Abstract
A
For a review of this volume, see Section 1 above.
A
In this volume, begun as a Cambridge thesis supervised by Markus Bockmuehl, A. seeks to explain Philo's statements about the physical world that show ‘profound surface contradiction’ (p. 37). On the one hand Philo uses some words (ousia, hulē, genesis, genētos) in a neutral but often negative way, since for him matter is beset by sin and decline in opposition to the transcendent God. At the same time, however, Philo uses other words (kosmos, phusis) positively: the kosmos, in its great order and beauty, is a means to know God; and phusis (creative power, essential character, universal nature, cosmic order, divine metonymy) is an agent that guides the world. For A., this is all explicable in terms of perspective. Those on the ‘lower’ way are led to God by the world, but the few who pursue the ‘higher’ visionary way dispense with it. Supposing Philo to have been driven by a ‘mystical-ascetic impulse’ (pp. 192–93), A. correlates this dual perspective with the higher and lower parts of Hellenistic cosmology (heavenly versus sublunary), the differing vantage points of God and matter, and the higher (‘Allegory’) and lower (‘Exposition’) treatises aimed at different audiences. A. suggests that Philo's ultimate cosmological pessimism places him closer to Gnostics or Middle Platonists than to late Plato (i.e. Timaeus), the Wisdom of Solomon, or Paul. A.'s methods are lexical and contextual, with strong systematization. Well informed and clearly written, this is a very valuable book which, with discussion of related topics (e.g. creation, natural law, logos, powers), sharpens understanding of Philo.
H.C. C
A
For a review of this volume, see Section 7 above.
A
This Festschrift for Professor Rachel Elior (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) opens appropriately with two short essays about her and her work. The first of these is written by the editors and provides an overview of Elior's wide-ranging scholarship, outlining her career and research contributions. The second is by Frances Flannery and deals, as the title explains, with ‘The Consideration of Religious Experience in the Work of Rachel Elior’. The phenomenon of religious experience features in many of the contributions to this volume, which cover a wide range of texts and topics, reflecting the areas to which Elior contributed, especially apocalypticism, magic and mysticism. Although Elior has worked on texts and traditions from antiquity to modernity, the essays in this volume deal mainly with early Jewish and Christian literature, as the following list demonstrates: Kelley Coblentz Bautch, ‘Peter and the Patriarch: A Confluence of Traditions?’; Silviu N. Bunta, ‘In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question about Ezekiel's Visions’; James R. Davila, ‘Scriptural Exegesis in the Treatise of the Vessels, a Legendary Account of the Hiding of the Temple Treasures’; Dan Merkur, ‘Cultivating Visions through Exegetical Meditations’; Sergey Minov, ‘“Serpentine” Eve in Syriac Christian Literature of Late Antiquity’; Annette Yoshiko Reed, ‘From “Pre-Emptive Exegesis” to “Pre-Emptive Speculation”? Ma'aseh Bereshit in Genesis Rabbah and Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer’; Mark Verman, ‘Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem in Philo and Paul: A Tale of Two Cities’; Crispin Fletcher-Louis, ‘The Book of Watchers and the Cycle of New Year Festivals’; Yuval Harari, ‘A Different Spirituality or “Other” Agents?: On the Study of Magic in Rabbinic Literature’; Rebecca Lesses, ‘“They Revealed Secrets to their Wives”: The Transmission of Magical Knowledge in 1 Enoch’; Jodi Magness, ‘The Impurity of Oil and Spit among the Qumran Sectarians’; Andrei Orlov, ‘“The Likeness of Heaven”: The Kavod of Azazel in the Apocalypse of Abraham’; Pieter W. van der Horst, ‘Mystical Motifs in a Greek Synagogal Prayer?’; Daphna Arbel, ‘“A Chariot of Light Borne by Four Bright Eagles”: Eve's Vision of the Chariot in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve’; Joseph Dan, ‘Messianic Movements in the Period of the Crusades’; April D. DeConick, ‘Jesus Revealed: The Dynamics of Early Christian Mysticisim’, Celia Deutsch, ‘Aseneth: Ascetical Practice, Vision and Transformation’; Naomi Janowitz, ‘“You Are Gods”: Multiple Divine Beings in Late Antique Jewish Theology’; Alan F. Segal, ‘Transcribing Experience’. The organization of the essays in the volume does not follow the ‘types’ of literature mentioned in the title; instead, they have been divided into three sections with the headings ‘Exegesis’, ‘Ritual’ and ‘Transformation’. An introduction explaining the significance of this division and these headings would have been useful. Such an introduction could also have helped to increase the cohesion of the volume, by drawing out common themes throughout the various contributions. The coherence of the volume would also have been enhanced if a single reference style had been employed throughout (as it is, most essays use author-date references in footnotes, but some have them in the text). Given that this is a Festschrift, individual essays could have engaged more with the scholarship of Rachel Elior. Although twelve of the authors explicitly dedicate their contribution to Elior, only three refer to her work more than three times. In spite of these minor critical comments, the volume is a valuable collection of essays on a wide range of texts from the Second Temple period to the Middle Ages, with a special emphasis on the topic of religious experience in various forms, and a worthy ‘testimony’ (to use the term the editors employ in the first essay) to Professor Elior.
M. H
B
B. explores sexuality (in a broad sense) within Ben Sira in the context of family relations and gender. The first three chapters deal with family and sexuality. B. argues that Ben Sira's perspectives on mothers are positive as is his emphasis on acts of mercy, concern and almsgiving in relation to widows. However, the attitude toward daughters is particularly negative, especially in light of the father's vulnerability to shame concerning the daughter's relation to her husband, possibility of illegitimate sexual activity, or the risk of barrenness. Furthermore, B. argues, Ben Sira's representation of daughters understands their main characteristic as their sexuality. Nevertheless, B. shows how Ben Sira has a more balanced view concerning marital relationships. Only where sexual activity is illegitimate is a negative viewpoint taken. The final chapters explore various types of prohibited sexuality such as adultery and prostitution before examining the poems wherein, with erotic overtones, Wisdom is personified as a female figure. The various warnings to students about adultery and prostitution are, B. maintains, motivated by Ben Sira's view that sexuality's only true expression is through marriage, and by his eudaimonistic desire to avoid the consequences of illicit sexual activity. Where the object of sexual desire is not a real woman but Wisdom, B. demonstrates the author's overridingly positive standpoint. B's work is very detailed, especially in discussing Hebrew and Greek terminology and evaluating significant amounts of modern scholarship. B. also provides a lengthy appendix which helpfully supplies Hebrew and Greek texts, with translations, of the relevant passages. Her work illustrates effectively the complexities and subtleties underlying Ben Sira's attitudes towards sexuality and helpfully provides a context-based framework within which to understand such attitudes.
K.E. S
B
This Basel Habilitationsschrift represents one of the first detailed attempts to investigate strategies employed by Jewish authors to deal with classical myth. Its starting point is the work of Josephus, supplemented by a variety of other Jewish literary sources (e.g. Aristobulus, Pseudo-Aristeas, Sibylline Oracles, etc.). By comparing the Jewish attitude towards myth to that of the Romans, B. challenges the traditional view that Judaism did not pay attention to mythology. Instead, he argues that Jewish authors were very well versed in and acquainted with pagan mythology. When mythological concepts are employed in the literature they do not seem to serve an apologetic purpose but appear to be an integral part of Hellenistic Judaism. The use of Graeco-Roman mythology demonstrates that the Jewish authors adopt a critical attitude towards it, as such use never leads to a questioning of Jewish identity. This book is an important study of Jewish culture's interaction with and immersion in the surrounding world.
A. C. H
B
In this revised doctoral dissertation B. explores the common ground between Aramaic and Egyptian law and legal terminology as evident in the Aramaic papyri from the Jewish colony in Elephantine during the fifth century
W. S
B
This edited collection situates itself in post-9/11 interest in ‘religious violence’, and is a helpful contribution to debates about the textual antecedents of ideas at stake. With a focus on early Judaism and Christianity, there are no papers that deal specifically with the OT. However, there is discussion of a useful breadth of material from the Dead Sea Scrolls and NT to rabbinic and patristic texts. The nine papers are roughly chronological, beginning with Jassen's discussion of ‘scarce resources’ theory as key to the eschatological situating of violent material in the Dead Sea Scrolls (‘The Dead Sea Scrolls and Violence: Sectarian Formation and Eschatological Imagination’), and concluding with Jan Willem van Henten's comparative exploration of ideas of barbarism in 2 Maccabees, the Passion, and the 2006 film Paradise Now (‘Martyrdom, Jesus' Passion and Barbarism’). Highlights include Jennifer Glancy's excellent exploration of the interplay between politics and symbolism (‘Violence as Sign in the Fourth Gospel’), in which Jesus's body displaces the Jerusalem Temple through his whipping of livestock sellers, implicating the gospel itself in the violence; and Boustan's well-presented exploration of the development of Jewish identity (trans)formation and fantasies of violence against Christian emperors in late antiquity (‘Immolating Emperors: Spectacles of Imperial Suffering and the Making of a Jewish Minority Culture in Late Antiquity’). Other essays are Kimberly B. Stratton, ‘The Eschatological Arena: Reinscribing Roman Violence in Fantasies of the End Times’; Roetzel, ‘The Language of War (2 Cor. 10:1–6) and the Language of Weakness (2 Cor. 11:21b-13:10’; Shelly Matthews, ‘Clemency as Cruelty: Forgiveness and Force in the Dying Prayers of Jesus and Stephen’; Beth A. Berkowitz, ‘Reconsidering the Book and the Sword: A Rhetoric of Passivity in Rabbinic Hermeneutics’; and Margaret M. Mitchell, ‘Christian Martyrdom and the “Dialect of the Holy Scriptures”: The Literal, the Allegorical, the Martyrological’. The collection's aim is to develop better understandings of the provenance of modern ‘religious violence’. However, the texts explored here have little in common with modern experiences. Sociopolitical and historical contexts likely account for this. A number of themes weave through the articles, some more culturally familiar than others: empire, fantasy, martyrdom, agency, identity, representation. The focus is not on texts of violence in OT so much as on hermeneutic practices, but there is plenty of good scholarship to interest OT specialists.
S.L. N
B
This is a work on a grand scale, covering a significant aspect of Roman imperial rule in the Syrian provinces down to the death of Constantine, namely, the representation of the emperor in inscriptions (titles, etc.), numismatics and plastic arts (images, etc.). It covers a vast range of epigraphic and archaeological material from Syria itself, but also from Phoenicia, southern Anatolia and Arabia, and discusses in detail the various celebrations connected to the imperial cult, including the various games and festivals held as part of the representation and consolidation of Roman power. There is much on these themes in relation to Antioch, Palmyra, the Hawran area, Nabataea and Arabia. Perhaps of greatest interest to readers of the B.L. will be sections on the Judaean client-state of Rome ruled by Herod and his successors and the prelude to the First Jewish Revolt. There is much of interest also from a Church History perspective, given the early spread of Christianity to Antioch and the fraught relations between the Church and the Roman state in the period before Constantine. The work is prefaced by a substantial theoretical discussion and ends with an admirable array of maps and illustrations. There are indexes of persons, places and divinities. An appendix lists the 22 reigning emperors before Constantine who visited the Syrian provinces; this alone is a remarkable indicator of their importance to the Empire. The volume will be a basic reference for all those working on the Roman Empire in the Near East.
J.F. H
C
C. is well known for his work in early Judaism, both Second Temple and rabbinic. He has written a number of classic articles over the years, and many of these are reprinted here. Under ‘Jewish Hellenism’ are articles on the beauty of Flora and Sarai; Sosates the Jewish Homer; the destruction (70–135
L.L. G
C
For a review of this volume, see Section 10 below.
C
In spite of the similarities in name, the author of this study is a different person from Stephen L. Cook who has written a good deal on prophecy. Although a number of articles have examined the question of the ‘cessation of prophecy’, this seems to be the first monograph devoted to the question. The core of the study is chs. 4–11 which survey the various ancient writings that provide relevant comments on the question and consider their statements in the light of discussions in current scholarship. C. argues that modern discussion is divided into two general ‘approaches’: the ‘traditional’ approach (which concludes that Jews believed prophecy ceased after the Persian period) and the ‘non-traditional’ approach (which argues there was more than one ancient Jewish view, with some Jews believing that prophecy continued). Overall, this does a thorough job of considering the variety of relevant texts. There will always be differences of opinion about the meaning of different texts (and I disagree with C. on a number), but I think his conclusion that ‘Second Temple Jews did, on the whole, tend to believe that prophecy had ceased in the Persian period’ goes beyond the actual evidence. Tensions between statements in his concluding chapter and elsewhere suggest that he is not fully secure in his grip on the many considerations that must be taken into account. But anyone interested in the subject will find the main issues clearly laid out, with all the data available to make their own decision.
L.L. G
C
This Festschrift in honour of a leading scholar of Ben Sira and also Chronicles and other biblical literature has the following essays: Chronicles and Ben Sira: questions of genre (C. Mitchell); Aaron's polyvalent role according to Ben Sira (F.V. Reiterer); canonical assimilation in Ben Sira's portrayal of Joshua and Samuel (J. Corley); the significance of David's battles in Chronicles and Ben Sira (B.C. Gregory); 1 Chronicles 16: the Chronicler's psalm and its view of history (H. van Grol); the Temple in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles (S.J. Schweitzer); Solomon in Chronicles and Ben Sira (B.G. Wright III); Rehoboam meets Machiavelli (R. Boer); Elijah as reconciler of father and son: from 1 Kings 16.34 and Mal. 3.22–24 to Ben Sira 48.1–11 and Lk. 1.13–17 (B.J. Koet); Sirach 48.17–25 and the Isaiah book (A.L.H.M. van Wieringen); Manasseh in Chronicles (G. Knoppers); Josiah and his prophet(s) in Chronicles and Ben Sira (R. Egger-Wenzel); Zedekiah and the fall of Jerusalem in 2 Chron. 36.11–21 (B. Becking); new elements in Ben Sira's portrait of the high priest Simon in Sirach 50 (O. Mulder); why women were included in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9 (W. van Wieringen); the absence of named women from Ben Sira's praise of the ancestors (N. Calduch-Benages); the review of history in Ben Sira 44–50 and Wisdom 10–19 (M. Gilbert, SJ). The volume begins with a Preface discussing the contents of the volume, as well as an appreciation of P.C. Beentjes, and ends with his bibliography from 1974–2011, along with full indexes. All in all a very worthy and satisfying volume.
L.L. G
D
'Apocrypha’ in this volume seems to mean any non-canonical writing, including the mass of pseudepigrapha (except in the esssay of Swoboda). The editors provide an introductory essay that gives a very brief introduction to the study of Slavonic pseudo-epigrapha but, sadly, does not deal with the individual studies in the volume. The essays (mostly in English) are as follows: the uniqueness and importance of the Slavonic pseudepigrapha (J.H. Charlesworth); The Sea of Tiberias, a work between apocryphal literature and oral tradition (F.B. Geller); the History of Melchisedek in the Slavonic cultural realm (C. Böttrich, in German); problems of text relating to the indexes of prohibited books (I.M. Gritsevskaya); OT ‘apocrypha’ in the Serbian manuscript tradition (T. Jovanović); Church Slavonic ‘apocrypha’ and Slavic linguistics (A. Kulik); the original of propitiatorium in the Apocalypse of Abraham (B. Lourié); sources, transmission, and morphology of the Slavonic genre Erotapokriseis (question and answer) (A. Miltenova); the Slavonic Apocryphon of Zorobabel (text and translation) (L. Navtanovich); ‘men of faith’ in 2 En. 35.2 and Sefer Hekhalot 48d.10 (A. Orlov); the Sibylline tradition in the mediaeval and early modern Slavic culture (M. Pesenson); Slavonic ‘apocryphal’ traditions in the Romanian lands (N. Roddy); the manuscript tradition of the Apocalypse of Abraham (A. de Santos Otero, in German); the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the Russian tradition and the contexts of their reception (C. Soldat); the OT apocrypha [Greek Orthodox Apocrypha] in early Russian drama (M. Swoboda); the rough draft of the Polnaja Chronografičeskaja Paleja and the relationship between the different redactions of the Paleja (E.G. Vodolazkin). Interest in the Slavonic biblical and related writings has burgeoned in recent years (cf. B.L. 2006, pp. 183–84; 2008, pp. 227–28; 2011, p. 191). This is a welcome contribution to these studies, even though the editors could have done more to aid the reader's use of the volume.
