Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 13:2 (Fall 2022)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

STR 13:2 (Fall 2022) p. 91

Book Reviews

William A. Ross and W. Edward Glenny, eds. The T&T Clark Handbook of Septuagint Research. New York: T&T Clark, 2021. xxv + 486 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978–0567680259. $175.00

In recent years, there has been an increase in tools for studying the Septuagint (LXX). Students have access to journal articles, introductions, lexicons, grammars, concordances, translations, and editions in both diplomatic and critical formats. Moreover, computer programs like Accordance and Logos make these tools accessible digitally and provide users the opportunity to conduct research in record time. Now, thanks to William Ross and Edward Glenny, students, experts, and those whose fields interact with the LXX have a tool that acquaints them with the current state of research on the LXX’s origins, language, text, reception, and theology (p. 3). The editors of this handbook have a twofold goal: to provide students with an overview of the current state of several relevant sub-disciplines and to equip students to conduct their own research in this field (pp. 3, 5). Overall, they achieve these goals in an accessible single volume.

Ross and Glenny divide the book into six sections. The first deals with the topic of the LXX’s origins and surveys sub-disciplines such as the translators’ social context (pp. 9‒20) and their translation technique (pp. 21‒33). Second, the topic of the LXX’s language is discussed. In this section, disciplines such as phonology (pp. 37‒62), discourse analysis (pp. 79‒92), and Greek style (pp. 93–107) are surveyed. Third, issues related to the text of the LXX are investigated. Here readers find discussions on the important topics of the LXX’s respective relationships with the text of the Greek versions (pp. 123‒34), the Hebrew Bible (pp. 135‒48), Qumran (pp. 149‒60), the Hexapla (pp. 191‒206), and the biblical canon (pp. 207‒28) to name just a few. The fourth topic is reception. Articles range chronologically from the translation’s reception in Second Temple Judaism (pp. 231‒42) to early modern Europe (pp. 299‒309). Fifth, the editors include several articles on the theology, translation, and commentaries of the LXX. They then conclude with a survey of the literature (pp. 381‒96).

Several details make this handbook an outstanding contribution to the field. First, there is no comparable resource in LXX studies. Several introductions have been published recently, as well as two book-by-

STR 13:2 (Fall 2022) p. 92

book surveys, but no other work surveys current research in the field’s many important sub-disciplines (p. xii). Such information may be accessed from various journal articles, presentations, introductions, and book chapters, but Ross and Glenny have...