The Architecture of Herod the Great Builder. By Ehud Netzer (Baker Academic, $69.99). N., who has excavated a number of Herod’s buildings, concludes that Herod not only showed interest in the field of construction but also had a profound understanding of planning and architecture and took an active and important part in the erection of many of his buildings. Six sites are featured in this book: Jerusalem, Caesarea, Sebaste (Samaria), Jericho, Herodium, and Masada. In this paperback edition, N. adds a preface in which he describes the mausoleum he has recently discovered on the northeast side of Herodium, which he believes is the burial place of Herod. The book includes reconstructions of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Caesarea’s theater, and the temples of Augustus at Sebaste and Rome. N. has training not only in archaeology but also in modern architecture. Ralph W. Klein
Proverbs 10-31. Anchor Bible 18B. By Michael V. Fox (Yale University Press, $60). This is the second volume of F.’s magisterial commentary on Proverbs and shows the same focus on philology and relationships with other biblical and Ancient Near Eastern wisdom that also characterized the first volume, In addition to the commentary itself, there are introductory essays on reading Proverbs as a collection, reading an ancient proverb itself, and the dating and social setting or the Proverb collection, and concluding essays on the growth of wisdom, ethics, revelation, and knowledge. There are eighty-nine pages of text-critical notes and sixty-three pages of bibliography. F. dates the proverbs in chapters 10-31 to the time of the monarchy and shows that they come from a royalist perspective. The king provides social stability, justice, and peace, and the king is assumed to be inherently just, unless contaminated by the dross of unworthy servants. Ralph W. Klein
Jeroboam’s Wife. The Enduring Contributions of the Old Testament’s Least-Known Women. By Robin Gallagher Branch (Hendrickson, $16.95). The five women and two girl studied in this book are Miriam, the sister of Moses in her childhood role; Rizpah, a concubine of king Saul; the wise woman of Abel Beth Maacah, an important character in the story of Absalom; the anonymous wife of Jeroboam, the first king of North Israel; the widow of Zarephath; an Israelite slave girl who sent Naaman to be cured in Israel, and Athaliah, the only reigning queen in the Bible. Athaliah is not as obscure as some of the other women although she is not included in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus despite the other five women who are mentioned there. B.’s methodology is narratology (characterization, setting, conflict, and point of view), and she invites readers to active participation by imagining the scene with the characters and applying the message of the story to one’s life. Ralph W. Klein
Studying the Ancient Israelites. By Victor H. Matthews (Baker Academic, $24.99). This book focuses on biblical and ancient Near Eastern sources and on anthropological, geographic, historical, literary, and sociological methos that make the study of the ancient Israelites more complete. The intended audience is students and laypeople, making this book an ideal addition to church libraries. M. addresses the following questions: What do topography, ecology, and climate have to do with shaping the identity of ancient Israel? How does archaeology contribute to our study of Israel? How does critical biblical study lead to new insights? How can social sciences help us reconstruct the world of the ancient Israelites? What do we really know about the history of ancient Israel? Ralph W. Klein
Judaism of the Second Temple Period. Volume 1. Qumran and Apocalypticism. By David Flusser (Eerdmans, $36). This collection of twenty-one essays by the late David Flusser (1917-2000), most of whose publications were in German or in Hebrew, is a welcome addition to scholarly literature. A number of his essays are also available on the Internet (http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/). F. identified the Qumran community with the Essenes and believed that Josephus is a quite accurate witness to their beliefs. He believed that Jesus knew the Essenes but that he rejected their cultish separatism while Qumran theology had more influence on the epistles of Paul. Ralph W. Klein
I & 2 Kings. By Marvin A. Sweeney (Westminster, $49.95). The principal contribution of this commentary is the attempt to discover its message in one of three editions of the Deuteronomistic History: the exilic edition, the Josianic edition, and the Hezekian edition. S. further attempts to discover the sense of other documents embedded in 1 and 2 Kings, an earlier Jehu Dynastic History and an even earlier history that culminates in the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 3-10), written during the reign of Solomon himself. While I am not persuaded that we have the ability to distinguish all of these editions, I am even less persuaded by S.’s often very brief assignment of the meaning of a given king’s accounts to three or more of these editions (for the significance of Amaziah in the Jehu, Hezekian, Josianic, and exilic editions, see p. 363; for the significance of Ahaz for the Hezekian, Jolsianic, and exilic editions, see pp. 380-381; for the significance of multiple editions of the Hezekiah story, see pp. 399-401). Particularly unconvincing to me is the claim that the narrative of Manasseh’s reign in 2 Chr 33:1-20 represents an earlier form of the narrative about this king in the Josianic edition of the book of Kings (p. 399). I would prefer a commentary that gave more attention to historical questions and/or the Deuteronomistic meaning of the present text of 1 and 2 Kings. It surely is undue caution whhen S. writes: “It is unlikely that all forty-two of Ahaziah’s brothers would have been born to Athaliah” (p. 337). Ralph W. Klein