always a society of oral literature full of literate individuals’, though its texts were received ‘aurally’ by most, both before and after the Exile. M. allows for both oral and literary sources for biblical books, even from the earliest periods of Israel's history, though he does not seem to allow for written OT narrative books before the Exile, trusting ‘a growing consensus’ for Genesis–2 Kings. Finally, his very restrained conclusions on orality and historicism are to be recommended as the new benchmark for the most minimalist position one might sensibly hold for the possible historicity of OT narratives.
J.E. P
M
‘The purpose of this book is to help postmodern Westerners understand what the Bible has to say about wealth and possessions’. Whether his purpose will be achieved by this learned but baffling, wide-ranging but strangely selective disquisition is doubtful. Separate chapters are devoted to ‘socioeconomic conflict motifs’ in Mesopotamian epics, the Pentateuch, 1 and 2 Maccabees and the Qumran sectarian literature, and the parables in Luke. Except for the Qumran literature, only narrative texts are explored. They are seen as ways of enabling readers to understand economic conflict in their own contexts, and the ‘big problems’ of acquisition (without cost), bribery, corruption, slavery, primogeniture and the ‘deprivation myth’. What the Torah teaches about these matters is expressed as the ‘Yahwistic imperative’: ‘creation = acquisition plus protection’. M. has some important insights, but his structure and style do not help the reader to grasp them. Typically, a story will be paraphrased, or only half told, and its economic aspects emphasized, but without making clear what the lesson is. Half of every page is occupied by footnotes, some useful, some irrelevant, some properly belonging to the main text. Will this book solve the problems of the intelligent ‘soccer mom’ who is introduced on the first page? I think not.
W.J. H
N
This Festschrift volume contains 23 contributions that reflect the interests of Nelson as a Hebrew Bible scholar and a Christian Lutheran Pastor. All the essays in Part 1 engage primarily with the Deuteronomistic History from a broadly historical or literary perspective, apart from that by S.L. McKenzie, which is an exegetical study of 2 Sam. 11.1. Other writers—M. Nissinen on prophetic ecstasy, R.F. Person on DtrH and Chr as scribal products, N.P. Lemche on historicity in DtrH, P.R. Davies on DtrH and double redaction, K.L. Noll on the workings of the Deuteronomistic Historian, T. Römer on how the book of Joshua relates to the theory of a DtrH, T.B. Dozeman on Joshua in the book of Joshua, A.G. Auld on David in light of Chr, T.M. Willis on the circumstances of David's proposal to build a temple, and C. Edenburg on the catalogue of David's conquests in DtrH and Chr—review aspects of the debate in current scholarship and affirm or develop their own hypotheses, while E. Ben Zvi suggests that a synchronic reading may reveal ‘deuteronomistic’ language in the scrolls as the voice of a Moses-like figure in the Persian period. In Part 2 the essays are more theological and range across the whole Bible. T.E. Fretheim reads early chapters of Genesis as a canonical prologue that reveals the nature and character of the Bible's God. J.R. Lundbom (wisdom influence in Deuteronomy), R.R. Hutton (the numbering of the Decalogue commandments), R.L. Heller (Abimelek in Judges), R.W. Klein (Amaziah in DtrH and Chr), A.O. Bellis (the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem in 701
J.E. T
N
As a well-known scholar on the King James Bible, N. is the ideal person to provide a short history of the processes that led to its production and to give some account of its afterlife. Starting from the versions of the ancient texts that were available to the translators and a brief survey of the pre-KJB translations including Tyndale, Coverdale and the Geneva Bible, N. uses a close examination of Mt. 1.18–21 and Gen. 3.1–13 to show how the KJB drew on those previous translations. Next he describes what he terms the mental lives of two of the translators as revealed by the library of one and the diaries of the other, before giving a concise account of the KJB translation process itself. Then a physical description of the first edition with its characteristics and flaws leads into a history of printing up to 1800, including the many changes both small and large, deliberate and erroneous, that were made to the text during this period. A briefer review of subsequent changes is also offered. The final chapter outlines how the reputation of the KJB changed over the centuries following its publication, from being mocked for its unnatural language in its literalistic renderings of Hebrew to being feted as a literary masterpiece, to being displaced by more modern translations and because of the loosening of Christianity's hold over English-speaking culture. This is an intriguing tale, full of fascinating detail and engaging vignettes that bring to life the history of one of the most significant religio-cultural icons of the last four centuries.
