Reviews of


“My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel

In HB/OT, Identity, JiSeong Kwon, Oxford University Press, Susan NIDITCH on May 22, 2013 at 9:48 am

Hairy

2013.05.09 | Susan Niditch. “My Brother Esau is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel. Oxford: OUP, 2008. Pp. 168. ISBN: 978-0-19-518114-2. Hardback.

Review by JiSeong Kwon, Durham University.

Many thanks to OUP for kindly providing us with a review copy.

In this book, Niditch argues that the growing, cutting, and altering of ‘hair’ in Israel reflect the significant social, historical, religious circumstances of the ancient Near East and help us to read the cultural meanings behind texts. Biblical descriptions with regard to the treatment of hair—various terms such as ‘hair’, ‘razor’, ‘shave’, ‘cut’, and ‘beard’—enable us to be aware of the common cultural/social context in the corresponding culture and time.

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Ecclesiastes and Scepticism

In Bloomsbury, Ecclesiastes, Larisa Levicheva, Qoheleth, Stuart WEEKS on May 11, 2013 at 3:17 pm

EC

2013.05.08 | Stuart Weeks. Ecclesiastes and Scepticism. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 541. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Pp. xiv+219. Hard cover. ISBN 978-0-567-25288-3.

Review by Larisa Levicheva, Wesley Seminary, Indiana Wesleyan University.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury for kindly providing us with a review copy.

This book consists of five chapters with an introduction, a chapter with concluding remarks and an appendix which presents an in-depth study of the name “Qoheleth.” The Introduction outlines the following chapters and lays down the assumptions which guide Weeks’ study. Weeks offers a different reading of the book of Ecclesiastes which presents Qoheleth’s thoughts as personal grievance over the impotence of intellectual accomplishments and over the complete lack of control of one’s material gain.

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Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries

In Ashgate, Early Christianity, Jacob Phillips, Mark EDWARDS on May 3, 2013 at 3:48 pm

IWG

2013.05.07 | Mark Edwards, Image, Word and God in the Early Christian Centuries. Ashgate Studies in Philosophy and Theology in Late Antiquity. Ashgate: Farnham, Surrey 2013. 220 pages. ISBN: 978-1-4094-0671-6.

Review by Jacob Phillips, King’s College London.

Many thanks to Ashgate for kindly providing us with a review copy.

Tertullian’s adage: quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis (what has Athens to do with Jerusalem?), tends to be a little overused in theological discourse. As well as being a cliché, it also fosters the view that the philosophical and theological concerns of Graeco-Roman and Hebrew thinking were somehow poles apart.

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