Abstract
A
This well-deserved Festschrift honours one of the most prolific and influential scholars of women in the Bible and in biblical times. The 21 contributions come from a range of colleagues and former students, and do not follow any particular theme, although a significant proportion of them address issues relating to gender constructions and women's status in both the literary and historical contexts surrounding the biblical text. The ‘Introduction’ consists of ‘A Student's Appreciation’ from Charles Carter and ‘A Colleague's Appreciation’ from Susan Ackerman. Following this, the essays proper are Susan Ackerman, ‘Hannah's Tears’; James P. Ashmore, ‘Women, Law, and Legal Procedure in Ancient Israel’; Cynthia M. Baker, ‘Nationalist Narratives and Biblical Memory’; Karla G. Bohmbach, ‘When it Both Is and Is Not Rape: Gender Constructions in 2 Samuel 13:1–22’; Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, ‘Speaking as “Any Foolish Woman”: Ms. Job in the History of Reception’; Claudia V. Camp, ‘Numbers 5:11–31: Women in Second Temple Judah and the Law of the Controlling Priest’; Sidnie White Crawford, ‘“There Is Much Wisdom in Her”: The Matriarchs in the Qumran Library’; James L. Crenshaw, ‘Poor but Wise (Qoheleth 9:13–16)’; Ellen F. Davis, ‘Reading the Bible as Agrarian Literature’; William G. Dever, ‘Israelite Women as “Ritual Experts”: Orthodoxy or Orthopraxis?’; Norman K. Gottwald, ‘Structure and Origin of the Early Israelite and Iroquois Confederacies’; Sandie Gravett, ‘The Place of Biblical Studies in the University Curriculum: Beyond the Religious/Secular Divide’; F.V. Greifenhagen, ‘Bargaining with Patriarchy in the Book of Ruth’; Maxine L. Grossman, ‘Gendered Sectarians: Envisioning Women (and Men) at Qumran’; Ross S. Kraemer and Jennifer Eyl, ‘Translating Women: The Perils of Gender-Inclusive Translation of the New Testament’; Eric M. Meyers, ‘Ethnicity, Culture, and Religion in Artifact and Text: The Emergence of Complex Common Judaism’; Beth Alpert Nakhai, ‘Plaque Figurines and the Relationship between Canaanite and Egyptian Women in the Late Bronze II’; Raymond F. Person, Jr, ‘The Story of David and Goliath from the Perspective of the Study of Oral Traditions’; and Anathea Portier-Young, ‘I Sing the Body Politic: Stillborn Desire and the Birth of Israel in Judges 5′. Indexes of authors, Scripture, and other ancient sources round off the collection. Eclectic and edgy, the wide spectrum of contributions is testimony to the deserved respect in which Carol Meyers is held by colleagues across the board of biblical and related studies.
D.W. R
A
This interesting collection of A.'s articles, the title of which can be translated as ‘Newton and the Bible: Essays about Biblical Texts, Questions of Interpretation, and Problems of Translation’, contains 16 previously published articles (all written in Swedish). Many of the articles reflect A.'s work for the Swedish Bible Commission, a state-sponsored investigation (1973–2000) which was responsible for the translation of the Bible into Swedish. The titles of the essays (here translated roughly literally) are as follows: ‘Newton and the Bible’, ‘Time and Faith: Temporal Concepts in Religions’, ‘“Never in the Night of Death …”: The View of Death in the Old Testament’, ‘The Ten Commandments’, ‘Soldier, Statesman, Poet: King David in Legend and History’, ‘To Learn God's Own Language: The Role of Hebrew in Theological Education’, ‘Biblical Interpretation before the Bible: Old Testament Re-readings’, ‘Do You Understand What You Are Reading? Methods in Scriptural Interpretation before Biblical Criticism’, ‘Are Translations also Interpretations?’, ‘Jerome and the Vulgate’, ‘The Gustavian Bible Commission and its Work’, ‘Faith and Knowledge in Bible Translations’, ‘The Old Testament in Swedish during the Last Century’, ‘Old Wine in New Wineskins: The New Translation of the Old Testament by the Bible Commission’, ‘To Lift Up One's Feet and One's Soul: The Issue of Word-for-word Translations of the Hebrew Bible’, and ‘Some Contested Passages in the New Translation’. The articles, written clearly and often with a touch of humour, are aimed chiefly at an academic audience but can also be understood by the well-educated lay person. There are no footnotes and few references to scholarly secondary literature.
L.-S. T
A
This introductory textbook, now in its third edition, was reviewed previously in the B.L. in 2000 (p. 95) and 2009 (p. 77). The structure remains unchanged, with the books of the Hebrew Bible addressed in English canonical order. The layout and presentation are pleasing, with numerous colour photographs, maps and illustrations accompanying the text. Key words are highlighted and defined in a glossary, and colour-shaded text boxes highlight particular topics, terms or texts. Each chapter includes an outline, objectives, summary, study questions and further reading lists, making the work as helpful as possible for students. For the third edition, illustrations and further questions for discussion are available on the publisher's website (previously on CD). Theological interpretation is to the fore, and some critical issues receive only slight mention. The book is a good resource for its intended readership of evangelical Christian teachers and students with a conservative tendency. Others may baulk at the perspective of the authors, which is sometimes explicit—in relation to the events of the Exodus, ‘we have no reason to doubt their historicity’ (p. 27)—and sometimes implicit—psalms of lament are the last genre to be addressed, after the far less numerous ‘Royal Psalms’ and ‘Messianic Psalms’ (pp. 283–88).
S.P. S
A
This splendid collection of essays provides a fine tribute to Samuel Greengus, a scholar whose expertise has invigorated the interdisciplinarity of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies and early rabbinic scholarship. Formal appreciations are expressed by both colleagues and students, including Nili Fox and Richard Hess, and these precede the publication list of the honoree. The ‘windows’ are presented in the following sequence: S.J. Andrews, ‘Economy, Academia, and Divination in Bronze Age Canaan: The Value of the Cuneiform Tablets Discovered at Tel Hazor’; B.T. Arnold, ‘The Holiness Redaction of the Flood Narrative (Gen 6:9–9:29)’; B.E. Beyer, ‘Isaiah 47 and 54: An Investigation into a Case of Intertextuality’; A. Botica, ‘The Tenth Commandment and the Concept of “Inward Liability”’; J.L. Cooley, ‘The Book of Giants and the Greek Gilgamesh’; N.L. Erickson, ‘Donning the Right Garb: The Egyptian Ritual of “Opening the Mouth” and the Biblical Regulations in Exodus 28–29’; A. Roskop Erisman, ‘Mythologizing Exile: Life, Law, and Justice after the Flood’; R. Fuller, ‘The Hebrew Syllable: Definition and Practical Application’; K. Henriksen Garroway, ‘Neither Slave nor Free: Children Living on the Edge of a Social Status’; C. Halton, ‘The Administration of Copper Tools at Umma in the Ur III Period’; B. Lee, ‘Rabbi Joshua Briskin's Tav Y'hoshua: Yalkut Derekh Ereẓ, A Handbook for Busy Jews’; R.R. Mack, ‘The Changing Face of Victory’; A.J. Riley, ‘Zêru, “to Hate” as a Metaphor for Covenant Instability’; T. Undheim, ‘With Mace in Hand … and Praise in Throat: Comparisons and Contrasts in the Bookends of the Psalter’; R.A. Veenker, ‘Do Deities Deceive?’; S. Voth, ‘Toward an Ethic of Liberation for Bible Translation: A Work in Progress’; J.H. Walton, ‘Demons in Mesopotamia and Israel: Exploring the Category of Non-Divine but Supernatural Entities’; K.C. Way, ‘The Literary Structure of Judges Revisited: Judges as a Ring Composition’; B.L. Webster, ‘The Perfect Verb and the Perfect Woman in Proverbs’. These diverse yet innovative studies make a substantial contribution to numerous issues in contemporary scholarship, and would be a valuable asset in any library.
S. J
B
This book brings together biblical texts (from the JPS version) and 21 locations in the Holy Land linked with them. Its arrangement follows the biblical chronology; so we begin with the story of Rahab in Jericho and conclude in Jerusalem with the ‘rehabilitation’ of Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah, although the very last section covers Megiddo as a site of enduring importance throughout the period. B.'s commentaries on each section are quite extensive and are both engaging and informative. While aimed at non-specialists—and written in an appropriately entertaining and, at times, humorous mode—they reveal an admirable appreciation of complexities, both of the texts themselves and their relationship with historical enquiries and the archaeological record. While some of the applications of the text to our own day may seem a little forced—so Deborah (‘What a woman’, p. 36) is portrayed as a proto-feminist heroine and Jeremiah's opponents are compared to Israeli generals and politicians before the Yom Kippur war, ‘imprisoned in the conception’ of their nation's invulnerability to foreign attackers (p. 270)—they can be justified by the need to make the texts accessible to the intended audience. The visual elements of the book, the photos and the maps, are well chosen and attractive, although Map 1 (p. xxv) will raise eyebrows given the way the descriptor ‘Israel’ casually intrudes into the territories occupied in 1967. Tourists and pilgrims will find this a very useful addition to an admittedly crowded field.
P.T.H. H
B
The first edition of this book was reviewed in B.L. 2005, p. 90. Bartholomew and Goheen follow the biblical accounts from Genesis to Revelation, retelling the biblical story as a coherent narrative. They present it as a progressively unfolding drama of God's action in history for the salvation of the whole creation. Adapting N.T. Wright's metaphor of the Bible as a five-act drama (creation, sin, Israel, Christ, Church), they add a sixth (new creation). Drawing on their knowledge of biblical and missional scholarship, they ignore historical-critical questions, focusing on synthesis into a unified narrative. The result is a fairly concise and very readable biblical theology, aimed particularly at readers in a confessional Christian context. The intention is to enable readers to be shaped by the story of Scripture as their foundational metanarrative, so that they can then improvise effectively with imagination and creativity, seeking to help complete act five of the ongoing drama in ways that are consistent both with the previous four acts, and with the final one to come. This theme of finding one's place in the biblical story disappears from view after the prologue, only re-emerging fairly briefly towards the end; the bulk of the book is simply a concise and lucid retelling of the biblical story, highlighting theological implications (with some debated issues discussed further in the numerous endnotes). This lightly revised second edition could be useful for undergraduates who are new to biblical studies and need a basic overview of the Bible and its theology, before they start attending to the diverse details of its various books.
P.W. G
B
This latest volume of Old Testament Abstracts, in three fascicles, contains summaries of 2668 articles and books relating to the Old Testament undertaken by 63 scholars. As always, this work provides an enormously useful resource for scholars and students who are seeking to track down material relevant for their research or who are interested in gaining an overview of recent work on the Old Testament. Unlike in the SOTS Book List, there is no attempt to evaluate the works under review. As always, Old Testament Abstracts is well organized and indexed, thus making it easy to track down material. All those undertaking serious research on the Old Testament should make constant use of this valuable resource.
J. D
B
This collection of eleven essays (nine in English, two in German) arises out of the inaugural 2013 meeting of the EABS Law and Narrative group. Not all papers were part of that Leipzig meeting, and the editors decline to identify which are supplementary additions to the conference itself. The chosen theme might seem a bit narrow to produce a 200+ page monograph. But, as noted in the introduction, there is plenty of warfare in biblical narrative, and it provides an apt topic to launch the group's collaborative work. Two assumptions frame this collection. Explicitly, the editors argue that a ‘redaction-historical approach’ is ‘necessary’ for grappling with these texts; implicitly, they appear to rule out a flow from narrative to law, envisaging narrative as reacting in various ways to legal material (at least in this volume). A. Bartor offers a narratological reading of Deuteronomy's war legislation, approximating a semiotic approach and eschewing the redactional interests of the editors. C. Berner analyses Genesis 14, discovering a source (found in three part-verses) and four successive editorial layers which incorporate several legal interests. W. Oswald investigates the political dimensions of the encounter with Amalek in Exod. 17.8–16. S. Gesundheit appeals to ‘inner-biblical midrash’ to explain the relationship between Deut. 2.24–25 and 26–31. R. Achenbach (in German) explores various biblical reflexes of the ḥērem command (Deut. 7.1–2) under the heading of ‘reception history’. R. Kratz pushes the envelope of ‘narrative’ in examining law and narrative in the Temple Scroll, casting a glance also at Deuteronomy. C. Edenburg relates the case of Achan (Josh. 7–8) to Deuteronomic law. H. Samuel returns to the war legislation of Deuteronomy, offering a rapid redactional analysis and pointing to later reflexes in Joshua and Kings. A brief essay (in German) by S. Grätz connects three pieces of legislation (two from Deuteronomy, plus Num. 10.1–10) with narratives in Chronicles. F. Borchardt looks at battle scenes in 1 Maccabees as examples of creative use of ‘martial law’. A. Steudel examines the development of biblical law in the War Scroll (1QM). While in some essays ‘law’ is in short supply, in others ‘narrative’ is scarce. Still, this is a stimulating collection, of interest beyond the narrow bounds defined in the title.
D.J. R
B
This volume comprises two older (1975, 1995) and nine recent (2004–2015) essays, mostly on exegetical methodology and related topics and on linguistic problems, as well as an essay on the perception of postexilic Judaism in Old Testament Studies (‘Volk oder Kultgemeinde? Zum Bild des nachexilischen Judentums in der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft’) and one on the significance of encounters with present-day Judaism for Christian students of the Hebrew Bible (‘Das Vorverständnis hinterfragen. Veränderungen alttestamentlich-exegetischer Zugänge aus der lebensweltlichen Begegnung mit dem Judentum’). B.'s volume of collected essays is a treasure trove of observations and insights from one of the most outstanding Old Testament scholars of his generation. All of the essays found here are profoundly interesting; among the ones which the present reviewer finds most captivating are the programmatic ‘Notwendigkeit und Grenzen historischer Exegese. Plädoyer für eine alttestamentliche “Exegetik”’ (B.'s Tübingen inaugural lecture); ‘Historiographie oder Dichtung? Zur Eigenart alttestamentlicher Geschichtsüberlieferung’; and ‘Von Sinn und Nutzen der Kategorie “Synchronie” in der Exegese’. The other essays are ‘“Formgeschichte”—ein irreführender Begriff’; ‘Die Stimme des Autors in den Geschichtsüberlieferungen des Alten Testaments’; ‘Zwischen Literarkritik und Stilkritik. Die diachrone Analyse der literarischen Verbindung von Genesis und Exodus—im Gespräch mit Ludwig Schmidt’; ‘Psalm 2,7c—eine performative Aussage’; ‘Der vermeintliche Gottesname “Elohim”’; and ‘Das althebräische Verbalsystem—eine synchrone Analyse’. There is much which today's Old Testament scholars can learn from B., especially when it comes to Old Testament hermeneutics, exegetical methodology and its application to the Pentateuch. His outlook is characterized by an unusual, genuine, deeply rooted openness towards other religious and scholarly traditions, an openness that bears manifold fruit in his work.
J. S
B
This Festschrift opens with a short introduction by the editor to the range of Frank Polak's scholarly contributions and the main contours of the 17 essays that follow. Like the honorand, the majority of the contributors have links with the Netherlands or with Tel Aviv University, or both. Yairah Amit writes on ‘Human Dignity, a Firm Foundation in the Hebrew Bible—Why?’; Oren Biderman, ‘Is Egypt Really the Provenance of Joseph's Dream Narratives?’; Gershon Brin, ‘The Issues of the Composition and Editing of Scriptures in Byzantine Jewish Exegesis from the Tenth Century and Later’; Janet Dyk, ‘Traces of Valence Shift in Classical Hebrew’; Mats Eskhult, ‘The Literary Style and Linguistic Stage of Ruth as Compared to Esther’; Edward L. Greenstein, ‘Direct Discourse and Parallelism’; Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé and Jacobus A. Naudé, ‘A Typo–logical, Complex Systems Approach to the Teaching of Biblical Hebrew Reading’; Noam Mizrahi, ‘A Matter of Choice: A Sociolinguistic Perspective on the Contact between Hebrew and Aramaic, with Special Attention to Jeremiah 10.1–16’; Susan Niditch, ‘Twisting Proverbs: Oral Traditional Performance and Written Context’; Meira Polliack, ‘Joseph and his Dreamscapes: From Trauma to Discovery’; Gary A. Rendsburg, ‘What We Can Learn about Other Northwest Semitic Dialects from Reading the Bible’; Tamar Sovran, ‘An Octave above Biblical Style: Notes on the Poetic Style of Bialik's Scroll of Fire’; Talia Sutskover, ‘Directionality and Space in Jonah’; Eep Talstra, ‘System and Design: Reading, Computing and Translating Biblical Hebrew into Dutch’; Emanuel Tov, ‘Textual Developments in the Torah’; Mădălina Vârtejanu-Joubert, ‘Verba Manent: Signs, Sounds, and Letters in Rabbinic Literature’; and Ziony Zevit, ‘Dating Torah Documents: From Wellhausen to Polak’.
A.G. A
B
B.'s latest book combines pastoral theology and biblical studies with a good dose of wider knowledge from both sciences and humanities. With the theme of ‘wonder’ he selects 17 passages from across both Old and New Testaments; some are whole books, some chapters or just a few verses. His broad-ranging selection means that he sometimes digs deep—the three opening chapters between them all consider texts in Genesis 1–9—while covering much ground in the book as a whole. There is, however, a sense of the inequality of some of the 16 chapters: ranging in length from 5 to 16 pages, some chapters may seem very brief, but the whole is highly accessible. ‘Wondering’ naturally lends itself to a midrashic style where B. highlights psychological gaps in some of the texts (e.g. p. 40); rhetorical questions invite the reader to share his wondering. B.'s writing is often beautifully poetic, lending itself to the memorable (‘“wordy” is the Lamb’, p. 132); sometimes oddly colloquial, he risks the personal touch, distracting the academic but delighting the Christian disciple. Sometimes, thus, the homiletics rather than the hermeneutics are foregrounded, enabling humour to surface, and images to be used. His interpretations are thought-provoking and, presupposing no knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, he naturally introduces aspects of both in his explorations. Thus, while the lack of some scholarly material such as Pentateuchal source criticism may irk the philologists, this is a book to be highly recommended to the faithful with a thirst for biblical reflection.
M.I.J. D
B
In this collection of eight essays, B. points out the urgent need for the practices of ‘homefulness’ and ‘forgiveness’ to be realized in Christians’ relationships with God and with neighbours. He insightfully identifies social and economic problems that deprived the faith community of life, justice and homes in biblical times and have likewise vexed our modern world. He raises awareness of the demanding hermeneutical task facing preachers today, which is, he says, to read and interpret the biblical texts so as to ‘haunt and astonish and transform’ society (p. 83). The book is easy to read, yet offers profound spiritual insights inviting serious and deep thought. Topics include the need (1) for the practice of neighbourly reparation and sacramental submission, (2) for the triad of steadfast love, justice and righteousness to replace wisdom, might and wealth, and (3) for a culture of life to replace the politics of death. The message of the book is pertinent to the mission of the Church and to the ministry of preachers today. My concerns with the book are twofold: first, certain examples taken from US experience (e.g. US imperialism in ch. 7) may not immediately resonate with non-US readers; and, second, a minor text-setting issue: about a half paragraph on pp. 36–37 is a verbatim repetition from the first section of ‘Jerusalem's Boast’ on pp. 35–36.
K.W. Y
C
C.'s purpose for this book, in which he engages primarily with lay readers of the (Jewish) Bible, is to demonstrate that, contrary to the evenness of style found in most translations, numerous voices reside therein, and the attentive reader can profitably distinguish these voices. Although based on the Jewish Bible, where verse numbering is different, C. also provides the numbering favoured by Christian Bibles so that the book is equally usable by readers of the (Christian) Old Testament. Following introductory material and a chapter (‘The Sound of Biblical Voices’) that demonstrates well the sort of discussions he will undertake throughout the book, C. devotes individual chapters to Historical (largely Deuteronomist and Chronicler), Theological (JEDP), Legal (the several law codes), Prophetic, Women's (he argues, interestingly, that Ruth and the Song of Songs were written by women), Wise and Foreign Voices as well as to those that can be heard in Song and Legend. He ends by picking out some of the ‘Echoes and Reverberations’ that can be found in works such as Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. In providing an introduction to critical scholarship, although very much of a single variety, for a lay readership (rather than the college student), the book forms a valuable contribution towards meeting a need too often bypassed by scholars. The decision not to engage to any great extent with other critical options is both a strength and weakness. While it does not distract readers with other possibilities, it fails to inform them sufficiently that other possibilities exist. Yet, in this particular case, that is a minor quibble, although it suggests that the provision of an equally sympathetic representation to a similar audience of other critical positions remains to be fulfilled.
G.G. N
C
This collection of essays originates out of the work of the Centre for Society, Religion and Belief at the University of Derby, and gathers papers presented there and at SBL and EABS. Chalcraft in his introduction draws attention to the distinct nature of each sub-discipline within the social sciences, and the importance, in work in biblical studies guided by a social theory, of taking pains to explain the theory being used. It cannot be said that this rigour necessarily enables useful work to be done. Of the eight essays in this volume relating to the Old Testament, only three, in my judgment, cast significant new light on a text in it, those by Erickson, Watson and Roberts. There must be a problem in the text calling for a solution: too many of these papers are simply exercises in applying a known theory. After Chalcraft's introduction, ‘Biblical Studies and the Social Sciences: Whence and Whither?’, the papers are divided into five sections. Under ‘Methods, Perspectives and Theory’, we find James G. Crossley, ‘I Explain a Riot! New Testament Scholars Discuss Structure and Agency in an Age of Neoliberalism’; István Czachesz, ‘How Can Evolutionary Theory Contribute to Biblical Studies?’; Linda A. Dietch, ‘Using Pierre Bourdieu in the Study of Biblical Narrative’; and Amy Erickson, ‘Jonah and Scribal Habitus’. ‘Studies in the Sociology of Deviance’ covers Outi Lehtipuu, ‘Who Has the Right to Be Called a Christian? Deviance and Christian Identity in Tertullian's On the Prescription of Heretics’ and Mark Finney, ‘Jesus and the Contours of Oppression: Labelling and Deviance in the Johannine Passion’. Under ‘Social Psychology and Trauma Theory’ we have Watson, ‘“I Shall Not Want”? A Psychological Interpretation of Psalm 23’ and Jeremiah W. Cataldo, ‘Memory, Trauma and Identity in Ezra–Nehemiah’. ‘Cultural Studies, the Social Sciences and the Hebrew Bible’ gives us Uhlenbruch, ‘Numbers 13 by Gene Roddenberry’ and Johanna Stiebert, ‘Ezekiel at the Twin Towers’. Under ‘Anthropology and Archaeology’ there are Ryan N. Roberts, ‘Is Anyone Home? Amos 6.8–11 in Light of Post-Earthquake Housing’ and Emanuel Pfoh, ‘Metalworkers in the Old Testament: An Anthropological View’.
W.J. H
C
This Festschrift honours Robert Coote, who may be best known to B.L. readers from his collaboration with Keith Whitelam in the early days of ‘minimalist’ approaches to the history of Israel. Though Coote himself is no minimalist, his scholarship is open-minded and wide-ranging, characteristics well represented in this collection. Essays have been contributed by A.J. Brody, ‘Judean Identity in an Era of Empire: Archaeological Approaches from Iron II Tell en-Nasbeh’; M.L. Chaney, ‘Producing Peasant Poverty: Debt Instruments in Amos 2.6–8, 13–16’; J.H. Elliot, ‘Social-Scientific Criticism of the Bible: Emergence, Features, and Contributions’; N.K. Gottwald, ‘Can a “History of Ancient Israel” Be Written? Periodization, Interactive Power Networks, and Reading Israel's History Teleologically’; B. Green, ‘Pigeonholes, Pigeon Choices, Pigeon Handlers: Form, Rhetoric, and Genre in Biblical Studies’; R. Hendel, ‘The Exodus and the Poetics of Memory’; U.Y. Kim, ‘The Woman of 4Q184: She's No Ordinary Woman’; E.A. Knauf, ‘Can a “History of Palestine” Be Written?’; E.E.-C. Park, ‘Cynic Itinerant Philosophers and Galilean Wandering Missionaries in Matthew’; A. Schellenberg, ‘Boundary Crossings in and through the Song of Songs: Observations on the Liminal Character and Function of the Song’; C. Seeman, ‘Trading Places: Luke's Big Omission and Acts 10’; S. Shectman, ‘What Do We Know about Marriage in Ancient Israel?’; C. Stokes, ‘Read the Text’; E. Tov, ‘Some Aspects of the Textual History of the Torah’; H.C. Waetjen, ‘John the Baptist: An Anomalous Prophet at the Culmination of the Second Temple’; A. Weissenrieder, ‘Images for Seeing—Images for Hearing? On the Limitation of Visual Art and Language as Ekphrasis in Revelation 17’; K.W. Whitelam, ‘Architectures of Enmity’; A.C. Wire, ‘Spoken Scripture in a Gospel Telling’; M.F. Wogec, ‘Divine Patrons of Birth in Ancient Mesopotamia: An Enquiry into Gender Roles in Ancient Mesopotamian Birth Rituals’.
A.G. H
C
This collection of essays on biblical masculinities is a companion volume to Creangǎ's earlier edited collection Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (2010; see B.L. 2011. pp. 12–13), which was a combination of new essays and ‘classic’ reprints. The impetus and contents for this volume came to some extent from the SBL program unit Biblical Masculinities, and unlike the previous collection it covers both HB and NT topics. Following Creangǎ's introduction (which constitutes Part I of the volume), the contents are arranged in three (further) parts. Part II, ‘Hebrew Bible’, contains Alan Hooker, ‘“Show Me your Glory”: The Kabod of Yahweh as Phallic Manifestation?’; Milena Kirova, ‘When Real Men Cry: The Symbolism of Weeping in the Torah and the Deuteronomistic History’; Marcel V. Mǎcelaru, ‘Saul in the Company of Men: (De)Constructing Masculinity in 1 Samuel 9–31’; Stuart Macwilliam, ‘Athaliah: A Case of Illicit Masculinity’; and Hilary Lipka, ‘Masculinities in Proverbs: An Alternative to the Hegemonic Ideal’. Part III, ‘New Testament and Apocrypha’, has Hans-Ulrich Weidemann, ‘Being a Male Disciple of Jesus According to Matthew's Antitheses’; Susanna Asikainen, ‘“Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven”: Matthew and Subordinated Masculinities’; Justin Glessner, ‘The Making(s) of an Average Joe: Joseph of Nazareth vs. Empire, in Three Rounds’; Karin B. Neutel and Matthew R. Anderson, ‘The First Cut is the Deepest: Masculinity and Circumcision in the First Century’; and Peter-Ben Smit, ‘Thecla's Masculinity in the Acts of (Paul and) Thecla’. Part IV, ‘Final Reflections’, contains two responses/reflections from senior scholars: Martti Nissinen, ‘Biblical Masculinities: Musings on Theory and Agenda’; and Björn Krondorfer, ‘Biblical Masculinity Matters’. This is an exciting volume that continues both Creangǎ's project and the wider scholarly project to put masculinity under the critical microscope, as feminist scholarship has done for conceptions of womanhood.
