Abstract
Pentateuch
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)
A
This selection of haggadah and midrash on Pentateuchal stories from creation to the golden calf is deliberately aimed at the Christian layperson whose personal reading of Scripture has become a bit tedious. PhD studies at Hebrew Union College coincided with A. serving his first United Methodist congregation, hence his desire to give Christians a greater appreciation of Judaism (and Pharisees!), Jewish concepts like tiqun olam or oral torah and texts like Pirqe Avot (covered in the final chapter), and Jewish experiences of Gentile oppression for two millennia. From a Christian perspective he takes swipes at complementarianism and Calvinism, being more favourable to Celtic approaches and open theism, and his comparisons frequently drawn between rabbinic and NT interpretations treat either tradition positively or negatively according to his preference. Most chapters, in successive chronological order, have between three and twelve academic ‘homilies’ on scriptural midrash, introduced by a key verse. Unsurprisingly there is much here that will interest and inform his audience, but their needs were not enough to dissuade A. from diverting in ch. 7 to summarize his PhD thesis findings on the moral question of the ‘plunder of Egypt’. This chapter loses its non-specialist readers in a complex grouping of conflicting rabbinic explanations, yet fails to consider the explanation that it was Pharaoh's pursuit of Israel, before even entering the ‘wilderness’ proper (Exod. 13.18, 20; 15.22; cf. 3.18), which turned servants into enemies and items borrowed in good faith into plunder (15.9). Nevertheless, it is a book well worth recommending.
J.E. P
B
B. first examines the patriarchal promise synchronically, showing that this approach results in a lowest common denominator interpretation necessary to harmonize the texts. This is unsatisfactory and demonstrates the need for the source-critical approach taken in chs. 2–4. B.'s findings—that the promises divide into three sources that correspond to J, E and P—will not surprise those familiar with his work. Insightful and erudite as his argument is, it still fails to overcome the familiar stumbling-blocks to explaining the stark differences between Genesis and Exodus–Numbers. Finally, B. attempts a final-form reading of the promise texts in the Torah that takes account of the source-critical findings. This allows, he observes, for ‘closer identification and comprehension of both the divergences and interconnections among the parts of the Pentateuch’ (p. 130). Intentionally or not, his reading stresses diversity. One surmises that this corresponds to his model, which posits four wholly separate sources combined with only a desire to preserve canonical chronology. Furthermore, though B.'s effort to offer a final-form reading that is sensitive to theological concerns is very welcome, it is hard to reconcile his contention that ‘our task as interpreters is to constantly recreate the process of combination’ with his conclusion that neither the sources themselves nor the redactor ever intended the texts to be read this way (p. 157). B.'s work, predictably learned and clear, is tremendously valuable to all interested in this topic, though many of its conclusions are hard to accept.
C.A. S
B
The Texts@Contexts series continues with this collection of essays on two of the most enigmatic books in the Hebrew Bible. As is the aim of the series, the collection consists of contributions from a range of geographical and intellectual contexts that are specifically stated in the introduction. The geography encompasses Britain, the US, China, Fiji, Israel, Africa and New Zealand; the intellectual stances include environmentalism, feminism, queer reading, womanism, human rights, and ethical concerns more generally. Following a series preface and an introduction to this volume in which the contributions are described and set in context, the essays themselves fall into two parts. Part 1, ‘Issues in Leviticus’, contains Kristel A. Clayville, ‘Landed Interpretation: An Environmental Ethicist Reads Leviticus’; Joseph Ryan Kelly, ‘USDA or YHWH? Pursuing a Divinely Inspired Diet’; Yael Shemesh,’ “Do Not Bare your Heads and Do Not Rend your Clothes” (Leviticus 10:6): On Mourning and Refraining from Mourning in the Bible’; Helen R. Jacobus, ‘Slave Wives and Transgressive Unions in Biblical and Ancient Near East Laws and Literature’; Sonia K. Wong, ‘The Notion of רפכ in the Book of Leviticus and Chinese Popular Religion’; and Carole R. Fontaine, ‘Golden “Do”s and “Don’t”s: Leviticus 19:1–17 from a Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA)’. Part 2, ‘Issues in Numbers’, contains Diana Lipton,’ “Bitter Waters” (Numbers 5), Flood Waters (Genesis 6–9) and Some Theologies of Exile and Land’; Yonina Dor, ‘From the Well in Midian to the Baal of Peor: Different Attitudes to Marriage of Israelites to Midianite Women’; Anthony Rees, ‘Numbers 25 and Beyond: Phinehas and Other Detestable Practice(r)s’; Nasili Vaka’uta, ‘Indicting YHWH: Interpreting Numbers 25 in Oceania’; Wil Gafney, ‘A Queer Womanist Reading of Numbers 25:1–18’; Amadi Ahiamadu, ‘Assessing Female Inheritance of Land in Nigeria with the Daughters of Zelophehad Narrative (Numbers 27:1–11)’; and Archie C.C. Lee, ‘Reading Iconoclastic Stipulations in Numbers 33:50–56 from the Pluralistic Religious Context of China’. A stimulating collection of essays that challenges our acquiescence in what might otherwise be considered the ‘normal’ readings of these texts, and brings the texts into immediate relationship with a range of contemporary issues.
D.W. R
C
With this volume C. continues his project of interpreting legal traditions and rules in the Hebrew Bible through literary rather than historical or sociological techniques. Here, the book of Numbers is analysed, which C. claims is ‘largely a critique of the lives of the nations’ patriarchs in the book of Genesis. Numbers is a thoroughly integrated work that reflects the writer's acute awareness of his nation's history and prehistory, particularly as relayed in Genesis. It is the Numbers author's sense of history that we must pay attention to, not the sense generated by the historical-critical school of recent centuries. The bewildering interruptions in the flow of material that this school detects in fact constitute the author's idiosyncratic mode of expressing detailed reflections on issues that mainly arise in Genesis’ (pp. 177–78). C.'s approach is challenging and provocative and has implications on many fronts including Pentateuchal criticism and reconstructions of the workings of historical memory in ancient Israel. The volume includes analysis of the entire book of Numbers and each study deserves close examination to assess the degree to which the approach adopted can account, for example, for the surprising rules found in Numbers 15, which come between the narratives of Numbers 13–14 and the spying out of the land and the people's loss of nerve, and the narration of Korah's rebellion in Numbers 16; or again, whether the ritual of the Red Heifer (Num. 19) can finally be explained. Whether one agrees in the final analysis with C.'s account, however, a close study of the work is rewarding.
D.J. C
D
This volume comprises eleven discrete essays on topics pertaining to Genesis 1–11: ‘The Meaning and Background of the Priestly Creation Story (Genesis 1.1–2.4a)’; ‘Problems in the Interpretation of the Story of the Garden of Eden’; ‘Cain and the Kenites’; ‘The Flood and the Ten Antediluvian Figures in Berossus and in the Priestly Source in Genesis’; ‘The Sons of God and Daughters of Men and the Giants: Disputed Points in the Interpretation of Genesis 6.1–4’; ‘The Genesis Flood Narrative in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Flood Accounts’; ‘Rooms or Reeds in Noah's Ark (Genesis 6.14)?’; ‘Why Does God “Establish” Rather than “Cut” a Covenant with Noah (and Abraham) in the Priestly Source?’; ‘Noah's Drunkenness, the Curse of Canaan, Ham's Crime, and the Blessing of Shem and Japheth (Genesis 9.18–27)’; ‘Where Was Tarshish?’; and ‘The Tower and City of Babel Story (Genesis 11.1–9): Problems of Interpretation and Background’. Several chapters are previously or concurrently published, all but one in Festschrifts. As the second, fifth and eleventh of these suggest, the volume might equally appropriately have been subtitled Problems in the Interpretation of Genesis 1–11; with D.'s characteristic attention to detail, each chapter tackles one or more issues arising in the interpretation of a specific text. It is thus not a monograph in the conventional sense, but it will nevertheless be welcomed by scholars and students for its erudite discussion of a number of the key difficulties in these important chapters.
C.L. C
D
This revised edition of volume 2 of D.'s commentary on Exodus (2004) provides a translation, notes to the translation, a brief general bibliography and bibliography to individual units, and eight excursuses, with the bulk of the volume devoted to the commentary proper. The complete bibliography and introduction to the whole book of Exodus appears in volume 1, due to appear shortly. D. concentrates on intertextual and contextual exegesis of the text as we have it (the MT). Text-, source- and redaction-critical issues are secondary to the focus on textual coherence and continuity, to the many dimensions of the text (as opposed to authorial intention or one correct ‘objective’ interpretation), its reception and meaning. Topical notes in the margin are a feature of the series, and are useful, and there is an index of biblical references. It is a pity that a book so sensitive to Jewish perspectives is insensitive to women readers. D.'s qualification that terms like ‘reader’, ‘author’ and ‘recipient’ refer to functions rather than real people (p. 9) does not excuse the decision not to use inclusive language; it can be done in German, as J. Ebach's commentary in the same series demonstrates (B.L. 2013, pp. 76–77).
J.C. E
E
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
F
This volume has three parts and eleven chapters. Part 1 has two introductory chapters by James Robson (’The Literary Composition of Deuteronomy’) and Paul A. Barker (’Contemporary Theological Interpretation of Deuteronomy’). Part 2 deals with various issues: John H. Walton on ‘The Decalogue Structure of the Deuteronomic Law’, Peter T. Vogt on ‘Centralization and Decentralization in Deuteronomy’, Philip S. Johnston on ‘Civil Leadership in Deuteronomy’, David G. Firth on ‘Passing on the Faith in Deuteronomy’, and Heath A. Thomas on ‘Life and Death in Deuteronomy’. The essays in Part 3, ‘Reading Deuteronomy’, comprise Csilla Saysell, ‘Deuteronomy and the Intermarriage Crisis in Ezra–Nehemiah’; Greg Goswell, ‘The Paratext of Deuteronomy’; Jenny Corcoran, ‘The Alien in Deuteronomy 29 and Today’; and Christian Hofreiter, ‘Genocide in Deuteronomy and Christian Interpretation’. Old Testament, then, and not Hebrew Bible, and finishing off (Hofreiter, p. 262) with a good old tilt at ‘New Atheists’, though, to be fair, the Crusaders also get a knock!
P.R. D
F
This book begins very promisingly, with a lively debate on the shortcomings of Augustine's arguments about the fall and original sin. The fruit-eating episode is for F. the humanization of Adam and Eve (or, in F.'s terms, their ‘hominisation’ [p. 34], since this is intended as much as an anthropological as a theological study: from ‘hominid’ to ‘homo sapiens’ [p. 115]). The ‘fall’ is upwards, in a Bronowskian manner. So why is it presented as divinely forbidden? The anthropology is informed by the theoretical position of Mary Douglas, with her emphasis on responsible dietary discrimination and its symbolic meaning (’The Abominations of Leviticus’, from Purity and Danger), and Arnold van Gennep, with his analysis of rites of passage (Les Rites de Passage; Augustine's besetting sin is not having read him [cf. p. 146]!). Genesis 1–9 is to be read against this composite theoretical background. Adam is compared at length with Enkidu. The various stages of the Genesis narrative represent successive boundaries to be breached as Man is ‘hominized’, which ultimately means divinized. ‘The human species is incomplete… en route… seeking’ (p. 115). The dénouement of the primaeval narrative comes only in Genesis 9, with the new post-diluvian humanity entering into covenant with God. And Paul, we discover in a perceptive summation of his message, was no Augustinian! A final chapter argues that while the Eden narrative is in no sense a scientific work, a modern interpretation of it, as offered here, is fully in accordance with a Darwinist understanding of Man. Though F. does not note the fact, the use of Eden in programmes by David Attenborough and books by Richard Dawkins offers implicit approvals of the line taken here. This is an unusual book, but coming at a text sideways can result in surprising and revealing new insights.
N. W
F
This is a published dissertation completed under the supervision of Antti Laato at Åbo Akademi University. It tackles the hoary conundrum of the coherence and theme of the book of Numbers. F. makes an advance on previous work by setting his own analysis in the context of narratology, offering a succinct summary of scholarship on narrative theory. In separate chapters the genre, plot and theme of the book of Numbers are discussed before rounding off with a brief conclusion. This is a sober and careful analysis, reading well despite the constraints of the dissertation form. Advances are incremental, but nonetheless real. F. thinks Numbers has a narrative thread of sequential events, but distinguishes four kinds of narrative material with different degrees of narrativity: genuine narratives, narrative sequences, instrumental scenes, and narrative fragments. As a result the narrative of Numbers is somewhat fractured, and the plot rather fractured too. It is in the discussion of plot that F. struggles most to bring some order to this unruly biblical book, candidly admitting those chapters that are rather loosely related to the theme of wandering. In the discussion of theme F. agrees with other interpreters in identifying land, generational succession and obedience/disobedience as important themes. But he also rightly identifies purity as an important, if overlooked, theme. As a published dissertation, there is a bibliography, but no indexes. Consequently, those doing detailed work on Numbers may wish to avail themselves of the searchable pdf available at http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/93413/forsling_josef.pdf?sequence=2.
N. M
H
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
H
The author of this small book is a Benedictine monk who used to teach Old Testament at the Hochschule der Steyler Missionare, Sankt Augustin. This work is intended as a popular commentary on Genesis 1–11 for the German reader, in particular for the educated Christian reader. In many ways it serves its purpose, explaining the modern scholarly understanding of the text in language suitable for the layperson. The author is also to be commended for helping the reader to appreciate Jewish perspectives on the text. However, it is unfortunately not possible to give the volume a wholehearted endorsement, as it has an unacceptable number of slips, omissions and infelicities. For example, there are several mistakes in the Hebrew (pp. 34, 35, 133, 138), Tiamat is wrongly stated to have been a snake (p. 21), Havilah is incorrectly declared to have been in southern Egypt rather than Arabia (p. 57), and the author refers to Genesis 25–40 when he means Exodus 25–40 (p. 47). Regarding Gen. 1.26 he thinks God is consulting himself, and makes no mention of the more likely divine council view (p. 34), and he follows the implausible opinion that the story in Gen. 9.20–27 involves homosexual intercourse (p. 133). Again, there is no commentary whatsoever on Gen. 11.10–32, even concerning the arrival of Abram on the scene, or on the figure of Nimrod in Genesis 10. Overall, therefore, while this volume has some use for the German lay reader, it cannot always be relied on.
J. D
H
This thoughtful and readable guide to the Pentateuch is aimed at those who have a basic knowledge of the Bible, but wish to learn more. Rather than examining each book successively, it examines the Pentateuch as a whole according to different ways of reading: the text; behind the text; in front of the text. In the first section, the Pentateuch as narrative and as Torah are discussed, and covenant ventured as a means of combining the two. In the second section, H. considers the composition of the Pentateuch, how the Torah became authoritative, and the question of its historicity. He is rather more sanguine than many others today about the possibility that historical memories lie behind the patriarchal and exodus narratives. In the third section the reception of the Pentateuch is discussed: traditional Jewish and Christian interpretations are followed by issues raised by modern readings. Although a chapter on the theology of the Pentateuch is the final chapter of the third section, it is more of a concluding chapter to the whole book. In this volume H. has plenty of space to engage with the Pentateuch and its interpretation in some detail, but never allows his reader to lose sight of the larger issues. He provides helpful summaries of recent scholarship, but is not shy of developing his own views. The book is clearly written and includes occasional information boxes, questions and ideas for further reading. Teachers will find it a valuable student text that opens up the Pentateuch for further exploration.
N. M
L
The chief argument of this book is that the Pentateuch is a second-millennium composition, and that Moses is its principal author. L. loves tables and lists, of which 42 occur in the main text and several more in the appendixes. He has worked with K.A. Kitchen on treaties and law codes from the ancient Near East, and the book makes much of the fact that elements in the Pentateuch show the greatest similarity to second-millennium examplars. The classic documentary hypothesis is criticized on various grounds, such as the lack of any parallel examples. There may be a long history to the transmission and development of the Gilgamesh epic, but this does not include the conflation of rival sources. The specific observations deserve careful consideration, but the jump to Mosaic authorship and early dating comes all too rapidly. For such proposals to be taken seriously there needs to be an in-depth engagement with the complexities of the biblical text and with the lively ongoing debate in Pentateuchal criticism. However, the lists and tables may prove useful whether the reader agrees with the argument or not.
P.P. J
L
For a review of this volume, see Section 10 below.
L
This book begins rather ominously with Orwell's famous dictum from Nineteen Eighty-Four on who controls ‘history’. Genesis 4.17–22 is to be singled out as an ‘ancient historical account’. Some would conclude that what follows is fairly predictable. In fact it is very nuanced, with a long introduction on method and an even longer discussion on contextualization, all for a passage precisely six verses in length. Even this review is longer! For all the skilful arguments into stylistics, author-reader relationships, metaphor, relevance theory and so on, which demonstrate the complexity of evaluating ancient documents, the impression that lasts is of a rather desperate attempt to be able to attach the term ‘history’ to the pericope in question at all costs. I suppose it is something that the concept of mythic history is at least given some space (p. 109), even though (same page) we sense a yearning for demythologization. ‘Eponymous history’ could also be a useful category. It is certainly stretching ‘history’, except in some qualified or extended sense, to breaking point to have Tubal Smith, who must have outlasted Methuselah, as the inventor of both bronze-working and iron-working. The setting of the narrative within the broader literary and cultural background is useful, but in view of its Mesopotamian slant, is somewhat in tension with the argument that the personal names in the passage point to a West Semitic context. The reading of this tome reminded the reviewer of the occasion when he finished a rather elaborate paper on the Baal cycle, and John (C.L.) Gibson gently put him down with, ‘and I thought it was such a lovely wee story!’
N. W
L
Originally intended for the now defunct Eerdmans Critical Commentary (whose style it follows), we can be thankful that L.'s thorough commentary on Deuteronomy has been published as a stand-alone volume. As is typical of the genre, L. opens with a lengthy introduction to Deuteronomy in which the normal issues such as text, composition and genre are addressed. But L. also considers the relationship between Deuteronomy and various prophets and the wisdom literature as well as its central theological themes. He reads Deuteronomy against the background of the Josianic reform but believes that significant portions were composed earlier, though he is sceptical of attempts to find a clear Urdeuteronomium. He treats chs. 1–28 as the first edition, which was then supplemented by chs. 29–30 and then chs. 31–34. An extensive bibliography is provided, with works in several languages, though it is divided into three sections (Text, Commentaries, Monographs and Other Studies). This means that anyone tracking a reference in the body of the commentary needs to check each section until they find it. The bulk of the commentary is focused on exegesis, with each section containing L.'s translation and notes on the Hebrew text concluding with a section looking at the passage's message and audience. L.'s treatment is thorough and irenic so, although there will undoubtedly be points of disagreement with his work at certain points, this is likely to be a primary point of reference for many years.
D.G. F
M
This intentional ‘pairing’ of systematic theologians and biblical scholars is the outcome of the third in a series of conferences allowing the two disciplines to encounter each other. The Introduction rejects the overly simplistic divide as if all biblical scholars, or indeed all systematicians, use the same approach, and the collection of essays that follows is arranged in four parts. The first part, ‘Genesis and Salvation History’, contains William P. Brown, ‘Manifest Diversity: The Presence of God’; R.R. Reno, ‘Beginning with the Ending’; Gary A. Anderson, ‘The Akedah in Canonical and Artistic Perspective’; Timothy J. Stone, ‘Joseph in the Likeness of Adam: Narrative Echoes of the Fall’; Knut Backhaus,’ “Before Abraham Was, I Am”: The Book of Genesis and the Genesis of Christology’; and Christoph Levin, ‘Genesis 2–3: A Case of Inner-Biblical Interpretation’. The second part, ‘Genesis and Divine-Human Relations’, contains Eric Daryl Meyer, ‘Gregory of Nyssa on Language, Naming God's Creatures, and the Desire of the Discursive Animal’, Matthew Drever, ‘Image, Identity, and Embodiment: Augustine's Interpretation of the Human Person in Genesis 1–2’; Trevor Hart, ‘Poetry and Theology in Milton's Paradise Lost’; and Walter J. Houston, ‘Sex or Violence? Thinking Again with Genesis about Fall and Original Sin’. The third part, ‘Genesis and the Natural World’, contains David Fergusson, ‘Interpreting the Story of Creation: A Case Study in the Dialogue between Theology and Science’; Richard Bauckham, ‘Humans, Animals, and the Environment in Genesis 1–3’; Michael S. Northcott, ‘Reading Genesis in Borneo: Work, Guardianship, and Companion Animals in Genesis 2’; Brandon Frick, ‘Covenantal Ecology: The Inseparability of Covenant and Creation in the Book of Genesis’; Karla Pollmann,’ “And without Thorn the Rose”? Augustine's Interpretations of Genesis 3:18 and the Intellectual Tradition’; and Pascal Daniel Bazzell, ‘Toward a Creational Perspective on Poverty: Genesis 1:26–28, Image of God, and its Missiological Implications’. The final part, ‘Genesis and the People of God’, contains Nathan MacDonald, ‘Did God Choose the Patriarchs? Reading for Election in the Book of Genesis’; Ellen T. Charry, ‘Rebekah's Twins: Augustine on Election in Genesis’; R. Walter L. Moberly, ‘Abraham and Aeneas: Genesis as Israel's Foundation Story’; Mark W. Elliott, ‘Genesis and Human Society: The Learning and Teaching People of God’; and Stephen B. Chapman, ‘Food, Famine and the Nations: A Canonical Approach to Genesis’. There is much to value in this volume, not least the sheer depth and richness of interpretation. The attention to ecological readings and concerns is also much to be welcomed. Inevitably, there are areas for discussion not included and I was taken aback to find that there was no chapter on gender. I would also have appreciated an afterword: if this was an encounter, what new horizons were glimpsed, what old dichotomies resolved or made clearer? Although each chapter deals with further perspectives within its theme, an overall perspective would have been valuable. All told, a rich encounter.
J.R. W
M
Fifty-two short radio broadcasts are collected here. They cover much of the Torah, but not the whole of it. They are highly accessible and make some intriguing and sometimes challenging connections between the text and everyday human experience. The book thus creates a sense that any particularism in the Torah is to be subsumed under a much broader universal dimension. Frustratingly in several instances M. moves back and forth between the voice of the composer of the text or its narrator and the thoughts and purposes of the characters in the stories as if we might know, for example, what Abraham knew and felt. Most of the chapters begin with a brief description of some key points in the text, then several of them offer some hints at how the text has been read and received in Jewish tradition; most move swiftly on to draw out a few points of wider concern to help the reader engage with at least part of what the text might have been about and might still be about. Sometimes these three elements are put in a different order, so that the presentation retains its freshness. This is a book for the bedside rather than the study.
G.J. B
M
This is a light reworking of M.'s 1988 book that originally bore the subtitle ‘The Narrative Integrity of the Pentateuch’. It remains an elegant and compelling presentation of a final-form reading of Genesis 1–Deuteronomy 34, asking helpful questions, and alert to guiding the reader through the literary artistry of the text. No Hebrew would be required to follow this, making it a good recommendation for an introductory textbook from this angle. Inevitably, Genesis gets most space (82 pages), then Exodus (41), then about 20 pages apiece on the others, where there is a concern to tie nonnarrative texts into the overall narrative framework. A brief introduction sketches a backdrop of Pentateuchal criticism, which is not denigrated, but is largely set aside. The first edition appears not to have been noted in the B.L., while the reformatting into two-column textbook style is to match M.'s later The Book of the Former Prophets (see B.L. 2012, p. 95). But the updating is patchy: ‘recent’ is left unchanged after 25 years; headings are changed in one place but not another (e.g. the old subheading for Num. 11–20 is kept on p. 162 but changed in the table on p. 159); subheadings now jump from ‘4’ to ‘6’ in the Deuteronomy chapter. God's selection of Noah has changed from being ‘prevenient’ to ‘unconditional’. Six random appendixes are added (ranging from ‘names of God’ to ‘homosexuality and the Bible’)—all helpful in themselves but not obviously at home in this context. Even so, a readable and worthwhile book that may be recommended for new, enquiring readers of the Pentateuch.
R.S. B
M
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
M
This book, which goes back to a doctoral dissertation at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA, written under the supervision of Dean McBride, is devoted to one of the most fascinating topics in the study of the Pentateuch. While the ‘royal’ portrayals of Moses in the Septuagint Pentateuch and in other Jewish Hellenistic literature are quite obvious to the attentive reader, the depiction of Moses as royalty in the Hebrew Pentateuch is more difficult to detect. Yet it is clearly there, and it provided the basis for the treatment which the figure of Moses received at the hands of the Jewish Hellenistic translators and authors who greatly embellished this aspect of Moses’ portrayal in the Torah. M.'s study was provoked by the observation that Moses is, in several key passages of the Pentateuch, portrayed as a more-than-human being. M. ‘seeks to argue that royalty as it is generally understood in the ancient Near East provides a more appropriate category [than that of ‘Moses as a prophet’] that can comprehend these fantastic and varied portrayals of Moses’ (p. ix), of which the most striking is the one found in Exod. 7.1. He succeeds in doing so, starting with the portraits of Moses found in Philo and Josephus, moving on to a discussion of the royal motifs found in the Hebrew Pentateuch, then concentrating on Moses in Exod. 1.1–7.7 and in the ‘wilderness episodes’, and concluding with an overview that leads up to the insight that the royal, indeed super-human qualities ascribed to Moses served the purpose of tracing ‘[a]ll … structures of leaderships, whether kings, priest, prophets, or elders’ to Moses as the ‘more ancient leader’ (p. 150). A fine study which deserves much attention.
J.L.W. S
M
This book is a revision of the author's 2011 Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary dissertation. M. seeks to provide a close reading of Gen. 14.18–20, ‘to explore the role that Melchizedek plays in the overall eschatological and messianic message throughout the Pentateuch and the Tanak as a whole’, and to explore the implications of his analysis ‘for hermeneutics and the use of the OT in the NT’ (p. 3). After a survey of the history of interpretation from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the present, M. considers the reading strategies of Rashi, Aquinas and Nicholas of Lyra, to see what might be learnt about discerning authorial intention, especially in the plain meaning of the text. The core of the book is a brave attempt, against the flow of contemporary scholarship, to interpret the Melchizedek episode in its immediate literary context as a fully integrated part of that context, and also especially in its wider Pentateuchal context in relation to the poems of Genesis 49, Numbers 24, and Deuteronomy 32–33; M. reads those poems as being about eschatological kingship. M. also wonders whether Jethro is ideally portrayed as continuing Melchizedek's priesthood in some way, at least ‘narratively’ (p. 112), since there are several minor shared motifs in the episodes describing them. Alongside Psalm 110 M. also finds echoes of Melchizedek in narratives depicting David and Jerusalem, in Zechariah 3–6 concerning Joshua, and in Ezra and Nehemiah. The book concludes with some reflections on the implications of the thesis for the better understanding of Hebrews.
G.J. B
M
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
T
This work is a detailed study of the concept of ‘chosen place’ in the Hebrew Bible. It is thus in the first place a study of this concept in Deuteronomy, the only book in the HB which contains the specific command that the Israelites must bring all their sacrifices, gifts and offerings to ‘the place which Y
M.E.W. T
T
The thesis of this book is that Deuteronomy portrays the Babylonian ‘exile’ as Israel's death. T. makes a case of sorts for a greater prominence of the topos of ‘exile’ in the book than is usually recognized, though he is not concerned to show why, or what light this sheds on the authorship of the book and its relation to other biblical writings. As an evangelical, he states that he accepts the inspiration of Scripture and accepts that genuine prediction is a legitimate phenomenon (pp. 30–31). In this case the prediction spans a matter of centuries, since nowhere does T. betray any hint that the author is not Moses himself. The review of scholarly discussion in the Introduction is therefore brief and indeed mostly unnecessary. The bulk of the book comprises studies of the vocabulary of death and exile (ch. 2), discussion of three blocks of text: Deut. 1–4, 27–28 and 29–30 (ch. 3), and then the remainder (ch. 4), in which four different structural analyses of the material are discussed. A final chapter summarizes the theology of the book with more than a glance at NT scholarship, especially that of N.T. Wright. Because of its narrow focus, hermeneutical assumptions and generally uncritical attitude (he does not, for example, explain why Moses, in addressing twelve tribes, concerns himself with the fate of only one!), this expository work is of little value to most biblical scholars.
P.R. D
V
This book has two parts. In the first part, V. provides, in the words of its title, ‘an outline of the Yahwist's antiquities of Israel’. This part contains an uninterrupted review of the contents of his reconstructed J source that includes a primaeval history, patriarchal age, sojourn in Egypt and exodus, and ends with small additions to Deuteronomy that link this narrative with a pre-existing Deuteronomistic History that it is designed to supplement. For those unfamiliar with V.'s model, this is an effective positive presentation of his J source. In the second part, ‘Studies in Defense of the Yahwist’, V. includes 12 essays which are detailed treatments of passages or issues that provide support for various parts of his reconstructed J source. Half of these 12 essays are reprints of already available work and the 6 new essays cover familiar topics, albeit with new arguments and with up-to-date references. This volume will be valuable to those who do not already know V.'s work, but for those familiar with his proposal regarding a late sixth-century Yahwist it covers well-known ground. One flaw in the volume is its lack of interaction with the so-called neo-documentarians who are now so prominent in Pentateuchal studies; Baruch Schwartz, Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert are conspicuously missing from the bibliography, for instance. This is surprising and disappointing because there are unmistakable similarities and differences between them and V. Scholars would no doubt benefit from V.'s characteristically forthright assessment about where he agrees and disagrees with the neo-documentary approach.
