Paterson, J. C. Schapp, P. Schrader, L. Shaw, B. B. Taylor, andW. Wangerin Jr. Some authors uphold faith-filled writing’spositive side—the way scripture displays evocative imagesfor story making (Paterson), how personal stories may benarrated or read through the lens of biblical stories (Beuch-ner), the range of tropes (subversion, testimony, worship,etc.) for the experience of writing, and whether to tell storiesof belief implicitly or explicitly, with either “whispers”(Betts) or with “shouts” (Lott). Other writers grapple with thedarker side—triumphalism or cynicism (Kogawa, Lamott)—offaith-filled writing. The volume’s closing contributions(Shaw, L’Engle, Lynch) make the connection betweenwriting, reading, and living incarnationally. An engagingread, Shouts and Whispers will suit the generalist as well asthe student of theology, imagination, and the arts.

Darren J. N. MiddletonTexas Christian University

GRAHAM GREENE AND THE POLITICS OFPOPULAR FICTION AND FILM. By Brian LindsayThomson. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. xiv + 248.$90.00.

On the twentieth anniversary of Graham Greene’spassing, and in advance of two eagerly anticipated studies ofhis fiction and film (A. Wooton and R. J. Hand), this bookscolds the many academics who have discussed this prolifictwentieth-century writer. It laments their penchant forviewing Greene through the lens of the writer’s peculiarities,such as his Catholic agnosticism or his serial adultery, andThomson shows that this author-centric approach neglectshow Greene’s readers have solidified his reputation acrosstime. Shunning psychobiographical criticism, “a reserve forevangelicals, eccentrics, and enthusiasts—but not for seriousscholars,” Thomson spends fourteen chapters situating“Greene’s work in a wider matrix of cultural negotiations.”With his Marxist reader–response theory, Thomson ana-lyzes five of Greene’s novels (Stamboul Train, The Third Man,The End of the Affair, The Quiet American, and Our Man inHavana), together with their adaptations to the screen, andhe emerges from his nuanced discussions with an excitingaccount of how writerly production and readerly consump-tion commingle to create art. Targeted toward the scholarlyguild, especially those professors who foster “the fetishiza-tion of the individual talent implied by the concept of litera-ture than has prevailed in the academy” for some time now,this book, because of its intellectual heft and political sug-gestiveness, is unlikely to leave Greene’s critics unmoved.

Darren J. N. MiddletonTexas Christian University

Ancient Near EastISAIAH’S POLITICAL MESSAGE. By Olof Bäckersten.Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 29. Tübingen:Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Pp. viii + 231. Paper, $110.00.

This revised dissertation (Lund University 2007) exam-ines the so-called woe-oracles in Isa 5:8-24 and 10:1-4 inorder to challenge the interpretive consensus that a “social-critical discourse” (condemnation of the elite for unjusttreatment of the poor and vulnerable) is dominant in Isa1-39. Following a discussion of methodology, the workdevotes a chapter to each oracle (5:8-10, 11-17, 18-19, 20-21,22-24; 10:1-4), providing fresh translations and text-criticaldiscussions and arguing that these texts more readily admita concern with foreign-political affairs. Bäckersten intendshis findings to have far-reaching implications, contendingthat the majority of texts in 1 Isa—plausibly, if notpreferably—relate to a “foreign-political discourse” (criticismof Judah’s foreign policy and involvement in anti-Assyrianrebellions). He sees the foreign-political and social-criticaldiscourses as “mutually exclusive” and suggests (withoutdeveloped argument) that Isa 1 offers the only clear social-critical emphasis in Isa 1-39, and that this social-criticaltheme was likely a postexilic addition to the collection ofchapters 1-66. The volume makes an important contributionto the works that have emphasized the centrality of politicalaffairs to the prophetic texts, yet the specific foreign-politicalreadings seem forced at times, and the interpretations aremixed with a heavy dose of redactional hypotheses charac-teristic of contemporary German scholarship on the proph-ets. Many readers will likely question the strict separation ofthe social and political discourses, but the detailed develop-ment of the latter makes the volume significant for propheticscholars and research libraries.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

NAHUM. By Duane L. Christensen. The Anchor Yale Bible24F. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.Pp. xxxiv + 423. $65.00.

