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Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 189 Reviews convoluted argument that in the millennium Christians who are freed from the sacrificial system by Jesus' cross will already be removed from the earth in the "rapture," and so only Jews will perform the ideal animal sacrifices until the final day of their conversion. In general, then, one can recommend this commentary for its lucid and popular style as a good way for the ordinary reader to discover the riches of Ezekiel-no easy task at its best, and certainly not reflected in most commentaries, which delve so deeply into the technical or authorship issues that they are unreadable by anyone but specialists. But the price to be paid will be the overlay of strong evangelical Christian perspectives, which do not have much significance for other denominations. One final point should be noted about the printing of the book. Its layout is exceptionally inviting and reader-friendly, but the apparatus is very sloppily done. The indices often have the wrong pages, which can be very frustrating, and the list of abbreviations does not include perhaps a third of those employed by the author. In a three page span, I noted the lack of any listing for NCB, BBR, BibOr, or even the series name, NAC. There are indices for subjects, authors cited, and Scripture references, but the subject index is so minimal as to be unhelpful. Lawrence Boadt Washington Theological Union Silver Spring, MD 20017 A POETICS OF JONAH: ART IN THE SERVICE OF IDEOLOGY . By Kenneth M. Craig. Jr. Pp. xvi + 221. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993. Cloth, $34.95. K. M. Craig claims that his approach to the Book of Jonah, "poetics," does not employ the traditional techniques of historical criticism (p. 6). But the question he seeks to answer seems to coincide with the basic question of the historical critics: what is the intention of the author of the Book of Jonah. Craig presumes that his science of poetics can uncover that intentionality , and he argues that "poetics" can reveal both the ideology or world-view which the author invites the reader of Jonah to accept and the strategy the author employs in order to win that acceptance. The first and last words of the volume's title, "poetics" and "ideology," represent the two focuses of Craig's study. Craig traces the modem origins Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 190 Reviews of "poetics" as a method to the work of the Israeli scholar Benjamin Hrushovski. In his first chapter ("What Is Poetics?"), Craig defines "poetics" as "a systematic and scientific study of literature, committed to the comprehensive investigation of texts, ancient and modem" (p. 4). By "ideology" he means "a deeply held and interlocking set of religious, social, and political beliefs or attitudes about the world and how the world works" (p. 8). Combining these two notions, Craig describes his goal in this study, "to explore the worldview [ideology] of one of the Bible's most famous stories and to demonstrate how the artful ideologist brings it home [poetics]" (p. 9). The NRSV translation of Jonah, along with extensive notes on the text, occupies the remainder of chapter 1. Craig's purpose for including chapter 2 ("The RSV, NRSV, and Jonah") is not clear. The chapter discusses the two most recent revisions of the 1611 King James Version, the RSV (1952) and the NRSV (1990), especially the changes in both the translation philosophy and method between them. Since forty-seven of the forty-eight verses of Jonah have undergone some change, Craig treats these differences and the reasons behind them in detail under thirteen headings; for example, the shift to inclusive language, the updating of terms and expressions. The discussion and information hold some interest. However, only a small portion of the chapter appears directly relevant to the book's main argument. Much of it would not be missed if it were omitted. The first part of chapter 3 (on "The Narrator and the Characters") demonstrates the skillful way in which the book's author uses the role of the story's narrator to advance his ideological perspective. Craig then discusses the book's characters, noting, for example "The...

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