The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature ed. by Rebecca Lemon, et al. (review)

472 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE be read correctly. Sommerville goes to some length to point out that scriptural revelation is not a book of propositions nor a moral treatise; it is embodied in narrative . Section IV becomes more pointed in designating the obstacles that impede a balanced education. Sommerville walks us through the culture wars of the last century and the legacy of the toxic forces that turbulence has bequeathed us. In a somewhat tangential chapter, "The Child as Secular Icon;' he deplores the shameful ways in which we abuse our children. Finally, in "News as Culture Substitute;' Sommerville inveighs against the fallacy of what can be called "presentism"-the addiction to the daily news, with its allure of change and the vices attending the business ofjournalism. This exaggerated attention to the arbitrary selection ofwhat passes for news of the day takes place at the expense of studies of the past which can deliver far greater wisdom than the snippets of the human drama that we get to see on our TV screen or other technologies. (But is it not a matter of regret that many of our young people display an ignorance not only of the past but also of contemporary events?)And in his final chapter, "Spirituality and Decadence;' Sommerville appraises the "Spiritual but not Religious" movement. Its devotees are attracted by the aesthetics of religion, he notes, but it is religion on the cheap. It requires no commitment, no action, no grappling with the ultimate issues of life. The book is a tract for our time. It is so ably presented that students who read the book might demand compensation from the university for its failure to deliver a comprehensive education-one designed not only for job preparation but with the resources to engage life and reality in terms of religious ultimacy. SteveJ.Van Der Weele CalvinCollege (Emeritus) The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Edited by Rebecca Lemon, Emma Mason, Jonathan Roberts, and Christopher Rowland. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4051-3160-5. Pp. x + 703. $199.95. This is a monumental, landmark book. It came within my ken just as I was writing a book on the King James Bible and its legacy. I cannot conceive of completing my task without the benefit of The Blackwell Companion to theBible in EnglishLiterature . This book is an excellent companion to David Jeffrey's A Dictionary ofBiblical Tradition in English Literature. Jeffrey's book divides the material according to parts of the Bible;the Blackwell Companion is arranged by authors, eras (e.g., Old English poetry), and schools of literature (e.g., the Middle English mystics; early modern religious prose; the Great War poets). BOOK REVIEWS 473 Before I explore the contents of the book, I will note three surrounding facts that are symptomatic of the times. It is an index to how research methods have changed with the advent of the computer that this book came to my notice almost immediately upon its release through a Google search. Secondly,though titled after the erstwhile Blackwell Publishers, the copyright page informs us that Blackwell "was acquired by John Wiley & Sons" and "merged with Wiley's global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business;' with the registered office in a little-known city in West Sussex. Thirdly-and it is the fly in the ointment of my recommendation of this book-the price of the book makes it affordable only by libraries (and one wonders how many of the requested purchases of it will be approved). There is nothing about the physical materials of the book that can justify the price of $200 (actually, $199.95,which is also symptomatic of the times). The list of contributors runs to fiftynames, and only ten are affiliatedwith U.S. universities. Like the translators who produced the King James Bible,the contributors were selected on the basis of known scholarly ability, and as with the translators , the project elicited their best. Only a parceling out to fifty specialists could have produced the depth and breadth of scholarship represented by the individual essays.The consistently excellent scholarship and writing make the book feel unified , despite the diversity of subject and...