Book Reviews - Old Testament

Review of Biblical Literature has published its latest edition of review of books in the area of biblical studies. Review of Biblical Literature is a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature.

The following reviews are of interest to students of the Old Testament:

Chaim Cohen, Victor Hurowitz, Avi Hurvitz, Yochanan Muffs, Baruch Schwartz, and Jeffrey Tigay, eds.

Birkat Shalom: Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday

Reviewed by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

Description: This magnificent volume is a compilation of the writings of friends, colleagues, and former students in tribute to Shalom Paul, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Bible Department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. More than 60 essayists contribute new ideas in the areas of research most loved by Prof. Paul, such as biblical literature and criticism, prophecy, comparative exegesis and linguistics, ancient Near Eastern historical and cultural milieus, and biblical and Mesopotamian law. Contributors include scholars of renown such as Adele Berlin, Frank Moore Cross, William G. Dever, Michael V. Fox, William W. Hallo, Sara Japhet, André Lemaire, Carol Meyers, Jacob Milgrom, Elisha Qimron, Gary A. Rendsburg, Jack M. Sasson, Shemaryahu Talmon, Emanuel Tov, James C. VanderKam, Joan Goodnick Westenholz, and Ziony Zevit.


Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns, eds.

Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings

Reviewed by Francis Dalrymple-Hamilton

Description: This third Old Testament volume in InterVarsity Press's celebrated "Black Dictionary" series offers nearly 150 articles covering all the important aspects of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther. Over ninety contributors, many of them experts in this literature, have contributed to the Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry and Writings. This volume maintains the quality of scholarship that students, scholars and pastors have come to expect from this series. Coverage of each biblical book includes an introduction to the book itself as well as separate articles on its ancient Near Eastern background and its history of interpretation. Additional articles amply explore the literary dimensions of Hebrew poetry and prose, including acrostic, ellipsis, inclusio, intertextuality, parallelism and rhyme. And there are well-rounded treatments of Israelite wisdom and wisdom literature, including wisdom poems, sources and theology. In addition, a wide range of interpretive approaches is canvassed in articles on hermeneutics, feminist interpretation, form criticism, historical criticism, rhetorical criticism and social-scientific approaches.


Leo G. Perdue

The Sword and the Stylus: An Introduction to Wisdom in the Age of Empires

Reviewed by Benjamin G. Wright III

Description: The all-too-frequent disregard of historical and social contexts by many wisdom scholars often leads to the distortion of this literature and transforms its teachings into abstract ideas lacking any incarnation in the social and historical world of human living. Leo Perdue here argues that the proper understanding of ancient wisdom literature requires one to move out of the realm of philosophical idealism into flesh-and-blood human history. Arguing that wisdom was international in practice and outlook, Perdue traces the interaction between both ruling and subject nations and their sages who produced their respective cultures and their foundational worldviews. While not always easy to reconstruct, he acknowledges, the historical and social settings of texts provide necessary contexts for interpretation and engagement by later readers and hearers. Wisdom texts did not transcend their life settings to espouse values regardless of time and circumstance. Rather, they are located in a variety of historical events in an evolving nation, reflecting a vast array of different and changing moral systems, epistemologies, and religious understandings.


Peter T. Vogt

Deuteronomic Theology and the Significance of Torah: A Reappraisal

Reviewed by Trent C. Butler

Description: One of the few areas of consensus in modern Deuteronomy scholarship is the contention that within the book of Deuteronomy there is a program of reform that was nothing short of revolutionary. Although there are divergent views regarding the specific details of this revolutionary program, most scholars agree that, in fundamental and profound ways, Deuteronomy was radical in its vision. This vision was expressed in key ideas: centralization of worship, secularization, and demythologization (of earlier traditions). However, Vogt argues that these ideas fail to account adequately for the data of the text of Deuteronomy itself. Instead, he claims, at the heart of Deuteronomic theology is the principle of the supremacy of Yahweh, which is to be acknowledged by all generations of Israelites through adherence to Torah. Thus, the book of Deuteronomy is in fact radical and countercultural but not in the ways that are usually adduced. It is radical in its rejection of ANE models of kingship and institutional permanence, in its emphasis on the holiness of life lived out before Yahweh, and in its elevation of Yahweh and his Torah. In the introductory chapter, the structure and ideology of the book are examined. Chapter 1 then examines some of the ways in which the theology of Deuteronomy has been understood, namely, in terms of centralization, secularization, and demythologization. Chapters 2-5 evaluate key texts that are used to support the idea that centralization, secularization, and demythologization are at the heart of the theology of Deuteronomy. An alternative reading of the texts is presented that highlights the supremacy of Yahweh and Torah. The final chapter investigates the theological and ideological implications of this alternative reading of key texts.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Book+Review

Book Reviews - Old Testament

Review of Biblical Literature has published its latest edition of review of books in the area of biblical studies. Review of Biblical Literature is a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature.

The following reviews are of interest to students of the Old Testament:

A. Berlejung and P. van Hecke, eds.
The Language of Qohelet in Its Context: Essays in Honour of Prof. A. Schoors on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday

Description: This volume contains thirteen articles on the book of Qohelet, which were read on an international symposium on the occasion of the seventieth birthday of Professor Antoon Schoors, one of the leading scholars of this intriguing book. The studies, written by international experts in the field, cover both grammatical and semantic aspects of the language of Qohelet, but also deal with exegetical problems in the book and with the position of the book and its language in its wider context. In this respect, the volume forms a fitting tribute to this Qohelet-scholar to whom the scholarly world owes much. It will be a welcome source to all those interested in the fascinating book of Qohelet and in Israel's wisdom literature in general.

