Verde, Danilo. Conquered Conquerors: Love and War in the Song of Songs. Atlanta: SBL, 2020, pp. 271, $40, paperback. Danilo Verde is a postdoctoral associate with the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in KU Leuven, Belgium, in addition to being a member of the Biblical Studies research group at the same university. In this revised edition of his dissertation that advances the frontiers of scholarship in Biblical Metaphor Studies, Verde provides readers with an insight into the military metaphors, similes and scenarios undergirding the Song of Songs’ depiction of human love, for which no extensive research using cognitive linguistics exists. Conceptual metaphor theory and blending theory were mainly employed by Verde to demonstrate that the root metaphor LOVE IS WAR undergirds the Song’s conceptualization of both the Song’s lovers and their love, marking the Song as both conceptually unitary and thematically coherent, despite its seeming fragmentary composition. In organizing his argument, Verde adduces four surface metaphors – WOMAN IS FORTIFIED CITY (pp. 45–102), MAN IS CONQUEROR (pp. 103–132), WOMAN IS CONQUEROR (pp. 133–168), and LOVE IS STRIFE (pp. 169–202) – which he claims serve not only to sustain the aforementioned root metaphor throughout…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

King, Jacki C. The Calling of Eve: How the Women of the Bible Inspire the Women of the Church. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Momentum, 2022, pp. 176, $16.99, hardcover. Jacki C. King holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and serves as a Bible teacher. Despite juggling life as an author, blogger, podcast host, pastor’s wife, and mother of three, Jacki King thinks of herself as “just a normal girl.” While such achievements exceed what society or even the church considers normal, King’s standard of reference does not come from society or the church but from the women of Scripture. King begins her book by describing how her understanding of the importance of women’s roles in the kingdom was formed in the context of the local church but subsequently shaken in the church. Lacking the stereotypical qualities the church emphasized as most important among women, the young King questioned whether following and serving Christ meant being someone other than, well, her. Her leadership gifting and devotion to Christ and his church seemed undeniable. Nevertheless, King felt little connection to the demure image the church expected women to portray. King describes her younger self as loud,…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Schnittjer, Gary Edward. Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2021, 1098 pages, $58.00, hardcover. Gary Edward Schnittjer is the Distinguished Professor of Old Testament for Cairn University’s School of Divinity. Schnittjer received his doctorate from Dallas Theological Seminary and has completed post-graduate studies in both Hebrew and Aramaic from the University of Pennsylvania and Westminster Theological Seminary, respectively. He has published numerous articles in various aspects of Old Testament Biblical studies as well as another monograph, The Torah Story. Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide represents the culmination of two decades of research into the intertextual and linguistic connections within the Tanakh by Schnittjer. The book is a cataloging, book-by-book, of exegetical allusions between the books of the Old Testament, rated according to their strength (read: confidence level). Material for the work was compiled from manual research and material generated from an originality program, iThenticate (xlvii). In its introduction, Schnittjer provides the basic definitions used in the field of intertextuality and his work, such as revelation, allusion, and exegesis (xviii-xix). Surveying the work and methodologies from scholars like Hays, Kugel, von Rad and Fishbane, Schnittjer lays out his criteria…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Kipfer, Sara and Jeremy M. Hutton, eds. The Book of Samuel and Its Response to Monarchy. Stuttgard, Germany: Kohlhammer, 2021, pp. 344, hardcover, $102.00.  The Book of Samuel and Its Response to Monarchy is a collection of essays presented at Samuel Seminar in 2019 in Aberdeen, which coincided with Dr. Walter Dietrich’s 75th birthday. The book’s essays focus on the power of the in two ways. (1) The Book of Samuel as a Text Collection about Different Stages of the Institutionalization of Power. (2) The Book of Samuel as a Medium of Power Communication and a Contribution to the Political Discourse through the Centuries. The book divides into three main sections. Sara Kipfer and Jeremy M. Hutton introduce the reader to key topics (11–22). The main body of the book contains the essays from twelve contributors. The book concludes with a review of the material and critique by Dietrich. David Firth, in the first essay, argues that Hannah’s prayer (1 Sam 2:1–10) is crucial for a final for reading of the text. Hannah’s prayer establishes key themes and points of references which are taken up and developed later in the book (23). The book primarily focuses on the reversal of…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Costley, Angela. Creation and Christ: An Exploration of the Topic of Creation in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020, pp. 385, 94.00€, paperback. When thinking about what makes the Christology of Hebrews distinctive, perhaps the first image that comes to mind is that of Jesus as high priest. Other topics of perennial interest in the study of Hebrews include the intriguing utilization of the Sabbath and the deployment of tabernacle, temple, and other cultic imagery. Angela Costley draws attention to the important role played by references to creation in Hebrews and argues that the author of Hebrews employs these allusions to creation in order to portray Jesus as the creator who descends to earth in order to lead believers into God’s primordial rest. Creation and Christ is a revision of the author’s 2018 Ph.D. dissertation, which was completed at St. Patrick’s College in the Pontifical University of Maynooth, Ireland. Costley currently teaches Greek and Wisdom literature at St. Mary’s College in Oscott. After establishing her research focus, Costley outlines the methodological tools that she will use in order to exegete creation language in Hebrews. Following a line of recent Hebrews scholars (e.g. Neeley, Westfall, and Dyer), Costley…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Fyall, Robert S. Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2002. $24.00, pp. 208. A continuation of 1991 dissertation, Robert Fyall, revisits Job creation theology. Dr. Fyall is a Senior Tutor in Ministry for the Cornhill Training Course, Scotland. He has taught Old Testament at St. John’s College in Durham, England.  In the present work, the author focuses on creation and evil that revolves around Behemoth and Leviathan. Fyall examines these figures in light of the ANE materials. He argues that Behemoth represents death and Leviathan Satan. He solves the tension scholars perceive with the disappearance of Satan after the initial chapters. Now my Eyes have Seen You introduces readers to Job with a succinct introduction. Readers unfamiliar with Job will benefit from the thorough but brief history of research. The author describes his aim as a holistic depiction of creation and evil within Job (17). Fyall interprets the book of Job as a literary unit which differs from critical scholars. Thus, he rejects deconstructive interpretations and opts for a canonical interpretation. The book interacts with Job’s adoption of myth through the imaginative canonical process of inspiration (27-28)….