D.W. R
D
This splendid collection of essays by John Emerton (1928–2015), President of the Society in 1979 and of IOSOT for 1992–95, is a most worthwhile venture. Alongside his many contributions to scholarship, not least as an editor, Emerton was primarily an essayist, like G.R. Driver and D. Winton Thomas, as the editors of this volume point out in their introduction. His many studies, 48 of which are reproduced here, are exemplary in the setting out of a highly specific interpretative problem and its detailed treatment in the light of both much primary evidence and the history of scholarship. The essays open with Emerton's IOSOT Presidential Address on comparative Semitic philology and Hebrew lexicography and are then grouped under six categories: Hebrew Lexicography and Grammar (7 essays, including the notable items on hištaḥawāh and yāda‘); Textual Notes on the Old Testament (15 items, mostly on select individual verses from Genesis to Proverbs); Hebrew and North-West Semitic Epigraphy (6 studies, on Ugaritic, Arabic, Ammonite among other matters); Old Testament Issues (9 essays, several of which focus on Genesis); the New Testament and Early Christianity (6 studies of which my favourite considers the OT background of the 153 fishes in Jn 21.11); and Biography and History of Scholarship (essays on the contributions of G.R. Driver, A. Kuenen and S.R. Driver). Volumes like this are especially valuable, as in this case, when they give access to items published in places that are not easily accessible and when they come at least with an index of primary sources.
G.J. B
D
The term ‘Bible’ in the title of this volume is something of a misnomer, since—apart from a passing reference to the book of Job—it contains hardly any references to the OT, and even the NT examples are largely confined to the parables and miracles in the Gospel accounts. Significantly, the footnotes and bibliography contain far more references to literary theorists than to biblical scholars and, since little attempt is made to avoid jargon (‘emergentism’, ‘supervenience’, ‘epistemological disjunctions’, ‘inter-subjective agreement’, etc.), the volume does not make for an easy read. Annoyingly, authors are regularly designated with female pronouns and readers with male pronouns, in an attempt to be gender-inclusive. D. seeks to reconsider the view that the text is an autonomous entity, unrelated to the author's interests. The central point seems to be that the author reproduces ‘her’ culture in the text, while the reader reproduces ‘his’ culture out of the text, and this has the effect of making the author disappear, as readers apply their own words, literary structures and social institutions to their reading of the text. The author thus vanishes, and ‘her’ voice and meaning are obscured. The volume therefore explores ways in which the author's voice can be brought back into focus. One would have liked less emphasis on theoretical considerations and a greater emphasis on the application of theory to the reading of biblical texts—including texts from the OT.
E.W. D
D
This book gives the proceedings of a colloquium. Its contents are as follows: J.-M. Durand, ‘Tabou et transgression: le sentiment de la honte’; S. Démare-Lafont, ‘“Manger un tabou”—sacrilège ou parjure? Une relecture des procès de Lugal-giškim-zi’; D. Charpin, ‘Les “barbares amorrites”: clichés littéraires et réalités;’ L. Marti, ‘Tabous et hémérologies en Assyrie’; R. Pientka-Hinz, ‘Making Contact in Mesopotamia: Powerful Kisses, Forbidden Kisses’; A. Lemaire, ‘Le ḥérem guerrier et sa transgression des deux côtés du Jourdain’; O. Sergi, ‘Queenship in Judah revisited: Athaliah and the Davidic dynasty in historical perspective’; J. Hutzli, ‘Transgression et initiation: tendances idéologiques et développement littéraire du récit de Genèse 2–3’; T. Römer, ‘Lot, l'hospitalité et l'inceste’; D. Garrone, ‘Des choses qui ne se font pas en Israël: l'histoire de Dina (Gn 34) et les enjeux idéologiques’; C. Lanoir, ‘De Tamar à Tamar’; D. Erbele-Küster, ‘Comment dire l'interdit? Le tabou linguistique et social de la menstruation en Lévitique 11–20’; C. Nihan, ‘De la composition au talion: Lévitique 24 et les transformations de la loi dans l'Israël ancien’; A. Marx, ‘Le sabbat et le sang: à propos de deux tabous majeures du judaïsme de l’époque perse’; J.-D. Macchi, ‘Pratiques et tabous alimentaires selon le livre d'Esther’; M. Saur, ‘L'adultère et la prostitution dans la littérature prophétique de l'Ancien Israël’; S.M. Olyan, ‘Pollution, profanation et l’étranger dans les textes bibliques du sixième siècle avant notre ère’; D. Hamidović, ‘Le catalogue des transgressions dans l’Écrit de Damas comme definition d'une éthique dans le judaïsme ancien’; Y. Volokhine, ‘La question de l'interdit du porc en Égypte ancienne’; D. Jaillard, ‘Réflexions sur le statut et les effets du sang versé dans les représentations et les pratiques des cités grecques’; and B. Martel-Thoumian, ‘Le suicide: tabou et transgression ultime dans les sources arabes médiévales’. The papers here make for a fascinating account of the hang-ups of the ancient world, many of which persist to this day as a monument to human irrationality!
N. W
E
Cultural memory and cities are two areas of study that have generated interest independently in recent HB scholarship. Now this volume of essays brings them together, as it reproduces proceedings from sessions at the European Association of Biblical Studies in 2011 and 2012 devoted to Cities as Sites of Memory in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Period. There are three parts to the collection. In the first, ‘Opening the Gates’, Ehud Ben Zvi provides an ‘Introduction and Invitation to Join the Conversation about Cities and Memory’, in which he summarizes the other contributions. Then Stéphanie Anthonioz contributes ‘Cities of Glory and Cities of Pride: Concepts, Gender, and Images of Cities in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Israel’. In the second part, entitled ‘Crossing the Gates and Entering into the City (of Memory): Memories of Urban Places and Spaces’, Carey Walsh writes on ‘Testing Entry: The Social Functions of City-Gates in Biblical Memory’, Anne Katrine Gudme on ‘Inside-Outside: Domestic Living Space in Biblical Memory’, Francis Landy on ‘Threshing Floors and Cities’, Kảre Berge on ‘Palaces as Sites of Memory and their Impact on the Construction of an Elite “Hybrid” (Local-Global) Cultural Identity’, Diana Edelman on ‘City Gardens and Parks in Biblical Social Memory’, Karolien Vermeulen on ‘In Defense of the City: Memories of Water in the Persian Period’, and Hadi Ghantous and Diana Edelman on ‘Cisterns and Wells in Biblical Memory’. The third and final part, ‘Individual Cities and Social Memory’, consists of Ehud Ben Zvi, ‘Exploring Jerusalem as a Site of Memory in the Late Persian and Hellenistic Periods’; Russell Hobson, ‘The Memory of Samaria in the Books of Kings’; Yairah Amit, ‘How to Slander the Memory of Shechem’; Daniel Pioske, ‘Mizpah and the Possibilities of Forgetting’; Philippe Guillaume, ‘Dislocating Jerusalem's Memory with Tyre’; Steven W. Holloway, ‘Nineveh as Meme in Persian Period Yehud’; Ulrike Sals, ‘“Babylon” Forever, or How to Divinize What You Want to Damn’; and Carla Suzbach, ‘Building Castles on the Shifting Sands of Memory: From Dystopian to Utopian Views of Jerusalem in the Persian Period’. Indexes of authors and biblical references round off the volume. This is a fascinating collection of essays that provides an intriguing perspective on the physical environment and its conceptualization and significance for those who inhabited it.
D.W. R
E
Devotions on the Hebrew Bible is the product of a team of 38 accomplished professionals in the Hebrew Bible. The contributors demonstrate that the Hebrew Bible is a valuable resource for personal and communal spiritual enrichment. They have successfully simplified the complex methodologies of biblical exegesis to make the various texts come alive. The devotions benefit from thorough exegesis, succinct style and legibility. The book follows the progression of the Hebrew Bible from the Torah (8 articles), to the Nevi'im (28 articles) and Kethuvim (18 articles). To the student, this arrangement is valuable as a guide to remembering or recalling the names and order of the books of the Hebrew Bible. Each article begins with a translation of the passage from Hebrew into English, and then gives the exegesis and devotional thoughts. Among the advantages of the book are (1) its substantive contribution to easing the tension between academic study of the Bible and the role of the Bible in setting forth guidelines on how individuals should live (i.e. linking the classroom and private/public life); (2) its sound arguments for intertextuality; for example, Brian L. Webster's article on the Jewish Shema in Deuteronomy 6.4–9 establishes a smooth link with its appropriation by the Synoptic Gospels (Mt. 22.37; Mk 12.30; Lk. 10.27); and (3) the contributors' provision of some illuminating references for further reading.
A. N
E
E.'s target audience have some inchoate notion that many of the discoveries of modern biblical scholarship (MBS) do not sit comfortably with their evangelical doctrine of Scripture. He proposes a model for the nature of Scripture that claims to take more seriously the doctrinal implications of the findings of MBS. With ancient theological precedent, he likens the nature of Scripture to the incarnation: just as Christ is fully divine and fully human, so the Scriptures are, simultaneously, deeply embedded products of a range of ancient cultures, and yet fully theopneustos. E. then overviews three wide-ranging domains of MBS, discussing the challenges supposedly raised for traditional evangelical views of Scripture, and exploring how his incarnation model treats the same data. First, he discusses the relationship between the OT and other ANE literature: is the Bible's uniqueness as God's word challenged by these parallel texts? Next, he explores the theological diversity within the OT and asks whether this diversity impugns the integrity of the OT as God's word, and what this diversity might tell us about the nature of Scripture. Finally, he addresses the NT's (mis?)use of the OT, against the background of scriptural interpretation in the Second Temple period. E.'s work helpfully crystallizes some of the many issues that must be faced by evangelicals wishing to engage Scripture with integrity, though his argument is rendered less plausible by the manner in which ‘the traditional evangelical doctrine of Scripture’ is treated as little more than a foil for his own proposal.
K.L. P
G
The editors of this hefty volume are to be thanked for collecting the papers for a most interesting conference on scholarly and cultural interactions in Mesopotamia from the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians until the end of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century
J. S
G
For more than 40 years G. has taught the OT in evangelical Christian seminaries, in the UK and USA. This book is based on material he uses with his students, and demonstrates his developed ability to introduce them to understanding the OT in its original context(s), and to seeing this as an essential part of Christian engagement with it as Scripture. It is designed to help its readers think through issues for themselves (including frequently giving them questions to work through), with some indications of answers which G. views as more or less adequate in the discussion which follows, but generally an avoidance of dogmatism. Throughout, the book comprises a series of two-page spreads, with the great majority focusing on OT books or sections of these. A range of additional material is available on a website, including G.'s answers to questions sent to him by readers. G. maintains a good balance between encouraging the reader to look behind the text, in the text and in front of the text (including the life of the contemporary Christian church). The place of women in and as readers of the texts is stressed. The book could profitably be used as an introductory text in seminary contexts, though for such contexts it would be helpful if it said a little more about other ways in which Christians might engage the OT. But it would also be valuable as a resource for evangelical students engaging with mainstream critical views (which G. consistently favours) in other contexts.
K.N. B
G
Applied studies of the prophets face familiar risks, including the application of their ancient perspective to modernity without taking account of their location in that foreign country, the past; assumptions about their real lives and personalities which overlook the element of legend which infuses these narratives; and the reading in of Christian (or Jewish) faith positions as if they were those of Amos, Isaiah et al. The book under review seems impervious to the risks, since all of these presuppositions inform its approach. For those not troubled by these reservations, G. may have insights to offer, though these are largely aimed at the context of the United States, with the prophets serving as a (quite legitimate) social—perhaps even socialist (though the word never appears)—challenge to cultural, ethical and political norms. G.'s style is somewhat unfocused and repetitious, notwithstanding references in the cover blurbs to ‘remarkable clarity’ and ‘wonderful lucidity’, with little in the way of structure to illuminate his general points. But more seriously, the title is misleading. This is not a systematic study of how we might read the prophets in the light of the Shoah. The dissonance between the prophetic certainty of the divine rules of disobedience and consequent punishment and the disproportionate horror of the Holocaust, while not ignored by G., is only briefly touched on, and by far the bulk of this work has little or nothing to say about the Shoah, far less how we should read the prophets in its shadow.
A.G. H
G
After a foreword about the honoree with information provided by his wife and frequent co-editor Edith, their children Saul Lubetski, Uriel Lubetski and Leah Lubetski Feldman begin this Festschrift with an appreciation of their father, ‘Meir Ledorot: A Light to the Generations’. Thereafter, the essays appear in alphabetical order according to author. The essays can, however, be grouped according to different fields of particular interest to Lubetski. On the subject of biblical Hebrew philology there are four articles: Chaim Cohen, ‘Pharaoh's םײשײ לש “Third-Man Charioteers” (Exod. 14.7; 15.4) and the Unnoticed Literary Allusion to the Battle of Qadesh in the Song of the Sea’; John Day, ‘Rooms or Reeds in Noah's Ark? םײנק in Genesis 6.14’; Claire Gottlieb, ‘Genesis 1 in the Twenty-First Century: First Things First’; and David Marcus, ‘How the Aramaic Versions Help Elucidate Problems in the Burning Bush Episode (Exod. 3.1–4)’. On the subject of Hebrew epigraphy and iconography there are five articles: Robert Deutsch, ‘Six New Unrecorded Israelite Hebrew Seals’; Martin Heide, ‘“… and for the Pharao”: An Intriguing Ostracon from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection’; Regine Hunziker-Rodewald, ‘Blessings for the Overlord! Another Ammonite Seal’; Peter van der Veen, ‘A Double-Headed Bull Protome—Does it Represent the Aramaean Moon God?’; and Ada Yardeni, ‘Notes on Formulae and Decipherment of Legal Texts from the Judaean Desert’. On the subject of history and archaeology there are three articles: Richard S. Hess, ‘Joshua and Egypt’ (an important discussion of the lack of onomastic evidence for Egyptians in the book of Joshua and in West Semitic documents of Southern Canaan during the Egyptian New Kingdom period); André Lemaire, ‘The Place of Qumran in Jewish History: A Beit Midrash’ (a decisive solution to the competing interpretations of the ruined Qumran complex); and Robert R. Stieglitz, ‘The Ideology of Divine Kingship at Ugarit’. On the subject of biblical exegesis there is one substantial article by Moshe Garsiel, ‘The Succession Rivalry between Adonijah and Solomon (1 Kings 1–2): The Story's Genesis and its Historiographical, Literary and Rhetorical Values’. Finally, on the subject of postbiblical reception there are three articles: Paula S. Berggren, ‘Shakespeare's Cains’; Joseph Fleishman, ‘The Sages’ Interpretations of the Law Concerning the Defamer (Deut. 22.13–21)’; and Isaac Kalimi, ‘The Key Methods of Targum Chronicles’. The book concludes with a list of Meir Lubetski's publications, compiled by Edith Lubetski and grouped under eight headings. The quality of every contribution and the careful editing of the whole collection make this a worthy tribute to an esteemed scholar.
J. P
H
Biblical scholars living and working in Oceania are confronted immediately with the issues of climate change, natural and man-made disasters, migration and beleaguered local identities. Against this background, the essays in the collection draw attention to the way in which biblical scholarship could engage with such circumstances. The contributions are as follows: Jione Havea, ‘Engaging Readings from Oceania’; Elaine M. Wainwright, ‘“Save Us! We Are Perishing!”: Reading Matthew 8.23–27 in the Face of Devastating Floods’; David J. Neville, ‘Calamity and the Bible God—Borderline or Line of Belonging? Intertextual Tension in Luke 13’; Kathleen P. Rushton, ‘On the Crossroads between Life and Death: Reading Birth Imagery in John in the Earthquake-Changed Regions of Otautahi Christchurch’; John Painter, ‘The Prologue of John: Bridge into New World’; Ruth Sheridan, ‘Jewish Readings of the Fourth Gospel: Beyond the Pale?’; Merilyn Clark, ‘Mapping the Boundaries of Belonging: Another Look at Jacob's Story’; Judith E. McKinlay, ‘Slipping across Borders and Bordering on Conquest: A Contrapuntal Reading of Numbers 13’; Nāsili Vaka‘uta, ‘Border Crossing/Body Whoring: Rereading Rahab of Jericho with Native Women’; Jeanette Matthews, ‘Deuteronomy 30: Faithfulness in the Refugee Camps of Moab, Babylonia, and Beyond’; Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, ‘Reading Rizpah across Borders, Cultures, Belongings … to India and Back’; Jeffrey W. Aernie, ‘Borderless Discipleship: The Syrophoenician Woman as a Christ-Follower in Mark 7.24–30’; Jione Havea, ‘Bare Feet Welcome: Redeemer Xs Moses @ Enaim’; and Gregory Jenks, ‘The Sign of Jonah: Reading Jonah on the Boundaries and from the Boundaries’. These are then followed by three responses: Michele A. Connolly, ‘Gospel Maps: Intersections of Life’; David M. Gunn, ‘Breaking Bible Boundaries’; Mark G. Brett, ‘Bordering on Redemption’.
H.S. P
H
The volume contains 22 essays by the late Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern languages at Johns Hopkins University, including his long-out-of-print classic study Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (1964). Three essays are published here for the first time: ‘“Poets before Homer”: Archaeology and the Western Literary Tradition’, from which the volume takes its title, and which originated as the 1992 William Foxwell Albright Lecture at Johns Hopkins; and two shorter pieces: ‘Salamalecchi: Formulas of Greeting and “Salute Jerusalem” (Ps 122:6–9)’, and ‘A Proposal for a Difficult Line in Keret: lm ank ksp’. The collection is a fine example of H.'s method, which he describes as follows: ‘I refer to things made of words. I am not thinking of texts, exactly, but to the building blocks of which literary texts are made, to traditional metaphors and similes, to traditional topics in poetry and prose, to the devices of form and content which were the stock-in trade of poets’ (p. 2). This enables H. to work his way from a particular passage or problem towards a wide comparative framework in interpretation—or, as he calls it, exemplum followed by moralisatio. Though Albright's shadow sometimes looms large one can only marvel at H.'s breadth of knowledge: Boccaccio's Decameron (‘Two notes on the Decameron’) receives as detailed attention as ‘The Bow of Aqhat’, inscriptions in Palmyrene Aramaic (‘Palmyrene Aramaic Inscriptions and the OT/the Bible’) or Old Testament dust (‘Dust: Some Aspects of OT Imagery’). The remaining essays similarly illustrate the impressive sweep of H.'s interests and expertise: ‘A Convention in Hebrew Literature: The Reaction to Bad News in Hebrew Literature’; ‘“The Roads to Zion Mourn” (Lam 1:4)’; ‘Homeric Dictated Texts: A Reexamination of Some Near Eastern Evidence’; ‘A Study of Psalm 148’; ‘The Effective Simile in Biblical Literature’; ‘A Note on Some Treaty Terminology in the Old Testament’; ‘Rite: Ceremonies of Law and Treaty in the Ancient Near East’; ‘Redemption in Letters 6 and 2 from Hermopolis’; ‘Analyzing the Abominable: Our Understanding of Canaanite Religion’; ‘Observations on Syntax and Meter in Lamentations’; ‘Delocutive Verbs in Biblical Hebrew’; ‘Hôy and Hôy-Oracles: A Neglected Syntactic Aspect’; and ‘Some Performative Utterances in the Bible’. This is a fine collection, which deserves to be read widely. Highly recommended.
A.C. H
H
In this volume Green and Howe present 11 articles given at the SBL Cognitive Linguistics in Biblical Interpretation section, beginning in 2006. The articles delve into both Old Testament and New Testament texts and topics, from a variety of cognitive perspectives. In ‘Motivating Biblical Metaphors for God’, Eve Sweetser and Mary Therese DesCamp explore conceptual metaphors related to the Divine in both the OT and the NT. In ‘Looking beyond the Tree in Jeremiah 17:5–8’, S.J. Robinette presents a fresh reading that uses a combination of rhetorical criticism and cognitive linguistics. Her essay, along with William A. Andrews, Jr, ‘“Don't Think of a Voice!”: Divine Silence, Metaphor, and Mental Spaces Theory in Selected Psalms of Lament’, are of particular interest to OT scholars, as the cognitive approaches provide nuances to the close reading of familiar text. The next four essays are of interest to NT scholars and those curious about cognitive methods as well. These are Hugo Lundhaug, ‘The Fruit of the Tree of Life: Ritual Interpretation of the Crucifixion in the Gospel of Philip’; Robert H. von Thaden, Jr, ‘Pauline Rhetorical Invention: Seeing 1 Corinthians 6:12–7:7 through Conceptual Integration Theory’; Greg Schmidt Goering, ‘Sapiential Synesthesia: The Conceptual Blending of Light and Word in Ben Sira's Wisdom Instruction’; and Jesper Tang Nielsen, ‘The Cognitive Structures in Galatians 1:4’. OT scholars interested in the integration of cognitive methods and tradition exegesis will find fruitful reading in the next two essays: Miranda Vroon-van Vugt, ‘Who Is in Charge? Mental Space Analysis and Visualization in a Textual Study, Applied to 1 Samuel 28:3–25’; and Ellen van Wolde, ‘Cognitive Grammar at Work in Sodom and Gomorrah’. David Parris brings cognitive linguistics and mental space theory to bear on the NT text in ‘1 John 5–10: Conditionals and Performativity’. Finally, in a rather technical article, José Sanders analyses various ways of translating the terms ‘thinking’ and ‘believing’ as ‘causal fragments’. His ‘Translating “Thinking” and “Believing” in the Bible: How Cognitive Linguistic Analysis Shows Increasing Subjectivity in Translations’ is by far the most linguistically oriented of the contributions. Cognitivists will revel in the diagrams, while biblicists may wish for more narrative and fewer diagrams. This brings up an important critique of the cognitive enterprise as a whole: in most cases the authors of these articles have succeeded in including sufficient explanation of any diagrams or illustrations they have used to build their arguments. Nonetheless, the cognitive turn is heavily diagrammatic. Since biblical studies is less inclined to diagrams and illustrations, it is incumbent upon cognitivists to narrate fully and well if this methodology is to find a home in biblical studies as a whole.
E. H
J
For a review of this volume, see Section 5 (IV) below.
K
The editors allow that there is ‘a shadow of a Festschrift lurking behind this book’ (p. 7), originally in celebration of Brueggemann's 80th birthday in 2013. Instead they have produced a volume seeking to celebrate and promote further reflection upon Brueggemann's influence on younger generations of biblical scholars, rather than his influence on confessional interpreters, for example. All the essayists in the three central sections of the book studied under him. Those three sections correspond to each word of the title. Adding in opening orientations and concluding reflections, the contents are as follows: ‘Introduction’ (Jonathan Kaplan and Robert Williamson, Jr); ‘On Walter Brueggemann: (A Personal) Testimony, (Three) Dispute(s), (and on) Advocacy’ (Brent A. Strawn); ‘God in Crisis: A Re-Reading of Genesis 22’ (Robert Williamson, Jr); ‘Y
R.S. B
K
This volume arises from papers delivered to the Warfare in Ancient Israel session of the SBL. It comprises a dozen essays presented in three parts (Part 1: ‘Social Determination of Rituals and Symbols’; Part 2: ‘Rituals and Symbols of Escalation, Preparation, and Aggression’; Part 3: ‘Rituals and Symbols of Perpetuation, De-escalation, and Commemoration’), plus an introduction by Wright and a final response by T.M. Lemos. The essays are, Part 1: ‘Theorizing Circumstantially Dependent Rites in and out of War Contexts’, by Saul M. Olyan; ‘Monumental Inscriptions and the Ritual Representation of War’, by Nathaniel B. Levtow; Part 2: ‘Joshua's Encounter with the Commander of Yhwh's Army (Josh 5:13–15): Literary Reconstruction or Reflection of a Royal Ritual?’, by Thomas Römer; ‘“A Sword for Yhwh and for Gideon!”: The Representation of War in Judges 7:16–22’, by Kelly J. Murphy; ‘The Red-Stained Warrior in Ancient Israel’, by Ames; ‘“I Will Strike You Down and Cut Off your Head” (1 Sam 17:46): Trash Talking, Derogatory Rhetoric, and Psychological Warfare in Ancient Israel’, by David T. Lamb; ‘“Some Trust in Horses”: Horses as a Symbol of Power in Rhetoric and Reality’, by Deborah O'Daniel Cantrell; ‘War Rituals in the Old Testament: Prophets, Kings, and the Ritual Preparation for War’, by Rüdiger Schmitt; Part 3: ‘Warfare Song as Warrior Ritual’, by Mark S. Smith; ‘A Messy Business: Ritual Violence after the War’, by Susan Niditch; ‘Postwar Rituals of Return and Reintegration’, by Kelle; ‘Does Yhwh Get his Hands Dirty? Reading Isaiah 63:1–6 in Light of Depictions of Divine Postbattle Purification’, by Jason A. Riley; and the response by Lemos, ‘Forging a Twenty-First-Century Approach to the Study of Israelite Warfare’.
