RBL 10/2007

Klingbeil, Gerald
Bridging the Gap: Ritual and Ritual Texts in the Bible

Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007. Pp. xiv + 304. Cloth. $39.50. ISBN
9781575068015.

Wes Bergen
Wichita State University
Wichita, KS 67260

For those of us already working in the field of ritual studies, business is booming
(relatively speaking). Scholars who are not part of the current discussion may find it both
surprising and overwhelming to try to read all of the new work on ritual and the Bible.
For both sets of scholars, as well as for students just entering the field, Klingbeil has
written a very helpful introductory textbook. In addition, Bridging the Gap provides some
interesting suggestions for future study, and also illustrates some of the major difficulties
that continue to haunt any attempt to move between physical activity and linguistic
description.

The first chapter serves as an introduction to the book. Klingbeil begins with a personal
travelog, detailing the various places he has lived, studied, and worked. This provides an
important glimpse into the perspective of the author, so I was disappointed that his
observations of the world around himself have virtually no place in the book. It is as if his
travels merely involved moving from one library to another, rather than significant
interactions with living culture. The remainder of this brief chapter outlines what follows
in the rest of the book.

The second chapter provides some basic definitions for the study of ritual, as well as a
description of the interaction between ritual and culture. Definitions are both necessary
and difficult, and Klingbeil illustrates both aspects of the problem. His definitions focus
on four key terms: cult, rite, subrite, and symbol (5). These are very useful distinctions,
but his use of symbol needs further clarification. He never indicates how to tell what parts
of a ritual are symbolic, or how to distinguish between a subrite and a symbol. Perhaps an
example would be helpful.

This review was published by RBL 2007 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a
subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.
The larger problem in this chapter is a lack of definition for the terms culture and religion.
The author wants to make a distinction between the “cultural universe” and the “religious
universe” (8), but does not tell us how to draw that line. Are these distinctions that make
sense in the Bible? How would one make this distinction in the life of Moses or the
writings of Isaiah? This is assuming that we can agree on a definition of culture.

The next three chapters provide a history of the study of ritual both inside and outside
biblical studies. Chapter 3 outlines various approaches to ritual within the social sciences,
describing the various schools in roughly chronological order.

Chapter 4 details some of the more recent work on ritual within biblical studies. In this
section, the author encounters one of the challenges of working in a quickly-expanding
field. He shows himself conversant with a wide variety of scholars and approaches but
misses others. Recent books by Jonathan Klawans (Purity, Sacrifice and the Temple:
Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism; Oxford, 2005) and
William Gilders (Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)
are especially notable for their absence. This chapter also illustrates the difficulty in talking
about the meaning of ritual. Klingbeil wants to use this term as part of the discussion,
while recognizing the inherent difficulties involved. One of ways he does this is by
replacing meaning with meaningful (68), without recognizing the significant difference
between these two terms.

The fifth chapter presents an overview of responses to ritual in history, starting from the
prophetic critique of ritual through the intertestamental period and early church writers to
modern evangelical Christian responses. This chapter would seem logically to precede
chapter 4, and might helpfully be studied in that order.

The next three chapters provide significant insights into the study of ritual as an ongoing
discipline. Chapter 6 deals with some basic questions in the study of ritual: morphology,
syntax, and pragmatics. Chapters 7 and 8 outline the various elements of ritual: structure,
order and sequence, space, time (ch. 7), objects, actions, participants, and language (ch.
8). In each case, Klingbeil provides a good outline to the questions and issues involved.
Numerous detailed examples are provided in each chapter, so readers can see how each
element of ritual is important to a larger understanding of a specific ritual.

Chapter 9 goes into the question of the meaning or significance of ritual. Here is where
Klingbeil makes a significant contribution to the study of biblical rituals. Rather than
classifying rituals according to the specific function of each, Klingbeil follows and
modifies Jan Platvoet in outlining a typology of ritual based on various dimensions or

This review was published by RBL 2007 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a
subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.
traits. These dimensions are not mutually exclusive, allowing the reader to understand
different ways a single ritual can be understood in relation to larger society. Klingbeil
suggests that each ritual in the Pentateuch involves at least three dimensions, perhaps as
many as six or seven (208). While there are reasons to quibble with some of his categories
(how is the symbolic dimension related to his earlier category of symbol as a subunit of
ritual?), the general approach is a major improvement on any classification system that
attempts to find a single category for each ritual.

The final two chapters build bridges between ritual studies and other disciplines. Chapter
10 looks at the contribution ritual studies can make to theology, other areas of biblical
studies, and practical theology. Chapter 11 focuses more closely on ritual and Christian
theology. Here he largely limits himself to Protestant Evangelical theology, an
unfortunate choice given the wider implications of his work.

In addition to the very readable prose, Klingbeil includes numerous diagrams that usually
help make sense of his descriptions. There is also an appendix of ritual texts in the
Pentateuch, classified in a variety of ways. The bibliography itself is a wonderful resource
for further study, although to my mind he includes too many references and footnotes to
works outside the scope of this study.

The field of biblical ritual studies is in need of a good introduction, and Bridging the Gap
fills this need. It covers most of the relevant aspects of ritual study, illustrates its ideas with
numerous examples, and provides a wealth of bibliographical data for further study. Even
where it fails adequately to deal with specific subjects (as noted above), it provides a useful
place for a teacher to begin the discussion, or for the reader to begin deeper inquiry.
Hopefully the publisher will also provide web space for Klingbeil to add occasional
updates, so that more recent works can be included. New books by Klawans and Gilders,
and the forthcoming book by James Watts (and likely others that I don’t know about)
already make this book dated, a problem easily resolved through web links and brief notes.

This review was published by RBL 2007 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a
subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp.