An idiosyncratic book. The kind of thing you can only gat away with if you are also the co-editor of the series. This is episode five of the Clarendon Bible Old Testament series.

The first third of the book is a Judah centred history of the Hellenistic age. Clearly written, and I could understand what was happening. On this basis I declare it to be a masterpiece. Or at least a masterpiece of simplification. I’ve read several books which touched on this period and all of them left me somewhat confused about who was who, what they were doing and why. The Hellenistic age was a time of tumult and confusion and any book that goes into any detail must reflect that. I wish I’d read this account first as it would have oriented me. He writes very well about the development of Judaism during this period, and with such obvious love for Rabbinical Judaism that I wondered why he didn’t convert. But then he was a Canon in the Anglican Church and he probably would have lost his job. Also he may have thought that Jesus was the son of God. He’s one of the few Protestant scholars I’ve come across who can quote from a wide range of post-Christian Jewish authors.

In the remainder of the books he turns to a number of texts Biblical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphal which were, or might have been, written during this period. There is no discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls as the publication pre-dates their discovery. The inclusion of some, like Habakkuk, might raise a few eyebrows but he’s not telling you to agree with the dating, just pulling of of the mass of books those texts which the student of the period needs to look at. He’s particularly good on the wisdom school and Daniel and actually has something to say. Many of the essays are followed by fragments of mini commentaries. Some of these notes are interesting and/or relate to the time period, but many are just general notes that you might find in any commentary. He doesn’t have the space here to do this sort of thing properly and you’d have to be having some sort of crisis of commentary to have to use these. This is the weakest part of the book and the only time where I felt he could have done with stronger editorial guidance. Scattered throughout this section are a number of very interesting mini essays on a variety of subjects.

There’s also a Biblical chronology by another hand too old to be of much use. Very well illustrated throughout. There’s a passable map of Palestine and an excellent plan of Jerusalem colour-coded to the building of different periods. The book itself is well made. Printed on unusual and interesting paper and bound in particularly solid boards.

Sorry to go on at such length about the contents but I see copies can be quite expensive. It’s well worth the money. I stole my copy. ( )