D.W. R
N
N. was a successful researcher in metallurgy before combining this expertise with his interests in the ANE as well as theology in this interdisciplinary monograph that was accepted as a doctoral dissertation at the Protestantse Theologische Universiteit (Utrecht, Kampen, Leiden) in 2010. Following three introductory chapters, it presents analyses of about 40 metallurgical metaphors in the Hebrew Bible, mostly from the prophets and Job, together with overviews of ‘Archaeometallurgy in the Near East’ regarding technologies, regions and metals, ‘Metals Trade’ from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age, and ‘Metallurgy and Religion’ which were closely connected in, for example, ancient Egypt and Cyprus. The volume is concluded by 13 summarizing theses, a bibliography, a subject index and five figures and maps. N. presents the first systematic monograph on this subject, the quality of which strongly benefitted from his expertise in metallurgy. The book is a valuable resource for the fields of ancient Near Eastern as well as biblical studies.
D. M
P
This contains essays in English and German on OT and NT topics: the question of Jesus' miracles of healing as forgiveness of sin (in English); conflict and peace in OT religion (C. Levin, in English); arguments for the historicity of Jesus (German); the development of the concept am ha-aretz in literature and history (S. Uemura, in English); creation of living space: the place of the one addressed in the parables of Jesus (in German).
L.L. G
P
P., who celebrated his 70th birthday in December 2010, taught Hebrew and Old Testament first in Neuchatel and then in Geneva. Three of his colleagues in Switzerland, Jean-Daniel Macchi, Thomas Römer and Konrad Schmid, marked the occasion of P.'s birthday by collecting 14 of his essays (4 in the German and 7 in the French of the volume title, but 3 also in English). The collection is presented in four sections (the theology of P, the Jacob-cycle as ancient Israel's legend of origins, monotheism and historical Ökumene, and the Writings canon in comparative-cultural perspective); but the divisions are far from watertight, and a number of important theses are reinforced by being explored afresh from a different perspective. Genesis 1 marks a beginning in several different senses: it is not only the beginning of Pg (and hence of P), but of Genesis and the Pentateuch as we know them; and its 33-fold use of 'lhym or God represents a fresh theological start. Of the non-Priestly material in Genesis, the only substantial pre-Priestly cycle concerns Jacob—the other three cycles are supplements to P. An engaging review of the interlinked topographical and religious development of Jerusalem, prepared as a tribute to Othmar Keel, muses at its end over the good fortune for Judaism that the ruined sanctuary on old Jerusalem's eastern hill was redeveloped by Muslims—rather than either Christians or a latter-day American hotel chain. The essays are ‘Pg as the Absolute Beginning’; ‘Der priesterschriftliche Umgang mit der Jakobsgeschichte’; ‘Abraham: The Priestly Writer's “Ecumenical” Ancestor’; ‘Le cycle de Jacob comme légende autonome des origines d'Israël’; ‘Le choix de l'ancětre’; ‘Situer le cycle de Jacob. Quelques réflexions, vingt-cinq ans plus tard’; ‘The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch’; ‘Gottesname, Gottesbezeichnung und Gottesbegriff. Elohim als Indiz zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Pentateuch’; ‘Wie und wann wurde “der Gott” zu “Gott”?’; ‘Le tombeau des Abrahamides d'Hébron et sa fonction au début de l'époque perse’; ‘Der geschichtliche Werdegang Jerusalems als Ausdruck der “vertikalen” Ökumene. Plädoyer für ein versöhntes Jerusalem’; ‘Le raid de Gédéon (Juges 6.25–32) et l'histoire de l'exclusivisme yahwiste’; ‘Qohéleth et le canon des Ketubim’; and ‘Le canon de l'Ancien Testament’.
A.G. A
R
This account of the life and work of Norman Henry Snaith is written by his daughter and offers an informative picture of his upbringing among the Primitive Methodists, his education in Oxford at Corpus Christi and Mansfield Colleges and his early years of ministry after ordination. After serving churches in Durham and Luton he was appointed tutor and Principal at Wesley College Headington, Leeds. His academic achievements and honours are outlined, with a short bibliography of the major published works and his particular interest in the production of a critical text of the Hebrew Bible for the British and Foreign Bible Society (1958). The special focus is on his achievements as preacher and the promotion of ministerial education, noting his strongly self-effacing humility and humour.