C.L. C
K
As Amos Oz says on its back cover, this book ‘is a fascinating study of various kinds of religious faith, written from the point of view of a skeptic who is nonetheless intrigued by faith, by the need for faith, and, primarily, by the sensual dimensions of faith and by the paradoxical aspects of these sensual dimensions’. In it, K. thoroughly explores those questions that perennially arise in the minds of theologians and biblical/religious studies scholars as they read—and try to make sense of—any or many of the following works: biblical and associated works, Greek philosophers, Talmud, Christian Fathers, Early Modern scholars, scholastics, and modern scholars and philosophers. Chapter titles include ‘Endless’, ‘Credo’, ‘Impossible’, ‘Invisible’, ‘Tasteless’, ‘Untouchable’, ‘Inaudible’ and ‘Scentless’. Fully supported by endnotes, bibliography and a combined index of subjects and ancient, early modern and modern authors, this book is a joy to read, albeit demanding in its depth and range of interaction with the complex ideas so deftly handled. It provides a rich storehouse of ideas and discussions, most probably for dipping into rather than digesting all at once.
H.A. M
K
A fitting tribute to a distinguished scholar, this volume was originally intended to honour Bob Becking on his retirement and the 25th anniversary of his professorship at Utrecht University in 2016. Sadly it comes at the same time as plans to close the Theology programme at Utrecht after more than 375 years. There are contributions by R. Albertz (‘Open-Mindedness for Understanding the Formation of the Pentateuch: The Challenge of Exodus 19–20’); H.M. Barstad (‘Empire! “… And Gave Him a Seat above the Seats of the Other Kings Who Were with Him in Babylon”: Jeremiah 52.31–34: Fact or Fiction?’); P.C. Beentjes (‘Ben Sira and Song of Songs: What about Parallels and Echoes?’); E. Ben Zvi (‘Open-Mindedness and Planning for the Future of Academic Studies in Ancient Israel History’); W.A.M. Beuken (‘Isaiah 24–27: Spacing a Prophetic Vision’); W. Dietrich (‘Einübung in den Aufrechten Gang: Beispiele für Zivilcourage in den Samuelbüchern’); M. Dijkstra and K. Vriezen (‘Swords or Ploughshares? The Transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age in Northern Jordan’); L.L. Grabbe (‘Penetrating the Legend: In Quest of the Historical Ezra’); C. Houtman (‘Joseph, the Pastor and the Conqueror of Evil by Using Good: Observations on Genesis 50.15–21 in Dutch Children's and Family Bibles’); I.J. de Hulster (‘The Myth of the Reborn Nation’); A. van der Kooij (‘Leading Scholars and the Interpretation of Scripture: The Case of LXX Haggai 2.1–9’); M.C.A. Korpel (‘Memories of Exile and Return in the Book of Ruth’); P. Machinist (‘The Question of Job’); M.J.J. Menken (‘The Open Mind of the Man Born Blind [John 9]’); J.C. de Moor (‘Jerusalem: Nightmare and Daydream in Micah’); N. Na'aman (‘Four Notes on the Ancient Near Eastern Marzeaḥ’); H. Niehr (‘The Abolition of the Cult of the Dead Kings in Jerusalem [Ezekiel 43.6–9]’); P. Sanders (‘A Human and a Deity with Conflicting Morals [Qohelet 2.26]’); K.A.D. Smelik (‘A Prophet Contest: Jeremiah 28 Reconsidered’); K. Spronk (‘Comparing the Book of Judges to Greek Literature’); K. van der Toorn (‘Speaking of Gods: Dimensions of the Divine in the Ancient Near East’); C. Uehlinger (‘Is the Critical, Academic Study of the Bible Inextricably Bound to the Destinies of Theology?’); A.-M. Wetter (‘Biblical Studies and the Art of Civilization Maintenance’); H.G.M. Williamson (‘A New Divine Title in Isaiah 10.17’). There is an introduction by the editors, a list of Becking's publications, indexes of biblical texts, subjects and authors, and a bibliography to the volume as a whole.
J.C. E
K
Although still a substantial introduction to hermeneutics, this is actually an abridgment and revision of the same authors' earlier Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature and Theology (Kregel, 2011). The substance and model of the previous volume is retained, with the main changes focused on making the material more accessible to students without access to the original languages. This is structured as a textbook for a course on hermeneutics, with each chapter preceded by an indication of its aims and concluded with some exercises for students and suggestions for additional reading. The core argument of the original, insisting on the integration of history, literary sensitivity and theology which leads to the application of the biblical text, remains. The theological component is perhaps more relevant to those working in theological colleges, where students are expected to use the Bible in their ministry, but given that the bulk of the book is actually concerned with literary issues it has a wider applicability. The authors’ positions on history and theology are conservative, but not in a way which those operating from different presuppositions would necessarily find troubling. For an introductory work I would have appreciated some more extensive supplementary bibliographies as those provided are rather slight, but this is overall a helpful volume.
D.G. F
K
This Festschrift for Professor Waschke has four sections with the following essays (all but one in German). Part 1, ‘Time Consciousness and Time Concepts’: the change of time in OT (O. Kaiser), on the ‘eternal’ perspective of temporary humanity in ancient Israel (A. Meinhold), diachronic speech consciousness in OT exemplified in 1 Samuel 9.9 (Thon), Qohelet 3.1–8—infinitives and verbal nouns connected with the time word ‘et in Hebrew (Kotjatko-Reeb), Jewish perception of ‘the modern’ in the Renaissance exemplified by Leone Ebreo (G. Veltri). Part 2, ‘Structuring of Time’: chronology as theology: the toledot of Adam (C. Levin), from myth to history: the priestly conception of the folk development of Israel in Exod. 1.1–14 and its assumptions (R. Heckl), the revelation of the name Yhwh in Exod. 6.2–9 and the two times of land granting (H.-C. Schmitt), the Passover as the New Year festival in P in Exod. 12.1–2 (in English; G.I. Davies), the age and origin of the synchronisms in the books of Kings (G. Hentschel), the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 52.30) and the ‘70 years in Babylon’ (Ziemer), chronology in Ezra: reflections on the structure and content of Ezra 1–6 (S. Grätz). Part 3, ‘New under the Sun’: Yhwh and the sun (J. Tubach), the king—the sun—no accident: remnants of a royal ideological motif (J. Noetzel). Part 4, ‘Everything Has its Time’: outline of a redaction history of Qohelet (Z. Kustár), on the defeat of Yhwh's opponent in Zechariah 3 and Job 1–2 (R. Lux), the merkavah vision—an iconic revelation of God's eternity (C. Vatamanu), change and continuity in Transjordan in the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age (D. Vieweger/K. Soennecken/J. Häser), the journey of Wilhelm II to the Holy Land as a party game (U. Hübner), the idea of eternity according to Gen. 8.22 and Exod. 15.18 (Schorch). The editors provide a foreword that explains the unifying theme of the essays and relates them to the overall plan of the book.
L.L. G
K
This third collection of K.'s essays (for earlier volumes, see B.L. 2005, p. 116; B.L. 2012, pp. 108–109) is completely in German; however, a number of essays appeared originally in English, as will be noted. It is divided into three sections. The first is Myth and History in Biblical Scholarship: on the relation of biblical history and the history of Israel (previously unpublished); on the theological meaning of historical-biblical criticism according to Johann Philipp Gabler; (German version of) ‘Lower and Higher Criticism in Hebrew Lexicography’ (in BZAW 427); J.W. Colenso and the ‘revolution’ in biblical criticism (previously unpublished); Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918); (German version of) ‘Eyes and Spectacles: Wellhausen's Method of Higher Criticism’, JTS 60 (2009), pp. 381–401; and theology in the OT. The second section is The Myth of God's Kingship: God's spaces: a contribution to the question of the biblical world image; the myth of the kingship of God in Canaan and Israel; remains of Hebrew paganism exemplified from the Psalms; the shema of the Psalter: the message of God's kingdom in Psalm 145; (German version of) ‘“Blessed Be the Lord and Blessed Be his Name Forever”: Psalm 145 in the Hebrew Bible and in the Psalms Scroll 11Q5’ (see B.L. 2013, p. 244); and God and the divine in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (previously unpublished). The third section is The Myth of God's People: (German version of) ‘Memoria, Memorabilia, and Memoirs: Notions of the Past in North West Semitic Inscriptions’ (cf. BZAW 362); Israel as state and as people; Moses: the construction of a foundation figure (previously unpublished); theologizing or secularizing? biblical monotheism caught between religion and politics; and (German version of) ‘Isaiah and the siege of Jerusalem’ (in Barstad Festschrift; see p. 34 below). This is a valuable collection, along with the two previous volumes.
L.L. G
K
This wide-ranging collection of 24 of K.'s essays addresses critical issues stretching from the Amarna to the Hellenistic periods. Three sections divide the volume. The first broadly addresses history: ‘“War Saul auch under den Philistern?”—Die Anfänge des Königtums in Israel’; ‘“Saul war noch zwei Jahre König …” Textgeschichtliche, literarische und historische Beobachtungen zu 1Sam 13,1’;.“… und der Herr half David in allem, was er unternahm.” Die Davidgeschichte in ihrem inneren Zusammenhang und im Licht der westsemitischen Königsinschriften’; ‘Gott als Vater des Königs. Die Namen der Thronfolger Abija (I Reg 14,1.31; 15,1.7 f.) und das Selbstverständnis der frühisraelitischen Könige (2Sam 7,14)’; ‘Menschen ohne Namen?—1Kön 4,7–19 im Lichte der Personennamen aus Taanach’; ‘Vom Bauernkrieg zum sogenannten Revolutionsmodell für die “Landnahme” Israels’; ‘Zebaoth—Der Thronende’; ‘Die Religion der Aramäer auf dem Hintergrund der frühen aramäischen Staaten’; ‘Vom Garizim zum Ebal Erwägungen zur Geschichte und Textgeschichte sowie zu einem neuen Qumran-Text’; ‘Mose—Echnaton—Manetho und die 13 Jahre des Osarsiph. Beobachtungen zur “Mosaischen Unterscheidung” und zur “Entzifferung einer Gedächtnisspur”; and ‘Zur Priorität und Auslegungsgeschichte von Exodus 12,40 MT. Die chronologische Interpretation des Ägyptenaufenthalts in der judäischen, samaritanischen und alexandrinischen Exegese’. The second section focuses on archaeology: ‘Die Ausgrabungen in Tell Ta‘annek (Taanach)’; ‘Die Keilschrifttexte von Taanach/Tell Ta'annek’; ‘Die Bildkomposition des Rollsiegels TT 13 aus Taanach’; and ‘Alois Musils Beitrag zur Bibelwissenschaft’. The final section contains essays related to the language and text of the Hebrew Bible: ‘Zur Bedeutung und Etymologie von hištaḥawāh / yštḥwy’; ‘“So wahr ich lebe …”—Schwurformel und Gottesschwur in der prophetischen Verkündigung’; ‘Text, Textgeschichte und Textkritik des Alten Testaments. Zum Stand der Forschung an der Wende des Jahrhunderts’; ‘Der hebräische Text des Alten Testaments—Neuere Forschungen und ihre Vermittlung’; ‘Von der Vielfalt zur Einheitlichkeit—Wie kam es zur Vorherrschaft des masoretischen Textes?’; ‘Entstehung und Publikation der Septuaginta im Horizont frühptolemäischer Bildungs- und Kulturpolitik’; ‘Textformen, Urtext und Bearbeitungen in der Septuaginta der Königebücher’; ‘Der Antiochenische Text der Septuaginta in seiner Bezeugung und seiner Bedeutung’; and ‘Papyrus 967—Bemerkungen zu seiner buchtechnischen, textgeschichtlichen und kanongeschichtlichen Bedeutung’. A list with the essays’ initial publication information and text, subject and author indexes round out the book. While the impressive breadth is rather detrimental to the coherence of the volume, it is still a valuable resource.
W.L. K
L
This volume is a selection of 13 of L.'s essays, 11 of which were published between 1984 and 2014 in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, The Oxford Encyclopedia for Bible and Ethics, L.'s recent book Jeremiah Closer Up, and various journals. The first four articles, namely ‘Grace and Favor in the Old Testament: Hebrew ḥnn’, ‘Burning Anger in the Old Testament: Hebrew ḥrh, yṣt, and yqd’, ‘God in your Grace Transform the World’, and ‘Biblical and Theological Themes’ with its translation into Lingala by Revd R. Anderson, deal with specific theological themes by exploring the meaning, context, and usage of relevant biblical words. The sequence of the middle seven essays follows the order of the MT, consisting of ‘Deuteronomy’, ‘Yahweh Comes to Be King on Earth (Deut 33:2–5)’, ‘And the Word of the Lord Came to Huldah’, ‘Jeremiah and the Created Order’, ‘The Confessions of Jeremiah’, ‘Psalm 23: Song of Passage’, and ‘Mary Magdalene and Song of Songs 3:1–4’. Six of them mainly examine the OT texts in light of other passages in the OT and NT or through anthropological theory. The last two compositions are ‘All Great Works of God Begin in Secret’ and ‘Theology in Language, Rhetoric, and Beyond’. Although part of the content of a few essays significantly overlaps, this volume achieves its aim, namely to draw theological implications from biblical discourse itself, rather than from doctrine driven by philosophy.
J.-P. H
M
This handsome volume contains the main papers delivered to the 21st Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) held in Munich in 2013 under the presidency of Christoph Levin. As is common for IOSOT, papers were delivered in German, English and French and tend to represent a cross-section of state-of-the-art scholarship on the Hebrew Bible: C. Levin, ‘Die Entstehung des Judentums als Gegenstand der alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft’; B. Ego, ‘Alexander der Große in der alttestamentlichen Überlieferung—eine Spurensuche und ihre theologischen Implikationen’; Z. Talshir, ‘Texts, Text-Forms, Editions, New Composition and the Final Products of Biblical Literature’; J. Kugel, ‘Is the Book of Jubilees a Commentary on Genesis or an Intended Replacement?’; S.L. McKenzie, ‘“My God is Y
A.C. H
M
Since gaining his doctorate at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1988, Georg Fischer has taught at the University of Innsbruck. He is probably best known internationally for his work on Jeremiah, though he has also published extensively on the Pentateuch as well as other subjects. He has attracted graduate students from all over the world, and 17 of them, now in four different continents, have contributed to this Festschrift, with articles submitted in no less than five different languages (five on the Pentateuch, seven on the prophets, and five on other writings, including one on the New Testament). This impressive tribute to his scholarly, pedagogical and pastoral concerns comprises: M. Lang, ‘Noach, Ziusudra, Atram ḫasīs, Utnapištim und Xisouthros: Vom Bild eines idealen Menschen’; N. Pham, ‘The Image of YHWH as Presented in Exodus 16’; T. Karimundackal, ‘Principles for a God-Centered Existence: Exegetical Implications of Deut 10,12–13’; A.N. Lonji, ‘Dieu, le Rocher: Étude sur la théologie du chant de Moïse (Dt 32,1–43)’; D. Markl, ‘This Word Is your Life: The Theology of “Life” in Deuteronomy’; J. Riordan, ‘Sin of Omission or Commission: An Insertion in 4QJera (Jer. 7.30–8.3)’; N. Rüttgers, ‘“Mein Vater, Freund meiner Jugend bist du?” Kontext von Jeremia 3,1–5 und ein Strukturvorschlag’; S. Paganini, ‘“Profeta per le nazioni” (Ger 1,5): Un titolo geremiano per definire l'opera isaiana’; E. Ehrenreich, ‘Neuer Bund in der Trostrolle’; B. Rossi, ‘Strategie comunicative in GerTM e GerLXX: Variazioni nella deissi e implicazioni interpretative a partire da Ger 9,9’; J.K. Mensah, ‘Structure and Dynamic of Ez 20: A Synchronic Approach’; A. Decorzant, ‘Priesterliches Leben unter prophetischem Blick: Das Priestertum aus der kritischen Sicht des Zwölfprophetenbuches’; G. Cabello, ‘Salomón y su relación con Abrahán, Isaac y Jacob en 1–2 Crónicas’; M. Ngoa, ‘“Tutto questo ci era successo e(ppure) non avevamo dimenticato la tua alleanza”: Protesta d'innocenza in Sal 44,18–23’; K. Engljähringer, ‘Ein stabiles Gefäß für den brisanten Inhalt: Einige züge des Ijob-Porträts der Rahmenerzählung des Ijobbuches und ihre Relevanz im Blick auf die Auseinandersetzungen in dessen Redeteil’; S.J. Kizhakkayil, ‘New Jerusalem as Bride of God, Holy of Holies and as Paradise: A Threefold Affirmation of God's Intimacy with his People (Rev 21:1–22:5)’; and C. Paganini, ‘Ein Medium für das Wort Gottes: Spuren einer Medienkritik im Alten Testament’.
H.G.M. W
M
This is the first of three volumes devoted to the study of the popular reception of new knowledge about Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Holy Land after Napoleon's expedition to Egypt and Syria (1798–1801). For European historians, this marked the beginning of what they call the modern history of the Near East, and for biblical scholars, it marked the beginning of those challenges brought by archaeology that have so greatly impacted their discipline. The first volume covers the initial discovery of the area, built on existing perceptions drawn from the Bible and Classical literature; the first archaeologists and how they looted the sites for European museums; the role of Victorian periodicals in popularizing the subject in Britain; the pioneering travellers who went to explore this new world and the tourism industry that followed, developed by Thomas Cook who organized his first trip on the Nile in 1869 and the Orient Express which ran from 1883; the gentleman scholars who laid the foundations for the later disciplines, and the learned societies they founded such as the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Society of Biblical Archaeology. The volume is well illustrated and is fascinating to read, setting familiar names and events into their broader historical and social context.
M. B
M
This second volume shows how the material culture of the ancient Near East influenced fashion and design in Europe and the United States. Museums displayed objects for the general public to see, and the influence of ancient Egypt was apparent in many public buildings both in Europe and the United Sates. Fine porcelain and domestic pottery were influenced by the styles and pattern of, in particular, ancient Egypt. Wealthy tourists bought antiquities as the basis for their own collections, mummies were traded and the forgeries trade began. The new science of photography had a significant role, and many of those early photos are included in these volumes. The newly rich middle classes were enthralled by ‘Egyptomania’, furnished their homes with Egyptian-style furniture and ornaments, and the ladies even wore Egyptian-style jewellery and clothing. They could visit the second Crystal Palace in SE London and see the Egyptian Court with its scaled-down models of Egyptian monuments, reproduced from photographs; or they could visit the Assyrian Court, designed under the direction of A.H. Layard. The volume illustrates well how the near-fantasy world of the ancient Near East related to the more serious work of scholars.
M. B
M
The third volume explores how a fictional and fantastical world inspired by the new discoveries in the ancient Near East influenced writing, painting, theatre and opera; and then shows how esoteric societies emerged that claimed to derive from ancient traditions, especially those of Egypt. It concludes with the early twentieth century's reception of the legacy of the ancient Near East. The ruins of Mesopotamia and Egypt were depicted with the Hebrew prophets who had predicted their destruction, and apocalyptic scenes were popular, as were the landscapes of biblical sites. There was strict censorship in Britain of theatre plays with biblical themes, but other spectacles were permitted. Verdi's Aida was staged with advice from archaeologists about the costumes and scenery. Popular fiction featured mummies that could speak or who had left curses. There were also esoteric societies, inspired by the ancient Near East: Isis cults and new Egyptian priesthoods. Much architecture of the Freemasons was influenced by Mesopotamian and especially Egyptian models. A vision of timeless Near Eastern wisdom inspired the Theosophists. M.'s three volumes are magnificent and a joy to read. They are a reminder of the power of the past to influence popular culture, and so of the importance of how that past continues to be presented. Those who control the past shape the future, and for a region such as the Near East in the early twenty-first century, that is a sensitive matter.
M. B
M
These 12 papers arise from a conference at Yeshiva University (Cardozo School of Law), New York City, in February 2012. In various ways they illustrate how the idea of mere mortals questioning the morality of some of God's actions is subtly obscured in biographies of figures such as Job, Jeremiah and Jesus but becomes more explicit in pre-, peri- and postbiblical literature. Time and again they show how such a theologically offensive idea stems from extreme frustration about political corruption, leading to the assertion that judges and even kings will themselves be called to account for their actions in their life after death. For the Bible itself, see the chapters by Warren Zev Harvey (‘Rabbi Nissim of Girona on the Heavenly Court, Truth, and Justice’), F. Rachel Magdalene (‘Trying the Crime of Abuse of Royal Authority in the Divine Courtroom and the Incident of Naboth's Vineyard’), Carol A. Newsom (‘The Invention of the Divine Courtroom in the Book of Job’) and Andrew T. Lincoln (‘A Life of Jesus as Testimony: The Divine Courtroom and the Gospel of John’); for cuneiform, Tzvi Abusch (‘Divine Judges on Earth and in Heaven’) and Job Y. Jindo (‘The Divine Courtroom Motif in the Hebrew Bible: A Holistic Approach’); for Ancient Greece and Rome, Victor Bers and Adriaan Lanni (‘Disqualified Olympians: The Skeptical Greek View of Divine Judges’) and Meira Z. Kenski (‘Getting Perspective: The Divine Courtroom in Tertullian of Carthage's Apologeticum’); for Qumran, Joseph L. Angel (‘The Divine Courtroom Scenes of Daniel 7 and the Qumran Book of Giants: A Textual and Contextual Comparison’); for midrashim, Chaya Halberstam (‘Justice without Judgment: Pure Procedural Justice and the Divine Courtroom in Sifre Deuteronomy’) and Dov Weiss (‘Lawsuits against God in Rabbinic Literature’); and for Islam, Mathieu Tillier (‘The Qāḍī before the Judge: The Social Use of Eschatology in Muslim Courts’). The editors’ overview in ch. 1 (‘The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective’) shows that they have accumulated almost enough material to illustrate how this philosophical conundrum was dealt with from earliest times in ancient Middle Eastern literature. But because they have presented the studies more or less in alphabetical order of author some juggling is required to gain such a historical perspective. Ancient Egypt seems to have been overlooked, even though the Eloquent Peasant creeps into a footnote. Nevertheless, after reading the book as a whole one will never again hear the exclamation ‘Oh my God!’ without attributing to it much more colour than one thought due.
M.E.J. R
R
These 38 essays, dating from 1970 to 2014, are a fine representative selection of R.'s oeuvre (other than his essays on ethics, which are available elsewhere). Six originally published in German are here translated into English, and an essay on postmodernism is published for the first time. Section 1, ‘Anthropological and Sociological Essays’, contains 11 essays: ‘The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality: A Re-examination’; ‘Structural Anthropology and the Old Testament’; ‘The Old Testament View of Nature: Some Preliminary Questions’; ‘Sacrifice in the Old Testament: Problems of Method and Approach’; ‘The Use of Sociology in Old Testament Studies’; ‘Was Early Israel a Segmentary Society?’; ‘What Was the Meaning of Animal Sacrifice?’; ‘Frontiers and Borders in the Old Testament’; ‘The Social Background of the Book of Malachi’; ‘What Is Holiness?’; and ‘Israel's New Sense of Identity in the Exilic Period’. Section 2, ‘History of Interpretation’, contains 19 essays: ‘Herder's Bückeberg “Conversion”’; ‘Philosophy and Biblical Criticism’; ‘Progressive Revelation: Its History and its Value as a Key to Old Testament Interpretation’; ‘Herder's “God. Some Dialogues” in the Light of his Sermons’; ‘Wrestling with the Angel: A Study in Literary Hermeneutics’; ‘Writing the History of Israel in the 17th and 18th Centuries’; ‘British Responses to Kuenen's Pentateuchal Studies’; ‘Herder's Plan for a Three-year Course of Study for a Young Theologian’; ‘Synchrony and Diachrony in the Work of de Wette and its Importance for Today’; ‘Newly-discovered Letters of de Wette and their Significance for de Wette Research’; ‘What Is Religion? The Challenge of Wilhelm Vatke's Biblische Theologie’; ‘Colenso in the World of Nineteenth-Century Intellectual Ferment’; ‘Was Geddes a “Fragmentist”? In Search of the “Geddes-Vater Hypothesis”’; ‘Charles François Houbigant: His Background, Work and Importance for Lowth’; ‘Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel’; ‘Wellhausen and Robertson Smith as Sociologists of Early Arabia and Ancient Israel’; ‘De Wette, Jahn and Sand. Their Relationships in the Light of New Research’; ‘The Manchester Faculty of Theology 1904: Beginnings and Background’; and ‘What Difference Did Darwin Make? The Interpretation of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century’. Section 3, ‘Philosophical and Theological Essays’, contains eight essays: ‘William Temple as Philosopher and Theologian’; ‘Can a Doctrine of Providence Be Based on the Old Testament?’; ‘Postmodernism and Old Testament Studies: An Attempt at a Balance Sheet’; ‘The Potential of the Negative: Approaching the Old Testament through the Work of Adorno’; ‘Can a Translation of the Bible Be Authoritative?’; ‘Measurable and Immeasurable: Themes in Old Testament Theology’; ‘Myth in the Old Testament’; and ‘The Old Testament and the Environment’. R. ranges more widely, and questions more searchingly, than most Old Testament scholars, and he is unfailingly lucid. This is a collection of exceptional value.
R.W.L. M
S
This pastoring work is intended primarily for educated Christians and thus written in non-academic but intelligent style. The layout—the placement of direct quotations, terminology explanations, and long notes in separate blocks—helps readers to follow the flow of the main text. Each chapter lists further study resources: a select bibliography, and a link to S.'s website which provides group discussion questions and additional quotes for contemplation. Turning to the content, as the subtitle indicates, this book deals with challenging and disturbing issues in the OT, including the unscientific record of creation (chs. 2, 3 and appendix), the inclusion of various scandals (ch. 4), violent accounts and prayers (chs. 5 and 10), gender inequality (ch. 6), the strangeness of the code of law (chs. 7 and 8), contradiction within the OT (ch. 9), and God's wrath (ch. 11). While S. refers to relatively common guidelines given for interpreting such difficult passages, he also proposes a novel idea which may guide our appreciation of the OT. S. suggests that the OT should be regarded as an outlandish friend who transforms the Christian reader's faith. Also, readers who regard the OT as a friend may question and even disagree with the OT without breaking the relationship with it. This idea, introduced in ch. 1 and further promoted in ch. 12, flows through the whole book. The main title of this book seems misleading, because S. does not deal with the sacredness but only the bizarreness of the OT.
