Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34 • NUMBER 1
Ancient Near East
ENCOUNTERING THE BOOK OF ISAIAH: A HIS-
TORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL SURVEY. By Bryan E.
Beyer. Encountering Biblical Studies. Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Academic, 2007. Pp. 272; maps; illustrations. $24.99,
ISBN 978-0-8010-2645-4.
Beyer’s introductory survey of the content and theology
of the book of Isaiah is part of the Encountering Biblical
Studies series and operates firmly within the conservative
evangelical perspective of the series. The table of contents
lays out sections that give very brief discussions of all the
major units of the book, as well as devoting three concluding
chapters to issues of interest to an evangelical audience:
Isaiah and the OT, Isaiah and the NT, Isaiah and the Great
Commission. The book aims to be a guide for students and
contains a number of student-oriented features, including
outlines and objectives for each chapter, key terms printed
in bold in the text and linked to a glossary at the end of the
book, sidebars of varying content, and study questions at the
end of each chapter. The discussion is dominated and, at
times, dictated by the author’s acknowledged conservative
evangelical perspective. Hence, one finds a commendation
of the single-authorship theory for the book of Isaiah and
numerous attempts to relate Isaiah’s preaching to Jesus. The
book offers limited critical analysis of interpretive issues,
such as the possible relationship of Isa 1 to Sennacherib’s
invasion in 701 BCE, instead providing summaries of
theological themes and numerous devotional/homiletical
insights. Although the book claims to target an advanced
undergraduate and graduate audience, the book’s discus-
sions generally operate on a more basic level.
Brad E. Kelle
Point Loma Nazarene University
1 & 2 KINGS. By Peter J. Leithart. Brazos Theological
Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2006.
Pp. 304. $29.99, ISBN 1-58743-125-4.
This volume constitutes the second in the series Brazos
Theological Commentary on the Bible, a series written by
theologians, whose fundamental assertion is “that doctrine
provides structure and cogency to scriptural interpretation.”
The series preface warns the reader to expect “experiments
in postcritical doctrinal interpretation, not commentaries
written according to the settled principles of a well-
functioning tradition.” Leithart, a professor of theology and
Reformed pastor, begins the commentary with a short,
twelve-page discussion on reading 1-2 Kings as Gospel.
Then, each of the following chapters takes up typically one
chapter from Kings. The book concludes with a bibliography,
subject index, and scripture index. The series bills itself
correctly as a different kind of commentary. Each chapter is
a mix of comments on the Hebrew text (including philologi-
cal matters, literary features, and structure) with a dearth of
citations of previous biblical scholars’ work, and comments
on theological concepts related to the passage. For example,
• MARCH 2008
the discussion of 1 Kings 1 includes a discourse on political
theology; the chapter on 1 Kings 2 talks about violence and
atonement; the 1 Kings 4-5 chapter deals with the image
of God. These sections of the chapter quote Christian
theologians, ancient and contemporary. The short introduc-
tion and absence of a conclusion leaves this reader wishing
that Leithart would pull together some of his main ideas in
order to discuss the whole of the work known as the Book of
Kings. This work should prove helpful for Christian preach-
ers and teachers as they think about the theological possi-
bilities within the text.
Tyler Mayfield
Claremont Graduate University
THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: MAGIC, DREAMS,
AND PROPHECY IN ANCIENT EGYPT. Edited by
Kasia Szpakowska. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales,
2006. Pp. xiv + 274; plates, illustrations. $90.00, ISBN 1-
905125-08-9.
Many practices that would today fall under the term
magic, including spells, dream interpretation, divination,
and the use of amulets and other magical implements,
played a vital role in ancient Egyptian life and funerary
beliefs. This publication, based on a symposium held at the
University of Wales, Swansea, brings together the ideas of
some of today’s leading scholars of Egyptian magic and reli-
gion, providing insights into a range of concepts drawn from
both textual and archaeological sources. With relatively few
previous books devoted to magical practices in ancient
Egypt, it is a welcome addition to the study of Egyptian
religion. Several articles analyze the interpretation of
dreams and prophecies in Egyptian literature, while others
address the significance of such items as grain mummies,
flint nodules, knots, amulets, and serpent wands.
Denise M. Doxey
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Greece, Rome, Greco-Roman Period
A HISTORY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE: FROM ITS
ORIGINS TO THE PRESENT. By Francisco Rodríguez
Adrados. Boston: Brill, 2005. Pp. xx + 345. $134.00, ISBN 90-
04-12835-2.
This volume summarizes a lifetime’s work. The bibliog-
raphy includes under Adrados’s name over one hundred
entries, published between 1948 and 2004, and presents a
comprehensive, nuanced history of the Greek language. For
Adrados, the narrative begins with “Common Greek,” a
derivative of Indo-European IIIA found in the Balkans.