L.L. G
F
F
The need for a solid introduction in English to targumic literature as a whole has long been felt, so this excellent and detailed volume is a most welcome contribution. Flesher and Chilton provide a clear picture of the origins, development, language, translation techniques, exegetical approaches, and so on, of the Targums to the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Writings (Sections 2–3). In Section 4 the authors place the Targums within their historical setting, giving an overview of the phases of the Aramaic language and the attitude of rabbinic authorities to the translation of Scripture, and providing a comparison with other ancient translations. Section 5 presents a compelling case for the relevance of the Targums for the study of the early Christian movement. A concluding section draws these threads together with a comparative study of Genesis 22 in the Targums and in early Jewish and Christian interpretation. The volume includes a wealth of useful material and is surely a must for all serious Bible scholars, yet not all targumists will agree with some of the positions adopted by the authors. Common targumic techniques such as figurative renderings (e.g. ‘king’ for ‘lion’) problematize the authors' description of Targum as offering a ‘highly literal rendering’ of the Hebrew combined with additional material, for example, and while they stress the Targums' origins within the synagogue, the obvious question of why the entirety of the Prophets was translated rather than only the haftarot is not adequately addressed.
H.M. P
F
This is a collection of 25 of F.'s articles, all but three published between 1993 and 2010 (a large proportion in collected volumes rather than journals), the exceptions being the introduction (‘Of Legal Fictions and Narrative Worlds’) and conclusion (‘Afterword: Between History and its Redemption’), and essay 6 (‘The Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism after Sixty [Plus] Years: Retrospect and Prospect’). We are told that ‘they have not been “updated” in any appreciable way’. The term ‘legal fictions’ is here used not in its technical legal sense but rather as a ‘broader (though related) double task of recognizing the fictive (narrative) aspects of laws and the legal force of (narrative) fictions’. Thus in the second essay Cover's ‘Nomos and Narrative’ is rightly reappropriated in terms of interpenetration: ‘nomos as narrative’ and its reverse (p. 12). The main body of the collection is divided into three sections. The first, ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’, contains ‘Interpretive Authority in the Studying Community at Qumran’, ‘To Whom it May Concern: Miq⋅at Ma'aśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT) and its Addressee(s)’, and ‘Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in 4QMMT: The Case of the Blessings and Curses’. The next section, ‘Comparative: Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Literature’, consists of the review essay mentioned above, together with ‘Qumran Yaḥad and Rabbinic ḥavurah: A Comparison Revisited’, ‘Looking for Legal Midrash at Qumran’, ‘Looking for Narrative Midrash at Qumran’, ‘Shifting from Priestly to Non-Priestly Legal Authority: A Comparison of the Damascus Document and the Midrash Sifra’, ‘Deuteronomy and Polity in the Early History of Jewish Interpretation’, ‘Ancient Jewish Law and Narrative in Comparative Perspective: The Damascus Document and the Mishnah’, ‘Theory, Practice, and Polemic in Ancient Jewish Calendars’, and ‘“The Torah of the King” (Deut 17:14–20) in the Temple Scroll and Early Rabbinic Law’. The final major section, ‘Rabbinic Literature’, presents ‘Priests, Kings, and Patriarchs: Yerushalmi Sanhedrin in its Exegetical and Cultural Settings’, ‘Navigating the Anomalous: Non-Jews at the Intersection of Early Rabbinic Law and Narrative’, ‘Literary Composition and Oral Performance in Early Midrashim’, ‘Rewritten Bible and Rabbinic Midrash as Commentary’, ‘Rabbinic Midrash and Ancient Jewish Biblical Interpretation’, ‘Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited: Between Praxis and Thematization’, ‘Moses and the Commandments: Can Hermeneutics, History, and Rhetoric be Disentangled?’, ‘Hearing and Seeing at Sinai: Interpretive Trajectories’, ‘The Temple as a Jewish Identity Marker Pre- and Post-70
B. S. J
F
This collection of essays takes up the questions of 1 Esdras's character and its relationship to Ezra-Nehemiah. The priority of 1 Esdras over Ezra-Nehemiah is argued in three essays: D.N. Fulton and G.N. Knoppers, ‘Lower Criticism and Higher Criticism: The Case of 1 Esdras’; L.L. Grabbe, ‘Chicken and Egg? Which Came First, 1 Esdras or Ezra-Nehemiah?; and A. Schenker, ‘The Relationship between Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras’. Seven essays argue for the priority of Ezra-Nehemiah over 1 Esdras, three on the basis of the latter's incorporation of chs. 3–4 (B. Becking, ‘The Story of the Three Youths and the Composition of 1 Esdras’; Z. Talshir, ‘Ancient Composition Patterns Mirrored in 1 Esdras and the Priority of the Canonical Composition Type’; K. De Troyer, ‘The Second Year of Darius’), one because of its revisionist erasure of Nehemiah (J.L. Wright, ‘Remember Nehemiah: 1 Esdras and the Damnatio Memoriae Nehemiae’), two because of its enhancement of the role of Zerubabbel (J.C. VanderKam, ‘Literary Questions between Ezra, Nehemiah and 1 Esdras’; L. Fried, ‘Why the Story of the Three Youths in 1 Esdras?’), and one because of its enhancement of Ezra's role (J. Pakkala, ‘Why 1 Esdras Is Probably Not an Early Version of the Ezra-Nehemiah Tradition’). Addressing the nature of 1 Esdras in its own right, P.B. Harvey, Jr (‘Darius’ Court and the Guardsmen's Debate: Hellenistic Greek Elements in 1 Esdras') argues for significant Hellenistic influence on 1 Esdras, S. Grätz (‘The Image of the King(s) in 1 Esdras’) and R.W. Klein (‘The Rendering of 2 Chronicles 35–36 in 1 Esdras’) focus on the portrayal of Josiah, while S. Honigman (‘Cyclical Time and Catalogues: The Construction of Meaning in 1 Esdras’) distinguishes cyclical and linear conceptions of time in 1 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah respectively. H.G.M. Williamson (‘1 Esdras as Rewritten Bible?’) explores the category of ‘rewritten Bible’ in discerning the purpose of 1 Esdras, while S. Japhet (‘1 Esdras: Its Genre, Literary Form, and Goals’) focuses on the latter's legitimation of the leadership of the high priest in the writer's own time.
If the balance of arguments weigh slightly in favour of a negative answer to the question posed in the title, the collection as a whole also enhances 1 Esdras's reputation as a book worthy of further exploration.
D. S
G
This monograph, the author's 2009 dissertation at the Catholic University of America, is a global examination of Wisdom of Solomon 10 in a philological-critical vein. Wisdom 10 merits special attention, because it is the only Second Temple wisdom text to combine three wisdom tropes: personified wisdom, Israelite history as wisdom, and the lives of the ancients. Additionally, it forms a natural bridge between the first half of the book (Wis. 1–9), in which lady Wisdom is predominant, and the second half (Wis. 11–19), the only chapters to feature Israel's past. G. dedicates separate chapters to provenance, structure and poetics, genre and form, exegesis, and hermeneutical method. In other words, G. discusses Wisdom 10 as a text in its own right, with its own design, arguments and purpose. As such, he is at his best when considering the unique features of the text: form, poetics, structure, and genre (chs. 3–4). Here G. dubs the chapter an instance of exempla or Beispielreihe, a genre of poetry in which positive and negative examples alternate, bound together by a keyword (αűτη in this instance). His footing is less sure when discussing the relationship of Wisdom 10 to antecedent texts and the various, complex ways that those texts are reused (especially ch. 6). Thus, although G. attends to the historical setting of the chapter and book as well as its unique features, the book's place within the broader Second Temple literary context remains to be explored.
W.A. T
G
This volume is a revised and expanded version of G.'s earlier work, An Introduction to First Century Judaism (1996), which was positively reviewed in B.L. 1997, p. 141. That review remains valid; but in this volume ch. 1 provides a new overview of the whole period, of recent scholarship and of the sources available to current researchers. Bibliographies and suggestions for further reading in subsequent chapters have been updated and G. has restructured the material to make it more accessible to students. His target audience remains non-specialists, educated lay people and those beginning to study the subject. Original sources are quoted throughout, to illustrate G.'s points and to introduce readers both to the range of material available and some of the issues associated with the evaluation of these sources. The brevity of this volume belies the wealth of information it contains. From the depth and breadth of his own scholarship G. has produced a valuable introduction, written in his customary clear style, that is born out of his experience as a teacher. A worthy addition to library shelves.