J.-P. H
S
Fourteen papers address issues at the intersection of the study of orality and ancient literacy. The volume grew out of papers given at a conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2012, with some later contributions added in. S.'s introduction offers a brief orientation to the project, dividing the papers into sections on epigraphic evidence, investigations of the Hebrew Bible, and comparative studies exploring aspects of the textuality/orality interface more widely. S. also provides detailed abstracts of each contribution, greatly increasing the value of the collection. Contributions are as follows: ‘Introduction’ (Brian B. Schmidt); ‘Levantine Literacy ca. 1000–750
R.S. B
S
Joseph Ratzinger (also temporarily Pope Benedict XVI) is one of the most influential Roman Catholic dogmatic and systematic theologians of the past several decades. His work has always been characterized by an unusually strong attempt to integrate biblical exegesis fully into his work. His hermeneutics are therefore appropriately the subject of study here and, given the degree to which Ratzinger has viewed his theology as the servant of his church, it is fitting that it should be by a Protestant scholar of exegesis. After a substantial introductory chapter on the place of the Bible in Catholic theology since the Reformation, S. works chronologically through Ratzinger's career, with particular attention, inevitably, to his publications. There is discussion, inter alia, of his developing views regarding historical criticism, and the conclusion is drawn that he ends up closest to J.A. Sanders’ version of canonical criticism. Given the nature of Ratzinger's work, which has a particular focus on Christology, it is understandable that S. should have explicitly decided not to include here any treatment of the unity of the two testaments in one Christian Bible (p. 17). However important the present analysis may be in its own terms, there is therefore nothing that directly addresses the concerns of Old Testament scholars when they are wearing their professional hats.
H.G.M. W
S
Unlike the other volumes from the same series noted in the B.L. (see p. 122 below), this ‘Bible and Women’ volume is more of a methodological review than an exegetical collection, dealing as it does with feminist biblical criticism in various geographical, intellectual and cultural contexts as it has emerged over the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. It begins with an overview essay from Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Between Movement and Academy: Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century’. There are then four further parts. ‘Charting Feminist Biblical Studies around the Globe’ contains Judith Plaskow, ‘Movement and Emerging Scholarship: Feminist Biblical Scholarship in the 1970s in the United States’; Elsa Tamez, ‘Feminist Biblical Studies in Latin America and the Caribbean’; Susanne Scholz, ‘“Stirring Up Vital Energies”: Feminist Biblical Studies in North America (1980–2000s)’; Dora Rudo Mbuwayesango, ‘Feminist Biblical Studies in Africa’; Mercedes Navarro Puerto, ‘Intercultural Mapping of Feminist Biblical Studies: Southern Europe’; and Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, ‘Toward Mapping Feminist Biblical Interpretations in Asia’. The second part, ‘Creating Feminist Hermeneutical Spaces in Religion’, has Helen Schüngel-Straumann, ‘From Androcentric to Christian Feminist Exegesis: Genesis 1–3’; Cynthia Baker, ‘Jewish Feminist Biblical Studies’; Rosa Cursach Salas, ‘A Christian Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible’; Zayn Kassam, ‘Rereading the Qur’ān from a Gender Justice Perspective’; and Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, ‘Struggling with Mindsets of Domination’. The third part, ‘Reading Otherwise: Methods of Interpretation’, consists of Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, ‘Texts and Readers, Rhetorics and Ethics’; Shelly Matthews, ‘Feminist Biblical Historiography’; Marinella Perroni, ‘Different Feminist Methods and Approaches: Biblical Women's Studies’; Joseph A. Marchal, ‘Queer Studies and Critical Masculinity Studies in Feminist Biblical Studies’; Tan Yak-hwee, ‘Postcolonial Feminist Biblical Criticism: An Exploration’; and Denise Kimber Buell, ‘Canons Unbound’. The fourth and final part is entitled ‘Working for Change and Transformation’: Leony Renk, ‘Where Do You Come From? Where Are You Going? Feminist Interreligious Bibliodrama in a German Context’; Regula Grünenfelder, ‘Wo/men in Liturgy and Art on Wisdom's Paths’; Claudia Janssen and Hanne Köhler, ‘A Long History of Sowing, from which Miracles Occasionally Grow: Bible Translations in Language that Is Just’; and Renate Jost, ‘The Institutionalization of Feminist Biblical Studies in its International and Ecumenical Contexts (Dossier)’. The volume ends with a 50-page bibliography prepared by Kelsi Morrison-Atkins, and short contributor biographies. These essays are testimony to the breadth, depth and vigour of the feminist biblical hermeneutical endeavour, which since its late twentieth-century emergence has spread around the world and permeated biblical studies.
D.W. R
S
S. begins by quoting Erich Auerbach and saying, ‘The Bible is the real world’. What a stimulating book such an opening gambit might conjure up! But this is not that book. A bracing 2-page introduction locates biblical theology in that (textual) world and announces instead the programme to read biblical passages that summarize the narrative as exegesis of final-form prior biblical texts. Via Michael Fishbane on inner-biblical allusion, and in some dependence on the work of John Sailhamer, S. sets out in pursuit of a thesis that appears to be this: well-known texts that retell (biblical) history—think Joshua 24, Ezekiel 20, Psalms of recital (78, 105, 106 and so on) and others—are to be read as exegesis, and the prior texts they exegete are basically the ones we now have in the canon. He all but says that a finished Pentateuch is available to psalmists patiently interpreting details. But, one may say, are there not variant traditions, such as divergent handlings of the ten (or seven) plagues? By no means, says S.: missing details are (almost) all possibly alluded to (p. 55) or ‘introduce interpretation’ (p. 57). Readers who feel that on such a rubric there is little chance of any data being allowed to disqualify the thesis will probably incline to the view that we learn here much more about the creativity of one modern reader than anything of value about the ancient texts. Elsewhere we are assured that ‘[t]he Chronicler always cites his sources’ (p. 24)! The book ends with calls for accredited Bible teachers to teach compositional analysis to (adult) Sunday School classes; and two appendixes (which I confess I did not see coming): ‘Torah Piety in the Pentateuchal Targums’ and a brief summary of ‘Beauty and the Bible’. All in about 100 pages of main text. It is a fast and free-wheeling ride, but it does not convince.
R.S. B
S
The essays in this volume address issues surrounding the idea of a ‘wisdom tradition’ in ancient Israel. It is a useful compilation and crystallization of some very live research issues. The book benefits from its diversity of perspectives, which sometimes affirm, sometimes challenge current consensuses. After an introduction by Sneed, the first part discusses ‘Genre Theory and the Wisdom Tradition’. The essays are characterized by a sensitivity that genres are not discrete in-out categories, but are more flexible, fuzzy, and changing. For Sneed (‘Grasping after the Wind’), this indefinability is not necessarily a problem, and for K. Dell (‘Deciding the Boundaries of Wisdom’), the notion of ‘family resemblances’ proves helpful. M.V. Fox (‘Three Theses on Wisdom’) argues there was no wisdom school or faction of wise men, and ‘wisdom literature’ is a (useful) scholarly construct. This scholarly construct is problematic for W. Kynes (‘The Modern Scholarly Wisdom Tradition’), who warns of its tendency to disintegrate or expand indefinitely into ‘pan-sapientialism’. S. Weeks (‘Wisdom, Form, and Genre’) does not focus on the macro-genre of ‘wisdom’ but on the literary conventions of smaller genres, which open up a fruitful area of study. Rather than just theory, D. Miller (‘Wisdom in the Canon’) and A. Schellenberg (‘Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater’) analyse what specific features connect the ‘wisdom’ books together. Schellenberg reaffirms the traditional view of a distinctive wisdom worldview with its own cosmology, epistemology, ethics and theology. The second part of the book gives a number of ‘Case Studies’ of the relationship between the ‘wisdom tradition’ and the rest of the canon. M. Saur (‘Where Can Wisdom Be Found’) and T. Forti (’Gattung and Sitz im Leben’) focus on the ‘wisdom psalms’, and M. Hamilton (‘Riddles and Parables, Traditions and Texts’) demonstrates, from the appropriation of ‘wisdom’ in Ezekiel, how traditional ideas migrate between intellectual spheres. R. Heckl (‘How Wisdom Texts Became Part of the Canon’) suggests that Proverbs and Job were adapted in the Persian/Hellenistic period, in interaction with the Pentateuch, Deuteronomistic History and Prophets. The final part of the book, ‘Ancient Near Eastern Comparison’, comprises just one essay. N. Shupak (‘Contribution of Egyptian Wisdom’) analyses Egyptian wisdom literature, finding it to have striking similarities to (but also differences from) the comparable Israelite phenomenon. It is a shame there is no essay on the Mesopotamian connections to round the picture. Overall, this volume provides rich and stimulating material for future debate on both the theoretical and practical issues involved in studying the ‘wisdom tradition’.
S.R. M
S
S. argues that interpreters of the Bible have legitimate grounds for allowing the concept of canon to guide and govern their reading because ‘canon-consciousness’ is not a foreign notion but was active among the biblical writers and readers during the composition phase of the formation of the canon. He makes a good case for siding with those who define canon broadly as ‘an authoritative collection of authoritative writings’ (p. 18) rather than narrowly as a fixed list of writings. This definition helps the reader to see canon-consciousness among authors of the Bible and writers of ancient non-biblical compositions. As a mental construct ‘canon’ has the dual effect of limiting and generating meaning by defining a space within which a play of meaning is encouraged. This works on the level of ‘mere contextuality’ (reading a text in relation to other authoritative texts). In addition S. argues that the authors and compilers of the biblical writings strategically composed and arranged certain writings to create a specific effect (‘meant contextuality’). There is much of interest here and in a well-informed chapter on intertextuality, but S. advances no new evidence as far as the OT is concerned. His ideal reader of the Bible is most convincingly developed from the book of Revelation. The implied reader of the final book in the Christian canon affirms the authority of the Scriptures and accepts the guidance of the canonical framework. Those who accept the testimony of Revelation will want to become such readers. The book includes three appendixes, including a survey of intertextual connections between Genesis 1–3 and Revelation 21–22.
T. R
T
As the title of this Festschrift implies, its two major foci are prophecy and history, reflecting its honoree's main areas of expertise. The editors give an introduction in which they summarize the content of the contributions, and then the main body of the work falls into three parts. Part 1, ‘Prophecy’, contains A. Graeme Auld, ‘Elijah and the Prophets of Baal and Asherah: Towards a Discussion of “No Prophets”?’; H.G.M. Williamson, ‘Idols in Isaiah in the Light of Isaiah 10:10–11’; Joseph Blenkinsopp, ‘Abraham and Cyrus in Isaiah 40–48’; Kristin Joachimsen, ‘Remembering and Forgetting in Isaiah 43, 44, and 46’; Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, ‘Hope and Disappointment: The Judahite Critique of the Exilic Leadership in Isaiah 56–66’; Bob Becking, ‘Religious Polemics in the Book of Micah’; Robert P. Gordon, ‘“We Do Not See our Signs” (Psalm 74:9): Signs, Prophets, Oracles, and the Asaphite Psalter’; Rannfrid I. Thelle, ‘Self as Other: Israel's Self-Designation as Adulterous Wife, A Self-Reflective Perspective on a Prophetic Metaphor’; and J. Cheryl Exum, ‘Prophetic Pornography Revisited’. Part 2, ‘History’, consists of Reinhard G. Kratz, ‘Isaiah and the Siege of Jerusalem’; John Day, ‘Some Aspects of the Monarchy in Ancient Israel’; Sara Japhet, ‘The Ritual of Reading Scripture (Nehemiah 8:1–12)’; André Lemaire, ‘Queen or Delegation of Saba to Solomon?’; Nadav Na'aman, ‘Judah and Edom in the Books of Kings and in Historical Reality’; C.L. Crouch, ‘On Floods and the Fall of Nineveh: A Note on the Origins of a Spurious Tradition’; Niels Peter Lemche, ‘Locating the Story of Biblical Israel’; Lester L. Grabbe, ‘King David and El Cid: Two ‘Apiru in Myth and History’; Terje Stordalen, ‘Heshbon—The History of a Biblical Memory’; and Kảre Berge, ‘Is There Hope in the Deuteronomistic History?’ The third and final part is rather shorter, and, dealing with more textually focused issues, is entitled ‘Explorations’: Martin Ravndal Hauge, ‘Canticles 1:2–4 and 8:13–14: Solomon, the Master, the Beggar’; David J.A. Clines, ‘The Decalogue as the Prohibition of Theft’; and Knut Holter, ‘Being Like the Cushites: Some Western and African Interpretations of Amos 9:7’. The volume closes with a bibliography of Barstad's publications and an index of modern authors. This is a fascinating collection of essays from a team of experts, and as well as being a worthy tribute to Professor Barstad it will surely prove to be of enduring value in the wider scholarly arena.
