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Reviews and More Reviews.

A sampling of the latest from Review of Biblical Literature. Enjoy.

H. Ausloos, F. García Martínez, M. Vervenne, J. Cook, and B. Lemmelijn, eds.
Translating a Translation: The LXX and Its Modern Translations in the Context of Early Judaism
Reviewed by Tuukka Kauhanen

Craig A. Evans and Emanuel Tov, eds.
Exploring the Origins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective
Reviewed by Everett Ferguson

Weston W. Fields
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Short History
Reviewed by Eric F. Mason

Harry Alan Hahne
The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Nature in Romans 8.19-22 and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature
Reviewed by Ron Fay

Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck, eds.
Encyclopedia of Religious and Philosophical Writings in Late Antiquity: Pagan, Judaic, Christian
Reviewed by Mark D. Nanos

Karel van der Toorn
Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible
Reviewed by Frank Polak

Reviews.

More reviews from Review of Biblical Literature. Now if only I had one of those trees that grows money...

Dianne Bergant

Scripture: History and Interpretation

Reviewed by Sean P. Kealy

Adele Berlin

The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism

Reviewed by Allan Rosengren

Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins, eds.

The Early Enoch Literature

Reviewed by William Loader

James H. Charlesworth

The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide

Reviewed by Peter J. Judge

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss, eds.

The Torah: A Women's Commentary

Reviewed by Yael Shemesh

David Flusser; translated by Azzan Yadin

Judaism of the Second Temple Period, Volume 1: Qumran and Apocalypticism

Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee, eds.

The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature

Reviewed by Daniel R. Schwartz

Randall Heskett

Messianism within the Scriptural Scrolls of Isaiah

Reviewed by J. Todd Hibbard

RBL Book Reviews.

A few book reviews of note from Review of Biblical Literature:

Gabriele Boccaccini, ed.
Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables
Reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus

Maurice Casey
The Solution to the 'Son of Man' Problem
Reviewed by Paul Owen

David J. Chalcraft, ed.
Sectarianism in Early Judaism: Sociological Advances
Reviewed by Boris Repschinski

Sidnie White Crawford
Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times
Reviewed by Stephen A. Reed

Steven D. Fraade, Aharon Shemesh, and Ruth A. Clements, eds.
Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7-9 January, 2003)
Reviewed by Moshe J. Bernstein

Benjamin Edidin Scolnic
Thy Brother's Blood: The Maccabees and Dynastic Morality in the Hellenistic World
Reviewed by Lester L. Grabbe

Review of Biblical Literature Blog.

Review of Biblical Literature has recently launched a blog-format for reviews. The blog-format is pretty cool in that it offers a chance for people to comment and interact over the book and review. Check it our here.

Highly Recommended.

Jim West just finished a chapter by chapter review of Hanan Eshel's The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State. After reading the book I have to concur with West in saying that it is perhaps one of the best treatments of the historical references found in various DSS texts available. The book is carefully constructed and solidly argued. If you are at all interested in the field of current research on the scrolls, this is a must read volume.

Reviews and More Reviews.

If you're looking for book reviews in he broad area of Biblical studies, Review of Biblical Literature is perhaps one of the best clearing houses out there. Every month they peer review some 40-50 works, posting them as PDF downloads. It is well worth subscribing to their email reminder...

Here are a few that have recently caught my eye. Enjoy.