R.E. C
S
This collection of 46 essays by S. is drawn from nearly 50 years of his research into the Hebrew Bible and its reception. The volume includes some pieces not previously published; those that were have received only slight updating in the form of inclusive language and the addition of cross-referencing across the volume. The collection is divided loosely into four parts. Part I, ‘The Bible and its Readers’, is concerned with questions of method and approach, and includes essays on topics such as studying the prophets, the original meaning of the text, reception history, social anthropological approaches, the Bible in Jewish–Christian relations, and brief studies on the books of Job and Ezekiel. Part II deals exclusively with the book of Isaiah, containing essays on a variety of texts (Isa. 6.13, 7.14, 19.16–25, 24.16, 45.8, 52.6, 58.9, 65.1, 63) and topics (Daughter of Zion and Servant of the Lord, Isaiah in the context of death and bereavement, Isaiah and the Jews, Zionism, and Isaiah and the Gospel). Part III, ‘Language and Imagery’, considers aspects of linguistic theory and discusses a selection of biblical words and imagery, including resurrection from the dead, space, types of prayer, Psalm headings, folk-linguistics in biblical interpretation, Jewish biblical semantics, Hebrew root meanings, and language and religion. It also includes textual studies on Genesis 1–3, Genesis 4, Josh. 10.12–14, 2 Sam. 12.31 and Eccl. 12.3–5. Part IV comprises a wide range of short notes, including comments on Leviticus, leprosy, solar eclipses, and the priestly background of ben Sira, and lexical notes on Judg. 5.20, Jer. 17.11, Amos 3.12, Lk. 23.45, and the Hebrew terms barzel and moshia'. As one would expect, these essays demonstrate the breadth of S.'s scholarship and offer perceptive and thought-provoking comments on a range of biblical texts and wider issues of concern to biblical scholars.
H. M
S
The majority of the articles published here have previously appeared elsewhere, but they have been reworked for the present volume and ordered in a coherent manner. They are in three groups and each group is prefaced by a short new introduction which both outlines the issues at stake and summarizes the papers. The aim overall is to discuss and illustrate the shifts in OT scholarship in recent decades with its move away from a tight focus on source- and form-criticism towards a greater appreciation of the more organic development of texts by inner-biblical allusion and interpretation. The first group, on history of research and other prolegomena, has three essays, two of which are new: ‘Schriftgelehrte Arbeit and der Schrift. Historische Überlegungen zum Vorgang innerbiblischer Exegese’, and ‘Schriftwerdung und Kanonbildung’. The third in this group is entitled ‘Innerbiblische Schriftsauslegung. Aspekte der Forschungs-geschichte’. The second (and largest) group (eight essays) discusses specific examples from each of the main canonical divisions. Again, two are previously unpublished: ‘Neue Schöpfung als Überbietung des neuen Exodus. Die Tritojesajanische Aktualisierung der deuterojesajanischen Theologie und der Tora’, and ‘Die Verheißung eines kommenden Davididen und die Heimkehr der Diaspora. Die Innerbiblische Aktualisierung von Jer 23,5f in Jer 33,14–26’. The others in this group are: ‘Die Rückgabe der Verheißungsgabe. Der “heilsgeschichtliche” Sinn von Genesis 22 im Horizont innerbiblischer Exegese’, ‘Traditionsgeschichtliche oder literarische Aufnahmen vorgegebener Stoffe? Dtn 32,8f und Ps 82 als methodische Testfälle’, ‘Der Sinai und die Priesterschrift’, ‘Der Abschluß der Tora als exegetisches und historisches Problem’, ‘Nebukadnezars Antritt der Weltherrschaft und der Abbruch der Davidsdynastie. Innerbiblische Schriftauslegung und universalgeschichtliche Konstruktion im Jeremiabuch’, and ‘Innerbiblische Schriftdiskussion im Hiobbuch’. The third group (three essays) draws in related theological concerns: ‘Ausgelegte Schrift als Schrift. Innerbiblische Schriftauslegung und die Frage nach der theologischen Qualität biblischer Texte’, ‘Interpretationen biblischer Theologie. Die Ordnung der Bücher des Alten Testaments in den großen Septuagintahandschriften als Schlüssel zu ihrer Theologie’, and ‘Zeit und Geschichte als Determinanten biblischer Theologie. Überlegungen zum Wandel der Geschichtsverständnisses im Alten Testament’. While some of the conclusions advanced seem radical (e.g. Genesis 22 knew Chronicles), this is a valuable collection by a leading proponent of an important recent scholarly trend.
H.G.M. W
S
In this book, S. is concerned to take seriously the unique form of the Christian Bible as a two-testament account, and asks how Christian theologians can responsibly respond to two distinct yet coordinated witnesses to Christ. The answer is not to develop a normative hermeneutic from the NT's use of the OT. The assumption that it is forms a subtle but pervasive element in contemporary scholarship which needs to be resisted. Much of S.'s work is informed by canonical criticism but he again cautions that the separate witnesses of both testaments should not be conflated too easily by reading the Bible as one canonical text. He illustrates the issue by referring directly to the problems over the use of the Bible in the debates over homosexuality in the Anglican Communion. S. criticizes the approach that trumps the OT witness with the supposed reading of that tradition by either Jesus or Paul, but equally cautions against a blunt appeal to Leviticus without considering the canonical context. He also deplores the relegation of both testaments to the status of historical witnesses which are superseded by the superior wisdom of the modern church. Instead, he advocates a return to the sense of the ‘rule of faith’ and a reliance on the rule of faith and the tacit understanding of the functioning of Scripture that is rooted in liturgy and doxology. For those who can share his theological stance, S. offers important cautions over tacit supersessionism, but less in the way of positive alternative readings.
H. P
S
These 12 essays honouring a distinguished academician include material relevant to the present state of Old Testament scholarship and to the contribution made by its Welsh representatives. The editor's essay reviews the work of John Tudno Williams, and Gareth Lloyd Jones evaluates the merits and dangers of the emphasis on the Bible in Welsh nonconformity. Eryl W. Davies presents an outline sketch of the various apologia proposed by Christians to explain the deficiencies of Old Testament morality. Three essays review the distinctive features of Welsh theological and religious history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Brynley F. Roberts considers the use of Scripture in hymnology and D. Huw Owen the use of the Bible in popular religious visual imagery. D. Densil Morgan reviews the development of a distinctive Welsh Calvinistic theological tradition in twentieth-century theology, passing from a broad nineteenth-century liberalism to a return in the 1920s to a strong focus on the work of Karl Barth. New Testament themes are covered by W.S. Campbell (reconciliation in Paul's letter to the Romans) and Allison A. Trites (spiritual growth in the letter to the Philippians). Kathy Ehrensperger examines Pauline concerns with power and authority in Church office. A unique episode of Welsh religious history is noted by J. Gwynfor Jones with the story of the re-opening of Trefeca College in the period 1842–1906, and Stephen N. Williams examines the idea of divine election in Christian mission. Throughout, the focus on the distinctive Welsh contribution to Christian life makes this volume both a fitting tribute to an exceptional scholar and an excellent review of work and developments that are all too easily overlooked or accessible only to readers of the Welsh language.
