Festschriften and Collected Essays Christopher T. Begg, Michael W. Duggan, David A. Bosworth, Bradley C. Gregory, and Rhiannon Graybill 685. Dan Batovici and Kristin De Troyer (eds.), Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches (BIS 151; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017). Pp. vii + 346. $151, €138. ISBN 978-90-04-3086-6. With one exception, the essays making up this volume originated as papers delivered at a conference held at the School of Divinity of St. Andrews University in June 2011. The volume opens with an introduction by the editors, which provides summaries of the essays that follow. Those essays are arranged under four headings: (1) Old Testament/Hebrew Bible (4 essays); (2) Pseudepigrapha & Dead Sea Scrolls (5); (3) New Testament (5); and (4) Early Christianity (7 essays, of which the last, authored by B., bears the title "Epilogue: Future Prospects for Reception History"). For abstracts of those essays of most direct interest to OTA readers, see ##56, 61, 310, 384, 460, 602, 627, 629, 632, 649, 676.—C.T.B. 686. Angelika Berlejung, Aren M. Maeir, and Andreas Schüle (eds.), Wandering Arameans: Arameans Outside Syria. Textual and Archaeological Perspectives (Leipziger Altorientalische Studien 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017). Pp. x + 298. Paper €58. ISBN 978-3-447-10727-3. The 12 essays making up this volume are reworkings of papers delivered at a workshop on its title topic that took place at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Leipzig in October 2014. The papers are preceded by the editors' brief foreword and followed by indexes of biblical references, places and proper names, and (selected) subjects. The essays themselves are organized under two headings: Syria and Palestine and Mesopotamia and Egypt. Each essay comes with its own bibliography. Numerous maps, charts, and photos are interspersed throughout. For abstracts of the essays, see ##40, 142, 155, 156, 172, 179, 192, 208, 209, 219, 233, 238.—C.T.B. 687. Eberhard Bons and Karin Finsterbusch (eds.), Konstruktionen individueller und kollektiver Identität (II): Alter Orient, hellenistisches Judentum, römische Antike, Alte Kirche (Biblisch-Theologische Studien 168; Neukirchener Theologie; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017). Pp. vi + 240. Paper $38. ISBN 978-3-7887-3015-2. The 8 component essays of this collection (of which one is in French, the remainder in German) emanate from a meeting of a joint French-German study group held in March 2016, and complement an earlier first volume of essays on its title topic that was abstracted in OTA 40 (2017) #2000. The essays of this collection treat dimensions of the construction of identity in the four periods and religio-cultural spheres of its subtitle. For abstracts of the four essays of most direct interest to OTA readers, see ##39, 47, 377, 661.—C.T.B. 688. [LXX] Dirk Büchner (ed.), The SBL Commentary on the Septuagint: An Introduction (SCS 67; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017). Pp. xviii + 261. Paper $37.95. ISBN 978-1-62837-1871-1. This volume is designed to provide interested readers with a foretaste of the nature and specific features of the projected SBL Commentary on the books of the Septuagint. It [End Page 224] opens with B.'s Preface and an introductory word by Albert Pietersma entitled "The Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint: Basic Principles" and concludes with an "Appendix: Preamble to the Guidelines for the Contributors to the SBL Commentary on the Septuagint." In between, one finds six sample commentaries on a particular chapter (or segment thereof) of a given LXX book (each of which makes use of a format consisting of an opening bibliography, outline, comments on the chapter's lemmata [the texts of which are given in Hebrew, Greek, and English] and a concluding summary). The six entries are: Robert J. V. Hiebert, "In the Beginning: A Commentary on the Old Greek Text of Genesis 1:1–2:3"; Larry Perkins, "'Drawn from the Water': A Commentary on the Old Greek Text of Exodus 2:1-10"; Dirk Büchner, "Leuitikon 3.1-17: The Sacrifice of Deliverance"; Spencer A. Jones, "Balaam, Pagan Prophet of God: A Commentary on...