Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 18:3 (Summer 1975)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Old Testament

The Book of Exodus, A Critical, Theological Commentary. By Brevard S. Childs. (The Old Testament Library) Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1974, pp. xxv, 659. $15.00.

In its own way, Childs’ Exodus is a tour de force. Ten years in the making, his commentary represents nothing less than an attempt to establish a pattern for writers of Old Testament commentaries to follow in the future. While his major concern is to interpret the final form of the canonical text of Scripture, he would place stern demands indeed on anyone who might wish to follow his own example as demonstrated in this volume.

Childs recognizes, of course, that no single individual can master textual criticism, form-critical method, traditio-historical method, comparative philology and linguistics, New Testament studies, patristics, Reformation studies, theology, and the other disciplines necessary for the production of the ideal Old Testament commentary (as he envisions io. But he would insist that the present-day commentator who is serious about interpreting Scripture as we have it must make every possible effort to understand the stages it went through before reaching its final canonical shape as well as the major ways in which it has been interpreted since it reached that shape.

Childs’ Commentary exhibits many excellent qualities. Although obviously not intended to be read through from cover to cover (book reviewers are the only people required to engage in such exercises as far as commentaries are concerned!), it held my interest and attention for the most part. The author offers several worthwhile guidelines by which to judge the extent to which recent commentators on the Decalogue have done their homework (pp. 438 f.). He provides a handy chart for

making comparisons between the various stipulations of the Book of the Covenant and their ancient Near Eastern counterparts in other law codes (pp. 462 f.). He stresses the fact that there is much more unity in the Book of Exodus than is generally recognized by modern critical scholarship (pp. 53, 200). His bibliography, while somewhat brief, includes a wide range of important works.

Needless to say, any writer who attempts a commentary on so grand a scale will disappoint his readers in certain respects. Childs is weakest in the areas of philology and archaeology. That cedût (Exodus 16:34 et passim) means “covenant (stipulations)” and is a virtual synonym for berît has long been recognized (cf., e.g., W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, pp. 106 f.), but Childs ...

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