Reception History Research Articles

If You Build It, They Will Come: The Field of Book of Mormon Reception History

If You Build It, They Will Come: The Field of Book of Mormon Reception History

Confessing church today?

Confessing church today? The article responds to the question from Reformed ecumenical circles regarding what it could mean to be a confessing church today. It revisits Karl Barth’s influential contributions to the same discussion during the 1920s and for several decades after that. It calls to mind some major claims from Barth’s authoritative paper for the ecumenical Reformed world in 1925 on the question of whether the Reformed community needed a general confessional document – a proposal in regard to which he strongly rejected both the possibility and the desirability. It then traces the legacy of these claims through the reception history of the Theological Declaration of Barmen, the Confession of Belhar and the Accra Covenant on Justice and the Ecology, and thereby suggests possible answers to the original question.

From Pariah to Baboon: Ludwig Robert’s Parody of Michael Beer’s Paria

Abstract Michael Beer’s successful 1823 play Der Paria is famous as an early complaint against the status of Jews as second-rate citizens. As such, it is fundamental to the conception of Jews as pariahs, best known through the writings of Hannah Arendt. Its long reception history has overlooked an important source, that is now uncovered for the first time in a hundred years. Beer’s play was parodied by Ludwig Robert with Der Pavian. Both authors were scions of Berlin’s Jewish elite, and among the first authors of Jewish descent to write in German. Robert’s parody shows why he did not share in the general enthusiasm about Der Paria, how the choice of the parodic genre was a self-referential critique, and how form and content of the parody together intervened in Beer’s use of the genre of Trauerspiel. Thus, it contributes to our understanding of the diverse strategies and self-perceptions of upper-class Berlin Jews, confronted with the limits of their pioneering the Jewish integration into non-Jewish society, showing the role of theater as a means of negotiating contemporary social problems both in private and publicly, stressing the difficult presence of Jews in the German public sphere.

:Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture: Poetry, Manuscript, Print, 1780–1850

:<i>Album Verses and Romantic Literary Culture: Poetry, Manuscript, Print, 1780–1850</i>

Imperial Remnants of a Contested Alpine Border Region: Encountering Bolzano’s Ambiguous Monuments

Italian cities are full of public inscriptions and monuments that praise not only fascism but also its brutal expansionist wars. This situation is especially true in Bolzano, the capital of a formerly contested border region in the north of the country, where such symbols were crucial to claim political and cultural domination over conquered territories – not only in the Mediterranean and Africa, but also within Italy’s own national borders. This essay examines monuments, street names and other material legacies of fascist imperialism in Bolzano and reflects on the meaning given to them by the fascist regime at the time of their erection. It reveals why these symbols were placed at specific points in the city as imperial landmarks and questions the regime’s representative intentions behind it. This essay intends to provide a historical starting point for an overall examination of imperial monuments in Bolzano and, based on this, to enable research on their reception history in further studies. To this end, it examines articles from fascist South Tyrolean newspapers reporting on the inauguration ceremonies of the monuments. In addition, fascist laws and city government protocols provide information about the political ethos under which the regime erected them. Finally, the imperial remnant’s symbolic content will be analysed and compared with the research literature on Italian colonialism and its wars of aggression.

The Ghosts of Max Weber in the Economic History of Preindustrial Europe

Abstract: During the past fifty years, economic historians trained in economics have turned Max Weber into a champion of the cultural foundations of economic growth that he was not. The article examines the reasons and consequences of this misappropriation. It begins by highlighting Weber’s aversion to monocausal explanations and identifies two lines of argument in his voluminous writings on the historical development of Western capitalism: one stressing religious values and one focusing on political and legal institutions. While Weber never fully reconciled these two lines of argument, he considered them complementary rather than mutually exclusive. The article continues by tracing the engagement (or lack thereof) with Weber in the work of Douglass C. North and in a recent flurry of papers on the “economics of religion” that ostensibly tests the empirical validity of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). It then discusses the return of interest in the coevolution of cultural and institutional processes of change among some economists and political scientists. Throughout, the article signals how this reception history went hand in hand with a decline in exchanges between economists and scholars in other disciplines. Ultimately, it argues for the importance of incorporating the history of disciplines in our disciplinary practices. More specifically, it stresses the continued relevance of Weber’s research agenda for the comparative and historical study of capitalisms (in the plural), in spite of the fact that many of his conclusions appear now outdated.

Revisiting the Xiaoshi Jingang keyi 銷釋金剛科儀: A Textual and Reception History

Generally acknowledged as a Southern Song text by an obscure Chan monk, the Xiaoshi Jingang keyi 銷釋金剛科儀 includes a chapter-by-chapter exposition of Kumārajīva's fifth-century Chinese translation of the Diamond Sūtra and survives in multiple different editions from the Ming-Qing era. It has claimed attention from scholars from different fields of Chinese religions and been considered in the context of the study of precious scroll (baojuan 寶卷) or Buddhist ritual literature. With due attention to different components of the whole text rather than the exposition alone, and by situating the work in the history of Chinese Buddhist commentarial and liturgical works on the Diamond Sūtra, this article examines the textual and reception history of the Xiaoshi Jingang keyi. Focusing on its overall structure, source material, and use of verses. I demonstrate that the Xiaoshi Jingang keyi finds roots in the pre-existing Chinese Buddhist literature on the Diamond Sūtra, and show how it inspired Buddhist monastics to compose commentaries on it up to the mid-sixteenth century.

“Damit siegt Hrabanus mühelos über Apelles”

Abstract The first printed edition of the Liber sanctae crucis by Hrabanus Maurus, published in 1503 in Pforzheim, was a milestone in the reception history of the Carolingian figured poems, and a typographic and philological masterpiece as well. This article argues for considering Johannes Reuchlin as the principal initiator of the publication. This sheds new light on the excursus about the cross in Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico and De arte cabalistica. Reuchlin’s theory of the miracle-working word implies a Cabbalistic-Pythagorean exegesis of the cross as a complement, which he left unelaborated. In view of this hiatus, Hrabanus’ figured poems on the cross might have appeared particularly promising for the humanist, both on grounds of their compositional methods and contents. Besides the demonstration of these affinities, the article provides an analysis of Reuchlin’s introductory poem to the edition, which confirms that he regarded the cycle of figured poems as a prospective source for his Christian Cabbala.

Ecce Homo: John 19:5, a Portrait of Jesus and a Tangle of Stories

AbstractIn the context of the Bible, reception history is about the inter-play of text and context. It is also about the capacity of stories to continue to be told, the practice of ongoing interpretation and about creativity and meaning making, often in ways that challenge the text/context divide. In exploring this challenge, I ask how a roughly drawn picture of Jesus as Ecce Homo from John’s trial scene (John 19:5), a piece of devotional art from 1940s Europe, might demonstrate the capacity of texts—John 19:5 and others—to act across a range of (loosely connected) contexts. How might diverse narratives—artistic, historical, ideological, biographical—engage with thought on reception theory and trouble the distinction between text and context, so as to demonstrate the surprising expansiveness of texts and textuality? When viewed via this picture, the words on the pages of canonical text are revealed to be dynamic, travelling through the cultural and devotional history of varying locations, times and epochs. These words are in a state of flux, continually being re-written, embellished upon and otherwise shaped and changed. Following their trails in connection with this picture of Jesus, I explore the complex qualities of story and textuality. These qualities have parallel implications for John’s Gospel, as an ongoing and increasingly tangled story of Empire, irony and ambivalence, a story that continues to play out in multiple, messy and often conflicting ways. Ultimately, to gather a number of narratives and to bind them within the frames of this picture becomes a way of demonstrating the slipperiness and even arbitrariness of historical reception. It elucidates the competing interests of context, scholarship and tradition, not to mention the ever-widening scope of possibilities for biblical textuality.

John Henry Newman's National Monument: an Oxford Controversy

According to the standard narrative, although John Henry Newman was driven away from Oxford in the 1840s by the dominant Protestant consensus, by the end of his life in the 1890s he was back in favour, fêted in Oxford as a Roman Catholic celebrity and as an esteemed alumnus. This article challenges that interpretation by examining the forgotten controversy over Newman's national monument, a significant aspect of his reception history. It shows how Newman's memory and reputation remained hotly contested, provoking resistance by the dons and citizens of late Victorian Oxford, even in this recently secularised and professedly tolerant university city.

De Tractatus lezen. En waarderen

Reading the Tractatus. And appreciating it The reception history of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus displays an impressive and persistent diversity. This paper explores possible sources of that diversity and locates them in different takes on the text and its context of origin, and in different perspectives of the readers. This hermeneutics is illustrated by a comparison of two views on the importance of ethics for an understanding of the Tractatus: that of Cora Diamond and the one developed by the authors in previous work.

