NT scholar and missiologist Stephen Neill described a scholar (Mark Pattison) who “spent his whole life in the vain pursuit of a total erudition, like that of the great renaissance scholars, Casaubon and the Scaligers” (The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1986, p. 32). Like other volumes in the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, this one confirms that the notion of attainment of a total erudition in this subject matter is laughable. It is simply too vast, complex, and multifaceted for anyone even to claim a comprehensive general, let alone specialist, knowledge. These are no longer the times of Casaubon and the Scaligers.Biblical books proper covered in this volume are Luke (along with Acts), Malachi, and Mark. It may be possible to amass some level of expertise in any of the three separately, but few would claim to be consummate experts in more than one. Luke’s Gospel, for example, does not even receive independent consideration but is blended into the study of Acts, too (see “Luke–Acts,” cols. 143–88; there is no separate treatment of Acts where it would have appeared alphabetically in vol. 1). After Sean Adams establishes major categories of Luke–Acts studies in NT scholarship (cols. 143–50; he deals with “Luke the Evangelist” in cols. 130–32), Matthias Becker takes up understanding of the two-book corpus in patristic and Orthodox circles (cols. 150–53). Rachel Fulton Brown and Beth Kreitzer cover the medieval and Reformation eras (cols. 153–57). Christfried Böttrich handles “Luke in Modern Europe and America,” which is to leap over about four centuries of scholarship with the laconic characterization: “Until the beginning of the 20th century, the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts was positively regarded as a kind of ‘conventional theologian’ and authority on ecclesiastical topics” (col. 158). It is unfortunate that Ward Gasque’s classic The History of the Criticism [first ed.; later Interpretation] of the Acts of the Apostles seems to have been forgotten; as a result the conflict that raged with the rise of Baur and Tübingen skepticism (only touched on: col. 160), countered by J. B. Lightfoot and others with less philosophical and more historical orientation, disappears from view. Still, Böttrich’s taxonomy (cols. 157–162) confirms the complexity of shifting regard for Luke-Acts.Andrew Gregory’s “Acts in Modern Europe and America” (cols. 162–65) does much to redeem Böttrich’s too-limited purview. Gregory cites the background of Grotius and the English Deists as forerunners to F. C. Baur’s skepticism, at least citing Lightfoot and Gasque (along with Horton Harris) in the bibliography. Gregory goes outside academic interpretation to show Acts’ importance in three quarters of modern reception: (1) Acts as a spur to communal life and even mandate for communist social order; (2) Cornelius’s example as a justification for acceptance of homosexuality in the church; and (3) Acts’ importance for the international charismatic movement. Gregory concludes: “Given the rise of global Pentecostalism” and its claim to cash in on Acts 2 to the full, its “example of the influence of Acts may perhaps be considered the most important evidence of [Acts’] Wirkungsgeschichte. . . in the modern world” (col. 165).“Love” is featured in a lengthy segment (cols. 3–66), augmented by “Love of Enemies” (cols. 68–85). Here, Mohammed Girma helpfully traces the challenge of conceptualizing and actualizing love in the Christian mode in African settings. “African Christians find it challenging to love their enemies while they still carry the venom” of unforgotten wrongs (col. 82). This is a challenge on other continents too. A prominent African response is to “use reconciliation as a channel for offering love to enemies” (col. 82).The portion of “Love” dealing with the Hebrew Bible zeroes in on “Homosexual Love?” and avers that “David and Jonathan would not qualify as a ‘gay couple’” (col. 4), though they come close. It also asserts that the love enjoined in Deut 6:5 is political, calling for “loyalty and faithfulness”; even the love of a son for his father denotes “respect and solidarity, rather than the idea of affection” (col. 6). Can we really be sure of this? Alan J. Avery-Peck takes a different tack in handling love in rabbinic Judaism, where, admittedly love in Lev 19:18 “probably only encompassed fellow Jews” (col. 14). The love spoken of in Deut 6:5 (“with all your soul”) means love even unto martyrdom; such love, “for the rabbis, was the essence of Israel’s covenantal relationship with God” (col. 17). Surely this points to Torah as a resource that engendered personal and not merely political or formal allegiance. What was true for the rabbis may capture what the author of the Torah thought God was calling for in the Shema, too.“Lucifer” gets rich attention (cols. 102–26), though his mention in heavy metal and popular music (Pink Floyd, U2, Electric Wizard) overlooks earlier pioneers in this regard: Black Sabbath. The largest segment of the whole volume sharing a single thematic connection is the ensemble of studies encompassing “Magi,” Magic, Magician,” and “Magical Use of the Bible” (cols. 402–504). Attention to the Bible for its perceived revealed value is mirrored by its connection with the occultic. “A medieval tradition that persisted into more recent times in Switzerland entailed tearing a page from the Bible, breaking it into pieces, and cooking it with a baby’s first pap, which would lead the child to become religious” (col. 500).Biblical scholars from all eras get their due: Robert Lowth, Henri de Lubac (in an excellent treatment by Susan Wood), Lucian of Antioch, Luther (along with “Luther Bible,” “Lutheran Reformation,” “Lutheran Hermeneutics,” and the use of the Bible in the “Lutheran Church”), J. Gresham Machen, Alexander MacLaren, John Macmurray, John Macquarrie, Maimonides, Abraham Malherbe, Solomon Mandelkern, Tuomo Mannermaa, T. W. Manson, Marcion, Jacque Maritain, and Willi Marxsen to name just some. On a broader scale, names such as the Mahdi, Gustav Mahler, Norman Mailer, Pratap Chandra Majumdar, Malcolm X, Charles Malik, Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan (husband of Agatha Christie), Nelson Mandela, Thomas Mann, and Mao Dun come into view, in some cases for quite substantial treatment. Readers already conversant with all of these individuals probably have little to learn from this volume.A delicious irony is the warning against “parontocentrism,” defined as “the fallacy of taking the present as a normative point of departure in studying the past” (col. 662). Is this not at the core of Troeltsch’s triad of Kritik—Anologie—Korrelation, the backbone of historical-critical method, and still prevalent in social-scientific readings, which depend by definition on models validated by current convictions often characterized by transience? Little wonder, then, when Bible interpreters find “no clear answers” regarding apartheid or homosexuality (col. 250) in Scripture, discover “masculinity” in the Bible to be a matter of contingencies still being determined by current preferences and behaviors (col. 669), and “Masculinity Studies” (cols. 1248–56) to point to the finding that “the Bible itself. . . seeks to undercut any hegemonic version of masculinity (see, e.g., Gal 3:28)” (col. 1255). So much depends on definitions.Whether discerning hermeneutical complexities like the above or historical challenges like the identity of the 13 different figures in the Bible called Malchijah, the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception in its eventual 30-volume fullness is an invaluable resource for tracing the vast expanses and effects of scriptural investigation and interpretation across centuries and cultures.