Already divided by the time it entered Greece in two forms
around 2000 and 1200 BCE, it further fragmented during the
second millennium as various dialects emerged. In the midst
of this increasing diversity, the beginnings of unifying ele-
ments are found in the literary languages, Homeric being the
first. Ionic, and then Attic prose continued this trend. By the
late fifth century, Attic’s cultural force was such that even
40
 Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 34
though Athens was defeated militarily, its conquerors
spread its language throughout the East (and to an extent in
the West) in the form of koine, “the first unification of
Greek.” Once again, however, differentiation soon occurred,
this time into the literary Greek of the educated and the
traditional, and the popular spoken language, a division per-
petuated into modern times in the forms of the “pure”
(καθαρε n¢ουσα) and the “popular” (δηµοτικ h¢), from which
all modern dialects derived. Political independence for
Greece in 1830 unleashed forces that by the beginning of the
twentieth century generated a second unification in the form
of a new koine, Modern Greek. Magisterial and authoritative,
it offers a mature interpretation accessible to almost anyone
interested in the often-astonishing three and a half millennia
history of the Greek language.
Michael W. Holmes
Bethel University
INDO-EUROPEAN POETRY AND MYTH. By M.L.
West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 525.
$145.00, ISBN 978-0-19-928075-9.
M. L. West’s erudite study of Indo-European poetry and
myth forms a sister volume to his East Face of Helicon
(1997) that examined the influence of the Near East on
Greek poetry. But this work is far more wide-ranging, both
temporally and geographically, sweeping from India to Ire-
land and from 1500 BCE to the present, and examines both
poetics and poetic tropes and common mythological ele-
ments in the Indo-European arena. As such it resembles C.
Watkins’ How to kill a Dragon (1995), but is more extensive
in its coverage. The Introduction helpfully lays out the vari-
ous languages and poetic traditions to be examined. It also
explains the comparative method and certain caveats in
dealing with conceptual parallels rather than purely linguis-
tic criteria to demonstrate Indo-European affiliation and the
possibility of later cultural diffusion rather than a common
descent. Two chapters deal with shared poetic devices and
conceptions of poetry, while the bulk of the book lays out
shared mythological notions like Sky and Earth, and the
Heroic Warrior. The book is sometimes hard going, offering
learned catalogs of common features and no real conclu-
sions. But the persistent reader will be impressed with the
author’s scholarly breadth and be rewarded by flashes of
Westian wit.
Jenny Strauss Clay
University of Virginia
Christian Origins
LO, I TELL YOU A MYSTERY: CROSS, RESURREC-
TION, AND PARAENESIS IN THE RHETORIC OF 1
CORINTHIANS. By David A. Ackerman. Princeton Theo-
logical Monograph Series, 52. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publi-
cations, 2006. Pp. x + 171. $21.00, ISBN 1-59752-435-2.
This accessible book, a revision of the author’s PhD
dissertation (Iliff/Denver, 2000), uses diachronic rhetorical
41
• NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2008
criticism and social-scientific analysis to argue that 1 Corin-
thians embodies a conflict of “ideologies” (Paul’s versus the
Corinthians’). Ackerman claims that the problem in Corinth
was “spiritual immaturity.” Problems normally identified by
scholars (e.g., factionalism) as the central issue in Corinth
are really symptoms. Paul’s solution for this problem was
based in his “understanding of time.” Paul thought that he
and his congregations lived in the interim period between
the past revelation of the divine “mystery” in Christ’s death
and resurrection, and the future fulfillment of that “mystery”
at the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead; this
required that those “in Christ” must live not according to the
paradigm of Adam, but of Christ (1 Cor 15:22, 45). This
“ideology,” which, described in these terms sounds like “the-
ology,” provides the basis for Paul’s paraenesis, elements of
which Ackerman attempts to situate in relation to the con-
text in Corinth. Recommended for theological libraries and
interested specialists.
Daniel A. Smith
Huron University College, University of Western Ontario
ACTS IN ITS ANCIENT LITERARY CONTEXT: A
CLASSICIST LOOKS AT THE ACTS OF THE APOS-
TLE. By Loveday C. A. Alexander. Early Christianity in Con-
text. Library of New Testament Studies, 298. London: T&T
Clark, 2005. Pp. xi + 290. Cloth, $140.00, ISBN 978-0-567-
08209-1; paper, $49.95, ISBN 978-0-567-08219-0.
Alexander’s writings on Acts have been among the
recent decades’ more interesting contributions to Lukan
scholarship. This volume collects nine previously published
essays, which have been left virtually identical in their orig-
inal versions: “The Preface to Acts and the Historians;” “Acts
and Ancient Intellectual Biography;” “ ‘In Journeyings
Often’: Voyaging in the Acts of the Apostles and in Greek
Romance;” “Narrative Maps: Reflections on the Toponomy
[sic] of Acts;” “Fact, Fiction and the Genre of Acts;” “New
Testament Narrative and Ancient Epic;” “The Acts of the
Apostles as an Apologetic Text;” “Reading Luke-Acts from
Back to Front;” and “Septuaginta, Fachprosa, Imitatio: Albert
Wifstrand and the Language of Luke-Acts.” In an introduc-
tory chapter Alexander describes the essays and situates
them in relation to her longtime interest in examining the
Lukan writings within a Greco-Roman literary context.
These essays, already known and appreciated by serious
students of Acts, deserve the opportunity for wider circula-
tion among new audiences. It is frustrating to see that oppor-
tunity hampered by the book’s high price, which likely
keeps it beyond the reach of all but the most devoted readers
and their institutions’ libraries.
Matthew L. Skinner
Luther Seminary
FRONTIERS OF FAITH: THE CHRISTIAN ENCOUN-
TER WITH MANICHAEISM IN THE ACTS OF ARCH-
ELAUS. Edited by Jason BeDuhn and Paul Mirecki. Nag