Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 10:1 (Winter 2001)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Micah: A New Translation With Introduction And Commentary, The Anchor Bible, Volume 24E. Francis I. Anderson and David Noel Freedman New York: Doubleday (2000). 637 pages, cloth, $42.50

Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation With Introduction And Commentary, The Anchor Bible, Volume 18A. Michael V. Fox New York: Doubleday (2000). 474 pages, cloth, $42.50

These are the two most recent volumes in the massive series known as The Anchor Bible. The series is, like all such efforts, uneven. Some of the volumes are wonderfully useful while others are of limited value to most pastors and serious biblical students. Francis Andersen, a solid and reliable Old Testament scholar and teacher, is now professor of classics and archaeology at the University of Melbourne (Australia), while David Noel Freedman is the esteemed professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California, San Diego. Freedman has served as the general editor of The Anchor Bible series from its inception. Michael V. Fox is a professor of Hebrew and Semitic studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Micah, a prophet of judgment, also held out the hope

of redemption. “Micah combined poetic complexity and literary sophistication to compel his audience to respond. And now, through an exacting linguistic and literary analysis of the biblical text” (from dust jacket) Andersen and Freedman show us what the text meant to the original audience. The authors approach the text with correct presuppositions. The work that results is descriptive, not speculative. It is philological rather than theological, at least in the narrow sense.

One of the striking conclusions reached by Andersen and Freedman is that Micah employs a special kind of Hebrew and discourse that differs significantly from the language of classical Hebrew prose.

As in a number of other volumes in this series the bibliography is extensive and useful. The indexes are also valuable. The translation is fresh and sheds new light on the meaning of Micah. This is clearly one of the very best Old Testament volumes in this series. It should stand as a landmark for future scholarship for some time to come. Pastors wizzll most definitely profit from this work if they intend to preach an expository series through the seven chapters of Micah.

Thirty-five years ago The Anchor Bible first produced a volume on Proverbs-Ecclesiastes. This present new work is intended to update and replace that earlier work. Roland Murphy, the Roman Catholic biblical scholar, notes that “This stunning commentary ... tow...

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