Historical Books
- Historical Books
M.'s volume covers all the Historical Books of the Catholic OT canon, including the five deuterocanonicals Ruth, Tobit, Judith, and 1–2 Maccabees. The volume consists of a total of 20 chapters, each devoted to a biblical book or group of books: (1) Biblical historiographies; (2) History outside the Historical Books (i.e., elsewhere in the OT); (3) The Deuteronomistic Historical Work; (4) Joshua; (5) Judges; (6) 1 Samuel; (7) 2 Samuel; (8) 1 Kings; (9) 2 Kings; (10) Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah; (11) 1 Chronicles; (12) 2 Chronicles; (13) Ezra-Nehemiah; (14) The Books of Maccabees; (15) 1 Maccabees; (16) 2 Maccabees; (17) Ruth; (18) Esther; (19) Judith; and (20) Tobit. Each chapter provides basic information about the content and arrangement of the given book or books and its component sections. M. makes frequent use of informational "boxes" which enable the reader to more readily visualize the layout of the book(s) under discussion and its longer and shorter sections, as well as the parallels between Chronicles and Dtr and those between 1 and 2 Maccabees. Each chapter concludes with a very brief bibliography of resources for further study.—C.T.B. [End Page 630]
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B., the author of this volume on the Books of Samuel, has an unusual background for writing such a book: he is not a "professional" exegete, but rather a professor of "political economy" at Lumsa University in Rome and an editorialist for the Italian Catholic paper L'Avvenire. His volume consists of short (mostly approximately five-page) reflections on selected passages of the Books of Samuel to each of which he gives a suggestive title, e.g., "the great economy of littleness" (on the anointing of David as told in 1 Samuel 16). In his reflections B. highlights the literary qualities of the given passage and calls attention to the similarities and differences that emerge when a passage is read in relation to its intra- and intertexts (e.g., the friends David and Jonathan, who like the brothers Cain and Abel, go out together into a field but for very different purposes and with very different results). B. further devotes particular attention to the exploration of the relationships among Samuel's various characters—including their relationships with God—and what those relationships might have to suggest about our own relationships in all their various nuances, sorrows and joys.—C.T.B.
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T. is a well-known Spanish text-critic whose scholarly activity extending over more than four decades has focused on the multiple and complicated textual problems posed by the Books of Kings. This volume brings together a total of 19 essays, of which 16 have been previously published in either Spanish or English in the years 1977–2012 (the eight articles which originally appeared in Spanish are all translated into English), while the remaining four appear here for the first time. The essays are preceded by the editors' "foreword" and an introduction to the collection by T. concerning his scholarly life work and approach to textual criticism. The previously published essays with their dates of original publication are as follows: "Recensional Criticism of 4 Kingdoms 25:18-19" (1977); "Jeroboam and the Assembly at Shechem (MT 1 Kings 12:2-3a; LXX 3 Kingdoms 11:43; 12:24d,f,p)" (1979–1980); "The Alternative Stories about Solomon and Jeroboam (MT 1 Kings 12, 14 and LXX 3 Kingdoms 12:24b-z)" (1980); "The Supplements of LXX 3 Kingdoms 2:35a...
