[Reproduced from the Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2002 and Book List 2003 by the kind permission of Continuum]

2002, p. 51

Die Bibel—Aufatmen mit Gottes Wort: Nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers (Original English Edition, The Spiritual Formation Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft; Haan: R. Brockhaus, 2001), pp. xiv + 1618. DM 68. ISBN 3-438-01569-2 (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft); ISBN 3-417-25875-8 (R. Brockhaus).

This edition of the 1984 revision of Luther’s translation aims to facilitate an encounter with God through Bible reading. Its main features are an eight-page autobiographical introduction on Bible reading by Bishop Ulrich Wilckens of Lübeck, seven treatments of about four pages each of different ways to encounter God, and an introduction of one page to each biblical book, regardless of length. Outer margins contain brief editorial devotions or quotations from the likes of Ben Sira, Bede, Bengel, Bonhoeffer and Corrie Ten Boom. This edition offers nothing to those with merely historical interests.

P.J. Williams

2002, p. 225

Roddy, Nicolae, The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context (SBL Early Judaism and its Literature, 19; Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2001), pp. x + 140. $39.95. ISBN 0-58983-012-1.

The Romanian version of the Testament of Abraham circulated widely and rapidly in Romania during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Based on personal examination of almost all the approximately two dozen mss, R.’s doctoral thesis presents a text with critical apparatus and English translation. The English translation is stylistic rather than literal, and occasionally inaccurate; for example, the identity of the third judge on p. 40. The Romanian version was made directly from a Greek text of the longer recension (recension A), though there is brief discussion of two Romanian mss representing the shorter recension (recension B). The Romanian version makes a number of adaptations to its receptor culture. Abraham lives near the Black Sea and has become a model eighteenth-century Romanian nobleman. From an examination of Romanian history and the socio-historical environment of the text, R. concludes that, using Abraham’s exemplary character, the text became ‘a vehicle for the purposeful transmission of a monastic social agenda’ (p. 115).

P.J. Williams

2003, p. 38

Soggin, J. Alberto, Storia d’Israele: Introduzione alla storia d’Israele e Giuda dalle origini alla rivolta di Bar Kochbà (Biblioteca di cultura religiosa; Brescia: Paedeia Editrice, 2nd edn, 2002), pp. 525. €37.00. ISBN 88-394-0637-9.

For reviews of the first Italian and English editions see B.L., 1985, p. 41, and for the third English edition see B.L., 2001, pp. 38-39. In this second Italian edition the contents and bibliography have been significantly updated, though titles written before the first edition still overwhelmingly predominate in the bibliography. The biggest visible change is the dropping of S.’s hallmark—that of beginning history with the united monarchy. This edition follows canonical order and therefore begins with the patriarchs. The illustrations of earlier editions have been entirely removed.

P.J. Williams

2003, p. 79

Sevilla Jiménez, Cristóbal (ed.), Jonás (Asociación Bíblica Española, Reseña Bíblica, 33; Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2002), pp. 72. €7.81/$10.00. ISSN 1134-5233.

Reseña Bíblica is a cross between an academic journal, a monograph and a popular magazine. Apart from the final six or so pages, which contain announcements and reviews, Jonah is the theme of the whole issue. Despite some rather large print and copious black and white pictures strewn throughout the text (mostly early depictions of Jonah and the fish, given without date) much of the comment is academically profitable. There are five essays: ‘Was the Prophet Jonah Swallowed by a Whale?’ (A. Álvarez Valdés), ‘From the Sea to Terra Firma’ (Sevilla Jiménez), ‘The Story of a Conversion’ (R. Tadiello), ‘Jonah and the “Difficult” Mercy of God’ (G. Antoniotti), and ‘The Sign of Jonah’ (V. Mora). These cover historical and theological aspects of the book, and include some very suggestive readings, the final one arguing that the ‘sign of Jonah’ can be found in all four Gospels. There then follows the first Spanish edition of the Midrash on Jonah (M. Pérez Fernández). The treatment of Jonah concludes with discussion of how Jonah might be used in Catholic catechesis (pre-school to adult). With some adaptation much of the text could profitably be translated into English and used for introducing Jonah to students.

P.J. Williams

2003, pp. 86-87

Brenner, Athalya and Jan Willem van Henten (eds.), Bible Translation on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Authority, Reception, Culture and Religion (JSOTSup, 353; The Bible in the 21st Century, 1; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), pp. x + 207. £55.00. ISBN 0-82646-029-1.

This is the first volume in a series that hopes to ‘explore features and issues that are oriented to contemporary culture and the Bible’s place within it’ (p. 5). Its ten essays and seven responses were mostly given originally at a colloquium in Amsterdam (May 2000), and, consequently, there is a Dutch flavour to many of the contributions, though they are not at all parochial. From several of the essays it would seem that the appetite among translation theorists for ‘formal equivalence’, or something similar, has returned. The volume contains the last article Robert Carroll wrote: ‘Between Lying and Blasphemy or On Translating a Four-Letter Word in the Hebrew Bible: Critical Reflections on Bible Translation’, which treats the problems in translating the Tetragrammaton. Quotable as ever: ‘To this day I remain unconvinced, where not baffled, by the tendencies of Englished Bibles to lapse into capital letters (screaming upper case letters!) at certain points in the text, as if the deity were deemed to express itself in upper case letters (cf. kjv at Rev. 17.5)’ (p. 60). Aside from the editors and Carroll, contributors are S. Crisp, E. Fox, J. Frishman, M.P. Korsak, S. Noorda, J. Punt, J. Rogerson, L.J. de Regt, L. Sanneh, C. Vander Stichele, A.J.C. Verheij, W.J.C. Weren and T. Witvliet.

P.J. Williams

Also reviewed in SOTS Booklist (2005) 172: H. Craig Melchert, ed., The Luwians (Leiden, 2003).