Die Rettung der Guten durch Gott und die Selbstzerstorung der Bosen: Ein theologisches Denkmuster im Psalter, by Claudia Sticher. BBB 137. Berlin: Philo Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002. Pp. 379. euro 56.00 (hardcover). ISBN 3825702898. Sticher's revised Passau University doctoral dissertation (2001) studies the theological concept of God's active or passive punishment of the wicked in the conceptual world of the Hebrew Psalter. More precisely, she looks at those psalms where the destiny of doers of good and doers of evil are dealt with in conjunction. Her intention is to determine if God's involvement in punishment is active or passive (or interchangeably both) in these texts. In the brief introduction to her topic (pp. 7-17) she includes the rationale for her textual selection, basing herself on prior studies and concordance analysis of particular terms involving the semantic domain of enemy. As a result, Sticher identifies twenty individual psalms (1; 6; 14; 20; 25; 27; 36; 37; 40; 49; 57; 63; 70; 71; 91; 92; 104; 112; 118; 141) and a section of Proverbs 1-9 that include both classes of statements: the blessing of the righteous and the punishment of the evildoer. Sticher indicates her intent to work with the canonical final text (p. 13) and emphasizes both the unity of the Gesamtpsalter and the importance of the individual psalm. However, that does not imply that she eschews standard historical-critical paradigms; rather, following Zenger, she employs both methodological approaches (p. 17). Finally, concerning the dating of the complete Psalter, Sticher suggests a very late date in the milieu of the wisdom school that distanced itself from the temple aristocracy and their hellenizing tendencies (p. 17). Sticher next reviews the history of research (pp. 18-31) with regard to God's active/passive involvement in the punishment of the wicked as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. She focuses especially upon the contributions of Klaus Koch, who introduced the concept of the destiny-shaping sphere of a deed (schicksalwirkende Tatsphare), and those of Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who coined the term connective justice (konnektive Gerechtigkeit) in his discussion of Egyptian thinking about Macat, the divinely given order of the world. Sticher suggests that, while the concept of connective justice and Ma'at is based upon Egyptian data, the conceptual closeness to biblical thinking about justice and punishment should be taken for granted (p. 26). Based on her critique of and interaction with Koch and Assmann, Sticher suggests a third concept that she describes as salvicative justice (salvikative Gerechtigkeit), which should be distinguished from Janowski's suggestion of saving justice (rettende Gerechtigkeit), whereby the sin of the wicked results in some type of auto-destruction (as per Koch's suggestion). God restores the equilibrium (that had been destroyed by sin) bY saving those who allow God this saving act out of a world that is suffering from its own sin (p. 31). Sticher's concluding chapter focuses on two distinct issues: the kind of worldview observed in the textual corpus (pp. 304-32); and the Gottesbild demonstrated in these texts (pp. 333-44). Regarding the first, Sticher perceives an unusually high percentage of terms connected to a theology of the poor in the Psalms: eleven or twelve of her twenty psalms are considered to belong to this particular group (p. 311); however, other psalms that belong to this collection do not share the same theological perspective about active/passive divine punishment of the wicked (p. 312). Furthermore, Sticher postulates a general theological tension in the selected psalms that sees humanity (be it the individual Israelite in conflict with the Torah, the personal enemy, or the national enemy) in constant conflict with the negative forces of this world (p. 325). In this perspective, God becomes active only through the redemptive act of those who choose God but not as an actively punishing God. …