J.E. T
G
This is a fascinating mix of archaeology and ideology which aims to elucidate the many references to scent in the rabbinic writings in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods (approximately the second to the fifth centuries
D.W. R
G
The contributions to this volume describe the ‘soteriology’ of Jewish works composed in the Second Temple and early rabbinic period, paying attention to the literary and historical setting of each work. The term ‘soteriology’ is necessarily broadly conceived but the difficulties of applying such language to such a diverse body of literature is not overlooked. Taken together this volume usefully illustrates the heterogeneity of ideas falling between the poles of national and personal, corporeal and disembodied, conditional and unconditional, and earthly and other-worldly expectations. The notion of election and the connection of soteriology to eschatological and messianic expectations also receive attention. Gurtner sets out the volume's aims and provides a brief summary of each essay in his introduction. The contents are arranged by literary genre as follows. Part 1, ‘Narratives’: M.F. Bird, ‘“Waiting for his Deliverance”: The Story of Salvation in Judith’; J.RC. Cousland, ‘God's Great Deeds of Deliverance: Soteriology in 3 Maccabees’; and P.M. Sprinkle, ‘The Hermeneutic of Grace: The Soteriology of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities’. Part 2, ‘Apocalypses’: L. DiTommaso, ‘Deliverance and Justice: Soteriology in the Book of Daniel’; J.C. Poirer, ‘On a Wing and a Prayer: The Soteriology of the Apocalypse of Abraham’; J. Moo, ‘The Few Who Obtain Mercy: Soteriology in 4 Ezra’; D.M. Gurtner, ‘On the Other Side of Disaster: Soteriology in 2 Baruch’; and G. Macaskill, ‘Personal Salvation and Rigorous Obedience: The Soteriology of 2 Enoch’ Part 3, ‘(A Set of Some) Psalms’: K. Atkinson, ‘Enduring the Lord's Discipline: Soteriology in the Psalms of Solomon’. Part 4, ‘Philosophical Texts’: R.R. C
H.M. P
H
This precedes and acts as a companion to the commentary on 2 Baruch that H. is preparing for the Commentaries in Early Jewish Literature series. Here he deals with the main ‘introductory’ matters, including the manuscripts and text, matters of date and authorship, history of scholarship and composition in ch. 2. Each of the following chapters (3–7) focuses on one of the five main genres represented in 2 Baruch. Chapter 3 considers the book in relation to the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 4 investigates the dialogue sections and also the question of 2 Baruch in relation to 4 Ezra. Chapter 5 considers the place of the book in post-70
L.L. G
H
An important collection of essays on an enigmatic, unprovenanced, recently published Hebrew inscription that, if it has not been indisputably demonstrated to be of Second Temple-era provenance, at least at present cannot be shown to be a forgery.
The contents of the volume are as follows: David Jeselsohn, ‘The Jeselsohn Stone: Discovery and Publication’; Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elizur, ‘A Hebrew Prophetic Text on Stone from the Early Herodias Period: A Preliminary Report’; Elisha Qimron and Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky, ‘Notes on the So-Called Gabriel Vision Inscription’; Israel Knohl, ‘The Apocalyptic and Messianic Dimensions of the Gabriel Revelation in their Historical Context’; Gary A. Rendsburg, ‘Hazon Gabriel: A Grammatical Sketch’; Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘Response to Israel Knohl, Messiahs and Resurrection in “The Gabriel Revelation”’; John J. Collins, ‘Gabriel and David: Some Reflections on an Enigmatic Text’; Matthias Henze, ‘Some Observations on the Hazon Gabriel’; Kelley Coblentz Bautch, ‘Hosts, Holy Ones, and the Words of Gabriel: The Angelology of Hazon Gabriel in the Context of Second Temple and Late Antique Literature’; Daewoong Kim, ‘The Use of Daniel in the Gabriel Revelation’; David Capes, ‘“Jerusalem” in the Gabriel Revelation and the Revelation of John’. The collection includes three independent transcriptions and translations of the text, detailed analysis of its script and grammar, and much exegesis and discussion of specific problems and themes. Israel Knohl's controversial messianism theory is defended by the author and addressed by Yarbro Collins and others. This volume is a welcome contribution to the emerging discussion of this inscription.
J.R. D
I
This is a further volume in I.'s multi-volume study of Jewish names in late antiquity (see B.L. 2003, p. 173 for Part I and B.L. 2010, p. 184 for Part III). This volume follows the format of the previous volumes. It covers mainly the Eastern Diaspora: Mesopotamia, Iran and the Arabian peninsula, as well as a few other lands that had some Jews—Armenia, Georgia and the eastern part of Syria (especially Palmyra and Dura Europa). The Jews here were mainly Semitic-speaking, especially Aramaic but also Arabic in the later period. There are some Greek and Latin names, but these take up fewer than 20 pages; in contrast, Arabic names take up almost 50 pages. Biblical names take up about 100 pages, as do Iranian names. But there are also names falling outside these categories, about 120 pages' worth in Greek, Latin and Hebrew characters. Only one volume of I.'s study now remains to appear, Part II, that will cover names in Palestine from 200–650
L.L. G
I
Many years ago I read the whole of J. Neusner's magisterial three-volume Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 (described by G. Vermes as ‘epoch-making’ in B.L. 1973, p. 61) in preparation for teaching an honours class on the subject. I still recall being stunned by both the achievement and its implications; the views of my students are unrecorded. Since then, as I.-B. acknowledges in this second volume of the TRENT series, others have taken up the task of identifying ‘the earliest layers of rabbinic literature and analyz[ing] the dating of these texts’ (p. xi), but no-one has as yet attempted a comprehensive presentation of the whole of Mishnah with an English translation and a thorough-going identification of the earliest (pre-70) layers of rabbinic literature. Each dating is numbered according to the level of confidence in that dating (see TRENT vol. 1, pp. 39–40). No doubt there will be many disagreements about the detail of I.-B.'s work—the dating of specific rabbinic texts is always a matter of controversy—but it is undoubtedly a brave effort, and carries the endorsement of none other than Neusner himself. A major purpose of the project is to explore possible evidence or echoes in the New Testament which might have a bearing on the antiquity of these traditions; an interesting reversal of the time-honoured assumption that the rabbinic traditions are pre-Christian and can be reliably used to read the NT. Evidently this project has interesting implications for New Testament studies, but it clearly has significance for the more general field of early rabbinic Judaism.
A.G. H
J
This revised 2006 dissertation from UC Berkeley looks at seven Jewish writings from the post-70 period to consider ‘the provincial mind at work’: 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, 4 Baruch (Paraleipomena Jeremiae), Sibylline Oracles 4 and 5, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. While the dominant scholarly narrative concerning the Jewish response has depended upon the writings of Josephus, assessed with varying degrees of scepticism, little attention has been paid to the attitudes to Rome in the other Jewish literature that contains reflections on the destruction of Jerusalem. While each writing has its own tone and purpose, sometimes possibly constructed on the basis of dialogue with other known texts, overall J. sees two perspectives at work in them. On the one hand, there seems to be a tendency in these writings to direct Jews away from thoughts of armed insurrection; the stress is on divine faithfulness in contrast with certain faithless Jewish groups that have provoked divine judgment, and on eventual divine vindication. On the other hand, there seems to be a strong tendency not towards resistance but towards introversion, to stress the need to preserve Jewish identity apart from Rome, often by closer attention to the Law or some other aspect of received tradition, and so to avoid the kinds of cultural assimilation to which other subject peoples in the Roman empire succumbed. J. acknowledges throughout the difficulties of date and provenance for his chosen compositions. The volume is an insightful complement to the more wide-ranging work of M. Hadas-Lebel, Jerusalem against Rome (Leuven: Peeters, 2006; see B.L. 2008, p. 39).
G. J. B
K
Of the 17 essays here (all in German), three appear for the first time (noted below). The essays are wide-ranging and will provide studies of interest to those in Second Temple Judaism and history writing; indeed, it is dedicated to the memory of Martin Hengel. The 14 previously published essays are: theological aspects of Herodotus's histories; hybris, ate (recklessness arising from divinely caused judicial blindness) and theia dike (divine justice) in Herodotus's report of Xerxes' campaign against the Greeks (Histories 7–9); strangers, foreigners and proselytes in the OT; political and personal freedom in the Jewish-Hellenistic writing of the first century
L.L. G
K
This is a doctoral thesis of 1951, edited very helpfully by Beentjes with interesting introductory matter by Gerard Norton and Maurice Gilbert. Till now the thesis has been known only from copies of the typescript in certain libraries. It concerns the additional matter found especially in some miniscule manuscripts of the Greek, in the Syrohexapla and the Peshitta, and partly matching but much more extensively in the Latin. Probably also some slight elements in the Hebrew tradition belong here. Of course already much attention has been paid to these additions in Smend's great commentary of 1906, both in the introduction and throughout, arguing for a Jewish origin; J.H.A. Hart had devoted most of his book on Ecclesiasticus (1909) to an elaborate study of Greek ms. 248, similarly positing an origin in a Pharisaic recension of the Hebrew, and A. Schlatter in 1897 had argued for an origin among Hellenized Jews. But K. was working before Ziegler's edition of the Greek (including the additions), before good editions of the Latin, and before the vast study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relation to other Jewish literature. Even so his elaborate study is valuable for its examination of the Ecclesiasticus additions in relation to a very wide range of Jewish sources. He argues for a degree of unity of thought in the variously transmitted additions and for a special interest in the afterlife in them. He concludes cautiously in favour of an Essene origin. Many will doubt whether the unity is really so apparent, and we are hardly in a position to define specifically Essene theology. But K.'s careful comparative work remains highly valuable. The appended bibliographical updating by Nuria Calduch-Benages is helpful, and there is a useful, though not faultless, index of passages quoted.