In this volume, Christensen stretches the traditionalmeaning of the term “commentary.” The author bringstogether an approach he terms “logoprosodic analysis”(dealing with the counting of Hebrew syllables) and the fieldof archaeomusicology to present a reading of the prophetNahum as a sort of musical composition. He claims, in hisintroduction, that his study of the poetic/musical form ofNahum is consistent with poetic analysis of biblical pro-phetic texts stretching back as far as 1783. Although poeticanalysis is far from unique among biblical scholars, Chris-tensen’s apparent opposition of poetic analysis to more tra-ditionally historical-critical questions is notable. The bookcontains a large bibliography very useful for furtherresearch on Nahum, as well as many helpful exegeticalobservations. The commentary as a whole largely detailsChristensen’s “logoprosodic” approach, but the “notes” offerparticularly useful insights concerning the Assyrian contextof much of the material discussed in Nahum.

Phillip Michael ShermanMaryville College

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

202

WOMEN’S LIVES IN BIBLICAL TIMES. By Jennie R.Ebeling. New York: T & T Clark International (Continuum),2010. Pp. xiii + 172; illustrations, map. $32.95.

This book makes a unique contribution to the knowl-edge about women in biblical Israel by combining typicalfeatures from a variety of fields of study that can shed lighton the lives of women in biblical times. Use of the Bible asthe sole source of women’s stories provides little evidence ofthe everyday life of typical women and girls. Archeologicalstudies pay attention to the life of the common person inancient Israel, but do not focus on women’s activities orgender-specific responsibilities and contributions. Ebelingcombines archeological data, textual and iconographic evi-dence, and ethnographic analogs to reconstruct the life of atypical woman in Iron Age Israel. Ebeling traces the life ofthe fictional character Orah through seven stages: birth,childhood at eight years old, transition to womanhoodat twelve, marriage at fifteen, childbirth at eighteen, moth-erhood at twenty-six, and old age and death in her late thir-ties. The genius of this author is the way she places the lifeof the character within larger contexts of seasonal changes,holidays, and ritual practices. In addition, she includes fas-cinating details about the technology of the period, making iteasy to imagine how women made their way through life inearly Israel. This book will be valuable to any reader whowants to understand more about the life of women in ancientIsrael. It will appeal to readers who have read popular fic-tions or viewed modern films involving biblical characters,to students and teachers of courses dealing with women inthe Bible, and to scholars who are interested in an in-depthscholarly treatment of the topic. Each chapter ends withmaterial for additional reading.

Chris FrankeSt. Catherine University

FROM GODS TO GOD: THE DYNAMICS OF IRONAGE COSMOLOGIES. By Baruch H. Halpern. Forschun-gen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 63. Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 2009. Pp. xiv + 556. Cloth, €114.00; $220.00.

These twelve essays were previously published in nineanthologies and three journals between 1981 and 2007. The-matically, the volume deals with the rejection of social, cul-tural, and religious traditions in the eighth and seventhcenturies BCE, primarily in ancient Israel, but with someconsideration of Assyria and Greece. The essays are groupedunder four headings. “Part I: The Rejection of Tradition”discusses the development of monotheism as an explicitdenial of the past. “Part II: Cultural Transformations andComposition” focuses on the historiography of ancient Israeland the development of biblical texts. “Part III: The State’sRejection of Religion: Revolution and Reformation” treats therise of personal moral responsibility in Jeremiah and Ezekielwithin the context of Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s reforms as wellas international politics. “Part IV: The Dynamics of Cosmo-logical Thought in Iron Age Societies” considers Mesopota-mian and Greek astronomical speculation as a new means of

divination. Each essay is prefaced by new introductoryremarks by Halpern about its initial composition and relat-ing it to his other essays, both in this volume and elsewhere.Although not as unified as a monograph dedicated to thetopic, this collection nonetheless contains numerousinsights into this pivotal period in Ancient Israel. Scholarsand graduate students will benefit from having these dispar-ate essays collected into one volume, which is especiallysuited for academic libraries.