R.E. C
S
‘Evangelical’ and ‘feminist’ are not two terms that one necessarily expects to see in the same sentence; or at least, if they are in the same sentence their relationship is assumed to be antagonistic. However, it is just this disjuncture that the present collection aims to overcome, or at least address. Interestingly, in a collection that deals with evangelical feminist hermeneutics, seven of the ten contributors, accounting for eight of the eleven contributions, are men, which in itself raises questions about the place of women in the evangelical scholarly tradition. That aside, the contributions are an anonymous introduction, followed by Andrew Sloane, ‘“And He Shall Rule over You”: Evangelicals, Feminists, and Genesis 2–3’; Robin Parry, ‘Feminist Hermeneutics and Evangelical Concerns: The Rape of Dinah as a Case Study’; Richard Briggs, ‘Hermeneutics by Numbers? Case Studies in Feminist and Evangelical Interpretation of the Book of Numbers’; Jenni Williams, ‘Adding Insult to Injury? The Family Laws of Deuteronomy’; Nicholas Ansell, ‘This Is her Body …: Judges 19 as Call to Discernment’; Miriam Bier, ‘Colliding Contexts: Reading Tamar (2 Sam 13:1–22) as a Twenty-First Century Woman’; Andrew Sloane, ‘Aberrant Textuality? The Case of Ezekiel the (Porno) Prophet’; Grenville Kent, ‘His Desire Is for Her: Feminist Readings of the Song of Solomon’; Heath Thomas, ‘Justice at the Crossroads: The Book of Lamentations and Feminist Discourse’; Junia Pokrifka, ‘Patriarchy, Biblical Authority, and the Grand Narrative of the Old Testament’; and Todd Pokrifka, ‘Can our Hermeneutics be Both Evangelical and Feminist? Insights from the Theory and Practice of Theological Interpretation’. More anonymous closing reflections end the book. Although it is good to see the opposite ends of the interpretative spectrum coming towards each other to an extent in these essays, I have to say that I am not wholly convinced by the appearance of rapprochement. There is too much here of the type of argumentation that subsumes everything under an assumed grand narrative of love, justice and equality, thereby relativizing individual accounts of mistreatment of women such as Genesis 34, Judges 19 and 2 Samuel 13 on the grounds that they are aberrations, or that the point of such narratives is not the fate of the women but some other kind of message. If that is the case, then why are women so often the subjects—or should I say objects—of such narratives, given that women in general appear so relatively little in the text compared to men? The same type of argument is applied by Sloane to Ezekiel 16 and 23: the point of these chapters is not misogyny but the confrontation of enormous corporate sin in a deliberately shocking fashion. But again, this ignores the commonly acknowledged fact that metaphor shapes how we think not only about the tenor but about the vehicle, and it is naive to think that the medium is not in some ineluctable way an important part of the message. The whole point about the feminist critique is that the devil is in the detail, and that women are all too easily expected to ignore the details of this or that little injustice in the interests of the bigger picture, in a way that adds up to their systematic disadvantaging and disenfranchising. In the end, although it would be wonderful to think that evangelical and feminist hermeneutics could be compatible, I do not think that this collection is going to be the one to convince me of such a possibility—at least, not on the definition of ‘evangelical’ that most of its contributors seem to espouse.
D.W. R
S
The editors define a ‘pneumatic hermeneutic’ as ‘a scholarly approach attempting to account for the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation’. The forum for the examination which follows is ‘the renewal tradition’, that is, global charismatic movements with ‘pneumatological commitments’. The book exemplifies the exploratory nature of its discussion by virtue of having six contributors, then three respondents (Craig G. Bartholomew, James D.G. Dunn and R. Walter L. Moberly), and then a second round of responses from the six contributors. Rather oddly the book then concludes with an introduction to the six main contributions. The goal seems to be modest: to establish the credibility of the subject for further investigation. Among the contributions of most interest to B.L. readers are ‘Word and Spirit, Scribe and Prophet in Old Testament Hermeneutics’ (Mark J. Boda); ‘The Principle of Analogy and Biblical Interpretation in the Renewal Tradition’ (Kevin L. Spawn), which partly looks at Job as an example; ‘Second Temple Period Jewish Biblical Interpretation: An Early Pneumatic Hermeneutic’ (Archie T. Wright); and the responses offered by Bartholomew and Moberly in particular. The dialogue is only partly successful: there is some talking past each other, and a surprising amount of defensiveness on the part of one or two. It remains to be seen whether the examination envisaged here will be able to identify more carefully the distinctions between saying, on the one hand, that the interpreter's theological commitments might make a hermeneutical difference, and on the other, that a specifically pneumatic/renewal emphasis might further delineate the hermeneutic in view. Any such more specific delineation is a little hard to discern here.