Mimetic Mechanicity: The Iron Foundry and Vernacular Internationalism in the 1930s

AbstractIn the 1930s, the Iron Foundry, a short orchestral piece by the Soviet composer Aleksandr Mosolov, became hugely popular with audiences across Europe, North America, and beyond. Reassembling the fragmented archives of its performance and reception histories, this article sets out to follow the work on the circuitous routes that ensued. Addressing issues including programmaticism, the reception of Soviet music, and the history of comedy, I show how Mosolov's composition became a lightning rod for larger debates about concert music's relationships with modernity, politics, and mass entertainment. The case of the Iron Foundry, I suggest, illustrates how the pleasures of machine aesthetics – and, more specifically, a stylized idiom of mechanized gesture distinctive to the period – became widely assimilated into what we might call the vernacular internationalism of the interwar middle classes.

Stephen E. Young. Our Brother Beloved: Purpose and Community in Paul’s Letter to Philemon

Stephen E. Young. <i>Our Brother Beloved: Purpose and Community in Paul’s Letter to Philemon</i>

Ralph K. Hawkins. Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception

Ralph K. Hawkins. <i>Discovering Exodus: Content, Interpretation, Reception</i>

Verstan és Versirás

Attila József ’s manuscript Verstan és Versirás is one of the few surviving autobiographically inspired writings by the poet. These fall into two main categories: curriculum vitaes intended mainly for official purposes, and confessions about life experiences and catharses composed in a subjective tone. Texts of this latter category can further be distuinguished by their intended purpose: on the one hand, there are essays meant for publication and concerned with the psychological background of the creative process and the personality of the poet; and on the other, texts occasioned by psychoanalytical therapy aimed at self-healing. However, there are some texts that require further analysis before they can be subsumed into any one of these categories, and their date of composition is likewise uncertain. The work entitled Verstan és Versirás is one such text. Its genetic history has not been clarified satisfactorily, the text variants which have been published are inaccurate, and it has received scant critical reception. My paper is therefore an attempt at summarising the text’s publication and reception history, and to shed light on the circumstances of its creation. In my opinion, this work is not only an important document of the last years of Attila József, but also possesses a significant, ntrinsic artistic value. I trust that the publication of the exact text and its genetic history will constitute a suitable starting point both for further analysis, and for explorations concerning its relevance to the poetic oeuvre.

Pierre Du Ryer, Théâtre complet. Sous la direction d’Hélène Baby. Tome ii, édition d’Hélène Baby, Catherine Dumas, Perry Gethner et Sandrine Berrégard

This collection of five plays by seventeenth-century playwright Pierre Du Ryer is the second in a three-volume collection (the first and third focused on his tragedies). This volume, however, presents four tragicomedies — Lisandre et Caliste, Clarigène (both edited by Hélène Baby), Alcimédon (edited by Catherine Dumas), and Cléomédon (edited by Perry Gethner) — and his only comedy, Les Vendanges de Suresnes (edited by Sandrine Berrégard). Du Ryer was much admired in his time but subsequently rather forgotten and principally known only as author of a few tragedies. This volume thus aims to extend readers’ knowledge of his works and uncover plays hitherto unedited since the seventeenth century. As is standard for Classiques Garnier texts, the plays are rendered accessible to modern readers with modernized spellings and a harmonized presentation of the acts, scenes, and stage directions. Each play is preceded by a detailed introduction exploring its major features and examining a range of themes within the genre. For Lisandre et Caliste, Baby presents an engaging discussion of the way the play takes the novel by Vital d’Audiguier and adapts it for the stage, and explores the varied time and space depicted across the scenes. This contrasts with Du Ryer’s increased adherence to unities in Cléomédon (as described in Gethner’s later introduction). Baby’s detailed account of the set, staging, and scenes of combat in Lisandre et Caliste brings the play further to life and the reader is also provided with nuanced understanding of key elements of the ‘spectacle tragi-comique’, including reversals, comedic tropes, and the particular universal moral order of the genre. Frequent devices such as surprise and false appearances are examined in Dumas’s introduction to Alcimédon. The theme of deception is investigated in Baby’s introduction to Clarigène through analysis of ‘le déguisement inconscient’ and ‘le déguisement conscient’. The introduction to Cléomédon (a theatrical adaptation of the famous novel L’Astrée, by Honoré d’Urfé) explores baroque themes of tragicomedies, with a fascinating section on delusion and madness and how this relates to Cléomédon’s grandiose perception of himself. Alongside an exploration of such key themes, Gethner also presents the play’s reception history and places this in the context of a range of other plays of the period. The final work in the collection, Les Vendanges de Suresnes, is introduced by anchoring it within the pastoral tradition, but Berrégard shows how the action is rooted in ‘un cadre urbain traditionnel’ and is illustrative of ‘une dramaturgie du quotidien’ (p. 525). Berrégard is attentive to the rich intertextual and metatheatrical references within the comedy and provocatively asks, ‘l’activité viticole ne serait-elle pas aussi une métaphore de la construction dramatique, avec la maîtrise des techniques propres à cet art qu’elle-même suppose?’ (p. 538). Overall, the book is well structured, since the different introductions are not repetitive but are clearly in dialogue with one another. The volume presents a comprehensive picture both of the theatrical landscape and of Du Ryer’s artistry.

