Rabbinic Literature

Glanville, Mark R. Freed to be God’s Family: The Book of Exodus. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2021. 119 pp.; Pb.; $14.99.   Link to Lexham Press

Elsdon, Ron and William Olhausen. Transformed in Christ: The Book of 1 Corinthians. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2021. 96 pp.; Pb.; $14.99. Link to Lexham Press

Flemming, Dean. Self-Giving Love: The Book of Philippians. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2021. 90 pp.; Pb.; $14.99. Link to Lexham Press

The Transformative Word Series is edited by Craig G. Bartholomew and David J. H. Beldman in association with St. George’s Centre for Biblical and Public Theology. St. George’s Centre has sponsored several seminars (Scripture and Church, Scripture and Doctrine, and Scripture and Hermeneutics) and the annual SBL meeting and most recently hosted by Institute for Biblical Research. There are currently there are fourteen volumes in this series of thematic studies of biblical books. I will briefly review here the three most recent volumes in the series.

Exodus

Mark Glanville’s Freed to be God’s Family presents the book of Exodus as “all about community.” The book was written to “transform the way people live together in society” (p. 6). Glanville is interested in showing how Exodus can be a model for worshiping communities today. This begins with God redeeming his people from slavery, creating a new community which stands in contrast to society in Egypt. Since the main difference is God’s law and the Tabernacle, Glanville devotes two chapters to the Law (the “Law Collection” and the Ten Commandments). He offers a helpful six-step method for interpreting biblical law (p.31). Since the Tabernacle dominates about one-third of the book of Exodus, Glanville discusses why the sanctuary is so important.

1 Corinthians

Ron Eldson and Willaim Olhausen begin their discussion of 1 Corinthians with a “guided tour of Corinth.” First century Corinth was dominated by the desire for economic advancement and pervasive Roman entertainment. They therefore argue 1 Corinthians is a “countercultural document” and ask whether the Corinthian Christians were really aware of the pressure they faced from their culture (p. 6). Two factors make 1 Corinthians radical, Paul’s focus on the Holy Spirit (ch. 3) and his focus on the Cross (ch. 4). Centering on the Spirit and the Cross, Eldson and Olhausen then discuss sex and money, two cultural factors which plagued the Corinthian believers. After chapters on worship and resurrection, the authors offer a final chapter on how to read 1 Corinthians as contemporary Christian.

Philippians

Dean Flemming’s reads the short letter to the Philippians argues the theological center of the letter is 2:6-11, the Christ-hymn. This rich passage describes the self-emptying God which “shatters feeble and misguided understandings of God” (p. 17). Like most studies of Philippians, Flemming observes that Paul calls his readers to live out their heavenly citizenship by living their life in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ (ch. 5) and having the same mindset as Christ Jesus (ch. 6) in a mission-oriented Christian community (ch. 7).

Conclusion. These short volumes are idea for both personal and small group Bible study. Chapters are brief, rarely longer than ten pages and conclude with several questions for reflection. Each book is written with the layperson in mind and avoid technical details and biblical languages. Since these books are theological readings of the Bible, they are focus squarely on drawing out biblical themes which are applicable to the missional church today.

See also my reviews of two earlier books in this series: A. J. Culp, Invited to Know God: The Book of Deuteronomy and Adrio König, Christ Above All: The Book of Hebrews.

NB: Thanks to Lexham Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book, both in print and Logos format. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Friedeman. Caleb T., ed. A Scripture Index to Rabbinic Literature. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Academic, 2021. xvi+549 pp.; Hb.  $59.95  Link to Hendrickson Academic

A Scripture Index to Rabbinic Literature (ASIRL, pronounced AY-sirl) is the first comprehensive Scripture index to classical rabbinic literature in English. The goals of this volume are quite different than the venerable (and oft-reprinted) work by John Lightfoot or Strack and Billerbeck, Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash (German, 1926). Those volumes indexed the passages in the Mishnah and Talmud to New Testament passages. ASIRL indexes quotations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible in a wide range of classical rabbinic literature, providing a convenient list to study the developing interpretation of Scripture in classical rabbinic literature.

By classic rabbinic literature, the editors mean works produced in the second through seventh centuries CE (3). The volume is also limited to works available in English, untranslated Hebrew or German texts are not indexed. The literature indexed includes the Mishnah, Tosefta, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and the minor Talmudic Tractates, and seventeen midrashic works. The introduction surveys these twenty-two categories, indicating the translation used for the volume and a brief introduction to the contents and abbreviation schemes. This is a valuable introduction to many of the lesser-known works included in the index. The introduction also includes a brief bibliography for each work included.

According to the introduction to the book, ASIRL contains “approximately 90,000 rabbinic entries and represents over 2,500 hours of work by a seven-person team over the course of two and a half years.” ASRIL has five goals. First, the volume brings all Scripture references in classical rabbinic literature together in a single volume so that users can look at one or two pages and know every place in this literature where a given biblical passage is referenced. Second, the book creates Scripture indexes for rabbinic works that do not yet have them. Third, the book provides for each reference a hard citation that is transferable to other editions, and also to provide the corresponding page number in a standard English translation. Fourth, the editors decide whether each reference is a direct citation, allusion, or editorial reference. Fifth, the volume corrects any errors in the existing indexes for this literature.

As test case I selected Exodus 12:9. Referring to the Passover Lamb, the text says “Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs.” The index points the way to how this verse was interpreted by classic rabbinic literature. The ASIRL for Exodus 12:9 has thirty entries arranged in chronological order beginning with the Mishnah. Each entry includes pages numbers in the work cited in the edition listed in the introduction. For the Mishnah, they give page numbers both D for Danbey (D) and Neusner (N). This made it quite easy to locate references in my copy of Neusner’s translation of the Mishnah.. The index also pointed me to Lauterbach’s Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael: “R. Akiba says: From this I know only that it is forbidden to boil it in water. How about boiling it in other liquids? The scriptural expression: “nor sodden at all,” includes all other liquids in the prohibition.” In b. Hul. 115A the rabbis connected Exodus 12:9 to the prohibition of eating meat boiled in milk as well as prohibitions against eating meat with blood. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon Bar Yoha adds “if one eats it insufficiently cooked, he gets the 40 lashes!”

This raises on potential problem for using the full potential of ASIRL. Users need access to a formidable research library in order to make use of the index. I happen to have both the Neusner’s Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud in Logos as well as a few of the other works listed, but few users will have immediate access to anything other than the Mishnah and Talmud. The majority of entries are from those two sources, but some may be frustrated trying to find a copy of Sifre Zuta Numbers, for example. Although it would be a great deal of work, I would really like to see this book converted to a Logos tagged resource so users could click a link and go immediately to the cited section.

Since this is an index of Scripture in the rabbinic literature, it is not surprising the bulk of the 549 pages of the book cover the Hebrew Bible (and about 250 pages are on the five books of the Torah). The Apocrypha appears on slightly more than one page, the New Testament in barely four pages. The editors are clear: they do not want to imply any listed classic rabbinic text actually directly interacts with the New Testament. All the New Testament examples are editorial references rather than citations or allusions. Once again, this is not a new version of Strack and Billerbeck. In fact, these two sections could have been omitted without effecting the goals of ASRIL.

NB: Thanks to Hendrickson Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.