Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible is a noncomprehensive, literary study of biblical, violent rites geared toward synchronic criticism, differences in genre, and biblical descriptions of sociality. This publication consists of six revised essays that were published between 2009 and 2015, reworked and expanded by the author for this publication. In it, Olyan focuses on textual violence in ritual settings in the HB. His goal is to explicate a selection of texts that describe ritual violence, analyzing the literature related to ritual setting, literary contexts, and aims of the violent-agents in the HB, all in order “to speak in an informed way about the contours and social aspects of violent rites as they are represented in the Hebrew Bible” (p. 2).Olyan wishes his publication would open up new areas of research around violence in the HB. For this purpose, Olyan expands the definition of violence beyond somatic harm to human bodies, and includes psychological harm, coercion, intention to do harm, and further considerations about the victim’s culture. Thus, Olyan defines violence as “action that is intended by an agent to do harm to a patient in some way in the sociocultural context in which it occurs” (p. 3). Olyan’s approach to rituals in the HB reflects influence from practice theory, and especially Catherine Bell’s emphasis on “the creative dimensions of rites” (p. 5). In this vein, the author argues that ritual action not only reflects social conditions, but it in fact “realizes and publicizes” them. Olyan notes that, while biblical scholars have dealt with biblical violence often enough, less attention has been paid to violent rites, aside from treatments of the ban (*ḥērem) and sacrifice (human and animal). And, aside from his laudation of Tracy Lemos’s Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts, he considers this publication to fill a considerable desideratum on biblical, ritual violence. Practically, Olyan’s publication is approachable for readers of all levels.In terms of the chapters, there are six along with an introduction and short conclusion. Chapter 1 discusses violent rituals commanded by legal texts, including animal sacrifice, the ban, the jealousy ritual in Num 5, Levirate marriage and its refusal, human sacrifice, and Lev 24’s punishment for disfigurement. In ch. 2, Olyan features six different narratives about ancient Israel that center on violent rites including the golden calf in Exod 32, David’s abuse of Moabite prisoners-of-war in 2 Sam 8, Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment of Zedekiah in 2 Kgs 25, the postmortem mutilation of Sheba and Bikri in 2 Sam 20, Jehu’s cout d’etat in 2 Kgs 10, and Gideon’s destruction of his father’s altar in Judg 6. Chapter 3 allows Olyan to deal with prophetic and visionary texts that incorporate violent rituals including Jerusalem’s destruction in Ezek 16, the expulsion of the wicked woman in Zech 5, the animalization of Jehoiakim’s burial in Jer 22, and Nebuchadnezzar’s transformation into an animal in Dan 3–4. When we come to ch. 4, the author includes treatments of inversion and mitigating rites, rites meant to reverse or lessen the effects of violence against patients. The rites he includes in this analysis are: Amos 2, Isa 7, 2 Kgs 23, Lam 1, 1 Sam 31, 2 Sam 2 and 4, and 2 Sam 21. Yet, Olyan concludes that mitigating rites are unable to completely negate the negative impact of violent rituals. In ch. 5, Olyan discusses “circumstantially dependent” rites, which are “rites whose meaning and effect are entirely dependent on the circumstances in which they occur” (p. 9). Here he looks at Gen 17 in comparison with 1 Sam 18 to demonstrate this technique. Olyan considers these circumstantially dependent rites to be violent only in specific situations, while in other instances they would be nonviolent, even beneficial. And, finally, in ch. 6, Olyan considers the social dimensions and outcomes of violent rites, discussing how violent rites “sever, perpetuate, and even create relationships between individuals, groups, or polities,” (p. 10) using 1 Sam 22, 2 Sam 10, 2 Sam 16, 2 Sam 20, and Neh 13 as examples of the sociality of violent rituals in the HB.In terms of the nature of violent rituals, he concludes that they can be “prescribed and predictable,” but also “opportunistic.” Violence, he notes, can be motivated by “the hostility of agents toward the victim or have a punitive aim,” but that this is not always clear (p. 107). Many violent rites have to do with the inversion of some normal, ritualistic event or set of actions, something that “create[s] contrast[s] that serve to achieve strategic ends such as the painful, physical punishment of a domestic offender, a political rival, or a foreign prisoner of war” (pp. 107–8). Coercion must have negative outcomes as its impetus, or goal, in order to be considered ritual violence. And, throughout the publication Olyan reminds the reader that ritual violence depends on cultural circumstances, for example the difference between self-depilation by mourners (not ritual violence) versus coerced or forced depilation (i.e., ritual violence) as described in Neh 13.Olyan includes a discussion of the relationship between violent rites and biblical genre. The attention paid to genre in this publication are helpful in two ways. First, by focusing on genre emphasizes that this publication is about biblical literature, and not a reconstruction of biblical history. Second, Olyan’s findings can help to clarify some of the trends and tendencies within biblical violence as a whole. His conclusions could be usefully compared with other types of violence (e.g., gender) in the future. In terms of Olyan’s overall conclusions, given the texts that he examines and readings he provides, in most cases his conclusions are clairvoyant and sound. Yet, because this publication is not comprehensive, and because Olyan deals with each text he considers to be an instance of ritual violence one- by-one, taking the conclusions he offers and applying them broadly would be foolhardy. And, this is why Olyan continually warns the reader that every example of ritual violence must be contextualized in its ancient West Asian environment, a method he has demonstrated well in this book. For example, Olyan discusses the nonviolent ways that self-depilation are used in biblical texts for mourning and petitioning a deity (pp. 74–75). He compares this with forced-depilation, a violent rite, in texts such as 2 Sam 10 and Isa 7:20.Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible is not without its problems as well. To begin, I found it odd that Olyan rejects the idea of “social inequality” being violence, writing that “studies of violence that consider all manifestations of social inequality . . . to constitute ‘structural violence,’ thereby [render] violence a rather meaningless analytical category” (p. 3). This conclusion, I think, downplays violence against women, for example. In addition to this, the author largely (but not entirely) downplays the notion that all violence is contested. Instead, Olyan suggests that in the HB much violence is justified and that the more pertinent question for biblical scholars should be: “who is responsible for the winner’s victory and the losers’ defeat” (p. 5). A more critical stance toward the rhetoric of the text would certainly demonstrate the contested, literary nature of ritual violence.