A.D. L
K
3 Baruch mainly consists of a vision and tour of the heavens by the scribe of Jeremiah, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, though several anachronistic features show it actually to have been written after the fall of the Temple in 70
L.L. G
K
For a review of this volume, see Section 5.I above.
L
This book primarily studies the aspect of cosmic salvation as described in Paul's writings from the perspective of anthropology and cosmology. In addition to an introduction and conclusion, the book's chapters are ‘The Background of Paul's Cosmic Drama (1): The Old Testament and Greek Philosophy’; ‘The Background of Paul's Cosmic Drama (2): Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature, and Philo’; ‘Paul's Narrative World as the Cosmic Drama’; and ‘Paul's Four-Staged Cosmic Drama, the Law, and Christ’. In these chapters, L. attempts to understand how the concept of God's salvific work in Christ develops in Paul's letters against the background of Judaeo-Hellenistic traditions, Jewish wisdom and apocalyptic literature, and Philo's writings. He discusses this work in four stages: (1) the Law-less Period (Adam to Moses); (2) the Law Period (Moses to Christ); (3) the Age of the Church; (4) the Parousia, and explains that these four acts are interconnected in their focus on the saving action of God. In this sense, continuity and discontinuity exist between Paul's Gospel and the OT narratives. As L. understands it, in Paul's thought ‘the inauguration of the Messianic age, which already began with the first coming of Christ, signals the birth of this new cosmic family’, and in this cosmic family (as mentioned in Gal. 3.28) any barriers that are based on social status and gender are removed (p. 310). L.'s book, with its detailed discussion, will help as a guide for future research on the salvific work of God in Paul's letters.
P. S
L
This is the fourth volume to appear from an extensive funded research project by L. tracing attitudes to sexuality in Judaism and Christianity in the Hellenistic period (see B.L. 2008, pp. 221–22 and B.L. 2010, p. 203 for earlier volumes). The individual volumes are self-standing, as to a large extent are the three text corpora studied within this volume, with only a minimal summarizing overview (pp. 436–37). Indeed, there is little that holds them together, given their different geographical locations and literary genre, and the uncertainties regarding the age and provenance of the materials in the Testaments. Philo and Josephus also defy any easy schematization, provoking the author to provide his own: L. discusses Philo under the headings of ‘Man and Woman: Beginning from Genesis 1–3’; ‘Sexual Allusions and Motifs beyond Genesis 1–3’ (i.e. in the biblical narrative); ‘Sexual Issues in Philo's Exposition of the Law’. Josephus is similarly approached, first historically, through the biblical, Hasmonaean and Herodian periods, and then with sections on ‘Law and related issues’ and on a topical review of the material. The Testaments are studied individually, with some cross-referencing which is brought together in a Conclusion. As the structure might suggest, the approach is largely discursively descriptive, while sexuality moves towards ‘sexual activity and issues’ more than it does to ideas of gender—although these are difficult to avoid in the case of Philo where L. adopts a moderate and generally optimistic perspective, a perspective that becomes more strained with the Testaments. Nonetheless, L. does manage to engage critically with other scholarship and his account rarely becomes a catalogue. Those who are committed to more analytical theories of gender may find themselves frustrated with where the discussion stops, but L.'s thorough attention to the text and historical context will be essential components in future debate.
J.M. L
L
A deep concern to further Jewish-Christian dialogue has persuaded L. to grasp the serpent of theological conflict by the tail and address the central issue of Jesus' messiahship directly. An excellent first chapter introduces possible approaches to the question, and an equally fascinating second chapter summarizes the views of four significant Jewish scholars on Jesus' person, role and outcome as regards his ‘messianic’ claims. Then, before she returns to consider implications for dialogue in the ninth chapter, L. surveys a vast spread of texts, concepts and historical periods, focusing narrowly on possible Jewish antecedents for the various facets of messianic beliefs attested in the New Testament, including especially divinity, suffering, atonement, and non-political outcomes. Her suggested solution is that the three primary images used to portray the suffering-death-resurrection event—Isaiah's ‘servant’, the Passover lamb and the high priest on Yom Kippur—are all fragmented forms of pre-exilic pagan-inspired sacral kingship featuring a New Year enthronement festival where Israel's king was ritually humiliated to accomplish fertility for the land magically. Such ancient Jewish syncretism, reaching full fruition in the intertestamental literature, would absolve Jesus' followers of Hellenizing innovations, but at the cost of making Christians the heirs of a ‘repugnant’ heterodoxy quite foreign to the ‘plain sense’ of the Jewish Scriptures. Nevertheless, L. then insists upon a canonical hermeneutical approach for her own New Testament texts (ch. 8). Combining within her grasp of the debate an overly speculative synchronic approach, essentially modalistic or even Gnostic trinitarian theology, and a downplaying of Judaism's fundamentally political messianic hopes ever since the Exile, L. may yet find this potentially wonder-working staff a little more lively than intended.
J.E. P
M
The well-known textual problems and persistent debates about the origin and unity of the book make it difficult to work with Tobit, and this study of the wisdom instructtions in ch. 4 has to begin with a lengthy defence of the work's integrity. M. has also to deal with the problem that a significant portion of the chapter has been omitted in Codex Sinaiticus, which complicates his discussion of form and structure. When these issues are out of the way, however, he is able to get down to the main purpose of the study, which is to examine the role and function of wisdom materials in the book. This is addressed in terms both of their narrative function, and of the way in which they show wisdom concepts and motifs to have been deployed by the writer of Tobit in pursuit of new questions about community and identity faced by Jews in the Diaspora. Accordingly, M. has to look not only at Tobit, but at the development of the wisdom tradition more broadly, making this an extremely ambitious undertaking. By and large, though, he has handled it well, and although some of its assumptions and generalizations may be open to question, this study is marked by both a clarity of thought and an impressive engagement with a very wide range of secondary literature. Tobit is important for our understanding of wisdom literature, perhaps not only at this relatively late date, and this study contributes much.
S.D.E. W
M
This book, which will no doubt be widely used, sets out to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of the everyday lives of Jews in Palestine during the last two centuries before the fall of the Temple in 70
G. J. B
M
For a review of this volume, see Section 1 above.
M
This volume brings together works published between 1966 and 2011. The content has not been updated, but for the earlier essays the author adds a postscript in order to take into account the substantial developments in targumic studies in the intervening years. An autobiographical introduction helps place the materials within the wider scholarly debate and traces something of the developments within Targum studies that M. has played so vital a part in shaping. It is certainly a great advantage to have so many important studies gathered into a single volume. The contents are as follows. Part 1, ‘Targum and Research’: ‘Targumic Studies’; ‘Half a Century of Targum Study’; ‘The Aramaic Translations: A Newly Recognised Aid for New Testament Study’; ‘Some Recent Writings (pre-1980) on Rabbinic Literature and the Targums’; ‘The Michael Glazier-Liturgical Press Aramaic Bible Project: Some Reflections’; ‘On Englishing the Targums’; ‘Towards an English Synoptic Presentation of the Pentateuchal Targums’. Part 2, ‘Targum and Language’: ‘Some Early Rabbinic Citations and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch’; ‘The Language Situation in First-Century Palestine: Aramaic and Greek’. Part 3, ‘Targum and Biblical Exegesis’: ‘Interpretation of Scripture in the Targums’; ‘Variegated Judaism: Some Targum Themes’; ‘Melchizedek: Gen 14.17–20 in the Targums, in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature’; ‘Reception of the Hebrew Text of Leviticus in the Targums’; ‘Early Exegesis in the Palestinian Targum (Neofiti): Numbers Chapter 21’; ‘Early Exegesis in the Palestinian Targum (Neofiti 1): Numbers Chapter 24’; ‘The Colophon of Codex Neofiti 1: The Scribe Menahem and the Roman Medical Family of Manuele’. Part 4, ‘Targum and New Testament’: ‘Midrash, Apocrypha, Culture Medium and Development of Doctrine: Some Facts in Quest of a Terminology’; ‘Logos of the Fourth Gospel and Memra of the Palestinian Targum (Exod 12.42)’; ‘“To Prepare a Resting-Place for You”: A Targumic Expression and John 14.2–3’; ‘The Ascension and the Exaltation of Christ in the Fourth Gospel’; ‘Tò δέ (Aγάρ) Σινᾶὄρoζ ἐστίν ἐν τῇ’ Aραβία (Gal 4.25a): Paul and Petra'; ‘Targum and the New Testament: A Revisit’. This final section is completed by a new essay considering future prospects in the comparative study of the Targums and the New Testament, entitled ‘Targums and New Testament, A Way Forward? Targums, Tel-like Character, a Continuum’. Appendixes give a bibliography of M.'s works on Targum, a list of the volumes available in the Aramaic Bible series for which M. served as editor and contributor, a list of editions and other resources, and a bibliography.