John L. McLaughlinUniversity of St. Michael’s College

THE MESSAGE OF THE PROPHETS: A SURVEY OFTHE PROPHETIC AND APOCALYPTIC BOOKS OFTHE OLD TESTAMENT. By J. Daniel Hays. Grand Rapids,MI: Zondervan, 2010. Pp. 376. Hardback, $44.99.

This work adds a decidedly conservative evangelicaltreatment to the recent introductory textbooks to the OTprophetic literature. The audience is beginning-level Chris-tian (evangelical) students, and the book moves from back-ground and methodological issues through discussions ofIsaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, along with Lamen-tations and Daniel. The volume features pragmatic elements(discussion questions and writing assignments), and there isan overall emphasis on assigning the prophetic books tohistorical settings—although often within conservative or out-dated reconstructions—and addressing theological messagesand application—although construed within conservativeevangelical formulations. Individual chapters treat sectionsof the different prophetic books, at times in confusing ways.Hence, the author argues for the unity of Isaiah, but assignsIsa 40-55 and 56-66 to separate chapters (and switches thecanonical order of Haggai and Zechariah—chapters 26 and27). Hays provides cursory discussions of basic issues(genres, composition, redaction), but with a shallow consid-eration of the sociology of prophecy and virtually no treat-ment of ancient Near Eastern materials. The chapters consistessentially of thematic summaries and often attempt to estab-lish “liberal” versus “conservative” categories for interpre-tive perspectives. Although the book will be useful in certaintheological contexts, the volume omits any attention togender issues/feminist concerns (even for the most obvioustexts such as Hos 2 and Ezek 16; 23), lacks basic gender-inclusive language, and eschews many new approaches suchas trauma theory and postcolonialist perspectives.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

BIBLICAL METAPHOR RECONSIDERED: A COGNI-TIVE APPROACH TO POETIC PROPHECY INJEREMIAH 1-24. By Job Y. Jindo. Harvard Semitic Mono-graphs 64. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2010. Pp.vii + 343. $37.85.

This book employs recent studies in cognitive linguis-tics and poetics to develop an interpretive approach to themetaphors in Jeremiah. Not only is poetic metaphor a stylis-

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

203

tic device, but, more importantly, it is also a cognitive one inwhich the metaphor offers a mode of orientation, or insight,to reality. After a short theoretical discussion of the cognitivelinguistic account of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson) and asuperfluous analysis of the structure of the book of Jeremiah,Jindo explores the “global metaphor” of “the cosmos is astate” in Jeremiah 1-24. It is through this concept that Jer-emiah’s prophecies expose the hidden truth of events unfold-ing in the human world. The following chapter shifts tothe “local metaphors” which focus on the charactersthemselves—that is, how YHWH and the prophet perceiveand experience the world. Here, Jindo offers a close andinteresting reading of the “plant metaphor” as it weavesthrough the text. Both the deity and prophet employ themetaphor in their discourse not merely as rhetorical embel-lishments, but rather to develop the metaphorical conceptof “Israel is YHWH’s royal garden,” through which theyperceive the destruction and subsequent restoration ofJudah and Jerusalem. Insofar as Jindo’s central concern isnot a specific biblical text (Jeremiah) but rather a generalapproach to poetic metaphor, his work is a welcome contri-bution. Although at times discursive and in places predict-able, biblical scholars working on metaphor, poetic oracles,or Jeremiah would do well to consider this book.

Mark RoncaceWingate University

IMAGES OF OTHERS: ICONIC POLITICS INANCIENT ISRAEL. By Nathaniel B. Levtow. Biblical andJudaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego,vol. 11. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008. Pp. xii + 211.Cloth, $35.50.