On Inaudible Violence and the Postcritical Musicology

Schubert’s “Heidenröslein” is sprightly and cheerful, but it sings of a woman’s rape. This article maps out the political implications of the song’s multiple alibis, drawing on reception history and post-Freudian lessons on listening. Schubert’s music engenders myths about hearing that resonate with musicology’s material turn and the postcritical attention to attachment, enchantment, and presence. “Heidenröslein,” however, reveals music’s charm not as a reliable harbinger of freedom—from disembodiment, epistemological certitude, or metaphysical abstraction—but as an occasional captor, liar, and false informant. Slavoj Žižek’s taxonomy of violence prompts a new reflection on Schubert’s song, which centers on what I theorize as “inaudible violence.” This violence complicates Schubert’s seemingly progressive relationship to questions of gender and sexuality, as well as the ethics of postcritical affective attachment. Schubert’s song, ultimately, gives voice to a philosophy of music’s inaudible violence. It calls for a psychoanalytic archaeology of acoustic acts and artifacts that encourages attention to musical sound’s ethical misgivings, which, when not overlooked, may just be overheard.

The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt by Avinoam J. Patt

Reviewed by: The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt by Avinoam J. Patt Maria Ferenc Avinoam J. Patt. The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2021. xvi + 542 pp. Already in October 1943, when hardly any details on the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto were known, and the remaining fighters were still struggling to survive in German-occupied Poland, NBC radio broadcasted a play by Morton Wishengrad entitled The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto, the first dramatic representation of the revolt. Wishengrad’s play was the first element in the long chain of memorial events and cultural productions relating to the most famous example of Jewish self-defense against Nazis during the Holocaust. In his newest book, The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw, Avinoam Patt takes his readers on a fascinating journey through the interpretations of one of the most well-known events in the history of the Holocaust and proves how vital it was as a point of reference for postwar Jewish identity. The heroic acts of Warsaw Jews, later dubbed “the revolt of the doomed,” have received attention from all generations of Holocaust researchers, and the subject is far from being closed. In his book, Patt has pointed to yet another subject that has long deserved thorough research: how the revolt had been remembered, commemorated, and what it meant for Jewish communities in United States, Israel, and (although this subject is not tackled consistently) in other countries. Patt’s book succeeds in presenting the fascinating history of the early reception of the famous historical event. One of his most essential conclusions seems to be that the reception of the uprising belongs to the history of the postwar period and, on some level, even defines it. The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw is a real tour de force: Patt controls all narrative lines. (Though, it has to be noted that the book is long, and sometimes detailed background may distract the reader’s attention.) In the first chapter, Patt aptly describes selected aspects of the history of the Warsaw Ghetto to inform his readers on the events leading up to the revolt and introduce the people behind it (some of whom would later become important actors in its commemorations). He discusses [End Page 207] the uprising based mainly on recent work by the Israeli historian Havi Dreifuss, author of the vital book Geto Varshah: Ha-sof (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2018). In chapter 2, Patt looks at what (and when) was known in the United States and Israel about the Holocaust as it was happening. Early news about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was immediately available abroad—though devoid of any details, which left much space for filling the outline of the information with meaning, and said more about the societies that produced that meaning than about the event itself. Chapter 3 discusses how the surviving fighters’ acts of writing the history of the uprising intertwined and merged with the making of the event’s mythology (that on some level antedated the revolt itself). Chapter 4 is devoted solely to the celebrations of the first anniversary of the uprising in 1944, still during the war. In chapter 5, Patt analyzes how the Zionist interpretation of the revolt has been shaped—he demonstrates that the uprising immediately became an important token of the popular imagination and that control over the narrative could translate into political, social, and cultural gains for various parties. The Zionist narrative provided answers that diminished the anxiety emerging from questions regarding Jews’ allegedly “passive” behavior during the Holocaust. Chapter 6 discusses the meaning of the revolt for the surviving Jews in Europe. Patt convincingly argues that the uprising was politicized from the very beginning and that various political movements stressed their role in it. “Only Hehalutz fought,” wrote Yitzhak Zuckerman, one of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization (278–79). In chapter 7, Patt tells the story of the surviving fighters of the ghetto revolt and asks how they positioned themselves toward their biographical legacy in the first postwar testimonies, which, at the same time, built the legend of the event and documented it. Since the meaning of...