Edward Adams
The Stars Will Fall from Heaven: Cosmic Catastrophe in the New Testament and Its World
Reviewed by Lorenzo DiTommaso

Hector Avalos
The End of Biblical Studies
Reviewed by Ulrich H. J. Körtner

Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem
Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg

Stephen K. Catto
Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research
Reviewed by Birger Olsson

Alec Gilmore
A Concise Dictionary of Bible Origins and Interpretation
Reviewed by Jan G. van der Watt

Richard A. Horsley
Scribes, Visionaries, and the Politics of Second Temple Judea
Reviewed by Lester L. Grabbe

Thomas L. Leclerc
Introduction to the Prophets: Their Stories, Sayings, and Scrolls
Reviewed by Bo H. Lim

Grant Macaskill
Revealed Wisdom and Inaugurated Eschatology in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
Reviewed by Brian Han Gregg

Alexander Samely
Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought: An Introduction
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz

David E. S. Stein, ed.
The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation
Reviewed by Linda S. Schearing

Ben Zion Wacholder
The New Damascus Document: The Midrash on the Eschatological Torah of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Reconstruction, Translation and Commentary
Reviewed by Gregory L. Doudna

[Now if only I had the money to buy more books... perhaps there should be some "academic bailout" package.]

Rapture Ready.

So I've been working my way [albeit slowly] through Daniel Reddish's, Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. I must say it is not what I thought it was going to be... it's better. When I first got the book sent to me [via TheOOZE], my first reaction was "Okay, Is this going to be another book about kitschy Christian subculture." While I was getting myself ready for the patented pot shots at an easy target, what I found was something different.

The book is a well written and very balanced exploration into the underworld of Christian pop culture. Radosh, a self-described secular Jew, takes the reader on a journey into the good, the bad, and also the bizzarre of Christian subculture. [His rant on Stephen Baldwin and "Livin' It" is worth the entire price of the book!] It was surprisingly even handed and thoughtful. I think one strength of the book is the spiritual pilgrimage Radosh goes through while he guides the ready through the crazy world of "Christianity."

What comes out in the end is a fascinating, as well as painfully honest, exploration of what often gets passed as "Christian" - the creation of a cocoon, constructed to help Christians be "safe from the influences of the world," yet unwittingly creating it's own alternate reality.

The book is quite readable as it leads the reader through a variety of emotions - from unadulterated outrage to deep compassion. I'm only two thirds of the way through it, but I'm enjoy it.

The best part of the book may not be the book itself but the accompanying website, www.getraptureready.com, which is loaded with the videos, interviews, photos, a blog, and more. It is a veritable cornucopia, if you will, of Christian pop culture. It's brilliant. Check it out. [Oh, and the book too!]

Reviews and More Reviews.

With my life still deeply wrapped up in reading and research, I've been keeping my eye on a lot of book reviews that have been floating around lately. Here are a few reviews that caught my eye... Enjoy.

From Review of Biblical Literature:

A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible [John J. Collins]
Reviewed by Robin Gallaher Branch

Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature [Birger A Pearson]
Reviewed by James F. McGrath

Oral Tradition and Literary Dependency: Variability and Stability in the Synoptic Tradition and Q [Terence C. Mournet]
Reviewed by Robert K. McIver

Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions [Michael Thomas Davis and Brent A. Strawn, editors]
Reviewed by Heinz-Josef Fabry

Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity [Markus Bockmuehl and James Carleton Paget, editors]
Reviewed by Joshua Ezra Burns

Roman Imperial Ideology and the Gospel of John [Lance Byron Richey]
Reviewed by Warren Carter

The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary: Volume 8: Tractate Yebamot [Jacob Neusner, editor]
Reviewed by Rivka Ulmer

The Coins and the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Economy of Palestine [Jane DeRose Evans]
Reviewed by Mark A. Chancey

The Copper Scroll and the Search for the Temple Treasure [Hershel Shanks]
Reviewed by Kenneth Atkinson

The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [J. Harold Ellens, editor]
Reviewed by Jan Willem van Henten

The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright [John Piper]
Reviewed by Don Garlington

The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative [Christopher J. H. Wright]
Reviewed by Christopher N. Chandler

In addition, James McGrath has also reviewed a few other really interesting reads on his blog:

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes [Kenneth E. Bailey]

With or Without God: Why The Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe [Gretta Vosper]

Garlington on Piper on Wright.

Review of Biblical Literature recently posted Don Garlington's review of John Piper's The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. After reading the review, which is much longer and more in depth than many of the reviews I've seen on the book, I have ti admit that Garlington's assessment is one of the more well thought out responses out there. Carefully allowing Piper to speak for himself, in the end Garlington notes that while Piper does indeed have several valid points, his argument is overstated and quite lacking in depth and, oddly enough, persuasive exegesis. Garlington ends his thoughts with this:

In sum, Piper's response to Tom Wright is worth reading for those interested in the seemingly never-ending debate over justification. On a couple of issues noted above, I should think that Piper has the better of the argument. But for the most part, he has failed to demonstrate that Wright is wrong. The claim that the latter's paradigm for justification "leaves many ordinary folk not with the rewarding 'ah-ha' experience of illumination, but with a paralyzing sense of perplexity" (24) is too subjective to be a useful criterion. In a nutshell, this book is mainly a defense of traditional doctrines, with a minimum of persuasive exegesis and a heavy reliance upon confessionalism.

As much as anything, the book is flawed by its near phobia of anything that smacks of newness and freshness, which, for Piper, must be suspect by definition. This is why we are exhorted to be suspicious of "our love of novelty" (neophilia) and eager to test the biblical interpretations by "the wisdom of the centuries" (38). Agreed, but surely "the wisdom of the centuries" included our own century. Wright is precisely correct: we are "to think new thoughts arising from the text and to dare to try them out in word and deed" (quoted on 37. emphasis added). Piper would do well to recall Matt. 13:52: "And he said to them, Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.'" I would say the appropriate response to matters "new" and "fresh" is not skepticism but the Beroean spirit of searching the Scriptures to see if these things are so (Acts 17:11).

The entire review is well worth the time to read. Garlington touches on a point of concern I had with the book as well, namely Piper's dismissal of the scholarly procedure of wrestling with attempting to set the New Testament texts within their historical milieu. While Piper does in fact address some valid cautions, those cautions do not necessitate the dismissal he endorses.

Garlington also touches on another important issue resulting from Pipers dismissal - his lack of in depth exegesis of crucial texts, like 4QMMT, which speaks to the historical understanding of the phrase "works of the law." For Piper, 4QMMT offers little in regards to the discussion on justification, which exposes his position on historical setting. As Garlington notes in his summary, Piper has defended well the traditional view, but without offering exegetical support. What he seemingly relies on is "the wisdom [interpretation] of the centuries" without wrestling with the scriptural texts and other writings that inform them, especially crucial texts that have come to light in the past century.

The Resurrection Reviewed.

While there have been quite a few reviews lately of Vermes' latest work, The Resurrection: History and Myth, this one is perhaps the best I've read yet. Daniel J. Harrington offers a very balanced review in a recent post in America: The National Catholic Weekly. I think he hits the nail on the head, with a mixture of praise and thoughtful correctives. Here's a bit of Harrington's review:

In the first part of The Resurrection, the author surveys attitudes toward life after death in the Jewish world before Jesus. He traces the development of afterlife expectations from the shadowy existence of the dead in Sheol in pre-exilic times, through metaphorical uses of resurrection terminology by Ezekiel, to clear statements about resurrection and/or immortality in Daniel, 2 Maccabees and the Wisdom of Solomon. He gives particular attention to the role of martyrdom in Maccabean times in this development, on the grounds that God must reward after death such faithful and heroic behavior. On the whole, Vermes’s treatment of the Jewish evidence is comprehensive and balanced. However, he tends toward minimalist interpretations, especially in treating the Dead Sea scrolls, where some of his own translations point in the direction of a lively hope for blissful existence after death, and some even suggest bodily resurrection. And he ignores three Jewish writings (Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch) that deal extensively with life after death and are contemporary with the New Testament writings. Minimalist also is his conclusion that the notion of bodily resurrection propagated by the Pharisees was alien to first-century Hellenistic Jews and was unfamiliar in most layers of Palestinian Jewry.

Check out the rest of Harrington's thoughts here.

[HT: Chris Brady]