Levtow interprets the biblical icon parodies in Jer 10:1-16, Second Isaiah, and Psalms 115 and 135 within theirhistorical, social, and religious contexts during the Exilicperiod. Previous interpreters took these texts as evidence ofancient Israel’s uniqueness in comparison with its neigh-bors, reflecting Israel’s spiritual monotheism versus materi-alistic polytheism. In contrast, Levtow relates the iconparodies to the Mesopotamian mı̄s pî (“washing the mouth”)ritual, in which the divine presence is linked to a statue theartisan denies having actually made, as well as to Mesopota-mian texts that narrate the removal and debasement of theimages of an enemy’s god(s). Operating from a status ofsocial and political weakness, the biblical authors built uponthese ancient traditions to assert a position of power withintheir Israelite community by mocking the gods of theirBabylonian conquerors while simultaneously asserting thesuperiority of their own god. By building on detailed presen-tations of the Mesopotamian icon rituals and literary tradi-tions, Levtow provides cogent, well-argued insights into thebiblical icon parodies that will prove profitable for all thoseinterested in the issue. This book is recommended for schol-ars and graduate students.

John L. McLaughlinUniversity of St. Michael’s College

THE HEBREW PROPHETS: AN INTRODUCTION.By Jack R. Lundbom. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010.Pp. vii-xiii + 258. Paper, $24.00.

This work adds to the number of recent textbooks intro-ducing OT prophetic literature. Lundbom’s work featuresmany of the common elements of such introductions, yet hasan uncommon, two-part organization, and pays special atten-tion to the issue of authenticity (determining true versusfalse prophets). Part one deals with background issues,themes, and characteristics of prophets and prophecy(divine call, foretelling versus forthtelling, social justice,etc.) and includes a chapter-length discussion of the issue ofauthenticity. Lundbom offers a brief survey of the “mes-sages” of each OT prophet, beginning with Samuel and other“early” prophets. The treatments do not follow any apparentorder (historical or canonical) and often present particularinterpretations without discussion of the broader scholarlyconversation. Part two shifts from message to form anddevotes chapters to prophetic poetry, prose, rhetoric, andsymbolic actions. This section contains an extensive discus-sion of the prophets as rhetoricians and the various rhetori-cal elements present in the prophetic texts. The book isaimed at a general audience of students and lay people—witha special concern to relate the prophets to contemporarysocial issues and Christian theology—but may also be a con-venient reference for scholars. While the unique approach tothe introductory task commends the book, the volume lacksany attention to gender issues/feminist concerns andexcludes consideration of ancient Near Eastern prophecy asa background for the OT prophets.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

BIBLICAL PROPHETS AND CONTEMPORARYENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS. By Hilary Marlow. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xvi + 288. $120.00.

Marlow’s work joins a growing number of contributionsfrom biblical scholars that address issues related to the envi-ronmental crisis. The book can be easily divided into twomajor sections. Chapter 1 opens with a broad overview oftheological reflection on the category of “nature” within theChristian tradition. As is often the case in such works,Marlow is partly responding to the well-known charge by thehistorian L. White, Jr. (first leveled in 1967) that the modernenvironmental crisis has its roots in the Jewish and Chris-tian tradition of human dominion over the natural world. Ashave many before her, she concludes that the situation ismore complex. Marlow focuses particular attention inchapter 2 on the diminished role the theme of nature orcreation played in early and mid-twentieth-century biblicalscholarship. The defining characteristic of Israelite religion,according to scholars such as Von Rad, was salvationhistory. Chapter 3 provides reflection and evaluation of priorattempts at Ecological Hermeneutics. The next three chap-ters are exegetical in nature and cover the prophets Amos,Hosea, and First Isaiah. In each case, Marlow examines the

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

204

various ways in which the nonhuman creation is presentedby the prophet. She concludes with a discussion of how bestto bring biblical texts into ethical dialog with contemporaryissues.