C.A. S
W
This well-presented and easy-to-read book is full of information on the ANE and has abundant illustrations, which comprise maps, photos of ancient relics and modern views of biblical places, charts, and shots of less familiar items, such as mandrakes and a fat-tailed sheep. There is overlap between the volumes in the series, with duplicate pictures and accompanying identical text, but this is unsurprising given the amount of illustrations in each. Alongside the passage-by-passage commentary are discursive insets, such as one that looks at Genesis 1 in the light of the Gudea temple building and dedication texts, since the cosmos is sometimes viewed as a temple. Occasionally, I was unconvinced about the strength of the links, e.g. that the primary function of a temple is for a deity's rest and therefore the cosmos was created as a resting place (p. 24). Nevertheless, in the main, W. makes fascinating observations and insightful suggestions. For instance, he states that, as the function of ancient mythology was to explain ‘how the world worked and how it came to work that way … our modern mythology is what we call science’ (p. 9). Or, looking at Egyptian and Akkadian texts, he concludes that ‘In the beginning’ (Gen. 1.1) referred to the start of the seven-day period (pp. 10–11). As well, he argues that since existence in the ancient world meant having a function, ‘without form’ (Gen. 1.2) should be translated ‘without function’; and that the creation of light in Gen. 1.3 is, effectively, the creation of time.
J.I. W
Former Prophets
(Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings)
B
This slim book retells the Saul narrative in readable prose. The book falls into seven chapters organized chronologically, beginning with Saul's rise to power and ending with his death at Mt Gilboa and the ensuing battles between David and Saul's descendants. According to B., the main goal of the book is ‘to rediscover Saul’, i.e. ‘to have a better understanding of his achievements and failures as the first king of Israel’ (p. xvii). This sentence highlights the key problem with the book, namely that it does not distinguish between the historical Saul who may or may not have lived in Israel and the literary Saul who appears in the pages of 1 Samuel. In fact, B. appears to consider the two to be identical. As a result, his book resembles John Bright's A History of Israel. B. recapitulates the biblical narrative and decides (without interacting with the wealth of literature discussing the historicity of the united monarchy) what is historical and what is not. At regular intervals and often without proper textual support, he attributes feelings to Saul and the other characters and seeks to determine the motives behind their actions. B.'s interaction with consulted secondary literature reflects a related problem. For instance, he mixes talmudic statements with statements from Gerhard von Rad, without due attention to their different interpretative methodologies. As a result, B.'s book unfortunately sheds new light upon neither the historical king nor the literary figure.
L.-S. T
B
Although it does not follow the normal conventions of the form, and is much more readable as a result, this is a revised version of B.'s doctoral thesis, submitted to Harvard in 2010. In it she offers a final-form reading of Joshua that takes seriously the statement in Josh. 24.31 that Israel ‘served the Lord during all the days of Joshua’. Rather than seeing this as an unhelpful editorial edition, for B. this represents a hermeneutical key to consider the book of Joshua as a whole. It is because there appear to be numerous points where Israel does not serve the Lord that it is a paradoxical key which encompasses Israel's repentance and Yahweh's mercy rather than just points where Israel seems more evidently faithful. This approach allows her to hold the various parts of the book in tension, unlike many other final-form readers who tend to flatten down the book's contours. This thesis is then explored through reading the stories of Rahab and Achan, the Gibeonites and the Transjordanian altar, and the accounts of the allocation of the land in light of the earlier narratives. B. is a careful reader, and she helpfully opens up aspects of the narrative to show how such a reading would be significant for the exiles.
D.G. F
B
This slim volume brings together some of the papers from a 2009 conference on Abigail held in Paris. B. is to be thanked for making these studies available to the wider English-speaking world. The individual studies are: A. Lemaire, ‘The Residency of Abigail in 1 Samuel 25 and the Connection between David and Abraham’; M. Guichard, ‘Remarriage of a Princess and the “Foreign Policy” of the King of Mari in the Upper 
abur Region in the Eighteenth Century
J. S
B
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
B
After a brief introduction by the editors, the volume is divided into two sections. Part 1 (’What do we do, what can we do, about Joshua and Judges?’) opens with a discussion by W. Brueggemann of legitimated violence in the book of Joshua; Trent C. Butler discusses Joshua-Judges in the light of postcolonial criticism; Yonina Dor and Naomi De-Malach consider the dilemma facing teachers in the Israelite state school system who encounter texts that may convey a message that they might regard as immoral; Cheryl Kirk-Duggan outlines the feminist/womanist hermeneutical challenges facing those who study the books of Joshua and Judges; Kari Latvus analyses the reception of the OT in Finland during the Second World War in the light of the ideology of warfare in Joshua; L.D. Hawk notes parallels between the ways biblical Israel and America construct national identity through stories of conquest. Part 2 (’Case Studies in Judges’) opens with a chapter by A. Brenner, who considers why the book of Judges—ostensibly a book mostly about men—is framed by stories about women at its beginning and end; Ora Brison sees parallels between Jael and Sisera and the medium of Endor and Saul in 1 Samuel 28; R.P. Bonfiglio considers the representations of Jael in Judges 4–5; Gale A. Yee also focuses on Jael and considers the woman-warrior motif in the light of the Chinese woman warrior Fa Mulan, before moving on to consider the American Orientalism that plays a part in the Disney production Mulan (1998); Meir Bar Mymon investigates the masculinization of Gideon in Judg. 6.1–8.32; Pamela J. Milne discusses Jephthah and his daughter from a variety of perspectives; R.M. Victor provides a cross-cultural narrative reading of Judg. 16.4–21; Brad Embry considers the role of women and community in Judges 19, and the same chapter is the focus of the final contribution to the volume, in which J. Stanley looks at the story of Judges 19 through a psychological lens. The volume concludes with a bibliography, author index and an index of biblical passages. The volume contains many illuminating insights and will be of particular interest to those concerned with the ethical and ideological aspects of the books of Joshua and Judges.
E.W. D
E
This Regensburg dissertation is a detailed examination of the prologue of the book of Judges (1.1–3.6). E. works within the approach developed by his Doktorvater Christoph Dohmen and examines the meaning generated between text and ideal reader. This ideal reader is particularly attentive to issues of structure, the distinction between the order of events (Fabel) and the order of narration (Erzählfolge), and to intertextual resonances with Torah and Joshua. With this approach E. can justify cutting across traditional literary-critical boundaries (for instance between Judg. 2.5 and 2.6), and eschewing questions of direction of literary dependence when considering inner-biblical interpretation. The prologue to Judges is important because it marks the transition from the founding events of exodus and conquest to Israel's history, the ‘end’ and ‘beginning’ of E.'s title. E. identifies 2.1–3 as the prologue's hermeneutical key. In his assessment it describes the earliest event, occurring before Joshua's death (v. 10), and literarily points backwards to the military action against the Canaanites in 1.1–36 and forward to the religious apostasy in 2.11–3.6. More than half the book is devoted to analysing Judg. 2.1–10 and its intertexts: Exodus 23, 34; Deuteronomy 7; Leviticus 26; and Joshua 23–24. The remainder is spent on the rest of the prologue. E. identifies two major themes in the prologue: the Canaanization of the Israelites, and the issue of leadership after Joshua's death. The answer to both problems is Torah. To this reviewer at least it seemed a rather modest contribution given the size of this volume.
N. M
F
Probably due to Samuel's ‘high level of literary sophistication’ (p. 79), F.'s overarching, though not exclusive, focus is on literary concerns. In ch. 1, he considers reading Samuel as history, prophecy, narrative, myth and Scripture (which arguably draws on and emerges from the rest), concluding that no genre is satisfactory by itself. Chapter 2 looks at the literary structure and whether Samuel is a work in its own right (2 Sam. 21–24 being key, in F.'s view, to understanding the book), a complete unit within a larger whole, or an incomplete unit within a whole. Textual issues, sources, date and authorship are dealt with in chs. 3 and 4, and central themes in ch. 5, namely the reign of God, kingship, prophetic authority, and David as the chosen king (who waits for Y
J.I. W
G
Nine previously published studies by Groß and five unpublished studies by Gaß provide an engaging supplement to Groß's monumental commentary on Judges (B.L. 2013, p. 94), for which Gaß had prepared the maps. Groß's wide-ranging contributions treat Jephthah's role in the story of his vow; Jephthah's daughter; the divine covenant in Judges; Micah's over-filled domestic chapel; prophetess and prophet in Judges; the concept of double causality in Judges with special reference to Gideon (who saves Israel?); Y
A.G. A
H
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
H
This very readable book joins a growing industry of Christian efforts to deal with the violence of the book of Joshua. This is a reading of Joshua, but not a commentary on Joshua. Rather, it is just what the subtitle states, and is directed at American Christian readers. The book of Joshua is dealt with in thirteen sections, each section approached from three ‘dimensions’: the first dimension is a narrative reading of the biblical text, taking careful notice of the ‘intratextual dialogue of competing voices’ (p. xxii) within the book; the second is a reflection on biblical themes, addressing issues of violent content and imagery directly; the third is a reading of the American appropriation of the story of the Canaanite conquest. Whereas the second dimension might be considered a rather standard conservative Christian presentation, the other dimensions cannot be (which requires one to rethink that characterization of the second). The first opens up alternative voices in the text to violence and killing; the third, by juxtaposing documentary texts from early American colonization, exposes the cognitive dissonance required in the application of ‘Manifest Destiny’ which is an American Christian legacy. While it may not lay to rest the problems of God-condoned violence in Joshua, and maintains faith in the vision of America as a ‘city built on a hill’, this commentary does serve as a call for American Christians to acknowledge and address their past.
D.D. S
J
The first chapter of this fresh exploration of Deuteronomy–2 Kings offers an informed (if concise) defence for J.'s attribution of the history to a single exilic author (à la Noth). Armed with this conviction of the narrative's unity, J. turns in ch. 2 to the literary application of trauma theory which he offers as a hermeneutical key to unlock the compositional mysteries of the history. In the chapters which follow, J. then takes up each book in turn in an effort to show that the trauma of destruction and exile not only pervasively shapes the main narrative line and its two thematic foci—Israel's fatal infidelity and its flawed leadership—but also intrudes into and subverts this ‘master’ narrative at various junctures (e.g. Micaiah's prophetic encounter with Ahab), opening up questions for which the former has no answers. For J., such intrusions reflect not a consistent, coherent redaction but the irresistible and apparently unconscious surfacing of trauma within the narrative. While it is questionable whether the lens of ‘trauma’ offers as full an explanation of the compositional complexity of the Deuteronomistic History as J. maintains, his reading of it as trauma literature is nothing if not stimulating.
D. S
L
Beginning life as a University of Edinburgh PhD dissertation, L.'s study undertakes a detailed study of the difficult textual history of Joshua 3–4. A brief introduction surveys the key scholarship on Joshua, before a systematic analysis of the text of the two chapters. L. discusses recent synchronic readings, especially that by Robert Polzin, but modifies such approaches by suggesting they must take into account diachronic readings too. This is particularly imperative in a text such as Joshua, where there are many divergences between the MT and the LXX. To understand the chapters, and the variants between the Versions, one must appreciate the influences upon them, and accordingly L. examines them in the light of the Ark narrative and in the context of Exod. 13.17–14.31 and 2 Kings 2, which allows him to explain the different layers as arising from different influences. He undertakes a detailed text-critical analysis, identifying five layers in Old Greek and four in the MT, while accepting that the Greek may well be prior. Although this is a technical book with many details and layers of argument, it will repay careful reading for the light it can shed on the text of Joshua and on method in text-criticism more generally.
J.K. A
L
If the medium is the message, this is a zany contribution to a fresh monograph series. The style is often striking; yet too many sentences leave the reader wondering just what is being said and why. Each chapter is headed by words from the Canadian rock band Rush, with which L. admits obsession. ‘Sewn’ for ‘sown’ (p. 7) and ‘apochryphon’ with surplus ‘h’ (p. 11) may just be wrong; and Samuel, despite being ‘recipient of an unmitigated [sic] divine encounter that trumps the numinous claims of the Elides’ (p. 38), can still be rescued. But what of ‘a mere adept [sic] such as Samuel emerg[ing] as dominant’ (p. 8)? The first main chapter views Samuel ‘through a Deuteronomistic lens’: ‘Samuel … functions within a work that was not always a single narrative, but which was always part of a textual curriculum [sic] with an interconnected vision.’ Three further chapters consider him in turn as Levite, prophet, and judge; and the conclusion views him in shifting (post-Deuteronomistic) perspectives from Persian to Roman times. However, this reader suspects wishful thinking in the claim that the Samuel traditions within the book that bears his name ‘derived from a time when Israelite religion still resonated with the idea of socio-political independence’ (p. 96).
A.G. A
M
This is the British edition of the volume published in 2011 by Cascade Books (Wipf & Stock) and reviewed in B.L. 2012, p. 95.
D.W. R
McC
This is a wonderful introduction for students to the book of Joshua, for M. surveys the main areas of research, particularly the most recent (e.g. Douglas Earl's work) and addresses a number of key questions. He never loses sight of his audience, defining ‘aetiology’, explaining that ‘Hiphil’ can change the meaning of a word, and giving a bracketed description of Marcion. M. starts with a short introduction in which he looks at the canonical placing of Joshua, its textual witness in LXX and Qumran scrolls, as well as in hymns and songs, and notes that the latter arise from ‘aspirations about human identity, destiny and belonging’ (p. 3). This is a theme which undergirds the book as he endeavours to find ways to read Joshua aside from thoughts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ (p. 3). Chapter 1 outlines the narrative and contents, but also raises some of the ‘bigger questions’ to which he returns in later chapters. The next three chapters are concerned, respectively, with traditional literary criticism, the book of Joshua as a work of literature, and the genre of the book (e.g. whether ‘history’ or ‘myth’). Chapter 5 discusses the major theological themes of Joshua, such as
J.I. W
M
This is the British edition of the volume published in 2011 by Pickwick Publications (Wipf & Stock) and reviewed in B.L. 2012, p. 96.