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Ross, William A. and W. Edward Glenny ed. The T&T Handbook of Septuagint Research. Great Britain, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, pp. xxv+486, $175, hardback. William A. Ross is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC (Back Cover). A sample of Ross’ publications includes The Septuagint: What it is and Why it Matters (2021) and A Book-by-Book Guide to Septuagint Vocabulary (2019). Moreover, he writes a blog titled Septuaginta &C. W. Edward Glenny is Professor of New Testament and Greek at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul in Minnesota (Back Cover). Glenny is also an accomplished writer with titles that include commentaries on Micah, Amos, and Hosea for the Septuagint Commentary Series. A glance in the preface shows this handbook is constructed to complement James K. Aitken’s T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint (xii). For those unfamiliar with Aitken’s book, his volume “provides a book-by-book overview of the corpus [i.e., the Septuagint]” (xii). Within the handbook, the contributors include many notable scholars. Among the several scholars worthy of mention are James K. Atkin, Peter J. Gentry, Steve Moyise, and Stanley E. Porter. The editor states the goal of the volume is to deliver a consolidated resource that presents…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Goldingay, John. The Lost Letters to the Twelve Prophets: Imagining the Minor Prophets’ World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2022, 232 pages, $23.00, softcover. John Goldingay is Senior Professor of Old Testament, and David Allan Hubbard Professor Emeritus of Old Testament for Fuller Seminary. Goldingay received his Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham and his DD from the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. He has published numerous monographs on Old Testament Theology and its study, and most notably, was the author of the Daniel volume for the Word Biblical Commentary series. The Lost Letters to the Twelve Prophets: Imagining the Minor Prophets’ World sets out to explore the Minor Prophets by imagining letters to which the prophets were replying. Drawing on a similar model used in Epistles to the Apostle by Colin Morris, Goldingay sets out to create plausible conversation partners for various sections within each prophet (ix). The introduction includes a brief summary of the Old Testament timeline, what Goldingay calls the “First Testament,” and then a short annotation for the historical Sitz im Leben for each of the twelve books (xiii-xviii). Each of the twelve Minor Prophets receives its own chapter and is laid out in roughly the…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Kim, Brittany, and Charlie Trimm. Understanding Old Testament Theology: Mapping the Terrain of Recent Approaches. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020, 177 pp., $14.99, paperback. In Understanding Old Testament Theology, Brittany Kim and Charlie Trimm provide an up-to-date survey of approaches to Old Testament theology. Their volume self-consciously flows in a similar vein as Klink and Lockett’s Understanding Biblical Theology, but the latter focuses primarily on New Testament issues and scholars (p. 2). Kim serves as a professor at North Park Theological Seminary and Northeastern Seminary, and Trimm as a professor at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Both are products of the Ph.D. program at Wheaton College. After an introduction that includes a brief history of the field (pp. 4-7), Kim and Trimm propose their cartographical metaphor of Old Testament theology as a diverse mountain range. As a mountain range has different peaks, each of which offers a unique vantage point by which someone may view the landscape, so Old Testament theology has different peaks. Among the peaks, some are closer and more alike than others. Following the mountain range metaphor, the book is divided into three main parts. Part one, History, includes Old Testament theologies grounded in “biblical…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Schnittjer, Gary Edward. Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2021, 1098 pages, $58.00, hardcover. Gary Edward Schnittjer is the Distinguished Professor of Old Testament for Cairn University’s School of Divinity. Schnittjer received his doctorate from Dallas Theological Seminary and has completed post-graduate studies in both Hebrew and Aramaic from the University of Pennsylvania and Westminster Theological Seminary, respectively. He has published numerous articles in various aspects of Old Testament Biblical studies as well as another monograph, The Torah Story. Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide represents the culmination of two decades of research into the intertextual and linguistic connections within the Tanakh by Schnittjer. The book is a cataloging, book-by-book, of exegetical allusions between the books of the Old Testament, rated according to their strength (read: confidence level). Material for the work was compiled from manual research and material generated from an originality program, iThenticate (xlvii). In its introduction, Schnittjer provides the basic definitions used in the field of intertextuality and his work, such as revelation, allusion, and exegesis (xviii-xix). Surveying the work and methodologies from scholars like Hays, Kugel, von Rad and Fishbane, Schnittjer lays out his criteria…

Share this on:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin