John L. McLaughlin

Book Review: ANCIENT ISRAEL: THE OLD TESTAMENT IN ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT. Edited by Philip F. Esler. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006. Pp. xvii + 420. Cloth,

186 authorities; on the other hand, in the Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, Blandina stands out as a noble slave martyr for Christ. In the final chapter and epilogue, Harrill turns to the modern era, tracking the battle for the Bible on both sides of the critical proslavery/abolitionist divide in nineteenth-century America. He demonstrates the difficulty, if not futility, in appealing to the Bible, especially its literalistic “plain sense,” to settle complex moral debates. With respect to slavery, as far as he goes Harrill brilliantly elucidates the New Testament’s basic complicity in the dominant ancient literary and rhetorical ethos of its day—and thus its limited ethical value for today. But he has seriously downplayed the religious and theological foundations of the text. Theology regularly trades on current metaphors, tropes, and symbols “to think with” about God, but with keen awareness of their ultimate inadequacy to capture divine truth. Images and personae of slaves and slave masters applied to God, Christ, and the apostle Paul do not so much undermine or subvert the system from which they derive (here Harrill makes his case) as overwhelm or burst it. “Plainly” identifying God’s Son and humanity’s Savior as both Lord/Master and slave/servant of all (cf. Mark 10:42–45; Phil 2:5–8), for example, provides enormously challenging and disorienting imagery with which to contemplate the mysteries of God and God’s people in any age. F. Scott Spencer Baptist Theological Seminary 3400 Brook Road Richmond,VA 23227-4538