D.W. R
S
S.'s book takes up the subject of David's rise as chronicled in the latter half of 1 Samuel and the early chapters of 2 Samuel. An introduction canvasses recent scholarship which views the so-called ‘History of David's Rise’ (HDR) as highly suggestive of David's complicity in some or all of the very crimes and misdemeanours of which the text insists he is innocent. Already in ch. 1, however, S. narrows the focus, taking particular aim at the work of Kyle McCarter, which he sees to be representative of such scholarship. Chapter 2 finds the similarities between HDR and the well-known Hittite apology of attuš;ili far less pronounced than others have suggested, which in turn prompts S.'s critique in ch. 3 of the interpretative assumptions which see HDR as persistently ‘apologetic’. While these chapters helpfully highlight the extent to which ‘apologetic’ readings of a reconstructed HDR depend upon a hermeneutic of suspicion, S. finds little new evidence for David's innocence beyond that offered by the texts themselves, of which he is much less suspicious. The application of a more credulous hermeneutic to the canonical (Masoretic) text in S.'s fourth and fifth chapters highlights the deity's unlikely election and gracious preservation of David, though S.'s conclusion that this is intended to reflect an affirmation of the divine choice and sustaining of the people as a whole is less convincing.
D. S
T
For a review of this volume, see Section 5 (I) above.
Latter Prophets
(Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea-Malachi)
A
This volume contains essays from an international conference at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, in January 2011. The contributions are all of a high standard, and the individual articles together form a coherent whole. This is an important volume for anyone working on the Book of the Twelve or on the broader field of redaction of prophetic books. The volume falls into four parts. Part 1 deals with methodological issues: Jakob Wöhrle, ‘So Many Cross-References! Methodological Reflections on the Problem of Intertextual Relationships and their Significance for Redaction Critical Analysis’; Marvin A. Sweeney, ‘Synchronic and Diachronic Concerns in Reading the Book of the Twelve Prophets’; and Ruth Scoralick, ‘The Case of Edom in the Book of the Twelve: Methodological Reflections on Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis’. Part 2 looks at issues related to the editing of the Book of the Twelve: Roman Vielhauer, ‘Hosea in the Book of the Twelve’; Jörg Jeremias, ‘The Function of the Book of Joel for Reading the Twelve’; James D. Nogalski, ‘Not Just another Nation: Obadiah's Placement in the Book of the Twelve’; Aaron Schart, ‘The Jonah-Narrative within the Book of the Twelve’; Burkard M. Zapff, ‘The Book of Micah—The Theological Center of the Book of the Twelve’; Walter Dietrich, ‘Three Minor Prophets and the Major Empires: Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives on Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah’; Martin Leuenberger, ‘Time and Situational Reference in the Book of Haggai: On Religious- and Theological-Historical Contextualizations of Redactional Processes’; Martin Hallaschka, ‘From Cores to Corpus: Considering the Formation of Haggai and Zechariah 1–8’; Byron G. Curtis, ‘The Mas ‘ot Triptych and the Date of Zechariah 9–14: Issues in the Latter Formation of the Book of the Twelve’; Paul L. Redditt, ‘Redactional Connectors in Zechariah 9–14’; Rainer Kessler, ‘The Unity of Malachi and its Relation to the Book of the Twelve’; Roy E. Garton, ‘Rattling the Bones of the Twelve: Wilderness Reflections in the Formation of the Book of the Twelve’; Mark E. Biddle, ‘Dominion Comes to Jerusalem: An Examination of Developments in the Kingship and Zion Traditions as Reflected in the Book of the Twelve with Particular Attention to Micah 4–5’; and Judith Gärtner, ‘Jerusalem—City of God for Israel and for the Nations in Zeph 3:8, 9–10, 11–13’. Part 3 explores historical matters: Jason Radine, ‘Deuteronomistic Redaction of the Book of the Four and the Origins of Israel's Wrongs’; Rainer Albertz, ‘The History of Judah and Samaria in the Late Persian and Hellenistic Periods as a Possible Background of the Later Editions of the Book of the Twelve’; Anselm C. Hagedorn, ‘Diaspora or no Diaspora? Some Remarks on the Role of Egypt and Babylon in the Book of the Twelve’; and Mark Leuchter, ‘The Book of the Twelve and “The Great Assembly” in History and Tradition’. Part 4 investigates issues concerning the canon: Jennifer Dines, ‘Verbal and Thematic Links between the Books of the Twelve in Greek and their Relevance to the Differing Manuscript Sequences’; Russell Fuller, ‘The Sequence of Malachi 3:22–24 in the Greek and Hebrew Textual Traditions: Implications for the Redactional History of the Minor Prophets’; and Hanne von Weissenberg,’ “Aligned” or “Non-Aligned”? The Textual Status of the Qumran Cave 4 Manuscripts of the Minor Prophets’. The book concludes with Scripture and author indexes.
L.-S. T
A
This monograph, the published version of A.'s doctoral dissertation, aims at a thorough examination of the book of Jonah using a methodology developed by Wolfgang Richter (1971), reworked by Hubert Irsigler (2007), with modifications suggested by Roy Heller's method (2004; see B.L. 2005, p. 205). Successive chapters deal with the status of the text (ch. 2); detailed criticism and structural analysis (ch. 3); a study of formulae, motifs, traditions and themes (ch. 4); the social context (ch. 5); Jonah's place in the prophetic corpus (ch. 6); and Jonah in the theology of the Old Testament (ch. 7). An enormous amount of work has gone into what is in the end more of a resource for study than a clearly stated thesis, and it has to be said that this is not an easy read, given the dense detail of the analysis. Chapters 2–4 provide a wealth of detail about the text and structure of Jonah, and ch. 7 explores its theology in the context of (perhaps a somewhat conservative) understanding of theological themes in the Old Testament. A.'s conclusions are that Jonah, undoubtedly a postexilic work, explores the significance of a God of Israel understood in universalist terms as a potentially loving, forgiving and caring God for all the nations—a message still relevant to modern readers of whatever religious persuasion.
A.G. H
B
While more scholarly, this book is, in some ways, reminiscent of The Lion Handbook to the Bible, though with fewer photos of the ilk of ‘camels in the Negev’ (p. 181) and ‘Bedouin tent’ (p. 171), as well as maps, timelines and charts, and more (high quality photos of) ANE art, inscriptions and artefacts. Indeed, almost every page contains one or more pictures and as the book lives up to the series title with ‘Illustrated’, so it does with ‘Bible Backgrounds’. After a short introduction giving the historical background, the verse-by-verse exposition is ANE-centric, so, in the commentary on Isa. 52.13–53.12 there is no mention of Jesus or the NT. Rather, the conversation moves in the direction of Hammurabi, Ishtar and Ashurbanipal, Akkadian incantations, Aramaic texts, and (named) Mesopotamian deities, and is enhanced by a picture of a Hittite substitute king text. Similar are the insets providing further pertinent information; the inset on royal births discusses the Ugaritic Aquat text and an Egyptian myth, and ‘Unjust Laws’ looks at Isaiah against the background of Hammurabi, the Laws of Ur-Nammu, the Lipit-Ishtar lawcode and the Edict of Ammisaduqa. Other insets address Assyrian siege tactics, Egyptian relationships under Hezekieh, ANE creation stories and Cyrus's religion. In fact, there is a surprising amount of information that is packed into this easily readable book and B. is an exemplar of a scholar making his knowledge accessible to students and laypeople. It is the kind of book that could inspire its reader to study ‘Theology’.
J.I. W
B
The trajectory of B.'s monograph upon the landscape of current Isaiah research resembles the phenomena that B. is discussing in it. By seeking to strike a balance between inquiry into the literary history of the book of Isaiah on the one hand and discovery of the literary and theological value of the final form on the other, B. offers no less than a new method of study of complex OT texts. This approach unites the strands generated by theological, linguistic and historical analyses and seems to be directly applicable to such corpora as the Pentateuch or the Enneateuch. However, following the appearance of the original German book in 1998, very few scholars outside the German-speaking group engaged in an in-depth examination of B.'s method. The introduction of his book into a new context through this English translation is likely to put a new spin on the reception of his theses, which is reminiscent of B.'s portrayal of the ways in which earlier Isaianic texts were appropriated and transformed by later tradents. One of the questions that can be addressed to B. is whether Isaiah 1–32∗ and 40–52∗ indeed started as two independent compositions; given the strength of R. Clements's and H.G.M. Williamson's arguments to the contrary, a defence of this view would seem to require more effort. The translation sometimes distorts the original (e.g. ‘reaching beyond a dehistoricizing’ [2012: 23]; cf. ‘über eine Dehistorisierung… zu gelangen’ [1998: 34]). However, neither some underdeveloped pieces of B.'s argument nor the occasional faults of his translator will diminish the value of this important study for Hebrew Bible scholarship.
A.V. P
B
This collection of nine of B.'s articles is the companion volume to the book By the River Chebar (also reviewed in B.L. 2014, p. 83). The featured articles deal with a wide range of theological issues, found primarily in Ezekiel 34–48, with focus on studies devoted to eschatology and matters related to human and divine kingship. The volume reflects and also testifies to B.'s interest in the book of Ezekiel over the last 25 years. With the exception of the first and the two last articles, all the others have been published previously. The volume contains the following articles: ‘Zion Theology in the Book of Ezekiel’ (SBL paper from Philadelphia, 1995), ‘Transformation of Royal Ideology in Ezekiel’, ‘The Tender Cedar Sprig: Ezekiel on Jehoiachin’, ‘Bringing Back David: Ezekiel's Messianic Hope’, ‘Gog and Magog in Ezekiel's Eschatological Vision’, ‘Gog in Prophetic Tradition: A New Look at Ezekiel 38:17’, ‘Gog and the Pouring Out of the Spirit: Reflections on Ezekiel 39:21–29’, ‘Envisioning the Good News: Ten Interpretative Keys to Ezekiel's Final Vision’ (paper presented to the Evangelical Theological Society in Lisle, 1994), and ‘Guarding the Glory of YHWH: Ezekiel's Geography of Sacred Space’ (paper presented to the Evangelical Theological Society in Danvers, 1999). The volume ends with a bibliography and three indexes (modern authors, ancient authors, and Scripture references and ancient sources). All the articles address an academic audience, and they are consistently of a high standard. This is a very useful volume to have and, given the low price, it is affordable to buy.
L.-S. T
B
This useful and affordable collection features eight of B.'s previously published articles which deal primarily with Ezekiel 1–33: ‘Preaching Ezekiel’, ‘The Theology of Ezekiel’, ‘Divine Abandonment: Ezekiel's Adaptation of an Ancient Near Eastern Motif’, ‘Chasing a Phantom: The Search for the Historical Marduk’, ‘The Prophet of the Spirit: The Use of חַוּ ד in the Book of Ezekiel’, ‘Beyond the Grave: Ezekiel's Vision of Death and Afterlife’, ‘Text and Emotion: A Study in the “Corruptions” in Ezekiel's Inaugural Vision (Ezekiel 1:4–28)’, and ‘Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron: A Form Critical Solution to Ezekiel 24:1–14’. In addition, it features another article based on a hitherto unpublished paper presented at the SBL meeting in San Francisco, 2012: ‘The God Ezekiel Wants Us to Meet’. Most of the articles are written for an academic audience, while a few address lay people. Two of these articles are notable in that they discuss how clergy can preach the difficult text of Ezekiel 16. Another two articles explore the Babylonian impact upon select parts of the book of Ezekiel, while the rest address various theological, form-critical, and exegetical issues in the book of Ezekiel. The book concludes with a brief appendix, ‘In Praise of Moshe: A Tribute to Moshe Greenberg’, a paper which B. originally presented at the 2010 SBL meeting in Atlanta. The volume further contains a useful bibliography of all cited works, and four indexes (modern authors, ancient authors, selected subjects, and Scripture references).
L.-S. T
B
This is a revised version of B.'s doctoral dissertation from the University of Michigan. The introduction reviews recent trends in scholarship away from biographical approaches to prophetic literature towards a focus on the final form of the text and the calls for a new paradigm in prophetic studies. The case for taking a synchronic approach is presented, as is the thesis that the book of Hosea was composed by the Jerusalem elite in the early Persian period after the Temple reconstruction. B. accepts that some written traditions associated with a prophet named Hosea may have been incorporated, but argues that the book does not result from a lengthy process of texts undergoing redaction or editing since the eighth century. He makes his argument on the basis of an anti-monarchical ideology in the book (ch. 2), of a pervasive theme of exile and return (ch. 4), and by focusing on the traditions of ‘Israel’ (ch. 5). These chapters engage closely with specific texts from Hosea, and in some instances B. offers his own translation to support his argument. The third chapter is a discussion of the polemic in Hosea against Benjamin, Bethel and Samaria, interpreted against the background of Persian-period Yehud. He concludes that rivalries between Mizpah and Jerusalem, and between Aaronid priests at Bethel and Zadokites at Jerusalem, provide the context in which the latter group make their claim for primacy through the book of Hosea. The thesis is well argued and its implications deserve careful consideration and debate.
J.E. T
G
This is a very useful addition to the surprisingly small body of up-to-date commentaries on Isaiah 56–66 (amidst a plethora of monographs). The introduction is devoted to key issues relating to the study of Isaiah 56–66. G. advocates reading the text in its present order (rather than in accordance with any presupposed text-historical development), yet paying attention to its concentric organization which has as its centre the calling of the prophet (Isa. 61.1–9). G. further argues that as Isaiah 56–66 refrains from referring to any identifiable historical setting, we should focus our attention on other issues. He thus rejects understanding the conflict within the community as the interpretative key to the text, suggesting instead that it is more fruitful to read it ‘on its own terms’: what do the chapters say themselves, and what sense would the community which affirms them have assigned to them? G. also pays keen attention to the poetic features of the text, and seeks to read Isaiah 56–66 within its larger context in the book of Isaiah, with a focus on the changing roles of Jerusalem. The ensuing commentary follows the standard layout of ICC: (1) a new translation of each pericope, accompanied by extensive textual notes which discuss grammatical issues and variant readings attested in the Qumran scrolls and the ancient translations; (2) an introduction which explores matters of structure and the relation of the pericope with other textual traditions within the Bible; (3) a detailed verse-by-verse commentary; and (4) a conclusion. To be recommended.
L.-S. T
G
Building on previous work he has done on the influence of Proverbs on biblical editing in the Persian period, G. explores the influence of the Psalms, Proverbs and Kings on the book of Isaiah. He uses two methods: observing editing techniques and noting textual ‘correspondances’. Central to G.'s argument is the assertion that the book of Isaiah is the work of a levitical group. G. argues the book to be in the tradition of Korahite/Merarite psalmists, presenting an alternative understanding of the loss of the Davidic dynasty from that of the Asaphite tradition which he argues held priestly power after the exile. It is in this sense that the book of Isaiah ‘contests’ other biblical texts. G. then argues for the influence of wisdom and in particular the book of Proverbs on Isaiah, focusing on the theme of ‘hardening’. He then considers the relationship of Isaiah 36–39 to Kings. Overall I found myself unpersuaded by the thesis of Korahite-Merarite editors, but the meticulous analysis of textual similarities was admirable and helpful in understanding the relationship between the book of Isaiah and other biblical works. In addition, the observations about editing, as for example the discussion concerning the differing role of the historical material in Kings and Isaiah, were particularly useful.