R.S. B
S
Essentially a Festschrift, this collection of essays is a tribute to Willem van der Meer by colleagues past and present, on his retirement from the Protestant Theological University at Kampen. It reflects his career at that institution from his early days as research assistant to Professor J.L. Koole to his appointment as assistant professor. The topics of this collection of essays and articles testify to his broad interest and extensive knowledge, including as they do biblical theology, structural analysis of biblical texts and reception history, as well as genealogy. The 18 contributors, all writing in Dutch except one English and one German, include D. Erbele-Küster (Psalm 42 in rhyme), C. den Heyer (‘Biblistiek’), C. Houtman (Old and New Testament narrative forms), D. Houtman (biblical manuscripts), G. van Klinken (the Jewish community of Leek), A. van der Kooij (Karl Barth's doctrine of election), F. de Lange (the babyboomer generation), P. van der Lugt (rhetorical structure of Isaiah 44.24–45.8), J.C. de Moor (Psalm 23), E. Noort (Qohelet and Zimmerli—in German), H. Renkema (Psalm 102—in English), R. Roukema (God's name in the early Christian era), J. Scheepstra (Johanan ben Zakkai), F. Sepmeijer (the legend of Archelides), K. Spronk (the ‘Kamper School’ of structure analysis), E. van Staalduine-Sulman (Joel 2.12–14 in Christian editions of Targum Jonathan), J. Tanja (Christian Targum), J.-W. Wesselius (who sold Joseph?), and G. van Zanden (Digital Hebrew). There is much of interest in this modest volume. Unfortunately, the fact that all but two of the contributions are in Dutch means that the readership of these essays is inevitably limited.
H. K
S
In this work, S. follows up his 2002 publication Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation with the aim of critiquing both ancient and modern colonialism and also spelling out the kind of hermeneutical approaches possible for contemporary postcolonial biblical criticism. In the first of seven chapters, the author introduces his readers to the history of postcolonialism and its main concerns. Chapter 2 contains background information, especially on the historical antecedents that gave rise to postcolonial biblical studies in the 1990s, which include the changing landscape of humanities studies and social science criticism in the 1980s. Chapter 3 was contributed by Ralph Broadbent and surveys the working practices and the resultant text from postcolonial scholars of the time. Chapter 4 locates biblical criticism in oriental studies. In ch. 5, S. explores the effects of the publication of The Sacred Book of the East in 1979 and the Parliament of Religion held in Chicago in 1983. In ch. 6, S. gives various examples of how to read the biblical text from a postcolonial perspective, and concludes the book with an assessment of the future of postcolonial biblical criticism in ch. 7. To S., as long as people value their own culture as superior to others, markets exist, sacred texts sanction conquest and people see themselves as called to execute God's special task, postcolonial biblical criticism will have a future.
P.K. A
S
The articles published here cover Hebrew grammar and literature from antiquity to the present. Articles of potential interest to B.L. readers are the grammaticalization of bipartite reciprocal markers in Hebrew; the Biblical Hebrew verbal system in light of grammaticalization; hinnēh and mirativity in Biblical Hebrew; raq and 'ak: limiting and countering; the compound subject in Biblical Hebrew; syntactic patterns of quantifier float in Biblical Hebrew; Deut. 29.21–28 in historical and textual contexts; gutturals in MS Cambridge of the Mishnah: a historical-linguistic study of rabbinic Hebrew traditions; from oral transmission to written transmission: concerning the meaning of some orthographic forms in the manuscripts of the Mishnah and of rabbinic literature; and the question of how much Aramaic is in the Hebrew documents from the Judaean Desert. There are two review essays, of Ada Taggar-Cohen's The Hittites and their Civilization (in Hebrew) and Roger Good's The Septuagint's Translation of the Hebrew Verbal System in Chronicles, and over 60 pages of shorter book reviews.
L.L. G
T
This impressive volume is composed of 18 essays by T. They were written over a period of 50 years against the background of the manuscript finds at various sites in the Judaean Desert, including the many biblical or Bible-related manuscripts and fragments discovered at Qumran. In these essays, T. discusses the widespread textual phenomenon of variant readings and their significance for understanding the development and transmission of what became the Masoretic text. Factors of later stages in the transmission of the Hebrew text in the Second and post-Second Temple period are also scrutinized. Finally, T. concisely surveys developments in the contemporary investigation of the transmission history of the biblical text, leading up to a brief discussion of the solidifying process which resulted in the Hebrew canon as we now know it. The essays are ‘The Textual Study of the Bible: A New Outlook’; ‘Oral Tradition and Written Transmission, or the Heard and Seen Word in Judaism of the Second Temple Period’; ‘The Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet and Biblical Text Criticism’; ‘Synonymous Readings in the Masoretic Text’; ‘Double Readings in the Masoretic Text’; ‘1 Sam 15:32b: A Case of Conflate Readings?’; ‘A Case of Abbreviation Resulting in Double Readings’; ‘A Case of Faulty Harmonization’; ‘The Town Lists of the Tribe of Simeon’; ‘“These Are the Kenites Who Came from Hammath, Father of the House of Rechab” (1 Chr 2:55)’ [in Hebrew]; ‘Amen as an Introductory Oath Formula’; ‘An Apparently Redundant Reading in the Masoretic Text (Jer 1:18)’; ‘The Three Scrolls of the Law Found in the Temple Court’; ‘Prolegomenon to the Ten Nequdoth of the Torah’; ‘Pisgah Be'emsa’ Pasuq and the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa)'; ‘Textual Criticism: The Ancient Versions’; and ‘The Crystallization of the “Canon of Hebrew Scriptures” in the Light of Biblical Scrolls from Qumran’.