Phillip Michael ShermanMaryville College

THE UNHEARD VOICE OF GOD: A PENTECOSTALHEARING OF THE BOOK OF JUDGES. By Lee RoyMartin. Blandford Forum, UK: Deo Publishing, 2008.Pp. ix + 234, appendices A-D. Paper, $29.95.

For Martin, Judges is not “historiography to be exam-ined or . . . ideology to be evaluated; . . . it functions as a pro-phetic voice to be heard.” Martin intends to produce a workwhich “adequately serves the needs of that [Pentecostal]community,” and which has not heretofore been done. Aftersummarizing ancient (i.e., Christian) and modern works andhis Pentecostal orientation, Martin turns to his thesis thatYahweh’s speeches in 2:1-5, 6:7-10, and 10:11-14 function asthe engine for the narrative. This makes for a compellingstudy of Judges, which Martin intends as a new approach tothe whole of Judges. Notwithstanding this intention, meth-odological inconsistencies limit the effectiveness of thework. While holding to the scholarly consensus of threedivisions to Judges (1.1-3.6; 3.7-16.31; 17.1-21.25), Martin’sspeeches only occur in the first two sections. If correct,would not the third section also be represented? Thisproblem is particularly acute given the fact that Yahwehdoes speak in the third section (20:18, 23, 28) and raisesquestions about Martin’s assertion that the third speech(Judges 10) marks a “turning point.” Moreover, Martin doesnot adequately discuss certain terms relevant to the Pente-costal tradition and how they are or are not used in Judges.For instance, “Holiness” as a substantive does not appear inJudges. Martin also univocalizes Spirit with statements suchas: “Judges could almost be called the Acts of the Old Testa-ment” without adequately addressing each. Although com-pelling in some respects, these inconsistencies may limit theinfluence of this work.

Brad J. EmbryNorthwest University

THE BOOK OF AMOS IN EMERGENT JUDAH. ByJason Radine. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.45.Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Pp. xii + 270. Paper,$117.50.

This revised dissertation (University of Michigan, 2007)proposes that the earliest form of Amos was composed afterthe fall of the northern kingdom and was addressed to aJudean audience to justify Yahweh’s actions and warn thesouthern kingdom against a similar fate. Radine first offers areconstruction of the book’s redactional growth that identi-fies the “earliest” units in Amos (1:1-2; 2:6—7:9; 8:1—9:10,excepting 3:1-2; 4:13; 5:8-9; 9:5-6). Chapter 2 attempts tolink the earliest layer with the historical circumstances sur-rounding the fall of the northern kingdom. The author then

proposes that the genre of Amos is not “prophecy” as knownfrom other ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts (chapter 3),but is a “literary-predictive text” known from various Meso-potamian exemplars and offering ex eventu description inthe guise of prediction (chapter 4). Chapter 5 comparesAmos with the ancient city and national laments to ascertainits rhetorical function, and chapter 6 discusses the sectionsdeemed as exilic or postexilic additions. Radine draws uponrecent reformulations of Israelite history that see Judahemerging as a significant kingdom only after the fall ofSamaria and includes thorough interaction with up-to-datescholarship, especially extensive examinations of parallelmaterials. The work suffers from the hypothetical and some-times arbitrary nature of redactional proposals, and Amos’shistorical references and allusions do not so clearly point tothe Assyrian actions against Samaria. Most significantly, theauthor’s proposals concerning genre do not engage scholar-ship on the prophets as rhetorical orators and the subse-quent implications for understanding the nature of the texts.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

DER TYROSZYKLUS DES EZECHIELBUCHES. ByMarkus Saur. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift die alttestamentlicheWissenschaft 386. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008. Pp. xii + 368.Cloth, $123.00.