Studies on the Intersection of Text, Paratext, and Reception: A Festschrift in Honor of Charles E. Hill by Gregory R. Lanier and J. Nicholas Reid

Reviewed by: Studies on the Intersection of Text, Paratext, and Reception: A Festschrift in Honor of Charles E. Hill by Gregory R. Lanier and J. Nicholas Reid Chris S. Stevens gregory r. lanier and j. nicholas reid, Studies on the Intersection of Text, Paratext, and Reception: A Festschrift in Honor of Charles E. Hill (Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 15; Leiden: Brill, 2021). Pp. xxvii + 414. €124. On the occasion of Charles E. Hill's turning sixty-five and retiring from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, thirteen contributors from around the globe have produced a great collection of articles. As Dr. Hill has contributed scholarly works on a breadth of topics, this volume seeks to interact with his interests in scribal culture, paratext, and canonicity. The chapters in the volume include: Peter M. Head, "Punctuation and Paragraphs in P66 (P.Bod. II): Insights into Scribal Behavior" (pp. 3–29); Gregory R. Lanier and Moses Han, "The Text and Paratext of Minuscule GA 1424: Initial Observations" (pp. 30–59); Peter Malik, "Marginal Paratexts in GA 2323: A Thirteenth-Century Witness to the Medieval Reception of Revelation" (pp. 60–96); J. Nicholas Reid, "Writing and Writers in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Brief Sketch for New Testament Scholars" (pp. 97–121); Peter J. Gurry, "On Not Preferring the Shorter Reading: Matthew as a Test Case" (pp. 122–41); Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman, "Codex Bezae as Repository" (pp. 142–74); Stanley E. Porter, "What Is a Text? The Linguistic Turn and Its Implications for New Testament Studies" (pp. 175–98); Michael J. Kruger, "Second Peter 3:2, the Apostolate, and a Bi-covenantal Canon" (pp. 201–31); Peter J. Gentry, "MasPsa and the Early History of the Hebrew Psalter: Notes on Canon and Text" (pp. 232–58); Peter J. Williams, "Problems with the Explicit Marking of Quotations in Translations and Scholarly Editions of the New Testament" (pp. 259–78); Paul Foster, "Polycarp's Teaching: The Reception and Development of Theology" (pp. 279–313); Richard Bauckham, "A Neglected Reference to John the Elder as Bishop of Ephesus (Const. ap. 7.46.7)" (pp. 314–39); and James W. Barker, "The Acts of John within the Johannine Corpus" (pp. 340–80). A short review cannot address details in a volume of this size and breadth; therefore, attention is given to areas of particular note within Dr. Hill's area of major contribution. Reid looks at the paratextual features in Mesopotamian tablets. While not often incorporated into NT textual criticism, Reid demonstrates some intriguing facets of the sociohistorical literary world behind NT scribal culture. Gurry does something that Hill is quite good at, reexamining the evidence to question entrenched assumptions. Gurry evaluates the default preference for the originality of the shorter reading in NT textual criticism. He highlights the untenability of the assumption and concludes that the length of a variant should not be a controlling factor. Instead, attention should be given to explaining why a variant occurs. [End Page 373] Knust and Wasserman provide a fine model for how to work with paratextual annotations. Kruger continues canonicity research that Hill and he have co-authored. Moving beyond external reception history methodologies, Kruger asks if the NT speaks about canonicity. He proposes an intracorpus canon consciousness. Beginning with 2 Pet 3:2 and the phrase, "Prophets and Apostles," Kruger contends that this phrase serves to equate the NT apostolic authority with the OT prophets and, more importantly, reveals an acknowledged twofold canon. Kruger traces the prophet-apostle pattern through various NT passages and patristic writings. Williams addresses a small, overlooked matter—whether quotation marks are helpful or harmful to readers of modern print editions. After addressing the history of ancient and modern punctuation, Williams notes instances where modern quotation marks are inconsistent, errantly separate quotations, and are exegetically indefensible. Most notably, modern punctuation, barely more than a century old, does not cohere with ancient paratextual features and often contradicts them. Therefore, consistent with his argument but nonetheless quite provocatively, Williams concludes that the quotation marks in modern Bibles should be abandoned (p. 277). Foster builds and expands on previous work by Hill on Polycarp. Addressing modern scholarship that seeks to downplay Polycarp, Foster admirably...