E.W. L
T
This somewhat eclectic collection contains 11 essays arising from a ‘highways and byways’ project (!) at the University of Bergen, which set out to explore aspects of Christian orthodoxy. Eight of the contributors are from Norway, two from Greece, and one from the US. The chosen focus on the canon is somewhat loosely construed, with only about half the collection relating to the biblical canon, and even then very few contributors discussing anything to do with the Old Testament canon; this leads to some unfortunate generalizations about what canonicity ‘must’ be which will sound strange to scholars of the OT. There is a slight tendency to exaggeration (e.g. the claim that Scripture can be interpreted in ‘an infinite variety of ways’—surely the options on most texts would be at most half a dozen—or ‘Virtually all Christian literature can be conceived of as commentaries on Scripture …’—which may not be a claim that would survive browsing in the average Christian bookshop). The contributions are ‘Some Notes on the Development of Christian Ideas about a Canon’ (Einar Thomassen); ‘Historical Aspects of the Formation of the New Testament Canon’ (Dimitris J. Kyrtatas); ‘Canon, Ideology, and the Emergence of an Imperial Church’ (George Aichele); ‘Canon and Interpretation: A Cognitive Perspective’ (Hugo Lundhaug); ‘Contextualizing the Present, Manipulating the Past: Codex II from Nag Hammadi and the Challenge of Circumventing Canonicity’ (Ingvild Sœlid Gilhus); ‘Canon Formation in Greek Literary Culture’ (Tomas Hägg); ‘Canonizing Platonism: The Fetters of Iamblichus’ (Polymnia Athanassiadi); ‘The Biblical Canon of the Lutheran Reformation’ (Tarald Rasmussen); ‘Verification of the Word of God in Missionary Autobiography’ (Lisbeth Mikaelsson); ‘“Word of God” as World Construction: The Religious and Philosophical Fundamentalism of Ole Hallesby, Norway 1910–1950’ (Karstein Hopland); and ‘Canon Formation and Canon Interpretation’ (Jostein Børtnes). The pick of them are by Lundhaug, who at least discusses the relevance of the rule of faith to canonization, although whether his ‘cognitive perspective’ helps much is debatable; Rasmussen, whose study of Luther is a model of clarity; and Børtnes, who includes a fairly detailed study of the history of interpretations of the image of God to illustrate the flexibility which still pertains to the interpretation of canonical texts. Elsewhere there is much lamenting that canon is a form of ideological will-to-power, and a couple of pieces on recent Norwegian pietism, all of which adds up to a rather unusual book.
R.S. B
U
The aims and scope of the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica were described in B.L. 2004, pp. 67–68, and notes on vols. 2 and 3 were included in B.L. 2006, p. 17 and B.L. 2009, p. 224, respectively. The publication of the fourth volume, with 970 articles, now brings the completion of this major work of reference into sight. The articles, which are consistently of a very high standard, are concerned with all aspects of the literature, history, archaeology, languages and religion of the area covered by present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, but there are also articles on localities and peoples and on social structures and practices. In the present volume the articles that are likely to be of most interest to Old Testament scholars include those on the Old Testament and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, on different parts of the Old Testament (Octateuch, Prophets, Psalter, Wisdom Books), and on such topics as ‘Punt’, ‘Sabbath’ and ‘Semitic’. Among the biographies of modern scholars, those of figures such as H.J. Polotsky, Franz Praetorius and Stefan Strelcyn are also likely to be of interest.
M.A. K
V
V
There is nothing of direct relevance to B.L. readers in these issues.