This study is composed first and foremost of an analysisof the Tyre chapters in Ezekiel (26-28). Yet it moves fromthese chapters to examine the city of Tyre in the biblicalimagination as a whole, treating every occurrence of Tyre inthe Hebrew Bible. Saur begins with text-critical and literary(synchronic, diachronic, and form-historical) analyses of theEzekiel texts. In the conclusion, Saur returns to the “theo-logical profile” of these chapters against the backdrop ofother biblical texts. The central part of his study, however,focuses on Tyre itself. It begins with the history of the city.After surveying the available sources, Saur discusses devel-opments from the second millennium to Ptolemaic andSeleucid rule at the end of the first. Particular attention isdevoted to the city during the Neo-Babylonian period in rela-tion to Ezekiel 26, an important chapter for historical recon-struction of the Levant in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Saurthen turns to Tyrian (domestic and foreign) politics,economy, and trade in relation to Ezekiel 27, and religion inrelation to Ezekiel 28. The book provides not only a nuancedliterary analysis of several chapters in Ezekiel but also avery useful synthesis of the history and culture of Tyre in thefirst millennium.

Jacob L. WrightEmory University

DIE IKONOGRAPHIE PALÄSTINAS/ISRAELS UNDDER ALTE ORIENT: EINE RELIGIONSGESCHICHTEIN BILDERN. BAND 2. DIE MITTELBRONZEHEIT.By Sylvia Schroer. BIBEL + ORIENT MUSEUM. Fribourg: Fri-bourg Academic Press, 2008. Pp. 339. Cloth, €44.00, $69.00.

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

205

This is the second of four volumes dealing with thereligious history of ancient Palestine/Israel based on theiconographic evidence from the area. It begins with briefreviews of the dating of the middle Bronze Age (2300/1950-1550 BCE), the main sites in Palestine/Israel and histories ofthe neighboring countries, followed by an overview of theiconographic material according to Egyptian and Babylo-nian, Assyrian and Syrian visual motifs, plus a summary ofhow such motifs recur in the later biblical literature. Thebulk of the volume (322 pages) catalogs 290 glyptic finds.Each is accompanied by a description and explanation of thepiece, followed by details as to the date, the discovery siteand current location, measurements, and publications andparallels. This information and the images themselves arearranged in facing-page format, facilitating the analysis ofthe latter. This is a detailed contribution to the religioushistory of the area during the stated time period, both in itsown right and as background to the biblical literature. Itsvalue as a scholarly reference work is further enhanced byindices of locations keyed to the catalog of images andof each image’s editio princeps, as well as the extensivebibliography. This volume is recommended for advancedlibraries.

John L. McLaughlinUniversity of St. Michael’s College

THE GOODLY FELLOWSHIP OF THE PROPHETS:THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ASSOCIATION IN CANONFORMATION. By Christopher R. Seitz. Grand Rapids, MI:Baker Academic, 2009. Pp. 136. Paper, $19.99.

This volume builds upon Seitz’s previous exploration ofcanonical association and the prophetic books (Prophecy andHermeneutics, 2007), reusing some material included there.He proposes that the prophetic corpus, by which he meansthe books and ordering of the Masoretic Text’s Former andLatter prophets, constituted a unified composition of delib-erately associated books by the time of the formation of theNT and provided a significant hermeneutical and theologicalinfluence on the NT’s formation and form. The centralchapter of the book attempts to identify the “associativemoves” (cross-references, thematic links, etc.) throughwhich the prophetic books are intimately related to oneanother and to argue that these reveal a conception of thecorpus as an emerging unified canon from the beginning ofthe development of the individual books. The entire pro-phetic corpus should thus be read as presenting a single,unified witness that gives a theological account of history asthe accomplishment of the divine word in the world. Thebook’s arguments are largely polemical in nature, rejectingcommon views within contemporary prophetic and canoni-cal scholarship. The arguments remain largely at the level ofproposal, with a limited amount of detailed examples, anddepend heavily upon some particular theories concerningthe unity of the Book of the Twelve. Readers with advancedknowledge of developments in the field will wish for moreacknowledgment of the critiques of the views upon which

Seitz builds. This volume is recommended for advancedreaders and theological libraries.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

YOU ARE MY PEOPLE: AN INTRODUCTION TOTHE PROPHETIC LITERATURE. By Louis Stulman andHyun Chul Paul Kim. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2010.Pp. xvi + 323. Paper, $25.00.

