Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Vol. VIII (review)

Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 193 Reviews Similarly, while one finds no reference to the questionable historicity of Jesus or his resurrection, the author prefaces his dictionary by alerting the reader to possible fictions in the Hebrew Bible: There are other persons described in the dictionary where what is recorded of them in the biblical text is mentioned. but a note of caution must be assumedthat the material we are dealing with may well not be historical (p. ix). Throughout the dictionary, the author also has opted for the term "Palestine" instead of "Israel," because after the Jewish revolt of 135 CE "the emperor Hadrian deleted 'Judaea' from his map and substituted 'Palestine'" (p. x). He also reminds us somewhat suggestively that "There are those who hold, for example, that the Israelites never 'entered the Promised Land' and were living in Canaan all the time" (p. ix). With so many new Bible dictionaries appearing in recent years (see, e.g., the excellent student-friendly and photo-filled version edited by Paul J. Achtemeier, HarperCollins Bible Dictionary [New York: HarperCollins, 1996]), students will benefit by carefully comparing them before selecting one. If the aim is to study the Bible in its ancient historical and literary contexts, to understand the intimate relationship between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament more fully, and to appreciate the common ground of ancient Judaism and Christianity, one is obliged to continue shopping. Scott B. Noege/ University ofWashington Seattle, WA 98195 snoegel@u.washington.edu THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. VOL. VIII. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry, eds. pp. xxiii + 560. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. Cloth, $45.00. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, the English rendering of the Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament, has already become a classic, well before its completion. The Dictionary, the younger sibling of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, states as its purpose "to analyze its [i.e., the Bible's] religious statements with the aid of all accessible resources and to present them in their peculiarity, in order to shed as much light as possible on the connections of the content of Old Testament thought in a given text, tradition, or institution" (Preface to Hebrew Studies 39 (1998) 194 Reviews Volume I). The original plan to publish the entire Dictionary within a decade soon proved to be utopian, in part because of the constant influx of insights in exegesis, lexicography, and archaeology, which made it necessary to reedit articles already completed, and in part because of the untimely death of one of the fathers of the enterprise, Prof. Gerhard Johannes Botterweck, on April 15, 1981. Two and a half decades after the publication of the first portion, the scholarly community still awaits the appearance of the last volume of the Worterbuch. Volume Vill, the latest to appear in English, presents an unabbreviated translation of the second half of vol. IV of the German edition. The volume includes 76 articles, from ,~'? 'capture' to ib 'myrrh,' averaging about five to eight pages in length. Each entry opens with a brief discussion of the etymology/meaning of the term, its occurrences, usage, and theological connotations, and concludes (where appropriate) with a rather short discussion of the attestations in the Septuagint and at Qumran. The reader is thus provided with information drawn from a variety of fields, such as exegesis , lexicography/semantics, comparative linguistics, ancient Near Eastern studies, and archaeology. The pages are clearly laid out with bibliographical references in the footnotes (an improvement over the German edition). As is to be expected from an opus magnum like this. articles vary both in depth and usefulness. The most original contribution in the present volume is S. Talmon's celebrated article on '~'Q, 'wilderness. desert.' In no fewer than 42 pages, Talmon describes in detail the 271 occurrences of the term, discusses its theological connotations, and provides an extensive bibliography . Other articles are significantly shorter, to be sure, but are nevertheless insightful (see, for example, the discussion of the etymology of c~'J~Q, 'Egypt,' or the ancient Near Eastern and archaeological evidence about the standing stones, ~). Only rarely is the reader left uncertain as to how far...