D.W. R
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These 18 essays by a distinguished scholar of Manchester University and the United Reformed Church are classified under four headings and present a welcome review and critique of British contributions to the field of Old Testament study over the period from 1969 to the present. Five are published here for the first time while the remainder were earlier published in journals or volumes of essays. The nine studies in the first section deal with specific exegetical themes, beginning with Exodus 14 in relation to the broad theological theme of ‘God Who Acts’. The second study covers the enduring nature of biblical law and its identification with divine wisdom, a theme which reappears in a critique of Bernard Jackson's Wisdom-Laws (Oxford University Press, 2006) together with Jackson's reply. Three studies relate to the books of 1 and 2 Kings and cover the background to the Syro-Ephraimite War, the account of the building of Solomon's temple in 1 Kings 6–8 and the story of Jehu's rebellion. The summons by the psalmist to ‘sing a new song to the L
R.E. C
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In this revised doctoral dissertation W. sets out to read the biblical picture of relationships between Israelites and Moabites in the light of tensions and violence in postcolonial Kenya. He begins by examining what he sees as the postcolonial context of the Israelite narratives about the Moabites, arguing that they are a product of the jostling for position that was precipitated by the Babylonian exile and the subsequent return under the Persians. The exile caused ethnic, social and economic splits that were reflected in the narratives of identity produced by the various communities in the land. The narratives in the HB, including those that reflect negatively on the Moabites, were produced by the Judaean elite, who had experienced exile and were seeking to reestablish themselves in the land under Persian rule. They used ‘othering’ of ethnic groups already in the land as a tool to shore up their own claims to pre-eminence. As W. summarizes, ‘The experience [of exile] furnished the exilic ruling elite with imperial ideologies that they put to good use against others’ (p. 25). He then goes on to illustrate the dynamics that can be seen in the biblical narratives with reference to the Kenyan situation, in which the Kikuyu tribal group who gained power after Kenyan independence adopted the oppressive ‘divide and rule’ policies of the former British colonial government, and used ‘othering’ by means of negative representations against the Luo, a second main tribal group, in order to justify oppressive policies against them and shore up their own position. That said, in both the biblical and the Kenyan contexts there are more positive elements in the elite representations of the ‘other’: in the biblical texts, the Moabites are descended from Lot, who is Abraham's nephew, and the narrative of Ruth presents a positive picture of Moabite identity which advocates ethnic integration rather than separation. Equivalent positive elements are also present in the history of Kikuyu-Luo interaction. This is a fascinating and thought-provoking reading that shows just how subversive—and contemporary—these ancient narratives can be.
D.W. R
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This book is intended for evangelical Christian students of the Bible at the outset of their studies, aiming to enable them to read biblical texts with insight into the texts’ canonical context. It gives minimal attention to historical context or critical reading methods; instead it focuses on the concept of metanarrative, and offers an explanation of how each section of the Bible might contribute to an overarching narrative. It therefore offers a significant amount of theological interpretation in order to achieve this. Two introductory chapters orient the reader to the theological framework employed; subsequent chapters follow the Greek ordering of biblical books and discuss the Pentateuch, the histories, the poetic books, the Prophets, intertestamental history, the Gospels, Acts and Epistles, and finally Revelation. Within each chapter the consistent headings are ‘Contribution to the Meta-narrative’, ‘The Shape of the Story’, ‘Literary Features’ and ‘The Specifics’. The book clearly has value in offering its target audience a coherent theological framework for reading biblical texts, but also has some drawbacks. It suggests that the metanarrative offered is a feature of the text itself, rather than an interpretation of it. Fundamental issues of genre are addressed inadequately; for example, the majority of the Pentateuch is identified as ‘narrative’, without distinguishing Genesis 1–11 in any respect. By explicitly prioritizing a particular theological interpretation and using ideologically laden concepts such as ‘the plain meaning of Scripture’, the book might implicitly militate against more informed critical reading and study.
S.P. S
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Recent changes of emphasis in Liberal Arts classrooms (from biblical studies to the humanities and the arts), together with the fact that students now find information in different places and by different methods, mean that this second volume of essays, though a true successor to vol. 1 (see B.L. 2014, pp. 33–34), is very different, as indicated by the titles of its three major sections: ‘Tactics’, on day-to-day teaching to help students relate to the course material (6 essays), ‘Strategies’, on structuring a course to challenge students’ assumptions about the Bible (4 essays), and ‘Principles’, on the ramifications of teaching the Bible in an undergraduate Liberal Arts context (3 essays). The volume concludes with ‘Biblical Studies in the Liberal Arts Curriculum’ (3 essays). ‘Tactics’ invites us to consider Twitter as ‘a friend in a student's education journey’ (Anthony L. Abell), Wikipedia for help in understanding Pentateuchal Formation (Nicole L. Tilford), intelligent and practical participation to read Revelation like any other book (Robby Waddell), digital storytelling with electronic media as being more appropriate than traditional methods for today's students (Anne W. Stewart and Nicole L. Tilford), using role play to do theology and teach hermeneutics (Eric A. Seibert), and holistic learning to teach empathy as a counterbalance to increasing narcissism (Seth Herringer). ‘Strategies’ embraces creative writing to get to the heart of a story and retell it in new ways (Geoffrey David Miller), teaching at the intersection of biblical studies and academic writing by ‘framing’ the book of Job (Benjamin J. Laugelli), fantasy, using Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter as a way into the problem of evil with Genesis 3 and the death and resurrection of a Christ-figure (Sonya Shetty Cronin), and foodways, picking up on today's preoccupation with food as a focal point to create a Hebrew Bible course to bring the ancient texts into today's world (Margaret Cohen). ‘Principles’ encourages us to read the biblical texts with ‘an ecological lens’, thereby exploring a religious tradition relating to all creation and the environment (Janet S. Everhart), offers a discourse on supersessionism in introductory New Testament courses (Lee A. Johnson), and in a study on divine violence urges extensive use of YouTube and video clips, with more than a hint always to read such stories from the angle of the victims (Eric A. Seibert). Three final chapters, addressed specifically to the Liberal Arts classrooms, cover an ability-based curriculum (Steven Dunn), teaching undergraduates from non-religious backgrounds (Katy E. Valentine), and handling introductory biblical studies in a General Education curriculum (Charles William Miller). Easy and fascinating to read, essentially practical, the product of much thought and practice, and devoid of theory or ideology, doctrine, dogma or cant, it is a bold attempt to open minds and help teachers and students to explore different ways of working. Fourteen of the 15 contributors are based in the USA and there are 16 pages of bibliography, a general index (5 pages) and an index of authors (4 pages). A ‘must’ for all teachers and students of the Bible, with a relevance and value far beyond the walls of the Liberal Arts classroom.
A. G
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In this recently published, magnificently comprehensive collection of Wellhausen's Briefe, the interested reader will find a trove of ‘behind the scenes’ correspondence between the scholar and various interested parties. The collection does not begin, as many studies of Wellhausen's work do, with the 1878 publication of his Geschichte Israels I (subsequently published as the 1883 Prolegomena). The Briefe begin, rather, in 1863, when Wellhausen's interest in Israel's history opened through his famous encounter with Heinrich Ewald (Br. §1). The collection ends, naturally, in 1917. Smend's editorial ‘Vorwort’ is marked by the same familiarity with Wellhausen's context and Wirkungsgeschichte that we would expect from his other work on the scholar (e.g. his From Astruc to Zimmerli, reviewed in B.L. 2008, pp. 136–37). Every feature of Wellhausen's scholarly development is accounted for in the letters: from his 1867 turn toward lex post prophetas, to his post-Greifswald interest in Semitic language and culture (e.g. §129). Wellhausen's return to Göttingen, and with it the publication of his Israelitische und Jüdische Geschichte (1894), likewise features in the letters (§441 et passim), as does his later turn to New Testament studies (e.g. his correspondence with A. von Harnack [§836] and E. Schwartz [§846]). The extensively detailed editorial annotations that accompany each letter are surely a sign of the herculean effort that went into collating this volume. The Briefe encompass politics, history, etymology, proposed text-critical emendations, theology, and a host of interpersonal concerns (cf. the many references to his oft-unwell Marie). It is, and will remain for generations to come, an invaluable insight into Wellhausen's context(s), many commitments, and deeper concerns underlying his life's diverse opera.
C.E. S
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This memorial volume for the late Manfred Görg (1938–2012) has 59 essays in German and 5 in English, divided into three sections that reflect his interests in OT, Egyptology, and interfaith dialogue. The first section is ‘Bible and Theology’: Joshua in the Pentateuch (E. Ballhorn); the migration of God's habitation (K. Bieberstein); being a Christian makes one decide for the OT (C. Dohmen); Jonah, prophet of a traumatized people (I. Fischer); Bible hermeneutic as ‘hospitality’ (O. Fuchs); criticism of the king and royal cult: political positions in the Deuteronomistic History (G. Gafus); Ismael: diachronic search for a location (G. Geiger); Elijah's heavenly journey and Elisha's call (2 Kgs 2.1–15) (G. Hentschel); tenufa as raised offering rather than wave offering (T. Hieke); on the hermeneutic of biblical creation speech (H. Irsigler); evangelizing and complete transformation in the Black African context: toward a priority option for the poor (G.-A. Kangosa); Abraham in Egypt (Gen. 12.10–20) (C. Levin); Hebrew br’ (G form): ‘create’ or ‘separate’? (M. Mulzer); principles and politics of preservation of life in the OT and other ancient cultures (English; E.O. Nwaoru); the theology of the book of Deuteronomy (E. Otto); further development of biblical annotations—Manfred Görg's favourite work (F.V. Reiterer and W. Winkler); Egyptology and OT—results and hypotheses (T. Seidl); Jeremiah's word of salvation for Zedekiah in Jer. 34.5 (H.-J. Stipp); an extra-Masoretic textual variant in the Babylonian Talmud to 1 Sam. 1.19(?) (H.-G. von Mutius); Isaiah 28.9–10: children's verse? (H. Weippert); release through forgiveness of sins? (B. Willmes); and Michal, fragments of a woman's story and a folk tale (A. Wuckelt). The second section is ‘Egypt and Ancient Orient’: Ostracon Berlin P 10844: hymn and prayer to Amun from the necropolis scribe Hori (G. Burkard); ancient reception and Bible text (A. Grimm); scarab as therapeutical agent: on the history of an ancient Egyptian tradition in the early Byzantine medical handbooks (I. Grimm-Stadelmann); Heka and Maat: network analysis as an instrument of Egyptological analysis of meaning (B. Hoffman and F. Elwert); fossilized witnesses to Job's illness (U. Hübner); on the reconstruction of a scarab in the New Kingdom (D. Kessler); egg, hare and frog: symbols for life and resurrection among the ancient Egyptians and Copts (K.S. Kolta); polytheism: experience in ancient Egypt (English; U. Luft); the Rephaim and Iron Age Philistia: evidence of a multi-generational family? (English; A.M. Maeir); divine image and history writing in Lion Feuchtwanger's novel, Jefta und seine Tochter (B. Magen); forgetting? on the Egyptian (pre-) history of the Lotus-eaters (L.D. Morenz); the leader of a trade mission from Sidon in Pi-Ramesse? (E.H. Pusch); on the concept of motif selection in the tomb of Amenemhet (BH 2) from Beni Hassan (S.M. Rabehl); an Egyptian example of the ‘golden rule’ (B.U. Schipper); the new presentation of a few foreign tiles in the Egyptian Museum of Munich (K. and A. Schlüter); the name and identity of Poimandres in the first treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum (English; T. Schneider); supporting the state: fragment of an anointing spoon (S. Schoske); a ‘flying sheet’ (R. Schulz and A. Eberle); the beginning of the Babylonian epic of creation (English: M.P. Streck); an example of execution by stoning in Ugarit (S. Timm); Ninḫursaĝa or the ‘Great Mother’? an iconographic-iconological outline of a phenomenon of the longue durée (S. Uehlinger); the new Israel inscription and its historical implications (P.G. van der Veen and W. Zwickel); the topos of a ‘harp singer’ in cross-cultural comparison (A. Verbovsek); the forest of Lab'u (M. Weippert); a seal of Michaiah (son of) Shaphan (S.J. Wimmer); researches on Moab and its sites in Egyptian sources (U. Worschech); and ‘I am the way, the truth and the love’?: Thoughts on John 14.6 (K.-T. Zauzich). Part 3 is ‘The Abrahamic Religions in Conversation’: ‘Religion requires an open attitude’ (Manfred Görg): an interreligious feat (U. Bechmann); Abraham in Mühldorf am Inn: Christians, Jews and Muslims in an upper Bavarian city (G. Gafus); religion and politics in the tension of canon, context, and culture from the sources of Judaism (E. Goodman-Thau); what we have to thank Manfred Görg for (A. Ulrich and D. Mann); to be Muslim and European, today and in the future (B. Idriz); children of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar: consequences for Jews, Christians and Muslims in Europe (K.-J. Kuschel); the world history of religion: an overview in six short chapters supplemented by an annotated bibliography of sketches of a global history of religion since Hegel (B. Lang); Catholic theologians and Judaism in the nineteenth century (M. Langer); Hebrew Bible, Old and New Testaments, and Quran (S. Leimgruber); Manfred Görg: a renewer (S. and R. Neudeck); ‘that one cannot be a Christian without coming into conversation with Jews’: Manfred Görg's unrestrained vision of the Christian-Jewish conversation (N. Reck); dialogue of the Abrahamic religions on the basis of the Second Vatican Council (A. Renz); strategies of a Christian mission to Jews and Muslims in Mahabad, Iran (M. Tamcke); remembrance of Professor Manfred Görg (Venio: Sr Eustochium Bischopink); and was Abraham a European? Can Europeans be Abrahamic? (S.J. Wimmer). The volume begins with an appreciation of Professor Görg by the editors.
L.L. G