H. M. P
M
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 above.
N
This Habilitationsschrift from the University of Leipzig (supervisors: H.-W. Fischer-Elfert and Mark Depauw) aims to analyse the Sortes Astrampsychi and several related oracle collections, and to comment on and contextualize them. The Sortes Astrampsychi are collections of questions put to Egyptian or Greek temples or oracle priests, along with several answers to each question. These have 92 questions from various areas of daily life and 1030 potential answers. The priest would select an answer for the petitioner by some system or other. These collections are dated to the third to the fifth centuries
L.L. G
N
This revised 2008 Yale dissertation is concerned from both philosophical and historical-critical perspectives with tannaitic normativity as that is available to us through those rabbinic texts that were edited during the third century
G. J. B
O
This book primarily discusses the relevance of the non-canonical writings (from 300
P. S
P
For a review of this volume, see Section 2 above.
P
This important book asks what the relationship might be between the genre of apocalypse and imperial political oppression, and variously answers its own question by seeing apocalypses as resistance literature that provides alternative ways of offering both cosmic and social order. As such, P.-Y. argues, apocalypses are not flights of fancy by marginalized minorities, but the products of Judaea's elites at the centre of events with which they engage directly. The book opens with an extensive consideration of how resistance might be theorized so as to correct a common set of misperceptions about apocalypticism. In particular it is proposed that resistance was both a set of actions and a set of discourses: the hidden realities that shape visible realities have to be revealed in order to counter imperial hegemonies, often through critical inversion. To enable an appreciation of what the historical apocalypses resisted, Part 2 is a detailed review of Seleucid domination in Judaea in which the identity crisis of the Seleucid rulers is shown as being expressed through their efforts to recreate empire, often through state terror and persecution; the narrative is constructed largely in terms of those oppressed. In Part 3 four apocalyptic theologies of resistance are presented: Daniel, the Book of Watchers, the Apocalypse of Weeks, and the Book of Dreams. The emphasis on Enoch is ascribed not just to the alternative universal cosmologies and epistemologies that accompany him, but also to the circumstance that many in authority with the support of the Seleucids had already commandeered Moses for their own particularist purposes and also had to be resisted. Overall, fresh and convincing.
G. J. B
R
The genesis of this book lies in R.'s Grinfield lectures given at oxford University in 1995–96. The translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek has been well researched and the last ten years have seen a healthy resurgence of major studies in that subject. R.'s approach, however, is that of the cultural historian, and she aims to analyse and reassess the data so far concerning the origins, role, influence and varying audiences of the Greek text later known by Christians as the Septuagint. Unlike many previous studies, the focus of this one is on the Greek Jewish community, and it spans 400 years, from the time of the translation of the Bible into Greek and the story of that translation contained in the Letter of Aristeas, to the second century
A. J
R
This dissertation from the Free University of Berlin (supervisor Peter Schäfer) gives a critical edition of the mediaeval magical work Book of Magical Use of the Psalms, with all the trimmings. The edition consists of four Hebrew witnesses in synoptic arrangement: the editio princeps (S1551), MS London L34, MS New York N1878 and MS Oxford O1531. A German translation (also arranged synoptically) is given of S1551 and L34 (ch. 5). R. provides a description of all 51 of the extant manuscripts and of four (out of about 20) printed editions. The Psalms have been used for magical purposes from an early time, and the different editions of the Sefer Shimmush Tehillim differ considerably from one another. R. traces the redactional history of the work by means of material from the Cairo Genizah, with oriental mss (in Aramaic) as early as the tenth-eleventh centuries. The commentary (ch. 6) concentrates on magic and the related themes of ritual, liturgy and medicine. The ‘Schäfer school’ continues to produce valuable editions and studies, and anyone interested in Jewish magic will find a useful study and edition here.
L.L. G
R
This revised 2009 doctoral dissertation, originally submitted at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, argues that attention needs to be paid to the John-Elijah association in Luke as well as to the Jesus-Elijah association that has been widely discussed. R. addresses the question of whether Luke's presentation of John states that he is the Elijah who was to come. He looks in turn at the origins of John the Baptist (according to Lk. 1.5–25), at John in the canticle of Zechariah (Lk. 1.68–79), at the narration of John's public mission (Lk. 3.1–20), and at Jesus' words for and about John (Lk. 7.18–35). R. concludes that despite the absence of a parallel to Mk 9.9–13 and despite Luke's description of Jesus by means of an Elijah typology, Luke does not attenuate the portrayal of John the Baptist as the promised Elijah; rather, it is simply a matter of John and Jesus being portrayed in parallel with different aspects of the Elijah pattern applied to one or the other. In particular, for John Luke is concerned to offer an Aaronite priestly colouring that depends analogically upon the spirit and power of Elijah. Overall, R. draws out the restorative and universal aspects of the depiction of Elijah in the Hebrew Bible and notes how Luke applies those to John. This is a worthwhile and careful contribution to one small aspect of Lukan studies and the wider field of the use of the Old Testament in the New.
G. J. B
S
The author's 2008 dissertation at the Freie Universität Berlin, this work attempts an exploration of biblical quotations and allusions in the Hebrew and Aramaic magical texts from the Cairo Genizah, dated from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries. Following brief, obligatory chapters on prior research and methodology (chs. 2–3), in which Arnold Goldberg, Alexander Samely, Michael Fishbane, Heinrich Plett and Ziva Ben-Porat play key roles, S. develops a sophisticated list of the forms of scriptural reuse and the ways that reuse can be marked (chs. 4–5). She then moves systematically through each scriptural and parabiblical source text (ch. 6), and the function of an allusion in its new context (chs. 7–8). Individual chapters are dedicated to the complex issues of divine epithets, and evocations of the Temple, cult and priesthood (chs. 9–10). The book concludes with a series of appendixes that catalogue all scriptural allusions in the corpus (pp. 354–479). This is a remarkably complex and rich book. S. considers her material from many angles: literary, text-critical, rhetorical, liturgical, historical and ideological. She convincingly demonstrates that scriptural allusions within the magical texts are pervasive, deliberate and selective. Allusion is central to the practice of Jewish magic, invoking divine power for human need.
W.A. T
S
Such a large topic, such a small book. S. examines a range of Jewish pronouncements on the status of women that appear in texts ranging from the Dead Sea Scrolls down to eighteenth-century rabbinic commentary, in order to explode the idea that there is a monolithic (and monolithically negative) view of women embedded in the Jewish exegetical tradition. The texts are examined under three headings: monogamy, commandments and intrinsic equality. The section on monogamy investigates the extent to which monogamy is implicitly and explicitly championed over against polygamy; the section on commandments examines how far women are included in the requirement to keep commandments (misvot) and are therefore entitled to reap the spiritual rewards associated therewith; and the section on intrinsic equality considers a selection of texts, relating to a range of situations, that appear to offer differing views on whether women and men are equal as human beings. The conclusion that follows these three sections is that the tradition, like the Torah upon which it is based, is multivocalic. This is a potentially interesting but hard-to-get-into piece; its approach and writing style is rather oblique, and tends to privilege rhetorical flourish over plain speaking. It is also given to footnotes that take up more of the page, sometimes considerably more, than the main text, as well as to vast amounts (up to a page at a time) of largely unexamined quotation from secondary sources. To doubt its seriousness of purpose would be churlish, but the affected writing style and those huge quotations do not help to commend it as a serious and rigorous piece of scholarship.
D.W. R
S
This is the second edition of the German version of S.'s History of the Jews in Antiquity. It is an only slightly changed reprint of the first edition from 1983. Most of the changes are the correction of typological errors; in addition, the bibliography has been slightly updated. The English editions were reviewed in B.L. 1998, p. 53 and B.L. 2004, p. 56. Like the first edition, this book is mainly aimed at German undergraduates in Jewish Studies and Theology. It is somewhat surprising that a new edition was not taken as an opportunity for a thoroughly revised version.