D.W. R
W
We have in this voluminous publication a selection (some 165 to be precise) of the 509 reviews published electronically during the year on the webpages of the RBL. These can be accessed on the RBL website at http://bookreviews.org. A minority of them are in languages apart from English: some 15 of the reviews are in German (one of which also appears in English), two are in French and one in Italian. This is indeed a veritable feast to whet the appetite of every biblical scholar, for sufficient space is allotted the reviewers to express their comments at length and to furnish the reader with often very full and detailed reviews. In some cases, of which there are four examples in this collection, volumes are reviewed by two different scholars; this is a practice which is encouraged by the editor.
J.T. W
W
This work is predominantly concerned with the formation of the Hebrew Bible, although the concluding chapter discusses the development of the Old Testament canon in Christian traditions and some reference is made to traditions shared with Islam. W. notes recent scholarly interest in this subject and interacts most frequently with D.M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005; see B.L. 2007, p. 105). He argues that Israel's religious traditions emerged from villages and sanctuary sites as distinct from being rooted in royal and urban centres as claimed by Carr. Part 1 focuses on pre-literary traditions and W. argues that these were transmitted accurately from c. 1600
J.E. T
W
This publishes the proceedings of a conference at San Francisco Theological Seminar at San Anselmo in March 2009 in honour of Antoinette Clark Wire. Although the focus is on the Gospel of Mark, a number of essays address the Hebrew Bible and the general theory of orality and writing: Hebrew Bible and oral literature (S. Niditch); from oral conversations to written texts in rabbinic traditions (C. Hezser); the history of the closure of biblical texts (W. Kelber); interactions between orality and writing (J.M. Foley); orality and writing in the formation of the prophetic books (A. Schellenberg); the oral and the written in the commission of the Levitical singers (1 Chron. 25.1–6) (R.S. Nam); from oral lament to lament Psalms (A. Schuele). The Preface discusses the aims of the volume and how individual essays contribute to these aims, thus giving coherence to the collection. The majority of the essays relate to the NT, but anyone interested in the question of orality and writtenness will find a good deal to think about.
L.L. G
W
This volume is a reprint of W.'s work, of the same title, originally published in 1973. The 2010 edition has a new preface from the author and an afterword (tribute) from Marcus Borg. The basic premise of W.'s book is summarized in its opening words: ‘Historical biblical criticism is bankrupt’ (p. 1). The argument he goes on to develop is, basically, that the quest for acceptance as a ‘scientifically’ credible subject discipline has led academic biblical studies down a blind alley. The dominance of the historical-critical approach throughout the modern era has, W. argues, resulted in a neutering of the Bible's communicative impact on humanity. So, instead of a historical-critical approach to the study of the biblical text, W. argues in favour of a ‘dialectic hermeneutic’ (p. 17) that is critically aware but also attuned to the presuppositions that always shape the reading of any text by any reader. The aim of this hermeneutic is to allow the reader to move beyond the objective (although this is a necessary step) to subjective (personal) encounter with the text. W.'s hermeneutic draws an analogy from analytical psychology and sees the encounter with Scripture as being, in some sense, a ‘healing’ event. Much has changed in the academic world since 1973; yet in the decision to republish W.'s incisive appeal, someone at Fortress clearly believes that there may well be a degree of plus ça change in the academic biblical studies community. W.'s voice still needs to be heard.
J.A. G
Y
This surprisingly wide-ranging collection of essays on the theme of wisdom are the result of a conference held at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on 12 January 2003. Despite the title, the contributions are nine, not seven, and contributors include some of the big names in the study of wisdom literature. Victor Avigdor Hurowitz provides a contextualizing introduction, and then the articles are Michael V. Fox, ‘Terms for Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs’; Tova Forti, ‘Sweet as Honey: From Realia to Metaphor’; Edward L. Greenstein, ‘Wisdom in the Book of Job—Undermined’; Nili Shupak, ‘The Terminology of Biblical Wisdom Literature as a Tool for Reconstructing Methods of Learning in Ancient Israel’; Cana Werman, ‘The Vision and the Book: Wisdom and its Way of Revelation’; Haim Dihi, ‘Linguistic Innovations in the Book of Ben Sira’; Isaac Gottlieb, ‘Pirqe Avot as Wisdom Literature’; Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, ‘The Wisdom of Šūpě-amēli: A Deathbed Debate between Father and Son’; and Shamir Yona, ‘Milestones in the Study of the Style, Structure and Rhetoric of the Proverbs of Aḥhiqar’. English abstracts of the articles are provided.
D.W. R