The Parables (review)

Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 321 Reviews was included in an Enochic pentateuch at least by the late first century B.C.E. However, with Dimant the author questions Milik's classification of the Book of Giants as a pseudepigraphon written in the name of Enoch (as the other sections of 1 Enoch), as Enoch is neither mentioned as narrator nor portrayed as recipient of revelation. It is not easy to pass over Dimanfs critical questions, which should have lead the author to be more reserved on this issue: Was the Book of Giants ever an integral part of an Enochic tetrateuchal scroll (with the then longer Astronomical Book as scroll number 2), or was it rather regarded as a separate work? If the Book of Giants is a radical reworking of the Book of Watchers with a different literary frame, how easy would early scribal interpreters join these two books together as consecutive sections of an Enochic pentateuch? A note on lQ23 9/14/15 3 ]tunl'::l ii~, nOI "was great on the earth["-perhaps reconstruct nlillD'lO "his (man's) [wickedn]ess was great on the earth". Neither Milik nor Stuckenbruch have noticed the allusion of this line to Gen 6:5 rlO c-Ms, ruM i1::l, ':;' (cf. also 1 Enoch 8:2; 9:1; 4QEnGiantsd 2 9). The similarity to Gen 6:5 suggests that this text not only had the sins of the giants in focus, but also the sins of mankind. The Book of Giants was an influential source among second temple literature. Milik suggested that the Book of Giants enjoyed a wide popularity in Essene circles, more than that of other Enochic works, and noted that through its Manichean editions "no work of ancient Jewish literature had in antiquity a circulation comparable to that of the Book of Giants" (The Books of Enoch, 309-310). Thanks are due to Loren Stuckenbruck for making the access to this material more easy for many of us, and for fascilitating and stimulating the further scholarly discussion. TorlelfElgvin Lutheran Theological Seminary Oslo, Norway torlelf.elgvin@frikirken.no THE PARABLES. By Brad H. Young. pp. xv + 332. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998. Cloth. $17.46. The historical figure of Jesus presents a problem for Christianity. His religion was Judaism not Christianity, and acknowledging this fact calls into question the Christian claim to the man from Nazareth. In her recent Hebrew Studies 41 (2000) 322 Reviews study, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, Susannah Heschel articulates the threat posed by Jesus' religious identity: "...if Jesus was a Jewish religious teacher, what was the basis for Christianity as an independent religion ?" If the origin of Christianity cannot be located in the life of Jesus, then this man's sayings and deeds amount to little more than a rupture in Western religious history; Christians must look elsewhere for the founding of their faith. Since Geiger's challenge, Christian theologians have formulated several responses to this danger; Brad H. Young's book, properly understood, belongs to this project. In a series of publications (including Jesus the Jewish Theologian [1995], and the present book's precursor, Jesus and His Jewish Parables [1984]), Young underscores the importance of ancient Judaism for the study of the historical Jesus. This book attempts to situate the first-century sayings of Jesus within a tradition of Jewish parable teaching, examples of which can be found in the rabbinic literature of late antiquity. Young's wide knowledge of the gospels and rabbinic literature is evident, and his comparison of dominical sayings with another rich collection of parables often yields interesting results. Unfortunately, the book suffers from methodological problems and untenable assumptions about both Judaism and Jesus. First, though, to the book's contents. Young divides his analysis ofJesus' parables into six sections. In Part I, Young justifies his approach to the subject matter: Jesus did not invent the parable, rather the mashal represents a teaching method current among Jewish (but not Greek) sages of his time. Rabbinic and gospel parables share structure, motifs, plots, and, Young asserts, imply a similar view of God. These short narratives openly display God through "word-pictures" that resemble the divine; they are shadows (from...