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Hebrew Studies 33 (1992) 174 Reviews of the fonner. In making such claims, Treves consistently fails to actually quote the Greek material that would enable readers to judge for themselves the degree of affinity between the two sets of texts, just as he does not seem even to envisage the possibility of independent developments in distinct cultures. Conversely, one notes Treves' virtual ignoring of the well-known ancient Near Eastern parallel material which could suggest quite earlier datings for the OT documents. Why, for example, must the apostrophe to "heaven and earth" in Isa 1:2 be seen as an imitation of Homer rather than a reflection of the calling to witness of these divinized entities in the Hittite treaties of the mid-second millennium Be? In addition, one observes that in dating the OT material Treves constantly adopts a literal-minded approach in which the prophetic predictions are assumed to be simple reflexes of currently existing conditions, rather than projections of hopes for an imagined future or echoes of a longed-for past, and language is pressed in ways that hardly seem warranted (e.g., the references to the liberation of "prisoners" in Deutero-Isaiah cannot be to the Babylonian period because the Babylonians did not "imprison" the Jews). In the same line, Treves, the self-professed impartial historian, seems to be more influenced by aesthetic /theological a prioris than he realizes: for example, he cannot conceive that God would command Hosea to marry a prostitute simply in order to provide a starting point for a religious message (p. 41). Finally, it is ceaselessly amazing to see the confidence which Treves, who adopts such a skeptical stance towards all sorts of pious beliefs and traditions, reposes in constructions of his own whose evidential base is so slim. "Physician, heal thyself' is the thought that comes to mind at every tum. In sum, one admires the pietas that inspired the assembly of the fruits of Treves' lifework in this volume. One can only wish, however, that those fruits would have turned out to be something more substantial. Christopher Begg Catholic University Washington. D.C. 20064 JOB THE SILENT: A STUDY IN HISTORICAL COUNTERĀ· POINT. By Bruce Zuckennan. Pp. vii + 294. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Cloth, $29.95. The decade of the nineties has opened auspiciously for the interpretation of the book of Job. Edwin Good's stimulating commentary, In Turns of Hebrew Studies 33 (1992) 175 Reviews Tempest (Stanford: Stanford University, 1990) and Leo G. Perdue's Wisdom in Revolt (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991) have been complemented by Bruce Zuckennan's scintillating study of the biblical book in light of Shalom Spiegel's analysis of the Akedah tradition and Y. L. Perets' short story, "Bontsye Shvayg." Zuckerman understands the book of Job as a parody combatting popular expectation of the resurrection of the righteous. He thinks such false hopes accompanied oral traditions about the hero Job as reflected in the prose framework to the poetry, just as Ugaritic legend undoubtedly, in his opinion, concluded with the resurrection of the murdered Aqhat. The biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac in Gen 22:1-19 provides the point of departure for this understanding of the book of Job, particularly the final verse which implies that Isaac was actually slain on the altar. Relying on postbiblical evidence that confirms the reality of speculation about Isaac's death at Abraham's hands, Zuckerman turns to a similar phenomenon in Yiddish literature, the popular story about Bontsye the Silent. Here, too, a much-loved story gave rise to an attempt to parody its teachings, but Perets' version quickly fell victim to historical circumstances-the pogroms in the I 880s and the Holocaust. As a result of the changed ethos, the strong mocking of popular piety in Perets' account was lost and in its place emerged a reinforcement of this piety. This denial of everything Perets hoped to achieve through well-placed signals in the text found expression in minor revisions of his story in translation. Zuckerman detects the same process at work in the book of Job. A popular legend about a patient Job who lost everything and received it all back again...

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