This work makes a significant contribution to both theincreasing number of recent introductions to the prophetsand studies engaging the notion of trauma to interpret bib-lical texts. The volume is not a traditional introduction butinterprets the prophetic texts through the lens of disasterand survival literature that is able to speak candidly andgenerate hope against the backdrop of trauma and exile. Theauthors do not give a systematic overview of major interpre-tive issues and texts for each book, but look at how the booksmight function as “meaning-making literature for communi-ties under siege.” Special attention is paid to the ways thatwritten prophecies, in particular, can serve as “expressionsof disaster” and “tapestries of hope” that engage in “artfulreinterpretation” for exiled communities in various histori-cal contexts. The main chapters divide into four sectionsfollowing the MT canon (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Book ofthe Twelve), with each section containing two or three chap-ters that provide a largely synchronic and canonical analy-sis, relying especially on metaphor and trauma theory.Although there is acknowledgment of interpretive issuesrelated to redaction, gender analysis, etc., the book worksbest as a companion to more traditional surveys. Even so, theuse of contemporary cultural insights from art and music,the hermeneutical significance for contemporary communi-ties suffering disaster and displacement, and the compre-hensive attempt to employ trauma as an interpretivecategory for the prophets make this book a must read forscholars and students alike.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

LA VIOLÈNCIA EN LA BIBLIA. Edited by Armand PuigI. Tàrrech. Scripta Biblica 9. Montserrat: Associació Biblicade Catalunya/Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 2009.Pp. 295. Paper, €19.00.

This collection of ten essays (in Catalan), compiled fromarticles delivered at the 2007 annual meeting of the BiblicalAssociation of Catalonia, consist of six articles that addressthe Hebrew Bible/OT, two on the NT, one on the writings ofIrenaeus of Lyon, and one on various intertestamental texts.The brief introduction (provided in Catalan, Spanish, Portu-guese, French, Italian, and English) identifies the overallargument of the collection as the effort to show that the Biblelocates the problem of violence “in the human heart” and thusindicates that violence is not inevitable and can be resisted.The essays treat some well-known violent texts, such asGenesis 4:1-16 and Judges 11:29-40, and brief English sum-

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

206

maries appear at the end of each article. The English,however, is often wooden and stilted, lacks gender inclusiv-ity, and suffers from poor grammatical editing and proofread-ing. Additionally, the articles show a heavy interest indrawing connections to NT texts and Christian application.The volume engages a timely and significant topic. The col-lection’s desire to show that the biblical texts invite one tojudge violence negatively and the exposure to perspectivesfrom outside the dominant traditions of North American andEuropean scholarship may make the volume beneficial tosome readers. The restricted interpretive trajectory and thelack of careful editing, production, and coherence will,however, limit its usefulness for students and scholars.

Brad E. KellePoint Loma Nazarene University

JEREMIAH 48 AS CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE. JulieIrene Woods. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 144.Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011. Pp. xvi + 355.$41.00.