J. S
S
The editors gather together 22 previously published articles by the late Michael Klein that reflect his interest, in particular, in the Pentateuchal Targumim, their manuscript traditions and their relation to the ancient synagogue and Jewish exegesis. In their introduction the editors indicate that Klein was revising many of his papers. Sadly this work was incomplete at the time of his death, so the papers are reproduced in their original form. Stefan Reif adds a heartfelt dedication to Klein in an afterword. The volume contains the following: ‘The Aramaic Targumim: Translation and Interpretation’; ‘Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique’; ‘The Preposition םדק (“Before”): A Pseudo-Anti-Anthropomorphism in the Targums’; ‘Palestinian Targum and Synagogue Mosaics’; ‘The Translation of Anthropomorphisms and Anthropopathisms in the Targumim’; ‘Associative and Complementary Translation in the Targumim’; ‘A Fragment-Targum of Onqelos from the Cairo Genizah’; ‘Serugin (Shorthand) of Onqelos from the Cairo Genizah’; ‘New Fragments of Palestinian Targum from the Cairo Genizah’; ‘Complementary Fragments from the Cairo Genizah’ [in Hebrew]; ‘The Targumic Tosefta to Exodus 15.2’; ‘New Fragments of Targum to Esther from the Cairo Genizah’; ‘Introductory Poems (R'shuyot) to the Targum of the Haftarah in Praise of Jonathan Ben Uzziel’; ‘Four Notes on the Triennial Lectionary Cycle’; ‘Not to be Translated in Public’; ‘Text and Vorlage in Neofiti I’; ‘Deut 31.7: איבת or אובת?’; ‘The Notation of Parašot in MS Neofiti I’; ‘Notes on the Printed Edition of MS Neofiti I’; ‘Elias Levita and MS Neofiti I’; ‘The Messiah “That Leadeth upon a Cloud,” in the Fragment-Targum to the Pentateuch?’; and ‘An Updated Bibliography of Manuscripts and Editions of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch from the Cairo Genizah’. A bibliography of Klein's work is provided.
H. M. P
S
This Göttingen dissertation (supervisor Florian Wilk) is a literary and theological study of the function of references to the Jewish annual festivals in Josephus's War. The specific festivals examined are Passover and Unleavened Bread, Festival of Weeks, Feast of Tabernacles and the Woodgathering Festival (as well as several unspecified festivals). S.-B. concludes that each festival mentioned is a paradigm of the Jewish religion, forming a situational framework for the events reported. She argues that the festivals tend to be used in contexts in which there is opposition between the Romans and some Jews, making Rome a part of the Jewish Heilsgeschichte. Josephus's aim for his Roman audience was to show that the hatred of Rome and the initiation of the war was the work of a Jewish minority, and he makes a plea for a positive relationship between Rome and Judaism following the war. For the Jewish readers he made an appeal with regard to their identity in relation to the Roman rulers. Rome is not, according to S.-B.'s interpretation, an opponent of Judaism, but the Roman ‘victory’ was essentially bound up with Jewish tradition and religion. She notes that the festivals were probably part of the tradition complex inherited by Josephus (rather than simply being invented), but that he has manipulated their use for his purposes. An interesting interpretation but one that needs careful testing.
L.L. G
S
S.'s immense contribution to the field of Jewish Studies over many decades transpires from the pages of this first volume of selected articles, which straddle rabbinic hermeneutics, history, literature, theology, and more. Any reader will appreciate the wide range of his learning in these invariably careful studies. Many of these articles have not been as widely accessible as this fine volume no doubt will be, so those working in the field of Early Judaism will appreciate this publication. The following articles are included in this first volume: ‘Die Tora im rabbinischen Judentum’; ‘Zum Verständnis der Schrift im rabbinischen Judentum’; ‘Öffentlichkeit der Tora im Judentum—Anspruch und Wirklichkeit’; ‘Einführung in die Tora—Pflichten eines Vaters aus Sicht der Rabbinen’; ‘Kinder lernen Tora—Rabbinische Perspektiven’; ‘Entstehung und Auffassung des Kanons im rabbinischen Denken’; ‘Hebräisch als ideale Sprache—Konsequenzen für die Hermeneutik’; ‘Grundzüge rabbinischer Hermeneutik’; ‘Griechisch-römische und rabbinische Hermeneutik’; ‘Narrative Theologie im Midrasch’; ‘Der Dekalog im frühen Judentum’; ‘Support for the Poor: Leviticus 19 in Qumran and in Early Rabbinic Interpretation’; ‘Propheten und Prophetie in der Tradition des nachbiblischen Judentums’; ‘Die jüdische Danielrezeption seit der Zerstörung des zweiten Tempels am Beispiel der Endzeitberechnung’; ‘Psalmen in Liturgie und Predigt der rabbinischen Zeit’; ‘Die Megillot als Festlesungen der jüdischen Liturgie’; ‘Midraschim zum Hohenlied und Geschichte Israels’; ‘The Maccabees in Rabbinic Tradition’; ‘Das Chanukkafest, das Buch Judit und damit verbundene Midraschim’; ‘Biblische Darstellungen auf Mosaikfußböden spätantiker Synagogen’; ‘Das allgemeine Priestertum im rabbinischen Denken’; ‘Das Priestertum Israels nach 70 n. Chr.’; ‘“Himmlische” und “irdische” Liturgie in der rabbinischen Zeit’; ‘Pharisäer, Sadduzäer, Essener: Religiöse Vorstellungen und Lebensweise’; ‘Qumran, die Pharisäer und das Rabbinat’; ‘The Sadducees: Their History and Doctrines’; ‘Was There a “Mainstream Judaism” in the Late Second Temple Period?’; ‘The Pre-Christian Paul’; ‘Von einer jüdischen Sekte zur Weltreligion’; ‘Exegetical Contacts between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire’; ‘Gen 15 in Rabbinic and Patristic Interpretation’; ‘Elements of Biblical Interpretation in Medieval Jewish-Christian Disputation’; ‘Die Messiasfrage in den christlich-jüdischen Disputationen des Mittelalters’; ‘Judaistik und neutestamentliche Wissenschaft’. The volume concludes with a list of references for the original publications, a bibliography and three indexes.
W. S
S
The proceedings of a conference held in London in 2008, this book deserves respect as a serious attempt to engage a range of problems associated with the use of the terms ‘sect’ and ‘sectarian’ in the history of Judaism. While theoretical issues receive due attention, most of the contributors address specific examples, with a particular focus on Qumran. The list of contributions is: Albert I. Baumgarten, ‘Prologue: How Do We Know When We Are on to Something?’; Martin Goodman, ‘Religious Variety and the Temple in the Late Second Temple Period and its Aftermath’; Sacha Stern, ‘The “Sectarian” Calendar of Qumran’; Ida Fröhlich, ‘Defining Sectarian by “Non-sectarian” Narratives in Qumran’; Joan E. Taylor, ‘The Nazoraeans as a “Sect” in “Sectarian” Judaism’; Christine Hayes, ‘Legal Realism and the Fashioning of Sectarians in Jewish Antiquity’; Marina Rustow, ‘The Qaraites as Sect: The Tyranny of a Construct’; Francis Schmidt, ‘The Hasideans and the Ancient Jewish “Sects”: A Seventeenth-century Controversy’; Elliot Cohen, ‘Jews for Jesus: Occupying Jewish Time and Space’; David J. Chalcraft, ‘Is a Historical Comparative Sociology of (Ancient Jewish) Sects Possible?’; Paul-François Tremlett, ‘Weber-Foucault-Nietzsche: Uncertain Legacies for the Sociology of Religion’.
N.R.M. D
S
This study of the ‘Last Judgment’ has an introductory chapter, then chapters on the judgment of Yhwh in the OT, the continuation and further development of the OT tradition in non-canonical early Jewish writings, John the Baptizer, Jesus, and a final summing up. The bulk of the text is on the OT and the Gospels. Early Jewish literature is treated only cursorily, with much of the space focused on E.P. Sanders and the Pharisees and Sadducees. Significant basic literature is overlooked (e.g., J. LeMoyne, Les Sadducéens, U. Fischer, Eschatologie und Jenseitserwartung im hellenistischen Diasporajudentum, my own Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period). S. makes assumptions about the Hasidim that go far beyond the evidence. There seems to be a pervasive Christian flavour about the study. In spite of these limitations, however, it covers many of the major points, especially with regard to the OT. S. emphasizes that the goal of the OT judgment is positive—the establishment of justice, salvation and shalom—contrary to a widespread view among NT scholars. The OT view combines the themes of Yhwh's kingly rule and creation of world order. There is a development toward an individual judgment rather than just a national-ethnic one.