J.R. W
G
G. aims to construct the character Jeremiah through a narratological reading of the book. Its division (Jer. 1–10; 11–20; 20–39; 39–44; 45; 46–51; 52) reflects her interest in changes of speaker and types of speech, often ignoring major structural markers of the MT. Her generally perceptive analysis of each sub-unit focuses on the persuasive outcome to which its rhetoric is directed. After presenting Jeremiah 2–10 as an overture laying the ground for what is coming, G. assigns every poetic oracle in Jeremiah 11–20 either to God or the prophet, arguing for a genre of ‘divine soliloquy’ through which God ‘inches forward’ to a realization that while he can do nothing about hard hearts, he can sift out the less hard, and lead them as semi-willing participants into early exile. G. discerns a long chiasm in Jeremiah 20–39 in which the voluntary (p. 106) departure of Jehoiachin and the first exiles creates hope. At the central climax, in Jeremiah 32, the good deed of nephew Jeremiah (32.7) codes for the good future of Zedekiah's nephew Jehoiachin. As a character, G.'s Jeremiah cannot be separated from his God. They are a ‘ministry team’ (p. 62) who must work through their own fear and brutality, and slowly learn to replace blame with understanding, or they will never convince good-hearted listeners to make a hard choice for their own well-being. G.'s memorable characters are so modern they could not have been ‘constructed’ even thirty years ago.
A.G. S
H
H. was Professor of Old Testament at Linz from 1983–2010; Werner Urbanz has collected together thirteen of his articles published between 1981 and 2005. Seven of them treat various aspects of Jeremiah: Jer. 18.18–23 is juxtaposed with the confessions; the confessions are understood as an expression of calling; the verbal repetitions in the structure of Jer. 20.7–13 are neatly dissected; Jer. 13.1–11 is read chiastically; Jer. 15.11–14 are re-examined; Jer. 17.1–2 are assessed for scribal mis-readings; and some observations are made on the differences between the MT and LXX of Jeremiah. Other studies discuss the structure of Isa. 7.1–17; Isa. 6.1–13 in the context of calling; Isa. 35.8–10 from literary and stylistic perspectives; Ezek. 37.1–14 in recent research; 1 Sam. 3.1–21 with appreciation of R.W.L. Moberly's work (SJT 48 [1995], pp. 443–68); and prophecy and publicity.
G.J. B
K
This revised dissertation, supervised by Eckart Otto, examines Jeremiah 26 and 36 and explores the connections between these texts, Exodus and Deuteronomy. After concisely explaining the problem and the proposed method of approach, K. explores the origins and character of Jeremiah 26 and 36 in successive chapters. He discerns a basic literary and authorial integrity to each chapter, presenting each as a three-part composition (26.1–7, 8–19, 20–24; 36.1–8, 9–26, 27–32). In his fourth chapter K. examines the rich connections between Jeremiah 26 and 36 (e.g. the way in which they elevate the word of Jeremiah to the level of torah [pp. 139–42]). K. concludes that a single postexilic author is responsible. His next two chapters are wide-ranging studies of the influence of Exodus (discussing, inter alia, the nature of torah; parallels between Jeremiah, Baruch, Moses and Aaron; and the role of the Temple) and Deuteronomy (including prophets; false prophets; and the king, focusing on his connection to the law [17.18–20]). K. concludes that the Pentateuch has influenced postexilic Jeremiah in basic ways. Jeremiah (not Moses) is made into the last major prophetic mediator of revelation, after whom access to God's will comes only through the written torah entrusted to the priests (p. 286). While some of K.'s redaction history suffers from the speculativeness endemic to the discipline, this does not detract from the value of his careful exegetical work, or the stimulating thematic and theological connections by which he enriches the text of Jeremiah.
A.G. S
M
This volume constitutes an analysis of the book of Habakkuk through the lens of performance studies. After a brief introduction, the first three chapters provide summaries of research: ‘The Prophetic Phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible’, ‘An Introduction to Performance Studies’, and ‘Performance Criticism in Biblical Studies’. Chapter 4, entitled ‘Preparing the “Script” of Habakkuk’, covers such issues as text, ‘Habakkuk’ as a historical figure, authorship, setting, genre, translation, and the division of the book into dramatic units. Chapters 5–7 provide a performance reading of each of Habakkuk's three chapters in turn, followed by a summarizing eighth chapter. Each section ('scene’) is examined in terms of its author and script, actors, audience, setting and improvisation, a structure which is at times artificial, but which can offer valid insights into the flow of the book. M. identifies key dramatic aspects (’themes’) of Habakkuk, and indeed of any performance, as self-reflexivity (the self-consciousness of being and not being within a role, shared by actor and audience), embodiment (’the immersion of the speaker’ as ‘an embodied participant’ [p. 115] and intermediary [p. 166]), process (’acting in/upon the world’, with an emphasis on effecting change [p. 32]; and in Habakkuk, open-endedness and re-applicability [p. 167]), re-enactment (based on pre-existing models and patterns), and universality (lack of specifics, facilitating re-applicability). The book concludes with two appendixes—a helpful glossary and a translation with detailed notes—and a bibliography. This is a useful introduction to a method offering a helpful but not always compelling framework for interpretation.
R.S. W
M
Completing a commentary on Ezekiel—the fourth largest book of the Hebrew Bible—has sometimes proved a challenge, and such was sadly the case for Moshe Greenberg, whose Anchor Bible set ends at Ezekiel 37. As the multiple prefaces recount, Greenberg passed the task of completing the commentary to Jacob Milgrom. In the event, Milgrom himself did not live to see his manuscript through the press, but invited his ‘conversation partner’ Daniel Block to apply finishing touches with assistance from Milgrom's ‘study partner’ Joel Duman. This in itself is a remarkable story of scholarly collaboration, in which a ‘conversation’ between Jewish and Christian interpreters illuminates this enigmatic chunk of Ezekiel. The authorial voice remains that of Milgrom, while Block's work provides an ever-present foil. Some typical trappings of commentary are missing, presumably because Milgrom viewed it as a completion to Greenberg's volumes, rather than an independent piece. There is, for example, no formal introduction, so some matters traditionally dealt with there must be inferred from the larger discussion. In format, the content of larger sections is introduced, then translation and textual notes of smaller pericopes offered, followed by detailed commentary at the level of phrase or word. Some looseness is apparent in the way in which the text-critical notes will instead sometimes offer preliminary commentary. Milgrom did not hesitate to provide contemporary reflections: exegesis is not simply an antiquarian exercise in this work. Rather, on page after page one sees him imaginatively inhabiting the textual world constructed by these chapters of Ezekiel. The result is vibrant and engaging for anyone grappling with the details of Ezekiel's vision. Unsignalled by the table of contents is a brief three-page ‘summary’ at the conclusion of ch. 48 which reads like a conclusion to the whole of Ezekiel, rather than simply the preceding pericope as it is laid out. Pithy and probing, it provides a poignant culmination for not only Milgrom's own work, but that of his predecessor and collaborator.
D.J. R
M
M.'s book is based on his doctorate from the University of Granada in 2009. Although he recognizes the complexity of the development of the text of Isaiah, he undertakes a synchronic method of exegesis which stresses the unity of the book. In particular M. focuses on chs. 65 and 66, and on the theme of joy which he argues is of great importance in the whole book even though this has received little attention in the study of Isaiah. Isaiah 65 and 66 are paradigmatic texts for reflection on the theme of joy in Isaiah and the prophets. M.'s opening chapter considers the unity and structure of Isaiah 65–66, and the next two provide a detailed exegesis of Isa. 65.8–25 and 66.5–14. The fourth chapter gives a theological synthesis in order to set out a theology of joy in the light of these passages. There is then discussion of how Isaiah 65–66 relates to the rest of the book (not just third Isaiah) as an epilogue, and of the theme of joy in Isaiah 1–64. The sixth chapter considers the vocabulary, symbols and metaphors of joy and sadness in the book of Isaiah. There follows a discussion which shows how the theme of joy is central to the structure and message of the book. In conclusion M. points to the importance of joy in the whole prophetic corpus. M. has provided a major, carefully argued, thorough and detailed study which will be of great benefit to scholars who are working on Isaiah.
P.J. H
N
In this short but important book N. attempts to respond through contemplation of Habakkuk to the difficulties faced in contemporary African societies. Part 1 keeps its focus on the biblical text, swiftly outlining its key narrative contours and framing its message via the conservative Christian theology very visibly espoused throughout From Trials to Triumphs. Part 2 explores various traumas within modern Africa via this reading of Habakkuk, arguing for a need to move beyond questioning God toward acceptance of divine purposes even in the face of suffering. Part 3 then acts as a short summary and offers advice for both churches and policy-makers. This is a book that challenges its readers, but certainly deserves itself to be rigorously challenged, because N.'s determination to find positives amidst suffering are, to this reviewer at least, sometimes profoundly disturbing. For example, he remarks on the value of enduring difficult marriages (p. 35), experiencing poverty (p. 35), and on one occasion concludes that in the late 1990s a fellow Christian was ‘probably right’ to pray for America to suffer misfortune (p. 41). ‘In every situation,’ he reflects, ‘God wants to teach humankind and especially his children some lessons’ (p. 37). Yet one can hardly say that N. does not speak from experience of personal suffering. In one especially startling passage he manages to conclude that God allowed the death of his own first son as a means of ‘preparing me for a counselling ministry’ (p. 49). Some (hopefully most) readers will respond by both querying the moral vision of God portrayed in this book and, in more practical terms, wondering quite what horrors might become justifiable through such an outlook. But From Trials to Triumphs should not be dismissed. Despite its unsettling aspects, indeed perhaps because of them, it presents a vivid and important example of Habakkuk's contemporary reception history.
D.C. To
P
This book provides an introductory survey of the theology of each of the written prophetic books. The chapters follow a common format, comprising short statements of the historical setting and literary structure of the book, a more detailed sectionalized discussion of its message and themes, and a brief bibliography (including, somewhat surprisingly, a number of works in German). As befits an introductory work for students and lay people, the style of writing is generally attractive and accessible, though the use of Hebrew script (and occasionally even discussion that requires knowledge of Hebrew grammar) seems out of place. The critical stance of most contributors is conservative, though Isaiah is presented in two quite separate chapters and Daniel is included as a second-century composition. Other literary-historical proposals are sometimes mentioned briefly but usually dismissed as if irrelevant or unhelpful for exegesis. Despite some variation of quality among the chapters, the book should nevertheless generally serve quite well for those wanting initial orientation, not least because the main focus is on what the texts actually say. The editors come from the Netherlands and South Africa, and so do a number of the other contributors, though in fact there are six nationalities represented in all among the authors of the eighteen chapters, as follows: ‘Prophets and Prophetic Literature’ (G. Kwakkel), Amos (Snyman), Hosea (Kwakkel), Isaiah 1–39 (J. Dekker), Micah (G. Begerau), Nahum (D. Timmer), Zephaniah (M.-J. Paul), Jeremiah (Peels), Habakkuk (M. Williams), Ezekiel (H. van Rooy), Obadiah (D. Green), Isaiah 40–66 (H. Kruger), Haggai (H. Klement), Zechariah (W. Rose), Malachi (Snyman), Jonah (R. Bergey), Joel (J.S. Kim), and Daniel (H. van Deventer).
H.G.M. W
P
P. maintains that Ezekiel's four vision complexes (for him, Ezek. 1–3, 8–11; 16 and 23; 37.1–14; and 40–48) structure the book and show that its message depends upon the concept of a covenant lawsuit. He advances this through a case study on each vision complex that focuses on parallels with other ANE texts. P. draws three main conclusions: first, Ezekiel's use of language and concepts from Deuteronomy 26–28, Leviticus 26 and various ANE literature demonstrates a sixth-century Babylonian provenance for the book; second, the curses and blessings that dominate the book are drawn from a common stock of ANE covenant concepts that are then applied to Israel and other nations; and third, the overall structure of the book, where the later visions reverse the earlier curses, produces an overall coherence that indicates an intentional structure spanning the entire book. P. discusses a wealth of ANE literature, but this is a strength and a weakness because the lengthy discussions replicate previous works without substantially advancing on them. For instance, P. treats the divine departure motif (Ezek. 1–3, 8–11) over 75 pages without improving upon John Kutsko's treatment of the topic. Moreover, P.'s stress on covenant does not appear sufficiently different from Daniel Block's, and it does not advance understanding of Ezekiel significantly. In sum, though P. admirably controls a breadth of sources and demonstrates a keen sense for the key issues in Ezekiel, his monograph asks familiar questions without providing either new perspectives on them or fresh arguments for well-known answers.
C.A. S
R
R. seeks to illumine the unique characteristics of the prophetic figures Jeremiah and Ezekiel through a comparative analysis of them. To do so, she selects four shared themes: the call narratives (Jer. 1.1–19; Ezek. 1–3), worker images for prophetic ministry (Jer. 6.27–30, 18.1–12; Ezek. 33.1–20), the relationship between prophet and Temple (Jer. 7.1–15; Ezek. 8–11), and the depiction of ‘deviant prophets’ (Jer. 23.9–32; Ezek. 13). Her discussion is well informed, but descriptive and derivative from previous scholarship throughout. One notable exception is her examination of how metaphor operates, which underpins a strong case that source-critical models for Jer. 18.1–12 do not adequately account for this feature. Overall, R. maintains that the striking differences between the two depictions of prophetic ministry strongly correlate to the differing context of the prophets. This is unsurprising given her ‘canonical approach’ that simultaneously takes the texts holistically while respecting the settings presented in the book (p. 8). That reading strategy—more accurately called synchronic since the canon plays no substantial role in her analysis—suggests that the results are to a large degree predetermined from the outset. In sum, while the book is well structured, clearly written, and a thoughtful comparison of these two engaging figures, it adds little to previous treatments of this topic.
C.A. S
S
In this study S. reads Jeremiah as an expression of Christian doctrine where the doctrine is the word of God (p. 21). In the introduction he discusses understandings of biblical theology and interpretation, before defining biblical theology as ‘knowledge of God as the God of the Bible’ (p. 27). He writes conversationally, occasionally using colloquialisms, but there is theological depth to this thought-provoking and highly interesting monograph, written from a position of faith. Particularly stimulating are S.'s original contributions, which begin in the first chapter where he draws a distinction between the word of God and words of God, e.g. only words are written down, whereas the word is heard, but it is the words that are rejected (p. 58), and the observation that God rarely speaks his own word (p. 56). A fundamental tenet of his thesis is that the words can change without changing the word, the word (an actor in the book of Jeremiah) being akin to the message that the words convey (pp. 261, 262). Another is that Jeremiah embodies the word of God, in order, S. reasons in his final chapter, ‘that we may know the Word and not the speaker better’ (p. 287). He considers that Jeremiah 50–51 tell the same story as chs. 30–31 but from a universal point of view, rather than Israel's, and proposes that Babylon becomes a cipher for death itself; when death is destroyed, Israel can be ‘raised in incorruption’ (pp. 207–14). I would recommend this book to a wide audience.
J.I. W
Psalms and Wisdom
(Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Job)
B
This commentary approaches the Song from a Reformed, evangelical perspective. It aims to be pastoral and devotional, rather than technical, and thus represents a hopeful sign of what might, to use the terminology of David Carr, be called the functional recanonization of this text. B. describes the Song as an impressionistic, non-allegorical, anthological song cycle. He finds two major voices in the text (those of Solomon and his wife) with very occasional interludes by other speakers. For B., the Song portrays (in idealized fashion) and celebrates marital sexual love from a variety of viewpoints, including premarital longing, wedding joy, and the mature sexual love of the long-married. Taking his cue from Paul's exegesis of Gen. 2.24 in Eph. 5.31–32, B. then argues that the human sexual love celebrated in the Song acts as a prism, revealing the spectrum of hues that is the love between Christ and his people. In turn, a deeper appreciation of this divine love encourages readers of the Song to fresh commitment to nurturing the joy of marital sexual love, as a ‘love gift from our Creator’ (p. 4). Most of the comments on individual passages reflect this threefold hermeneutic. Occasionally one wonders whether B.'s exegetical reconstructions really fit the details of the biblical text, or at least whether they take sufficient account of the enigmatic quality of much of the Song's poetry. Nevertheless, this small commentary serves as an accessible and edifying point of entry into what is for many an unfamiliar book.
K.L. P
B
This is a revision and updating of a guide to the Psalms published in 1990 (not noted in the B.L.). The first three chapters set out general perspectives on how the Psalms can be read. A valuable feature of B.'s pedagogical approach is to introduce key questions that can be asked of a psalm (type/structure, use in worship, context in the Psalter, use of language), which are then developed and applied in later chapters. A survey of ‘Lessons from the Past’ is a helpful overview of the various ways in which the Psalms have been interpreted. B. highlights the vital personal dimension in interpretation: it matters what we bring to reading the Psalms. The next four chapters discuss Laments, Praises, Royal Psalms and Wisdom Psalms. The last two categories are notoriously unstable, but B. argues for criteria that bring eleven psalms into each category. B. is sensitive to both the strengths and limitations of various form-critical analyses and how they overlap with one another. He discusses both general issues and a selected number of psalms in somewhat more detail in demonstrating how different aspects contribute to a psalm's specific character. A final chapter on the Psalms and faith surveys a number of recurring motifs and themes, such as the reign of God, worship, hope and the community. A number of probing questions for further study and a glossary of names and terms are helpful postscripts. The clarity, breadth, warmth and sophistication of this introduction will make it a valuable resource for an introductory course on the Psalms.
P.P. J
B
Within this solid compendium of essays on the interpretation of Ecclesiastes, four contributions cover the early history of interpretation (E. Christianson on ‘premodern’ readings [an extract from his splendid volume Ecclesiastes through the Centuries], R. Sandberg on rabbinic attitudes, A. Wolters on treatments by the Protestant reformers, and C. Rata on Puritan approaches), five deal with issues of ‘history, form and rhetoric’ (T. Longman on the book's historical context, L. Perdue on its relationship to Hellenistic scepticism, M. Shields on its parallels with ancient royal autobiographies, D. Beldman on the structure of the book, and J.F. Hobbins on its poetic features), four focus on key concepts and passages (R. O’Dowd on epistemology, D. Ingram on ambiguity in 7.23–8.1, R. Meek on the meaning of hebel, and M. Boda on the epilogue of 12.9–14), three discuss matters of language and grammar (R. Holmstedt on the relative particles, J. Cook on the verbal system, and E. Mroczek on alleged Aramaisms), and five canvass the broader theme of ‘interpreting Qohelet’ (C. Bartholomew on the book's theology, S. Dempster on its place in the canon, I. Provan on the continuing relevance of the book today, D. Fredericks on the deployment of Ecclesiastes in preaching, and P. Leithart on what the book can contribute to ‘postmodern’ reflections about justice, death and sex). Surprisingly for a collection with the subtitle ‘Engaging Qohelet in the 21st Century’, very few of the essays place Ecclesiastes in dialogue with specifically twenty-first-century concerns or bring the latest developments in biblical and cultural studies to bear on the interpretation of this most enigmatic of biblical books, but in what the volume mostly does—rehearsing the ways in which previous generations have grappled with the book and making worthy contributions to long-standing discussions on its interpretation—it is a useful and stimulating collection. Several of the essayists are eager to make a traditional evangelical escape from the heat of Qohelet's critique of such systems of organized religion, but nonetheless the collection as a whole does amply demonstrate that the words of the ancient sage(s) can still ‘goad’ readers today, as the quotation from Eccl. 12.11 in the main title of this volume suggests.
J. J
C
This avowedly Christian reading of the Psalter appears to be aimed at conservative, possibly charismatic, Christians and their worship leaders. It commences with a general introduction briefly covering Hebrew poetry, composition of the Psalter, Christian and Jewish use of the Psalter, and use in the cult. There is always one eye to modern worship and the use of psalms to express emotions to God. Thus W. Brueggemann's concept of the Psalms as constitutive of theological reality is explored along with the thorny issue of the imprecatory psalms. The scholarship is comprehensively surveyed, if selectively used. The introduction is followed by a brief commentary on 50 of the Psalms grouped under headings that reflect the interests of modern worship rather than the priorities of the Psalter: Complaint and Lament, Intimacy in the Psalms, Penitential Psalms, Messianic Psalms, and Ecstatic Praise and Worship. The conservative approach is evident in attributing the Psalms to a literal and psychologized King David, and many psalms are viewed as direct predictions of Jesus Christ. The style has an uneven flow, consisting of the juxtaposition of long quotes and differing scholarly opinions, often feeling more like a reader or anthology than a text and making for occasional contradictions (was the Psalter in shape 100 years before Christ [p. 21] or only in the first century c
E.A. H
C
This third volume of C.'s commentary on Job completes the book (see B.L. 1991, pp. 55–56; B.L. 2007, p. 71). This covers the Y
L.L. G
C
Continuing the programme of his earlier work on the shape of Psalms 73–89 (2000; see B.L. 2001, pp. 59–60), C. turns his attention here to the opening two poems of the Psalter. While many interpreters have noticed a relationship between Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, C. argues that the full dimension of the literary, linguistic and thematic cohesiveness of these poems has not been adequately recognized. Consequently, only little effort has been invested to explore the ways in which the pair may function as the Psalter's introduction. After an extensive literature review, C. analyses both poems individually and offers insights into their structural constitution and a helpful verse-by-verse commentary. Throughout this discussion, he shows links between the two psalms and builds up his case for their ‘reciprocal unity’ (p. 141). To demonstrate both the introductory function of this unified opening and its implications for further study on the Psalter's arrangement, C.'s final chapter discusses the connections between Psalms 1–2 and Psalm 3. In terms of his argument for the unity of Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 and his goal to promote interpsalmic exegesis, C.'s study is definitely successful. For his central idea of Psalms 1–2 as an introduction, however, the canonical and exegetical implications could have been presented more explicitly. Apart from a brief section which shows how the two poems may relate to the five books of the Psalter (pp. 82–87), C.'s book presents itself primarily as an exegetical study of Psalms 1–2.
S. H
C
A venerable interpreter of Ecclesiastes here gathers his mature reflections on the book under eight aspects of potential ‘quarrel’ that one might have with the personality revealed/hidden within its pages: ‘Authorial Deceit’ (on the enigmatic name Qoheleth), ‘Veiled Truth’ (on the inconsistencies and contradictions in his teachings), ‘Elusive Essence’ (on the theme-word hebel and related refrains), ‘Ocular Deception’ (on the epistemological inadequacy of basing conclusions on sight), ‘Surreptitious Givens’ (on Qoheleth's many assumptions that have no empirical basis), ‘Victorious Time’ (on his near-obsession with time's ravages and especially with death), ‘Tasty Nectar’ (on his advice to enjoy yourself if you have the ability to do so), and ‘Flawed Genius’ (on the earliest attempts—seen already in the book's own epilogue—to counter Qoheleth's radical message). All of these contemplations are framed by the thought (and reflected in the subtitle of this volume) that Qoheleth directs an ‘ironic wink’ at the reader of Ecclesiastes: C. begins by imagining that the ancient personage ‘wants to challenge a reader to ponder the contradictions in his interpretation of reality while thinking that the wink conveys the right answer to him or her alone, leaving others in the dark’ (p. 7), and he ends by fearing that ‘perhaps the irony is directed at those of us who think we understand him’ (p. 116). That may be so, but readers of this volume are likely to feel that as a result of C.'s efforts they have a better understanding of the intriguing figure of Qoheleth than they had before.
J. J
D
‘Readers Old’ in this splendid little game of two halves are the ancient interpreters in rabbinic and patristic circles (along with the inheritors of their legacies in the mediaeval and Reformation periods), who wrestled with such questions as why Ecclesiastes merited a place in the Scriptures and whether its essential message was contempt of the world or faithful reception of the gifts bestowed by God. ‘Readers New’ are modern interpreters in certain ideological circles, who bring their particular advocacies or interests to their reading of the Scriptures and in so doing can illuminate the meaning of certain texts: the cases in point explored here are an ecological reading of Eccl. 1.3–11 and 11.3–5, an animal theology reading of 3.18–21, a liberationist or postcolonial reading of 4.1–3 and 5.8–9, and a feminist reading of 7.23–8.1. Different readers will no doubt be stimulated to quibble with this or that detail of the readings that D. presents, but overall she is to be commended for demonstrating both how ‘old’ light can usefully be shone again upon an anomalous biblical book and also how ‘new’ light can be brought to bear on the reading of an ancient text in a twenty-first-century setting.
J. J
D
In the first volume of the new SOTS-sponsored Phoenix Press series of short guides, D. presents here a concise and useful introduction to the book of Job. Having published on a wide range of aspects related to this text, D. is able to offer her readers in only six chapters the full spectrum of Joban complexity, both with regard to the book itself and to the scholarly discussion which it has ignited. This transpires most evidently in the guide's structure which stretches from traditional questions of date, form, and literary history (ch. 1) all the way to postmodern reading strategies (ch. 6). Couched between these two poles we find four chapters, each of which illuminates a crucial dimension of studying Job. With regard to genre and canon, for instance, D. discusses how far Job can be designated as wisdom literature—a classification which she deems too narrow and thus problematic. Related to this assessment, D. offers her reading of Job as parody, an approach which was put forward previously in her doctoral work. As a supplement to these literary aspects, the guide further includes a chapter on Job in its ANE context and the theological issues which are raised by the book. This balance in arrangement and D.'s ability to be both succinct and stimulating in her writing make this volume a helpful guide to Job which can be recommended to long-time researchers and first-year students alike. Each chapter closes with a bibliography for further reading. The guide has two indexes.
S. H
D
This collection of essays does justice to the vast subject of intertextuality in Job. It draws on the expertise of a broad group of scholars. After a thorough introduction by the editors, outlining the motivation for the project and how the essays interact with one another, the volume opens with John Barton's ‘Déjà Lu: Intertextuality, Method or Theory?’, which provides an overview of intertextual studies in the Hebrew Bible. The rest of the collection is divided into four parts. Part 1 explores the intertextuality of Job and the Pentateuch, in five essays: M. Oeming, ‘To Be Adam or Not To Be Adam: The Hidden Fundamental Anthropological Discourse Revealed in an Intertextual Reading of םדא in Job and Genesis’; J. Burnight, ‘The “Reversal” of Heilsgeschichte in Job’; S.E. Balentine, ‘Job and the Priests: “He Leads Priests Away Stripped” (Job 12:19)’; M. White, ‘Does the Torah Keep its Promise? Job's Critical Intertextual Dialogue with Deuteronomy’; E.L. Greenstein, ‘Parody as a Challenge to Tradition: The Use of Deuteronomy 32 in the Book of Job’. In six essays, Part 2 examines the intertextual dialogue between the book of Job and the Prophets: R. Heckl, ‘The Relationship between Job 1–2, 42 and 1 Samuel 1–4 as Intertextual Guidance for Reading’; W. Kynes, ‘Job and Isaiah 40–55: Intertextualities in Dialogue’; K. Dell,’ “Cursed Be the Day I Was Born”: Job and Jeremiah Revisited’; P.M. Joyce,’ “Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it…” (Ezekiel 14:14): The Case of Job and Ezekiel’; J.D. Nogalski, ‘Job and Joel: Divergent Voices on a Common Theme’; H. Marlow, ‘Creation Themes in Job and Amos: An Intertextual Relationship?’. The third part of the collection is made up of five essays and it focuses on the dialogue between Job and the Writings: C. Frevel, ‘Telling the Secrets of Wisdom: The Use of Psalm 104 in the Book of Job’; M.A. Lyons,’ “I also Could Talk as You Do” (Job 16:4): The Function of Intertextual Quotation and Allusion in Job’; J.L. Crenshaw, ‘Divine Discipline in Job 5:17–18, Proverbs 3:11–12, Deuteronomy 32:39, and Beyond’; R.L. Schultz, ‘Job and Ecclesiastes: Intertextuality and a Protesting Pair’; J.K. Aitken, ‘The Intertextuality of Reading Job through Lamentations’. In five essays, Part 4 focuses on Job's intertextuality beyond the Hebrew Bible: C.B. Hays,’ “You Destroy a Person's Hope”: The Book of Job as a Conversation about Death’; A. Portier-Young, ‘Through the Dung-Heap to the Chariot: Intertextual Transformations in the Testament of Job’; J.G. Janzen’ “He Makes Peace in his High Heaven”: Job and Paul in Resonance’; S. Ticciati, ‘An Intertextual Reading of Job in Relation to the Anti-Pelagian Augustine’; G. Oberhänsli, ‘Job in Modern and Contemporary Literature on the Background of Tradition: Sidelight of a Jewish Reading’; J.C. McCann, Jr, ‘The Book of Job and Marjorie Kemper's “God's Goodness” ‘. The collection has a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography on intertextuality.
P.K. A
E
The subtitle of this monograph describes its content quite accurately. Its scope is perhaps somewhat limited: E. discusses four psalms (rather pragmatically chosen to limit the length of the study)—105, 106, 135 and 136—noting their links with each other and with their immediate context. He provides very detailed notes on his four chosen pieces together with arguments for the intertextual references he identifies, arguing for intentional and specific use of the exodus traditions in other parts of Tanak (for the most part Exodus and Deuteronomy). Part of his thesis depends on attempts to date the four psalms in order to clarify the direction of scriptural citation; while this exercise is notoriously difficult for poetic material, as E. acknowledges, he makes a judicious case, even if the present reviewer is not persuaded of the precise order. Perhaps somewhat disappointing is the sense that the detailed work does not add up convinceingly to an overall thesis, and that the references and allusions might be better explained in terms of a more general familiarity with the source material. However, E.'s contribution to the study of ‘mini-groups’ of psalms, and his helpful conclusion which spells out the importance of the exodus theme, make this a useful contribution to the field.
A.G. H
F
The stated purpose of this book is to demonstrate that Ecclesiastes is underpinned by an ‘implicit philosophy’, which shows the influence not only of Hellenistic and Jewish ideas, but possibly also those of India, and that this philosophy presents itself incrementally through the book. Accordingly, F. conducts his examination as a sort of commentary, and finishes with an attempt at a philosophical translation of the book. Although a theologian rather than a biblical scholar by training, he has done his homework, and there is extensive citation of secondary literature, old and new. He is not really a Hebraist, however, and this is evident not only in certain outright errors (contra n. 44, for example, -ש is neither an abbreviation of דשא nor an Aramaism, as such), but also in his more general approach to Qohelet's notoriously difficult language and vocabulary. For F., ןודתי has the sense ‘profit from existence’ in Qohelet's usage (although only, curiously, when it is ‘précédé de l’interrogatif mâh—“quoi?” suivi d’un trait d’union [maqqef]’), so that the famous question in 1.3 comes to mean, ‘What about a profit (from existing) for the human, in all the labour at which he labours under the sun?’ This is crucial for the subsequent argument that Qohelet's concerns are ontological, but requires the usual sense of the term to be rejected, and the second part of the verse ignored. There is much of interest in this book, but at least as much eisegesis as exegesis.
S.D.E. W
G
This excellent dissertation makes a significant contribution in two main fields of research: first, the redactional procedures which have shaped the formation of the Psalter into five collections; and secondly, the inner-biblical exegetical strategies which have given rise to a distinctive interpretation of the meaning of Israelite history. The five psalms covered in detail are identified as late compositions, originating from the postexilic period and drawing directly and explicitly on extant Pentateuchal accounts of Israel's history. The links with similar compositions in Exod. 15.6–18 and Nehemiah 9 are noted. Psalm 78 is interpreted as presenting a key summary reflection, interpreting the psalms that precede (Pss. 74, 76, 77) and Psalm 79 which follows. Together they form a conclusion for the Asaph collection. Psalms 105 and 106 are interpreted in a reverse chronological sequence. They express a firmly monotheistic theological perspective and belong in the wider setting of the unit comprising Psalms 103–107. Finally, Psalms 135 and 136 are closely interrelated and present a radically new interpretation of Israelite history from the latest period of psalm interpretation. Overall these highly distinctive historical psalms stand outside the main types of psalm composition and reveal the forces which shaped a Jewish collective memory of a national past with its heroic figures and a divinely directed course of events. When analysed in this way they reveal the ideas and concerns which served to create the literary structure of the Psalter and set it into the mainstream of biblical theology.
R.E. C
G
This is the paperback edition of the cloth volume reviewed previously in B.L. 2008, p. 95. It is to be hoped that its relatively modest price will introduce this fine study to the much wider audience it deserves.
A.G. H
H
This study of ‘variant repetition’ in the proverbial collections is a meticulous and painstaking piece of work which discusses 99 ‘variant sets’ of verses (a set being either two, three or four verses that repeat each other)—in all, a total of 223 verses. H.'s overall theory is that these repetitions can be put down to scribal editorial activity, and he opines that their ‘deliberate nature … seems beyond doubt’ (p. 8). He sees variant repetition as being intended ‘to enrich the reading of one variant in a repeated set by means of the reading of another, which gives a specific twist to what was communicated in the first variant of the set and vice versa’ (p. 59). He is open to a myriad purposes for such repetition—sometimes evoking other texts, for example, the Deuteronomic Shema in Prov. 1.8 and 6.20, or for rhetorical impact alone, such as in 1.25 and 1.30, another variant pair. He discovers repetition ‘hot spots’ where a number of these cluster, and he notes some thematic editorial orderings, such as Prov. 6.8a and 30.25b on the topic of harvest. He finds some ‘variants in hiding’ where they need to be drawn out, for example, Prov. 15.16 and 16.8 where the abstract idea becomes more specific, and ‘variant markers’ where certain words are repeatedly used to mark the repetition. He airs questions of why variants or variant sets are placed near to each other or far away. He also airs views on possible directions of borrowing which are sometimes clear when new contexts are clearly forging fresh meaning. This is a rich book with many interesting insights. H. stresses the editorial hand, deliberate and literary, over oral and fragmentary theories as held by other scholars. It will be interesting to see whether he re-enlivens this debate with this book.
K.J. D
H
On the back cover of this volume, Zondervan promote the series to which it belongs as bringing ‘readers back to the ancient world in a way unlike other commentaries. Its unique visual approach—backed by the very best scholarship—will help readers connect with the historical and cultural contexts of the Old Testament.’ The desire to connect text with context—in the form of Sitz im Leben—is of course a well-established project in Psalms study, followed through textually in the work of Gunkel and his followers, and visually through the ground-breaking efforts of Othmar Keel. Presumably it is this complex of approaches to which H.'s attractively presented volume belongs. Brief notes on each psalm are accompanied by a wide-ranging selection of illustrations from Egypt and Mesopotamia, and occasional sidebars pick up topics for a rather more extended treatment. H.'s treatment is primarily likely to be of use to lay readers, though some reservations should be noted. Its scholarly notes are rather perfunctory, and there is little attempt to contextualize the illustrations, which are largely undated. The result rather suggests a single ‘ancient Near East’ unchanging over two millennia and indiscriminately relevant to the Psalms. This is, to say the least, misleading, and could be remedied by the provision of an index (or accompanying DVD) detailing the illustrations, their date, and their availability for use by the reader.
A.G. H
H
This is the second of the planned three-volume Herder commentary on the Psalms to be translated into English. Like its predecessor Psalms 2 (reviewed in B.L. 2006, p. 71), it seeks to offer an exegesis of the psalms both as individual texts and as components of wider literary units, attending especially to psalm groups such as Psalms 113–118 and 120–134. The discussion of each psalm follows a similar format (applied with judicious flexibility) to that in volume 2, but with the addition of a clear structural plan and, at points, greater attention to the LXX. As before, consideration of reception is limited to LXX, NT and occasional echoes elsewhere in the OT and Qumran, besides a discussion of the ‘significance’ of each psalm, viewed from the perspective of theology and piety. The tendency towards late dating remains, e.g. Psalm 110 is presented as postexilic and Psalm 104 exilic with postexilic redactions. Serving the aims of ‘Psalter exegesis’ are the introductory ‘Sketch of the Origins of Psalms 101–150’ and excursuses on topics ranging from the function of the ‘Hallelujahs’ in the redaction of the Psalter to acrostics or the composition of certain groups of psalms. A fuller perspective on the composition of the Psalter is awaited in the Introduction to volume 1. The commentary is enriched by a number of line drawings (seven concerning Ps. 104 alone) illustrating pertinent aspects of iconography and culture. The result is clear, thorough, insightful and attentive both to scholarship and the biblical text: an essential reference work.
R.S. W
H
The essays in this helpful volume emerged from a conference held at the University of Pretoria in 2008 as part of their ongoing Psalms research project. The project includes both Western scholars and those more specifically rooted in the African context. As a result, there is considerable diversity in approach in these papers, something reflected in some uncertainty among the contributors as to whether the ethics under discussion can be described or if there should be an attempt to apply them. After a brief introduction by Human which provides some background to the meeting and then summarizes each paper, the book is divided into three sections. The first covers introductory issues, and includes E. Otto, ‘Hebrew Ethics in Old Testament Scholarship’ and J.W. Gericke, ‘What Is Good? Meta-Ethical Assumptions in the Psalms Concerning the Relation between Divinity and Morality’. The second section considers more specific issues of Psalmody, and includes A. Groenewald, ‘The Ethical “Way” of Psalm 16’; P.J. Botha, ‘Psalm 34 and the Ethics of the Editors of the Psalter’; T. Seidl, ‘Who Stands behind the עשׁר in Psalm 50:16a? The Ethical Testimony of Psalm 50:16–22’; A. Mein, ‘The King's Justice? Early Modern Perspectives on Psalm 72’; J.H. Coetzee, ‘Bodily Interpretation of Psalm 104: “Y
D.G. F
K
K.'s revised Baylor dissertation under the supervision of W.H. Bellinger takes up the immensely fruitful topic of considering Psalm 8 in canonical perspective, thereby following in the footsteps of some of Brevard Childs’ earliest writings on a canonical approach to Scripture. The book's subtitle indicates the substantive thesis about the psalm—divine reversal(s)—taken into dialogue with the figure of Jesus in NT discussions. The book is a model of structural clarity, in five main chapters. First are forty pages on ‘The Canon-Exegetical Approach’, introducing Childs and then his commentators, before adding a coda on Augustine's De doctrina Christiana that results in a stated desire to encounter the divine through Scripture. Chapter 2 reads Psalm 8 ‘as a discrete unit’, and offers exegetical analysis. The remaining three chapters then gradually widen the circle of canonical conversation, with K. speaking helpfully of passages being ‘reciprocally interpretive’, regarding the Psalter, the rest of the Old Testament, and then the New Testament. A brief summary rehearses the conclusions at the end. K. is a meticulous analyst of others’ views, though one result is perhaps an over-attentiveness to rehearsing standard scholarly issues each time a new text comes into view, rather than pressing on to engage the substance. Likewise, his own voice sometimes seems to be picked up in the midst of ongoing debate, which is not clearly introduced. The translation of Psalm 8, for example, is presented as the fruits of an exegesis, but the exegesis itself is only partially revealed in ad hoc footnotes debating technical matters. A more puzzling overall feature is the frequent return to Augustine and divine encounter, which is fine as a statement of intent but hard to follow as an actual argument. Nevertheless, this is a valuable study, indicating a strong awareness of many key issues in canonical reading, and one may hope that K. will proceed to develop such insights in future.
R.S. B
K
For a review of this volume, see Section 5 (V) below.
L
This work examines the concept of righteousness, not the terms ṣedeq, ṣedāqâ, etc. (although the word/concept distinction seems not to be observed scrupulously throughout, e.g. pp. 37–59, 128, 131). L. defines righteousness as ‘the all-encompassing quality of human or divine character in toto above and beyond specific behaviors, which is actualized as rectitude in moral choices and fairness and benevolence in social transactions’ (pp. 13–14, italics original). His view is that Proverbs shares this concept or ‘commonly accepted meaning’ (p. 11) of righteousness, but develops distinctive conceptions that ‘derive from and elaborate on’ it (p. 11), concerning matters such as how it can be attained or its compatibility with wealth (p. 3). In particular, Proverbs is distinctive in its emphasis on character formation, and on the inseparability of righteousness and wisdom (pp. 134–35). There is much interesting and instructive material in this short but wide-ranging book, in the course of which L. briefly surveys and critiques earlier studies, offers valuable insights into the rhetorical strategy of Proverbs, and compares the book's conception of righteousness with Egyptian wisdom literature and the Psalter. On the other hand the discussion of what actually constitutes righteousness in Proverbs is rather brief, and the description of the righteous as powerful, compassionate, wise and happy leaves significant gaps.
C.J. T
M
This unusual commentary on the Psalms, in part technological, in part aesthetic, in part hermeneutical, is an exploration of the patterns of the usage of Hebrew words in individual psalms. After a brief introduction explaining the aims and methods of the book, M. offers a verse-by-verse translation of each psalm; coloured charts outline where specific words recur. Although this creates an initial visual impact, it also has implications for how we hear the Psalms as prosody, because the Hebrew word repetition can shape the sound as well as the sense of a psalm, allowing some parts to be heard as ‘sung speech’. M. offers various musical examples (adapting the theories of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura) to illustrate how this might work. But his key emphasis is on seeing the Psalms, not so much through the traditional method of poetic parallelism, which looks at how different words and phrases make up the sense of the psalm, as through the repetition of the same individual words in each psalm. For example, the threefold ‘remember’ in Ps. 137.1, 6 and 7, and the recurrence of the same words in Psalms 1 and 2 (such as ‘happy’, ‘mutter’, ‘perish’ and ‘way’), tell us as much about the structuring and visual impact of these psalms as about the individual words themselves. The presentation of coloured patterns for every psalm is puzzling at first, but once decoded it does provide some interesting insights. Overall this is an ambitious and intriguing project, but is still very much work in progress; interested readers should look at M.'s website at http://gxmain.com/bmd/ThePsalter.pdf.
S.E. G
O
In this impressive monograph, O. approaches the interpretation of Book I of the Psalter from a hitherto little-examined perspective. Focusing on four psalms which he shows to have significant themes in common, namely 15, 24, 34 and 37, he emphasizes their function in providing character sketches of the righteous. Psalms 15 and 24 have of course often been associated, but in terms of a supposed entrance liturgy. O. is sceptical about this, preferring to read these and the other two in his set in ethical terms. He makes interesting observations about the combined Deuteronomic and wisdom influence on his exemplars, showing how this has worked through citation and allusion to provide a reflection on the situation of the psalmist, confronted by ‘enemies’ on the one hand, and challenged on the other by a dialogue with what Carleen Mandolfo has characterized as the ‘didactic voice’. Detailed studies of the four chosen psalms are well judged and informative, and O. makes a strong case for his overall thesis that Book I represents a combination of the king as ideal exemplar with Torah as the essential expression of faith. An important contribution to Psalms study which breaks new ground and adds important dimensions to the analysis of groups and sub-groups of psalms in Book I.
A.G. H
R
R
R. has written his Commentary on the Psalms with a definite goal in mind: the exposition of the text for preaching and teaching. His emphasis lies squarely upon exploring aspects of the text that he sees as necessary for the development of an expository message. Volume 1 includes a 123-page introduction and full treatment of Psalms 1–41. Volume 2 contains a full treatment of Psalms 42–89. A third volume is forthcoming. In the introductory material R. clearly addresses the value of the Psalms, the text and ancient versions, titles and headings, the history of interpretation, interpreting Hebrew poetry, literary forms and functions, the Psalms in worship, the theology of the Psalms, and exposition of the Psalms. The section on interpreting Hebrew poetry has much to offer, although somewhat curiously, R. conflates James Kugel's ‘A and what's more B’ theoretical description of parallelism with a working description of parallelism in Lowthian terms. R. includes a substantial section on literary figures, which provides an invaluable aid for analysing Hebrew poetry. While R. claims that the commentary is less academic than expository, there are several aspects of his work that belie this claim; these are particularly evident in the analysis of individual psalms. Initially R. translates each psalm with an effort to retain figures of speech rather than to create dynamic equivalence, and he includes copious textual information in the footnotes. He then includes a section on composition and context, followed by a complete exegetical analysis that consists of both a summary and an outline. The commentary in expository form presents a detailed verse-by-verse commentary, again with highly informative footnotes. R.'s commentaries will be of interest to clergy, teachers, students and others who are interested in preparing to explain the Psalms to others. R. has achieved his aim of writing a commentary that provides a wide array of well-documented information that takes the reader from exegesis to exposition.
E.R. H
S
This published form of S.'s PhD dissertation demonstrates a vast amount of research which crosses disciplines (e.g. Kant as well as Aquinas and Brueggemann) and he often helpfully summarizes his findings by means of tables. He distinguishes between pre-1930s scholarship (when Proverbs was seen primarily as an outworking of the prophets’ teaching) and post-1930s (when the emphasis was creation theology). This investigation leads him to provide a theological reading of Proverbs by looking at the problems of two undervalued themes in contemporary scholarship: the ‘secular’ and ‘selfishness’ (p. 67). In so doing, he utilizes a canonical approach and interacts mainly with Catholic interpreters. His focus means that his reading is not christological or trinitarian, but his thought-provoking conclusions are varied. For instance, he argues that while Proverbs 1–9 makes sense on its own, it provides a theological context for the proverbial sayings in Proverbs 10–31. A substantial portion of S.'s monograph is dedicated to exploring Thomas Aquinas's work, and he surmises that Thomas understands self-interest as belonging to a hierarchy of virtues, which finds its place in the context of love for the community and for God (p. 98). Observing a similar hierarchy in Proverbs, S. suggests that, despite their differences, Proverbs can be read Thomistically (p. 157), even though Thomas himself did not understand it thus. S. also proposes that the apparently secular features of the book are part of a bigger framework which sanctifies the secular. S.'s work fruitfully combines ancient and modern insights and produces a fresh reading of Proverbs.
J.I. W
S
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
W
This 2009 doctoral thesis at the University of Jena (supervisor: J. van Oorschot) searches for the picture of God in Job, specifically the ‘conceptions of God's presence’. W. presents a model of Job in which the narrative and the poem were originally independent but were edited together by a single critical-theological redaction comprising the three elements of cult, wisdom and law. A second and final editing—which revised the first redaction—involved an ‘Elihu redaction’ which especially unfolded God's presence as his spirit, as an interceding angel, and in the motif of God's display. The ‘Elihu redaction’ includes the Elihu speeches but also other additions and smaller compositions throughout the work (a synopsis of the supposed original and the various redactions is given in outline form on p. 430). The book problematizes God's presence by means of dialogue between the hidden God and the God who turns himself toward suffering humankind. Regardless of how convinced one is of the redactional analysis, this theological interpretation of the present form of the text takes its place alongside other attempts to understand this fascinating biblical book.
L.L. G
Z
Z
These are Italian translations of Zenger's Psalmen. Auslegungen in zwei Bänden. I. 1. Mit meinem Gott überspringe ich Mauern; 2. Ich will die Morgenröte wecken (Freiburg im Bresgau: Herder, 2011). That German volume, published posthumously, has not yet been reviewed in the B.L. so a brief survey and comment on the Italian version in two volumes seems apt. Z.'s exegetical approach to the Psalms is well known from his technical commentaries. Here, by contrast, are introductory comments on various psalms and exegetical interpretations with a clear spiritual tone, though that tone is a natural development from his earlier exegetical conclusions. In the first part he considers the recitation of the Psalms and the Psalms as part of the Bible. He then has short chapters on the opening and closing Psalms, on laments and thanksgiving, on the people of God and their history, on the responsibility of the state and the option for the poor, and on divine sovereignty and mystery. In the second part, after a chapter on the Psalms as a book to live by, he has short studies on the secret of creation, on Zion as source of life, on visions of the kingdom of God, on the God of the exodus, on the God of minority peoples, on animals, on the forgiveness of sins, on living with death, and on the nearness of God. A brief chapter on Psalm 151, firmly labelled as non-canonical, is offered as a theological afterword.
G.J. B
Other Writings
(Lamentations, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah)
B
Following an introduction which remains open-minded on various scholarly issues, including the question of sources, the books’ relationship to Chronicles and the dating of Ezra and Nehemiah themselves, B. offers a commentary replete with references to other passages in the canon and clearly cognizant of current scholarly discussion on various subjects, but rather short of further reading suggestions which might encourage the introductory reader to delve deeper. Maps of Jerusalem and the Persian and Babylonian empires attest to B.'s interest in the ancient context of the books, as do images of the Elephantine papyri and the so-called ‘Cyrus cylinder’. B. is no less interested, however, in the relevance of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah for the Christian life—a relevance affirmed by B.'s dismissal of the supercessionist interpretations of the past which his commentary is intended to remedy. That it is the books’ relevance to the Catholic Christian life in particular which B. has in mind is evident from the inclusion of the English text of the New American Bible, and the citation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Gaudium et Spes (Vatican II) at various points. Nevertheless, beginning readers of all denominational stripes will benefit from the appended discussion questions which remain firmly focused on the text itself and its relevance to the Christian life in the broadest sense.
D. S
G
G. has previously published monographs on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (not reviewed in B.L.), then applied his method to Genesis (see B.L. 2008, pp. 62–63) and Ecclesiastes (see B.L. 2011, p. 119). Here he turns his attention to Daniel. His goal is to set forth the primary intention of the original author in each literary unit, then to ‘authentically integrate the message of the text with the climax of God's revelation in the person, work, and/or teaching of Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament’ (p. 27). Hence the majority of the book consists of discussion in turn of the eleven units he identifies, for each of which he offers discussion of a range of issues followed by a ‘sermon exposition’ in which he expounds each verse in turn in sermonic style (using footnotes for detailed argument), then relatively briefly links the unit to Christ. The work is therefore largely historical-critical. However, G. generally sides with conservative rather than majority scholarly opinion, arguing that the book is a sixth-century composition and hence seeing rather more of it as predictive of events beyond the second century
K.N. B
H
Daniel 1–6 is read here against the background of ancient story-collections, in a wide-ranging and comprehensively documented study of texts from as far apart as Greece and Rome; India and Persia; Mesopotamia and particularly Egypt (the story-collections of which have been hitherto underexplored, according to H.). This is the lead volume in a new Eisenbrauns series, the title of which (’Explorations in ANE Civilisations’) indicates precisely that this is in large measure a thorough exploration of ANE literature on its own terms. Perhaps oddly, the first major chapter looks at the ‘story-collection genre’ by taking its cue from fourteenth-century Europe (e.g. the Canterbury tales, the Decameron). Then there is a chapter of 140 pages exploring such story-collections in antiquity, before two 150-page chapters that bring all this to bear on Daniel. The first attends to how the variant editions of Daniel compare as story-collections, while the second explores specific analogues in relation to each individual tale. H. thinks we will probably never know exactly how the book came to develop; and she does not think that her approach resolves all questions so much as clarifies their complexity. Different editions of the book focus on the character of Daniel (in the MT), or on his biography, or on his superior virtues (in the Greek versions). Overall Daniel 1–6 is a single-genre collection, having no frame narrative and limited linkages between stories. H.'s admirable study suffers from some repetition of both claims and coverage, and might profitably have been briefer than its 500+ pages, but is nonetheless a fine achievement. It is arguably two books at once, one being an encyclopaedic survey of ANE texts, which will be of inestimable value to all Daniel scholars, while the other, concerning how the Daniel tales work together, is quite strikingly modest in its conclusions.
R.S. B
J
For a review of this volume, see Section 6 below.
K
This volume contains 13 recent essays on Ezra–Nehemiah, summarized by K. in his introduction. The essays are L.S. Fried, ‘Ezra's Use of Documents in the Context of Hellenistic Rules of Rhetoric’; L.L. Grabbe, ‘What Was Nehemiah Up To? Looking for Models for Nehemiah's Polity’; D. Polaski, ‘Nehemiah: Subject of the Empire, Subject of Writing’; K.A.D. Smelik, ‘Nehemiah as a “Court Jew” ‘; O. Lipschits, ‘Nehemiah 3: Sources, Composition and Purpose’; D. Ussishkin, ‘On Nehemiah's City-Wall and the Size of Jerusalem during the Persian Period: An Archaeologist's View’; M. Oeming, ‘The Real History: The Theological Ideas behind Nehemiah's Wall’; R. Zadok, ‘Some Issues in Ezra–Nehemiah’; D. Marcus, ‘Hidden Treasure: The Unpublished Doublet Catchwords in Ezra–Nehamiah’; D.N. Fulton, ‘Where Did the Judahites, Benjaminites, and Levites Settle? Revisiting the Text of Nehemiah 11:25–36 MT and LXX’; P.L. Redditt, ‘The Census List in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7: A Suggestion’; J. Fleishman, ‘Nehemiah's Request on Behalf of Jerusalem’; and M.J. Boda, ‘Prayer as Rhetoric in the Book of Nehemiah’. As usual with a collected volume, the individual essays are of variable quality. Additionally, in spite of being focused on one biblical book, the subject matter of individual essays differs considerably, clustering around Nehemiah's wall, the lists, and the political nature of Persian-period Yehud.
J. S
K
This short collection of studies seeks, very broadly, to set the individual books of the Megillot in the context of the Megillot as a liturgical collection. After a short introduction by the editors, which includes a summary of the historical development, the papers are Viera Pirker, ‘Megilla Kohelet zu Sukkoth. Psychologische Annäherungen an einen biblischen Autor und ein jüdisches Fest’; Annette Pitschmann,’ “Gehört dazu nicht Phantasie?” Erkenntnistheoretische Überlegungen zum Gottesbezug des Buches Esther’; Melanie Peetz, ‘Anmut und Schönheit in einer heiligen Schrift! Eine nichtallegorische Exegese von Hoheslied 4,1–7 und 5,9–16’; Sandra Hübenthal, ‘Zwischen Subjekt und Objekt. Text- und Bildexegese am Beispiel von Rut’; Henriette Crüwell, ‘Das Alphabet der Klage’. Of these, Pirker's clever essay on Qohelet makes the most serious attempt to understand the relationship between book and festival (concluding that ‘Die Person Kohelet steht an Sukkot pars pro toto für das Volk Israel in der transitorischen Zeit der Wüste auf dem Weg ins gelobte Land’ [p. 34]). Although the other individual papers are interesting, it is not really clear that the place within the Megillot of the books that they address is sufficient, in itself, to lend coherence to this collection as a whole.
S.D.E. W
M
This volume is a revision of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Otago in 2010, and examines the mixed marriage controversy in Ezra 9–10 in the light of the anthropological model known as social drama, especially as articulated by Victor Turner. M.'s aim is to identify information that furthers our understanding of Ezra 9–10 and to recover traces that will aid in a historical reconstruction of the event in Yehud. Chapter 2 discusses geography, population size (30,000 at most) and the political situation in Yehud. Chapter 3 focuses on the literary issues pertaining to Ezra 9–10, while the following chapter examines the social and cultural aspects of the biblical narrative, with a focus on the effect of mixed marriages on the identity of the golah community. Chapter 5 proceeds to analyse the mixed marriage controversy from a social science perspective, utilizing information gathered in the previous chapters, and this leads M. to point to features in the narrative that have not previously been sufficiently explored or recognized (the significance of the exodus as a root paradigm, the symbolic significance of the ‘foreign women’ label, and the impact of ritual on the mixed marriage social drama process). The final chapter demonstrates that while the narrator has largely minimized Ezra's role, the social science approach shows that he was central to the events recorded: it was his teaching that laid the foundations for how the marriages would be viewed, and it was his response to the report of the mixed marriages that turned the incident into a major crisis. In brief, the mixed marriage controversy was Ezra's ‘social drama’. The volume is well researched and documented, and provides an excellent example of how social scientific approaches can enhance our understanding of the text and the social context out of which it emerged.
E.W. Da
N
The introduction to this study reminds the reader that the emotional and physical suffering that follows the destruction of a city, described so vividly in Lamentations, can still be seen today. N. lived through the fall of South Vietnam and Saigon and the suffering that followed, and these experiences influenced his choice of subject for doctoral research. The ‘voices’ are identified as Zion, Man, Lamenter, and Community and the main body of the work is focused on the first two, exploring their identity, function and role, as well as their relationship with each other and how this shapes the meaning of the book. The supporting textual analysis is highly detailed and the use of inner-biblical text comparisons is fascinating, particularly when looking at differences between Lamentations and the Psalms of Lament. A highlight is an exploration of the image of Zion as a woman. It includes the ‘city goddess’ of ANE religion and Greek mythology, but concludes that the personification of Jerusalem as daughter or wife largely originated in three particular factors in the Hebrew prophetic tradition: the dirge (citing Amos 5.2 as an early example), the most untimely death of a virgin (exploring the possible influence of the tragic story of Jephthah's daughter in Judg. 11.29–40), and the role of women in mourning for the dead, for which many examples can be found. The concluding chapter, evocatively named ‘Chorus in the Dark: Will There Be a Future?’, brings together all four voices in analysing the message of Lamentations, identifying areas of agreement and disagreement between them and concluding that ‘Until God responds, the people's lamentations go on’ (p. 224).
A.S. T
R
A holistic approach underpins this study, which aims to ‘show the intrinsic connection between structure and content in Lamentations’ (p. 27), reading the whole book from the angle of the mini-acrostic in Lamentations 5. This is analysed in detail to read ‘the acrostic-mesotic-telestic device’ (p. 44) of Lam. 5.1–3 and 5.19–20 as revealing the hidden message ‘Zechariah the prophet [says]: your God is greatly exalted’ (it is a pity the yod and he of Y
A.S. T
T
The stated aim of this study is ‘to gain greater clarity on the ambiguous theology of Lamentations’ in order to demonstrate that ‘Lamentations’ poetry activates and informs its theology to create openness as to its theological meaning’ (p. 3). The approach is based on insights gained from the semiotics of Umberto Eco, explained very lucidly in ch. 3, and presents Lamentations as an ‘open’ text that offers the ‘model reader’ a great deal of interpretative choice. However, the appeal of this book is much broader than linguistic theory. Some fascinating comparative analysis results from looking at the text in the context of ANE and other OT material, including the LXX, and this aspect of the approach is outlined in ‘Lamentations’ Encyclopaedia’ (ch. 4). The study also offers detailed, chapter-by-chapter analysis of the Hebrew text and its poetic devices, such as repetition, wordplay, imagery, personification, contrast, allusion, and so on, as well as discussion of the theological insights gained. Conclusions are drawn at the end of each chapter and very helpfully summarized in the final chapter.
A.S. T