Woods’s focused discussion of Jeremiah 48 (her 2009Durham Ph.D. thesis under W. Moberly) is an ideal introduc-tory text for graduate Biblical/OT studies, not in the sense ofa survey, but rather as a model of the practices involved in acareful, comparative, and historically and theologically con-textualized reading of a passage. Jeremiah 48, a major sectionof the Oracles against the Nations, is particularly useful for itsintriguing similarities and differences between MT and LXX(Woods follows McKane and others regarding an early doubletext of Jeremiah), as well as its status (particularly 48:10) as atext of terror, to borrow P. Trible’s phrase. In two especiallyfascinating chapters, Woods turns the historical-critical lenson the passage’s major recent interpreters (in the US, Fre-theim, Miller, Brueggemann; in the UK, Jones, Clements) andshows how their biographies and broader theological andinterpretive projects overdetermine their readings at points.The last chapter elegantly ties the themes and passions ofJeremiah 48 to NT passages and christological motifs. Finally,Woods creatively illustrates (in two original movie scripts!)how Jeremiah 48 may be brought to life today in the form of adrama. Her analysis throughout is exacting, her tone mea-sured, her theology attentive to the otherness of the text, andher discussion inclusive of interpreters throughout history.The work is both delightful and technical, recommended toevery OT scholar.

Mark Glen BilbyPoint Loma Nazarene University

Greece, Rome,Greco-Roman PeriodIL DISCORSO DI ERACLITO. UN MODELLOSEMANTICO E COSMOLOGICO NEL PASSAGGIODALL’ORALITÀ ALLA SCRITTURA. By Laura Gianvit-torio. Spudasmata 134. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag,2010. Pp. xviii + 287. €37.20.

Gianvittorio approaches Heraclitus from the standpointof orality versus writing, arguing that the Ephesian embod-ies a compromise between the two modes: composing at atime when both modes of communication coexist, Heraclituscommitted his work to writing and dedicated a copy to theArtemision, but used modes of expression connected toorality. Following and extending Kahn’s approach, Gianvit-torio reads Heraclitus in a nonlinear fashion, emphasizinghow linguistic density and resonance operate in the frag-ments. Particular terms are resignified through their belong-ing to “networks of meaning,” a characteristic of the oralmode of expression. Resemantization occurs also throughwordplays that establish links between concepts. But whilein oral cultures the word possesses a creative power—here,Gianvittorio productively compares with cosmologies com-posed by oral cultures—for Heraclitus, logos and the worldare connected through a relation of analogy, as both are“articulated unities;” understanding the functioning of logoscan help in understanding the world. Gianvittorio rejects thenotion that, for Heraclitus, logos is a technical term (a tableon pp. 158-9 lists the various renderings of logos in Heracli-tus since Schleiermacher); for Gianvittorio, the primarymeaning of logos, “verbal discourse,” is still felt in Heracli-tus. Instead of a clearly defined technical language, Heracli-tus (just like Xenophanes and Parmenides) uses a dense(hence, ambiguous) and context-bound language, akin tothat found in oral or partly literary cultures. All in all, this isa very useful book, and the reader will profit both from itstheoretical chapters as well as the analysis of individualfragments.

Athanassios VergadosRuprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

LUCAN’S “BELLUM CIVILE”: BETWEEN EPIC TRA-DITION AND AESTHETIC INNOVATION. Edited byNicola Hömke and Christiane Reitz. Beiträge zur Altertum-skunde, 282. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010.Pp. xii + 240. $120.00.

This volume collects eleven articles (seven in English,four in German) on Lucan’s unfinished epic about theRoman civil war of 49 BCE. All but three were written fora 2007 conference at Rostock University. Apart from F. Ahland E. Fantham, most of the contributors are youngerscholars, and the emphasis is overwhelmingly literary.(The odd man out is Ahl, speculating on possible politicalsubtexts in Quintilian’s references to Lucan.) The “tradi-tion” of the subtitle is most prominent in three articles.A.-M. Ambühl insightfully traces the Marian/Sullan flash-back in book 2 to Vergilian and tragic descriptions of thefall of Troy. L. Sannicandro connects the figure of Julia withmythical prototypes (the Sabine women, Jocasta, Creusa,Dido). M. Dinter examines precedents (especially in Ovid)for the motif of the amputated but still “living” limb. Butthe predominant focus is on the poem’s internal dynamicsand rhetorical strategies. Recurrent topics include the han-dling of speeches (Fantham, A. Rolim de Moura); the sym-

Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 3 • SEPTEMBER 2011

207