L.L. G
S
The book opens with a thought-provoking critique on subjective assumptions made by biblical scholars. Within his beady-eyed range, S. aims at targets, and redefines anachronistic thinking. He hits out at scholars who regard subsequent orthodoxies as determining the earlier production of Second Temple-period manuscripts. He says that this narrow focus is exaggerated by selective Jewish or Christian ‘spectacles’, that is, inappropriate perceptions and interpretations, when commenting on these texts. He puts the case that dissenters who challenge the ‘consensus’ should be valued. The remaining six chapters constitute a wide-ranging discussion on the status, transmission and origins of apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings, in particular 1 Enoch, Jubilees and visionary works such as 4 Ezra, as well as a discourse on the origins of the biblical canon. He himself questions the view that an Enochic Judaism parted company from a Mosaic Judaism (p. 114 n. 65). S. suggests that Jubilees incorporates independent ancient traditions that are not found in the Pentateuch, and, moreover, that works from the First Temple period or earlier were not included in the Hebrew Bible but reappeared in the Second Temple period in apocryphal texts. He also argues that the Council of Jamnia never happened; rather, it is a scholarly construction designed to correspond with Nicea and Ephesus. One may or may not agree with all the food for thought in this personal volume, yet S.'s rich breadth of knowledge and sometimes wry observations make this lucid book an unpredictable and interesting read.
H. R. J
T
T.'s study is a re-examination of the commonly held conception of Judaism according to which, as Shaye J.D. Cohen puts it, ‘[b]y the time of the Maccabees, conversion, ritually defined as circumcision, is securely in place, not to be questioned until the middle ages’ (p. 9). T. begins with a consideration of the evidence in the Hebrew Bible relating to circumcision, including a detailed examination of Genesis 17, and argues from this both that Israelite circumcision was distinguished from that of other nations by its occurrence on the eighth day, and that circumcising other (sinful) nations made no difference to their essential nature; in other words, circumcision was not a conversion rite. T. follows this line of argumentation into the postbiblical period, considering Jubilees, the Enochic Animal Apocalypse, 1 Esdras, Josephus, Psalms of Solomon 17 and (briefly) rabbinic literature, before turning to examine Luke-Acts. He concludes that although some Jews in the Maccabaean period thought in terms of the possibility of conversion, this was by no means a universal view, and there is in fact plenty of evidence to the contrary, namely, that Jewishness was viewed as a matter of genealogy upon which subsequent circumcision had no effect. This is even the case in Luke-Acts, where Luke's presentation of circumcision indicates that Jewish Christians should continue to keep the Jewish law (including eighth-day male circumcision), whereas Gentile Christians need only follow the Apostolic Decree recorded in Acts 15. T.'s study is a careful presentation of the evidence that offers a convincing rereading and rightly challenges the anachronistic imposition of modern interpretative categories on the ancient material.
D.W. R
U
This study of rabbinic midrash asks how rabbinic literature projects a self-identity through its use of Egyptian cultural icons in midrashic literature. While the use of these items had not entirely escaped the attention of previous scholars, U.'s is the first comprehensive study from an Egyptological perspective which brings the rabbinic use of these cultural ‘elements’ into play with the way they are presented within Egyptian culture itself. Examples of these ‘elements’ or ‘cultural icons’ which signify Egyptian culture are the Nile inundation, mummy portraits, funeral customs, festivals, various deities and Queen Cleopatra. Rabbinic awareness of Egyptian culture stems from extensive commercial and rabbinic contacts between Palestine and Egypt on top of a legacy of cultural knowledge. But their selection in midrash is rabbinic, and occurred at a time when Egypt was Graeco-Roman, which relates the experience of Roman rule over Palestine in late antiquity to the collective memory of the servitude experienced before the Exodus. In ten chapters, U. deals with various named Pharaohs in rabbinic midrash (including the generic ‘Pharaoh of Egypt’); the Nile; Egyptian festivals; the Osiris Myth and Egyptian magic; historiography, the emperor and funeral practices; Alexandria; Cleopatra, Isis and Serapis; Egyptian gods, language and customs; the divine eye; and finally, Moses' rescue from the Nile. Throughout, U. combines a keen eye for detail with numerous novel insights and convincingly argues that life under Roman rule was considered tantamount to a ‘second Egypt’.
W. S
W
This Notre Dame PhD (supervisor J.C. VanderKam) is the latest in a long line of studies on the influence of ‘son of man’ in the Parables of Enoch on the gospels. After an introduction, chs. 2 and 3 are devoted to the Parables and the ‘son of man’ in them. W. gives a discussion of the social setting of the Parables but is strangely ignorant of my article, ‘The Parables of Enoch in Second Temple Jewish Society’, in a volume that he quotes from a number of times. Chapter 4 is on the ‘son of man’ concept in Matthew, and ch. 5 compares the two writings. He concludes cautiously that Matthew may have known the Parables, in that ‘at precisely those points where Matthew has unique material’, the similarities with the Parables are greatest (p. 250). His work is generally well researched, though much depends on the dating of the Parables as pre-Christian, which is not as certain as he seems to think. But generally he has made a good case for Matthew's possible dependence on them.
L.L. G
W
The study represents the author's 2007 doctoral thesis written under the supervision of U. Luz and submitted to the Faculty of Theology of the University of Berne. The first part of the book addresses various introductory issues and relates Or. Sib. 1–2 to the other Christian Sibylline books. The main part of the study is devoted to an analytic commentary of Or. Sib. 1–2 on the basis of J. Geffcken's 1902 edition of the Greek text. W. always gives the Greek text and provides his own translation before he offers a detailed analysis—here one finds not only parallel motifs and allusion to classical and Jewish authors but also a detailed treatment of the interpolation from Ps-Phokylides and a synoptic comparison with the Apocalypse of Peter. Under the rubric ‘Einzelheiten’ one finds philological notes—why these are given after the analysis remains unclear. Or. Sib. 1–2 is seen as a historical apocalypse that harmonizes biblical and pagan mythology. W. argues for and reconstructs a Jewish base text that was reworked extensively by Christian hands. As such Or. Sib. 1–2 can be placed in Asia Minor and is seen as part of a process of annexation of Jewish literature by Christian circles. It is unfortunate that W. does not offer a more detailed engagement with J. Lightfoot's study of the same material (B.L. 2010, pp. 190–91). But even so, his work will be an invaluable tool for any further research into the first two Sibylline Oracles. An extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources as well as detailed indexes conclude this important study.
A.C. H
W
This massive study is a literary and linguistic investigation of the proverbs in the Aramaic Ahiqar manuscript from Elephantine. Previous studies of the proverbs have focused primarily on philological matters, whereas this wants to be much broader. After an introductory chapter (ch. 1), a chapter is devoted to each of the nine restorable columns, with each proverb textually reconstructed (where damaged) and analysed (chs. 2–10). Comparison is made with Hebrew wisdom and other wisdom literature. There is a summary chapter on the forms and genres and stylistic features (ch. 11). A final chapter (ch. 12) summarizes the linguistic features (including comparisons with the Tel Fekheriye inscription) and the ‘intercultural’ comparisons with Hebrew wisdom and other literatures, as well as giving a final ‘résumé’. W. concludes that the proverbs originated in northern or northwestern Mesopotamia from about 1200
L.L. G
X
This is a selection of papers presented at the International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, held in Pápa in May 2008. The first essay, by József Zsengellér, ‘Addition or Edition? Deconstructing the Concept of Additions’, itself rather deconstructs the title of this volume, by arguing that ‘addition’ is an inappropriate category, but the subsequent papers confine themselves to more specific texts and themes. These are: Beate Ego, ‘Mordecai's Refusal of Proskynesis before Haman According to the Septuagint: Traditio-historical and Literal Aspects’; Stefan Schorch, ‘Genderising Piety: The Prayers of Mordecai and Esther in Comparison’; Thomas Hieke, ‘Atonement in the Prayer of Azariah (Dan 3:40)’; Michael Wojciechowski, ‘Ancient Criticism of Religion in Dan 14 (Bel and the Dragon), Bar 6 (Epistle of Jeremiah), and Wisdom 14’; Friedrich V. Reiterer, ‘Verstehst du die Tugenden der Klugheit? Anfragen zu Gott und zum Wert der von Ihm geschenkten Einsicht’; Benjamin G. Wright III, ‘The Epistle of Jeremiah: Translation or Composition?’; Karin Schöpflin, ‘Susannah's Career in Reformation Drama: A Reception Historical Perspective with an Outlook on Fine Art’. This is an interesting, if rather eclectic, collection, which has indexes of sources and authors, but might have benefited from an introduction summarizing and contextualizing the individual contributions.
S.D.E. W