John Eaton

Book Reviews : Exulta Vit Spiritus Meus

musical dimension in his new book The Magnificat: Musicialls as Biblical Interpreters (Paulist Press, 1995,

Book Reviews : An Office of Feminine Prayer

9.95, pp. xxii + 89, ISBN 0-8091-3485-3). He understands the Magnificat (Lk 1:44-55) as a psalm expertly composed in Hebrew in early Christian worship, and quite possibly inspired by Mary’s presence. After looking at the structure and poetic features as a whole, he devotes his main chapters to exegesis of each section in turn. For each of the four strophes he also reviews a selection of musical settings, ranging from the fourteenth century de Quatris to contemporaries such as Michael Tippett. Here he describes the music and notes the composer’s achievements as interpreter of the text. Finally he lists forty-seven composers whose settings of the Magnificat are available on recordings, and he adds a bibliography on the Magnificat in music. Though the discussion is supported by scholarly footnotes, it is addressed to all ’enlightened worshippers’. These may, however, be puzzled by some of the exegesis, which at times is a riot of compressed textual associations, etymologies and protest theologies, with logical connections hardly evident. They will certainly find it stimulating, showing how much more such a little text may hold than appears on the surface. Above all, this little book could serve as a companion in the exploration of a great musical and religious tradition. (The heading ’Strophe IV’ has been omitted in the

Book Reviews : Asto Unding m uSica l dIscovery?

movement through early writers in the field, and to single out the better work among much that is shoddy. The topics covered are Scripture and Literary Criticism, Rhetorical and Structuralist Analyses, Formalism and Narrative (the longest section which includes methodology, structure, plot, characterization, narration and genre), Analysis of Hebrew Poetry, Reader-Response Analysis, and The Future of Old Testament Literary Criticism. Two articles are usually found under each head, one defining the type of analysis and the other applying the methodology to an Old Testament text. House

Book Reviews : Psalms for Understanding and Pra Yer

believes that a ’historical-critical’ reading of the text is still necessary because it delivers us from the subjectivity of some more recent literary and ’final form of the text’ readings (e.g. House, 1988). He finds three levels in the Book of Zephaniah which he describes as (i) ’precompositional’, to which (ii) some isolated ’post-compositional’ units have been added. As this suggests, however, he sees the book as we have it (iii) as a post-exilic composition and treats it as such. The main weight of his attention is on the outlook and theology of the unknown post-exilic author(s). We know nothing from the book of an historical prophet called Zephaniah, nor is such an hypothetical figure of any interest or significance to us. Not Zephaniah but ’the word of Yahweh’ is at the centre of the book.

Book Reviews : Ot Cult and Spirituality

To have a wrong idea about God is to have a wrong idea of life. Morality has its springs in worship. The chaos of modern civilization is the price we are paying in twisted and tangled lives for the worship of false gods. How can prayer be real to us if we have a false image of God in our minds? Our greatest need in worship, whether it be in private devotion or in church services, is not to tell God our thoughts but to fill our minds with his thoughts and to attune our will to his.

Book Reviews : Theological Word Study

the fifty-one contributors and their subjects would extend far beyond the space available, and since it would be highly invidious to pick out individual essays, I simply give a general impression. The volume to honour Professor Anderson has the title Understanding the Word and is edited by James T. Butler, Edgar W. Conrad and Ben C. Ollenburger (JSOT Press [1986], E27.50/

Book Reviews : Editors Are Good for You

37.50, pp. 391, ISBN 0-905774-88-4). There are four parts: ’Interpreting the Word’. ’The Word and Israel’s Scriptures’, ’The Word and the World’, and ’Appropriating the Word’. It is always dif~cult to secure essays that follow a consistent theme. Some of these are directed to short

Book Reviews : Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?

ament period, which is then presented in the third part together with the early church. Part four treats the empires and peoples of the biblical world from earliest times to the Roman empire. Part five traces Jerusalem’s history to the destruction of Herod’s temple. Four pages are then given to the holy land today, followed by four pages of time charts and a very detailed, useful index. This book promises to be a very good tool for students of the Bible. There are plenty of coloured diagrams and photographs (including one quite remarkable photo of the Dead Sea with a lonely tree in the foreground almost at water level! one wonders

Book Reviews : An Event in Ot Studies

The recent wave of respect for the canon, the final form of scripture, invites attention to the final editorial touches whereby that form was achieved, for in these touches we should find evidence of the final intention, the way the work as a whole was meant to be understood. In the case of the Psalms, such editorial work can be traced in their order, number, divisions, headings and other notes the very matters in which the manuscripts from the Dead Sea caves and, to a lesser

Book Reviews : The Psalms

come across proverbs or parables in the histories; we may note teachings in the prophets that remind us of the style of the sages; we may discern the sages’ way of seeing character and causation in stories like those of Joseph or the sons of David; we may detect the sages’ interests and learning in the accounts of creation. Reflecting further, we may wonder how we should define Wisdom material, how we may track it to some circle within society, how trace the tradition’s development and relation to other traditions. All these matters have been much discussed in recent