The Cambridge Companion to Genesis ed. by Bill T. Arnold

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to Genesis ed. by Bill T. Arnold Bradley C. Gregory bill t. arnold (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Genesis (Cambridge Companions to Religion; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). Pp. xiii + 372. Paper $36.99. One of the challenges in assembling a "companion"-style volume is deciding whether the chapters should primarily aim for broad, even coverage of topics so that the volume represents a status quaestionis of current scholarship or whether chapters should primarily pursue narrower forays into current avenues of research. Bill Arnold's excellent volume on Genesis, which brings together an impressive group of scholars, represents a hybrid approach in which the earlier chapters incline toward the former and the later chapters incline toward the latter. The four parts of the volume essentially concern (1) the nature and formation of the text; (2) the world behind the text; (3) the world in the text; and (4) the world in front of the text. The volume begins with Bill T. Arnold's, "Introduction: Genesis and the status quaestionis" (pp. 1–8), which is mostly an overview of the chapters that follow. Next, part 1 deals with the "Composition and Structure of Genesis." In "Genesis in the History of Critical Scholarship" (pp. 11–52), Jean-Louis Ska gives an overview of how interpreters have made sense of Genesis. While the title might suggest beginning with figures like Baruch Spinoza and Richard Simon, Ska helpfully gives an overview of the interpretation of Genesis in antiquity and the Middle Ages in order to show how modern approaches to Genesis grew out of earlier hermeneutical currents. Importantly, giving an overview of the history of interpretation here allows the essays in part 4 to pursue more particular aspects of reception history. Jan Christian Gertz's chapter, "Genesis in Source and Redaction Criticism Today" (pp. 53–73), traces the developments of the documentary, supplementary, and fragmentary approaches to pentateuchal sources, especially as they are found in the Genesis narrative, in the wake of the collapse of the post-Wellhausenian consensus. In "Genesis in Form and Tradition Criticism Today" (pp. 74–98), Christoph Levin shows how determinative kingship ideology was for the formation of the traditions in Genesis. He also suggests that the best description of the genre of Genesis is "torah," that is, "normative religious writing," or a "Jewish national epic" (p. 91). Part 1 concludes with Michaela Bauks, "Rhetorical Features and Characteristics: The Literary Function of Genealogies, Itineraries, and Other Etiologies in the Book of Genesis" (pp. 99–118). [End Page 363] Part 2 ("Social World of Genesis") begins with Alice Mandell's chapter, "Genesis and Its Ancient Literary Analogues" (pp. 121–47), which gives an overview of the various methodologies and approaches in comparing Genesis to the literature and culture of other ancient Near Eastern societies. Because she provides an overview of the comparative method, her treatment is actually wider than the title might suggest. Next is John H. Walton's "Genesis and the Conceptual World of the Ancient Near East" (pp. 148–67). In setting Genesis in the context of ancient Near Eastern understandings of creation and humanity, views of the divine world, and stories about ancestors, Walton cautions that scholars should not overly emphasize either similarities or differences. In "Family, Clan, and Tribe in the Book of Genesis" (pp. 168–87), Naomi A. Steinberg applies kinship studies from the field of anthropology to understand the values and networks of family relationships that are pictured in Genesis, recognizing that these may represent ideals instead of actual practice. Complementing Steinberg's chapter is Sarah Shectman's essay, "Women's Status and Feminist Readings of Genesis" (pp. 188–208). Noting that women play a larger role in Genesis than in most other books of the Hebrew Bible, she surveys the critical role these figures play in the narrative, particularly in terms of relational power, as well as how this has been productive of feminist interpretations of many of the Genesis stories. Part 3 ("Themes and Literary Motifs of Genesis") opens with Brent A. Strawn's "From Imago to Imagines: The Image(s) of God in Genesis" (pp. 211–35). Strawn shows that "the image of God" is not a...