Joshua A. Berman
Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

Description: Joshua Berman engages the text of the Hebrew Bible from a novel perspective -- as a document of social and political thought. He proposes that the Pentateuch can be read as the earliest prescription on record for the establishment of an egalitarian polity. The blueprint that emerges is that of a society that would stand in stark contrast to the social orders found in the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East -- Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire -- where the hierarchical structure of the polity was centered on the figure of the king and his retinue. Berman shows that the Pentateuch's egalitarian ideal is articulated in comprehensive fashion and is expressed in its theology, politics, economics, use of technologies of communication, and in its narrative literature. Throughout, he invokes parallels from the modern period as heuristic devices to illuminate the ancient developments under study. Thus, for example, the constitutional principles in the Book of Deuteronomy are examined in the light of principles espoused by Montesquieu, and the rise of the novel in 18th-century England serves to illuminate the advent of new modes of storytelling in biblical narrative.

Sang Youl Cho
Lesser Deities in the Ugaritic Texts and the Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Study of Their Nature and Roles

Description: This book presents a comparative work on the nature and various roles of the lesser deities, the so-called angels, in the Ugaritic Texts and the Hebrew Bible. The author agrees with and follows the traditional idea which insists on the necessity for a comparative study between the two religious literatures from Ugarit and ancient Israel. The study in this volume is interested in their membership in the heavenly council, their kinship among the deities, and their roles such as messengers, warriors, mediators, guardians, chanters, or servants, which have numerous similarities, in the Ugaritic texts and the Old Testament.

Lowell K. Handy
Jonah's World: Social Science and the Reading of Prophetic Story

Description: This work sets out the background world for the story of Jonah. Accepting the biblical book as a fictitious short story based on "real world" locations, the volume uses social science approaches to describe the imaginative world in which the action takes place. Since the story uses real places and recognizable persons to weave the narrative, at least three levels of perception are considered: 1) the "real" world behind the book's references, 2) the social and ideological constructs of the world, and 3) the imaginative world of the story itself. All of these are connected by and through the scribal author of the story. Geography, theology, human characters and natural flora and fauna are investigated. The models creatively used by humans to order their vision of the world can be shown to have been used as literary devices in constructing a story with totally fictitious historical citations as well as fabulous creatures and events that nonetheless conveys a message considered an insight into reality by the author. The story of Jonah, often read as a simple children's story, comes across as a more complicated and adult oriented narrative with a serious intent.

Chaim Navon
Genesis and Jewish Thought

Description: This book explores fundamental philosophical and theological issues arising in the Book of Genesis. It presents the richness of Jewish thought and notes its uniqueness in comparison with other approaches. Some of the topics addressed include religion and science, commandment and morality, individual and society, faith, guilt, evil and equality.

Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright III, eds.
A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under That Title

Description: NETS is a new translation of the Greek Jewish Scriptures, entitled A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under that Title (and abbreviated as NETS). This project is being carried out under the ægis of The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS). The translators are specialists in Septuagint studies. Their translations follow rigorous procedures established by the editors. Oxford University Press publishes the translation. An accompanying commentary series is also planned.

Katherine M. Stott
Why Did They Write This Way? Reflections on References to Written Documents in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Literature

Description: This book examines the character and function of the documents mentioned in the biblical texts in relation to comparable references in literature from wider antiquity. Citing various references to written documents in the Hebrew Bible, Stott takes into consideration both those references that may point to external sources, for example, the many literary citations in the books of Kings and Chronicles, as well as certain other documents that play a role in the narrative, such as "the book of the law" in 2 Kings, the scrolls of Jeremiah, and the tablets of the law. The aim of this study is not to determine to which texts external to the world of the narrative, if any, these documents refer, or to identify the content of these documents, or to reconstruct their origins and historical development. Instead, the primary focus is to understand these references within their literary context, asking why indeed they are mentioned at all and what purpose they serve in the narrative, regardless of whether they existed or not in the "external world", or whether the stories about them have basis in historical reality "as it happened."


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Book Review

The Review of Biblical Literature

The following book reviews dealing with the Old Testament and related studies have been added to the Review of Biblical Literature. The Review of Biblical Literature is a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature (http://www.sbl-site.org).

James R. Davila
The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other?
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5139
Reviewed by Johann Cook

Carol Dempsey
Jeremiah: Preacher of Grace, Poet of Truth
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5779
Reviewed by Mitchel Modine

Yonatan Kolatch
Masters of the Word: Traditional Jewish Bible Commentary from the First through the Tenth Centuries
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5583
Reviewed by Alex P. Jassen

Paul Lawrence
The IVP Atlas of Bible History
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5738
Reviewed by Christoph Stenschke

Lee Martin MacDonald
The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5678
Reviewed by David Chapman

Melvin K. H. Peters, ed.
XII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Leiden, 2004
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5694
Reviewed by Michael Tilly

Peter Schäfer
Jesus in the Talmud
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5783
Reviewed by Catherine Hezser

Mark D. Thompson
A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5722
Reviewed by Francois Viljoen

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Book Reviews