A collection of essays presents opportunity for great reward and great disappointment. This anthology offers both. To read the essays on their own, the volume would lack some coherence, but the editor weaves a thread of continuity through the selections by focusing upon the Bible as an assembly of ‘little books’ (p. 4) which has ‘transfigured itself into an intellectual tradition which is, simply, the basis of all Western commentary on literature and the use of literature’ (p. 5).

Harold Bloom, Yale deconstructionist, provides what the editor calls ‘a demonstration of what an adverting mind can make of the Text of texts’ (p. 17). Bloom lives up to his billing. Assuming J (of JEDP) dates to Solomon’s age (an arguable assumption), Bloom sees J as exemplifying a set of generally favourable views of Yahweh, reflected in the ‘theomorphic’ characters he creates: Joseph and especially Jacob are Davidic characters (which is good); Moses is not. This essay is a theology of J (in literary garb) which disavows being theology, written in the image of Bloom, who admits that interpretation relies solely upon the ‘ear’ of the interpreter. His method is open to serious debate.

The longest essay is by Hans Frei, Yale theologian. Recognizing the sensus literalis is ‘the closest one can come to a consensus reading of the Bible as the sacred text in the Christian church’ (p. 37), Frei first explores significant issues about literal interpretation, noting especially the centrality of the Jesus story. He then states two provocative consequences: the OT is treated typologically, and the literal reading (as opposed to a ‘spiritual’ or other reading) is identified with the plain sense. In section two Frei explores the destructive effect of deconstruction criticism upon ‘unitary and systematic’ (p. 43) 19th-century hermeneutics. The going is roughest here, since the section—like his The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative—is written in very dense English. First Frei subjects the (so-called) New Criticism to vigorous analysis, which illustrates its self-centred, subjective interpretative stance, the very thing the method seeks to avoid. These criticisms constitute some worthy limitations of the formalist method. In section three, Frei revivifies the literal sense by suggesting a proposal which affirms determining ‘meaning’ without necessarily answering the ‘truth’ question (p. 63). This leads him to acknowledge the role of faith-assertions in dictating terms of interpretation within a given sociolinguistic community. Many will welcome the intellectual challenge that this essay poses, especially regarding the origins and consequences of interpretative strategies, although contemporary literary/theological jargon makes the going tough.

The third essay, by Frank Kermode, dialogues with James Barr (historical) and Brevard Childs (canonical) over canonicity, paralleling debate in the secular literary community. Kermode sets the debate in its historical context, illustrating that some of Barr’s rhetoric about his ‘common sensical’ approach finds echoes in previous ages, and showing that inevitably each side makes assumptions. This essay is helpful, as far as it goes.

James Robinson’s essay seems misplaced, being an exercise in traditional higher criticism. Several interesting redaction-critical comments tied to his reconstructed trajectories of earliest Christianity (O is alive and well) are made, but their relations to the narrative issues are few.

Donald Foster is commended for providing a sustained textual analysis. But his assumption that John’s Gospel is allegory leads to readings which equal Augustine’s. He assumes that at the Cana wedding feast (Jn. 3) the old wine is the word of the prophets, the water is John the Baptist’s ministry, and the filling of the stone jars is John the Baptist’s completing of the dispensation of the law. (Foster also has difficulty with Greek vocabulary [see pp. 116 and 130 n. 1, cf. 129, on anōthen].) An interesting insight, however, is his citing temporal references which point to Jesus’ ‘late’ arrival at several events (e.g. Pool of Bethzatha on the last day of the week), although his contention that these point to John’s ‘late arrival to the evangelistic field’ (p. 113) is mere speculation.

Finally, Herbert Schneidau attempts to re-establish differences between Semitic and non-Semitic mindsets, on the basis of recent work in psycholinguistic and narrative theory. The result is several howlers, such as ‘before the first millennium BC [men] did not “think out” their reactions to situations, but rather reacted to superegoistic voices from the right hemisphere of their brains’ (p. 139). Schneidau recognizes the weakness of this characterization, but suggests that ‘our kind of consciousness is a peculiar Western adaptation of narrative for situations that ancient forms of thinking, whatever they were, dealt with differently’ (p. 140). The result is predictable, a contrast of the Western cyclical view of history with the dynamic Yahweh-motivated Hebraic view. His confident result is that objective history-writing is self-defeating. The conclusions he states about reproducing ‘what really happened’ (historicism) are all too true, but his route to this conclusion is unnecessary.

Several general observations about the book as a whole may put it in perspective. First, this book is challenging, requiring sufficient background in a number of contemporary theological and literary debates. Second, the writing styles do not always enhance access. Third, one may very well disagree with the assumptions and conclusions of several essays, especially regarding critical questions. Fourth, and perhaps most disappointing for Themelios readers, few essays include profitable literary analyses of the biblical text. This is not to say that there is not much to be gained from this book, but it should not serve as one’s introduction to recent debate of these issues.