Sarianna Metso's The Serekh Texts (published last year in the Library of Second Temple Studies sub-series Companion to the Qumran Scrolls) has been recently been reviewed in the Review of Biblical Literature:
‘Sarianna Metso’s The Serekh Texts is an important contribution to scholarship on this group of Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts […] It is a comprehensive introduction to particular Qumran texts and relevant scholarship. [...] This is a very valuable introduction to the Serekh texts that goes far beyond the basics. Metso, clearly in strong command of the primary and secondary sources, has succeeded admirably in her treatment of the texts and her proposal to explain their function in the life of the Qumran community. As such, the final chapter provides a substantive and compelling conclusion to the book as a whole. This volume should be required reading for anyone undertaking serious work on this corpus and on the Dead Sea Scrolls in general.’ - Eric F. Mason (Judson University, Illinois), RBL, August 2008
RBL have also reviewed Richard Liong-Seng Phua's Idolatry and Authority: A Study of 1 Corinthians 8.1-11.1 in the Light of the Jewish Diaspora (published in the Library of New Testament Studies series in 2005):
‘What Phua certainly accomplishes here is to throw light on a more varied Jewish Diaspora landscape pertaining to idolatry than has been traditionally embraced. His survey reminds us of the many cultural compromises and accommodations the marginalised people of society, and such were Jews, would have to have made daily. [...] Certainly Phuaq’s contribution here will be to have many scholars recheck their own assumptions regarding the ethnicity of the “strong” and “weak” in Corinth, the factor of accommodation to idolatry by Diaspora Jews, and the Pauline view regarding connections between pagan idolatry and objective demonic entities. All scholars interested in these fascinating chapters of 1 Corinthians will want to consider these factors and how confident any of us can be in understanding the complications faced by early followers of Jesus as they tried to integrate their faith into their cultural contexts.’ - Scott E. McClelland (Westmont College, San Francisco, California), RBL, August 2008
Advance copies have just come in for this new collection in the LSTS series, edited by Yigal Levin (Bar-Ilan University)
The studies in the volume deal with the changes that occurred in the Land of Israel during the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, from the 6th through the 4th centuries BCE. These are presented in three categories: archaeological, epigraphic and historical, though as a whole tend to be more interdisciplinary - as perhaps the material dictates. Most of them deal with either the province of Judah, Idumea or the interaction between the two, although a couple of them examine other parts of the country as well. A major focus of several of the contributions is the different aspects of the "Makkedah ostraca” and their possible meanings.
The book is a substantial and well illustrated collection, featuring contributions from Diana Edelman, Hanan Eshel and Lisbeth Fried.
It is available in the UK now and will publish in the US in January 2008.
Advance copies of Lester Grabbe's new book Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know it? have been delivered to our London office this morning. I must say that this is the kind of scholarship that it is a pleasure, as a publisher, to be involved with. Lester not only provides an extremely helpful survey and anaylsis of the ancient sources but also engages with larger questions to do with the nature of history: what does it mean to write a history? Is history ultimately only a story (containing lesser or greater elements of fiction)? How must we use sources and what positivistic truth can we take from them?
"This important new book points out the way for future historians of ancient Israel" writes Prof. Hans M. Barstad, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK. Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, Harvard University, has commented: "The study of the history of ancient Israel has become in recent years a difficult and confusing arena, full of loud and discordant voices and yet crying out for a serious and substantial guide to all the noise. Lester Grabbe, one of the most prolific scholars in the field, offers in Ancient Israel a clear and tightly packed review of all the essential issues in reconstructing Israelite history."
T&T Clark is delighted to offer this important new work. It is available now in the US and will be released in the UK and rest of the world in December.
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